Freeloading 21-year-old expects mom to make $200 monthly car repayment, dad protests that he should pay it himself: 'He went through 7 jobs before he was 20'

• 
  Share

  via Oleg Ivanov (Unsplash+)

  _{A bald man lowers his head in frustration while budgeting at the kitchen table. Picture does not depict real parties.}

• A dad had reached his limit with his young adult son, who had consistently refused to make an effort in growing up. Instead, he constantly relied on his parents when he was in a tight spot, needed money, or had done something wrong.

  The dad felt like his wife was too lenient with him, and he lost his temper when she said that she was going to take over his car repayments. While a lot of parents want to support their kids when they can, does there come a point when it does more to hinder their growth than help them out?

• Am I wrong for telling my wife our family will NOT financially suffer because she keeps bailing out our adult son?

  oh I forgot to mention that my son is currently 21.

  My wife and I have an adult son who has had problems with responsibility basically his entire life.

  In high school, he did poorly mostly because he wouldn’t do the work and ended up needing summer school just to graduate on time. After graduation he didn’t go to college, went through something like seven jobs before he was 20, and continued living with us basically rent free.

  And when I say rent free, I mean free. No groceries. No utilities. No meaningful contribution to the household.

  The frustrating part is that he would be broke while spending whatever money he did have on alc*h*l, vapes, junk, tattoos, etc. He couldn’t even keep his phone on because he wasn’t making the payments, he just would go everywhere and use everyone’s WiFi so he could call/text.

  This has caused arguments between my wife and me for YEARS.

  I have always believed that if he is going to live with us as an adult, he needs boundaries and consequences. My wife thinks I’m too hard on him and has a tendency to cover for him or rescue him.

• 
  Share

  via Michael Moloney

  _{A young, tattooed man with bleached hair talks on speakerphone while at home. Not actual story subjects.}

• For a while we pushed the military because we thought maybe some structure would help him. He enrolled and backed out multiple times. I think three total. Eventually I realized nobody can force an adult to become responsible if he doesn’t want to.

  Then came the car, the whole reason I’m typing this.

  Our son asked us to finance a car for him and promised he would make the payments.

  I said absolutely not.

  I knew exactly where this was going.

  After this went on for a while, somehow we ended up at a used car lot anyway, where my wife financed a used Toyota Corolla in her name for him.

  I refused to participate. I didn’t sign anything. I didn’t even want to know the terms because I had made my position crystal clear: this was a terrible idea and I wanted no part of it.

• Predictably, he treated the car like everything else. Tickets, blowouts, dents, etc.

  Then one day he walks up to the house and casually tells us:

  “They repoed the car.”

  Turns out he hadn’t made a payment in MONTHS.

  This was while he was still living in our house without paying rent or household bills and while he was working on and off. His explanation was that he couldn’t afford the payments and was too embarrassed to ask us for money.

  So the car gets repossessed, but of course the loan is in my wife’s name.

  I figured this would finally be the lesson.

  Nope.

  The finance company repeatedly contacted my wife about the remaining debt. She basically ignored it until someone eventually showed up at our house and served her because they were suing her.

  She finally contacted them and managed to get the lawsuit dropped in exchange for a payment plan of around $200/month.

  At this point I’m thinking: Great. Our son can pay $200/month toward the debt HE created.

  Except he hasn’t.

  The payment arrangement started about two months ago, and as far as I know he hasn’t made a single payment.

  My wife says she’s asked him. He ignores her, blows her off, or says he’s having money problems.

  Meanwhile, we are having money problems too.

• 
  Share

  via Anthony

  _{A blue Toyota Corolla parked on a road above a residential neighborhood. Still frame for contextual reference only.}
   

• We are not wealthy. There is no trust fund, inheritance, giant savings account, etc. We’re a dual-income working household and basically every dollar we earn has somewhere it needs to go.

  Then today my wife texts me:

  “They’re trying to garnish my check for the payment for the car.”

  Apparently they contacted her workplace.

  I responded, “Makes sense**.”**

  She said she’d try to make a payment tomorrow because she can’t have them garnishing her wages.

  I told her she needed to get with her son and make him pay it.

  She said no, because the debt is in her name, and basically said she’d just have to eat the cost.

  Then she told me:

  **“**He won’t give me the money. Work harder is all I can do. I’ll eventually be able to pay the ******* bills or I’ll be d**d.”

  That’s where I lost it.

  I told her those aren’t just her wages being garnished. We are married and operate a household together. Losing hundreds of dollars from her paycheck means less money available for OUR bills, groceries and family expenses.

  She said she had already asked our son several times and he either doesn’t respond or blows her off, so all she can do is work and take care of it herself.

  I told her that’s exactly the problem.

  She keeps asking him instead of requiring anything from him.

  When I told her to get the money from him NOW, she literally responded:

  “lol 😂 Oh no. If he wanted to help or could I’m sure he would.”

  That sent me over the edge.

• 
  Share

  via Michael Moloney

  _{A young, tattooed man with bleached hair holds his phone sideways while looking down at home in front of a wide-screen TV. Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.}
   

• I told her that this is exactly how we got here. She has protected him from consequences his entire life. Every time I’ve tried to hold him accountable, I’ve been painted as the ******* who’s being too hard on him.

  Now he’s an adult, created thousands of dollars in debt, ignored it, and apparently gets to say “I’m having money problems” while his mother works harder to pay for it.

  And we’re supposed to have money taken out of our household to fix it.

  I got angry and told my wife:

  “This is not going to affect us or our finances. I’m making this clear to you. I told you about this car multiple times. I expressed my doubts, you still went and got him the car. He defaulted on the car and now it’s our fault? The $200 a month that you’re going to pay for him will NOT come out of our regular finances. I don’t give a **** what you have to do, you will come up with $200 extra somewhere else. Stop spending, start saving. End of story.”

  Yes, I know that was harsh. I hated saying it and regretted it immediately.

  And legally, I understand the debt is in my wife’s name. The finance company doesn’t care about our family dynamics. She signed for the car, so obviously she has to deal with them and prevent a garnishment if she can.

  That’s not what I’m arguing about.

  My issue is what happens inside our marriage.

  I explicitly said no to this car because I believed our son wouldn’t pay for it. My wife did it anyway. He didn’t pay for it. She continued protecting him. Now the exact financial consequences I warned about have arrived, and her solution is essentially, “I’ll work harder and we’ll pay it.”

  Except there is no magical extra money. If $200-$400 disappears from her income, our household absorbs it.

  At this point I feel like I’m not even fighting with my son anymore. I’m fighting with my wife over whether we’re ever going to require our adult son to experience the consequences of his own decisions.

  I don’t think my wife should ignore the creditor or let herself get garnished. Obviously the debt needs to be dealt with.

  But I do think our son should be expected to repay every cent of this, and I don’t think our normal household budget should be sacrificed to bail him out yet again. And if my wife insists on paying his debt without requiring anything from him, I think the money needs to come from sacrifices in her discretionary spending or additional income, not from money we need to run our household.

  My wife clearly thinks I’m being too hard on both of them.

  I think I’ve spent years watching this train coming down the tracks, repeatedly saying “get off the tracks,” and now I’m being asked to help pay for the wreck.

  Am I wrong for telling my wife that our household finances will not take the hit for our adult son’s repossessed car after I explicitly refused to finance it in the first place?

Tags