"money changes everything"

[Poison Ivy]

In what ways has money affected your relationship with a person who has a personality disorder? For example, have you maintained connections with a PD family member because you might inherit money at their death? Have you stayed married because you need the financial support of your PD spouse? Have you gone no contact and been told that you'll be disinherited? I ask this question with no judgment: I know from my own experience how difficult a situation can be when money is involved.

[SonofThunder]

In order to afford getting a divorce, I stayed married for many years, to put enough money aside so my business can keep running after divorce vs folding/selling.

SoT

[NarcKiddo]

My mother believes in the power of money and brought us up that way. She once (indirectly) threatened to disinherit me if I did not produce grandchildren for her. I didn't produce them. As far as I know, she has not disinherited me.

There were times when I would say that I maintained connection in the hope of an inheritance. I still see it as payback I have earned (which is probably the wrong way to look at it) but I am not reliant and I would now be prepared to walk away and forgo it. It is not a weapon I am prepared to allow her any more.

[square]

My husband is getting us into debt, which we cannot afford because our income is low due to disability.

I think I will have to divorce in order to protect myself. Unfortunately he has programmed me with his voice that I only care about money and am a gold digger. Since I in fact value modest and simple living, I feel in a mental bind to not "prove" that I only care about money, while he sinks us in his efforts to become a billionare.

Sigh.

[Poison Ivy]

A variety of things in my family. Recently, one sibling criticized an expenditure for our parent's house; I think the sibling might be thinking "this depletes the estate and how much money I'll get when parent dies."

My ex and I aren't big spenders for ourselves and we both value financial security. But he doesn't like to think about money, so when there are issues, he buries his head in the sand. Also, he has expressed a willingness to "cheat": with taxes, debts, and so on. That tendency became tolerable for me, personally and professionally.

[Catothecat]

That sounds like my brother, Poison Ivy.  He's not a PD but is married to one, and she has a controlling interest in his life, so he's made noises about my mother's "estate" and any decision we make regarding her needs.  Basically, he's afraid there'll be no money for him after she dies so has done things like question our decision to put her in an assisted living facility when her cognitive impairment made it difficult and dangerous for her to care for herself. Of course, he has never been involved in her care or even much of her life since his entire existence is catering to his PD wife.

For myself, I chose to leave my NPDexh despite the financial hit because I finally trusted my ability to manage on my own whereas my ex had no sense of financial responsibility.  In fact, I finally realized that he married me in order to have someone take care of him while he did as he pleased.  I tolerated the situation for years until one day he wrote a large check without telling me.  It bounced, and that was how I found out what he'd done.  He then had the check re-run because he wouldn't return the item he'd bought with it, instead waiting until I got paid.  So the check cleared, we didn't have enough money to pay some bills, but he was happy.  At that point I knew it was over between us. 

There was a lot that would qualify as factors in destroying the relationship, but the money issue was what finally did it.

[Poison Ivy]

I noticed a typo in my comment above. My ex's behaviors became "intolerable" (not "tolerable").

[Jolie40]

I had one sibling who cried poor all the time. She claimed to me that PD parent did NOT help them. However, once @ parents house, I saw a check on table written out to school for her kid's tuition. Another time, PD parent said "I paid for the girl's dance costumes & then quickly said "oops, I wasn't supposed to say anything.!"
So sibling took money from PD parent but wanted to keep it secret from me.

Husband said "don't expect anything when they pass on" as he figured everything would go to this one sibling.

Surprisingly, when parents did pass on, they had divided what money was left evenly to all siblings. I was totally surprised.

[Cascade]

I have stayed married in part, for financial reasons. Money or lack of money and poor financial decisions made by my pdh has also negatively affected our family for many years.

[xredshoesx]

i'm celebrating 16 years free of my ex this month-  my ex was a lot like catothecat's.  he was fine when i had the $$$ to support his part time employment lifestyle, however when i had to change jobs to be more available for a family member in transition to end of life care, i started trying to get him to pull his fair share of our joint living expenses.  when i look back now it was like living with a perpetual surly teenager tbh.... but as the $$$ i had coming in dwindled his behaviors escalated. 

