How would you approach this situation with a family member?

Discussion in 'Relationships' started by 4thtwin, Mar 1, 2022.

  1. 4thtwin

    4thtwin Members

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    There's a few questions in this thread but it seems that a number of things are puzzling me.

    Let me say this up front. I would hope that everyone would do anything to take care of their parents, especially as they age. However, my brother seems to be pushing the limits. I come from a large family, 4 boys, 3 girls. We all grew up with both parents in the home and mom and dad are still married today, 60+ years. Dad has some health issues and is no longer that mobile and mom is his primary caregiver. Our two older brothers never moved out but stayed there with them all these years. They are a great help to mom and dad. Me and the other siblings left the nest but still help out with the parents as much as we cal. We all still live in the same city. 3 of us are married, 3 never got married. My twin brother, 52 years old, has been married and divorced twice. His second marriage ended because of his cheating. Picking up Craigslist and Backpage girls for sex, back when those sites were popular. Even taking them home and having sex in the bed he and his wife shared. He and I were close and the more I tried to tell him to stop the more he told me I didn't have the right to tell him what to do with his money. His wife found out about it and threatened to inform his church of what he was doing. He is a deacon in his church. The same church our parents attend. He didn't so they split and divorced several years ago. When they divorced they had to sell the home they build from ground up and he walked away with around $26k in his pocket. Instead of banking it or trying to find somewhere else to stay he and his grown son moved back home with our parents for a while. They slept on the floor or on the sofa. He took some $17k and buy a used Chevy Tahoe. Granted, there was nothing wrong with the SUV he already had and was driving. He just anted something new because "the people at his church were getting new cars and he didn't want to be left out". They eventually find an apartment and move out.

    When the pandemic hit and most cities enacted a rental moratorium where if you were affected by the pandemic and businesses were shitting down you couldn't be evicted. My brother was not affected in the least and he never lost a day of work. However he just stopped paying his rent. When the moratorium was lifted last year I find out that my mom and 2 of my sisters had to loan him $5000 to get his rent caught back up. That was Aug of 2021. Fast forward to Jan of this year, my sister informed me that he was being evicted again and there was no way they were going to give him any more money. So, he and his 25 year old son had to move back home again with our parents, back on their sofa and floor. He wasn't making his son pay anything to live with him. This is what we can't understand. When we were all at home several of us had graduated college but returned home to figure out our next moved. Our parents assessed a small fee of like $75 a week for each child. We gladly paid it because it helped them out Mom was cooking every meal, washing everyone's clothes, we were using lights, water, cable, etc. so giving them a few dollars a week seemed like the right thing to do. My brother, on the other hand, has told me that he will not raise his kids like our parents raised us. We weren't abused but we were disciplined when we got out of line. So his son was staying with him rent free at 24 or 25 years old while he was struggling to pay the rent. My brother told me that sometime weeks would go by and he and his son wouldn't even see each other in the apartment because he'd stay in his room all the time.

    Our oldest sister, who can be the mouth of the family, told him he had 3 months to find him a new place because they weren't going to go there and interrupt the flow and schedule at our parent's house. The end of March will be the 3 month mark so we'll see how that goes. My mom even told me that sometimes, before he had to move back home, that she'd come home with groceries and he'd be there visiting and she'd ask him to back her car into the driveway. She said he'd look at her and quietly walk out of the house and leave.

    And here's the thing with that. It's like he hates to do anything for our mom but with him being a deacon at his church anytime the pastor asks him to do something he breaks his neck to run out of the house for him. Their pastor preaches here in our state 2 sundays out of the month then flies to another state and preaches at another church 2 sundays out of the month. He alternates every other week. He's married, no kids, 3 cars, and lives very close to the airport from what I understand. However, when he has to travel he always calls our brother to come take him to the airport. And when he flies back in he always asks our brother to come pick him up. If he has a preaching engagement in the city my brother always drives him. Again, the wife never drives him anywhere. There have even been times where our brother would have his change of clothes at our parent's home because when he flies back in he'll go pick him up and they go onto the next engagement. And lately the pastor has been buying our brother gifts. Several months ago he brought him a really nice Fossil watch. This past Sun we were all at the parent's house and he mentioned that the pastor had bought him a really nice sweat suit and another Fossil watch. We can't understand why this man won't just drive his car to the airport and park it there as to not have anyone stop what they're doing to either take him or pick him up from the airport. Or better yet, why can't this man's wife just drop him off and pick him up. Our mom says that our brother is the only deacon who isn't married so that's why he does it. He doesn't ask any of the other deacons to do it because they're married. And to that let me say this my brother drives him around in the Tahoe he bought with the money he got from the sale of their house. The plates on the truck expired in Nov of 2020 so my brother has been driving around for several years with expired plates but he's constantly running the pastor around. This weekend I stopped by our parent's house and she told me that he had to drive the pastor several hours away to another preaching engagement. This man preaches more than T.D. Jakes.

    I have a lot of other guy friends and we help each other out from time to time moving, working on their cars, etc. But not once have I ever bought them an expensive watch or even a full outfit as a thank. Beer and some pizza is about the most that will be exchanged as a thank you. I'm not insinuating anything but it does sort of look suspect. Guys don't just buy guys full outfits or expensive jewelry, at least not the guys I know.

    We're trying to figure out where all his money is going and why he's so wrapped up with this pastor to where anything he calls him he runs out the door? He even mentioned that later this year the pastor has to travel out of the country for some sort of mission trip and he was going to make sure that our brother's fair and accommodations were covered. What's going on here?
     
  2. NookaTheNook

    NookaTheNook Members

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    Ahh morality, each person has their own views on what is moral and what is sin, the conscience contact of the bases of who you are have not been established, with that lacking we invent so many things so your idea of virtue can be twisted so to be in morality means you are acting out what should have naturally occurred.if you have someone who is 100 percent correct in morals no one wants to be around them, totally moral and lifeless, how do you come to the conclusion that you are a good person ? The more good you think you are the more you will think no one else is ok, you have become too much emotion too much mind, but not life. If you reverberate as just life, your here as just life, you won’t need morality, you will know your life is not individual, it is connected to everything in the universe, there is no way you could could miss this point.
     

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