18-year-old lends brother hundreds of dollars over several years, brother starts stealing from her piggy bank and eventually takes entire paycheck, family calls her a traitor after she files police report: 'He already spent it'

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  via Getty Images

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• AITA I(18F) filed a police report against my brother(21M) because he kept stealing my money

  ❝My older brother is twenty-one and I am eighteen, and he has always been a slacker. We were not that close in childhood, but I was always kind to him because he is my older brother.

  So my story, unfortunately, it is very sad for me. my brother started stealing from me, and it all started with me lending him money myself, first one hundred dollars, then two hundred. At some point there could be four hundred dollars, and he returned nothing to me. I constantly asked him, I work very hard to get all the money, and our parents stopped giving us money a long time ago.❞

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• Maybe it's just me, but if you're stealing from your own sister after she's repeatedly helped you financially, I feel like you've already violated the family code everyone else is suddenly so passionate about protecting. The thing people forget is that accountability isn't something you do to someone. It's something that happens because of their choices. Nobody forced him to take the money. Nobody forced him to keep doing it. Nobody forced him to ignore years of warnings.

  At a certain point, being related to someone doesn't mean you're obligated to absorb whatever they decide to do to you. Family should never be a free pass to mistreat people without consequences. And if holding someone accountable for stealing from you makes you a traitor, then the word "traitor" has completely lost its meaning.

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  via Andrej Lišakov

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• ❝At some point I stopped, and I started just saving it in my piggy bank, and he got into my piggy bank, and not just once. I complained to my parents and to other family members, I asked him to stop doing this because it is not needed, why, and he just said that he will return it, he will return it, so that I would not worry so much, it is just money, am I really that stingy. I could not save up for anything or afford anything for myself, parents did not give me money, I hid it everywhere possible already, but walking everywhere with my money would be an absurdity.❞

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  via Bermix Studio

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• ❝And this last time, he stole a large amount of money from me already. I had just received my salary and bonus money, and when he said that he cannot return it to me, that he already spent it, though I do not understand how it was possible to spend such an amount, I do not believe it and I think he put it away somewhere, I snapped and filed a police report against him.

  Of course, the whole family attacked me, they said that I am a traitor, how could I do this to my brother. I explained to them that I could not endure this anymore, but nobody listened to me, of course. Tell me, did I act like a fool in this situation, should I have come up with something else, but believe me, this continued for very many years, and I do not know.❞

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  via Pablo Merchán Montes

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• ImpossibleReason2204

  My sister stole my allowance and babysitting earnings all of my childhood. So I got a bank account. Please, for the love of glob, get a bank account.

  NTA, he did wrong, not you.

• LifeChampionship6

  NTA but do you not have a bank account?

• jensmith20055002

  NTA from the title alone.

  BUT STOP DEFENDING YOURSELF to your family. When they attack, "I'm happy to rip up the report if you want to pay his debt." Stare back blankly. Steal money from each one of them in return. When they flip out say, "Whaaaaaat?"

  "You're a tArrible person." Just nod and say, "Well, I'm definitely a poor one."

  "You betrayed us." You are entitled to feel your feelings.

  "How could you do that?" I would do it again.

  Do not apologize!

• Unable_Box915

  NTA. A grown adult is taking another grown adult’s money without permission. The most basic form of theft. Why your brother doesn’t have his own money is his problem, not yours. Your family sounds like a bunch of enablers so screw them too.

• whitelancer64

  Get a bank account. Do not tell anyone about it. Put your money there.

   

  
   

• Various_Tangelo2809

  NTA. He is stealing from you. It’s a crime.

  Lots of banks have free checking programs. Set one up and then get your paycheck automatically deposited. Don’t get a debit card because he will steal that too. You’d have to go to the bank to take money out when you need it, but that sort of seems like your only option at this point.

• JustAChubbyTexan

  NTA. He repeatedly stole from you over years despite warnings, and your parents did nothing. Filing a report after your paycheck was taken is a reasonable boundary, not betrayal.

• un-pleasantlymoist

  Sink to his level... steal one shoe from each pair he has and hold them ransom... hide them at a friends house or in a box in the attic. See how he gets on with odd shoes.... not log I suspect!..

• NotYourFemBoi

  Get a bank account, you should be able to do so on your own at 18. NTA

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