[olivegirl]

I am NC with my Bpd spendthrift parasitic emotionally-abusive parents precisely because they seek to financially exploit me. 

My misogynist father lacked ambition his entire life and bullied me as early as high school to hand over my part-time job money so that he could pay the bills.  My self-obsessed, pathologically jealous mother feels entitled to the best, without regard to the reality of a budget: furs, diamonds, McMansion, cruises. 

Because they are unable to self-regulate, life at home was very chaotic.  I learned very early the discipline of saving and finding happiness at the library and in nature walks.

My parents look at me with scorn and feel entitled to my money and have demanded to live with me, in my house!  So that I can show them the respect they say they deserve and I am to do all the cooking, cleaning, and pay for everything.

So now I just blocked them.  I moved away 10 years ago over 1k miles away.  Yay!  I saw it coming!  I'm still quite frugal but I see money as freedom. 

[Blueberry Pancakes]

About two years ago, after a couple years of VLC, my dad sent an email to me and my husband where he stated he "does not like our attitudes". He said "we did not want to be part of the family, so unless we changed, he was having his lawyer disinherit me".
 
Money was used to control. I never replied to the email and a few weeks later he re-sent the email, but that time said he was proceeding with it.

My dad later claimed he did not mean it. I won't know until they die. However, it can also cause you (me) to do things you otherwise would not. I remain in limited contact with parents because I do not want my GC sibling to think she won by getting it all as I get none.

[SeaBreeze]

I was financially abused by my uNPD mother throughout my childhood. Mis-spent child support, "borrowing" gift money she never repaid, allocating money I earned from babysitting and summer jobs for household expenses instead of letting me save up for my own clothes, toiletries, car, etc.  Right down to trying to keep me from leaving for college at 18, partly to keep me at home/helpless, but mainly because she tried to steal the college fund my dad's parents set up for me. Boy, was she *pissed* when I went behind her back and sent money directly to the college instead of funneling it through her bank account like she suggested!

Ex-uNPDh #1 purposely kept us poor. Spent what little extra money we had on himself or unnecessary purchases like car stereo speakers, while the kids and I made do with my budget stretching savvy (I at least can thank my N-mom for teaching me that.) The last straw was when I literally got into a fight with him in the Walmart clearance aisle for cheap socks for our daughter who had outgrown the ones she had. After the divorce, exH mostly evaded child support, so his financial abuse continued to be extended toward our daughter.

Current stbx-uNPDh #2 is at least a responsible provider, but 1. he held the fact he made more $ than me over my head when I worked, and 2. kept me on a tight allowance and tracked my purchases during my SAHM years. We never argued over socks -- we did always agree the children's needs came first and without question -- but I couldn't spend anything on myself without him trying to make me feel guilty. Or make it about him, e.g. he'd tell me go to the salon then complain I got it "too short" (this was shoulder length hair??) or complain I should have bought "sexier underwear" (apparently bikini cut panties were granny panties to him??) And then whether I paid for the groceries, or he did, there was the never-ending shopping list with weird or special requests for stuff he never ate or used...) But that very financial security, for the kids' sake, kept me in the marriage much longer than I should have stayed.

[Cat of the Canals]

I've been thinking about this thread for several days, and then the oddest thing happened -- my dad (nonPD) sent me a decent-sized check out of the blue yesterday. Totally unexpected. I have thanked him for his generosity, of course, but I can't help but feel guilty and like I'm "supposed" to do more, despite the fact that it was clearly a gift.

That's how deep the conditioning my PDmom instilled goes. All gifts have strings attached, thus I have trained myself to be hyper-independent. It's almost impossible for me to ask for help. I borrowed money from my parents once and paid it back as soon as I could, because the idea of being indebted to my mother for any length of time was unbearable. That was before I was Out of the FOG, and I genuinely don't know if I could bring myself to ever ask her for something like that again, knowing what I know now, no matter how desperate I was.

[NarcKiddo]

SeaBreeze - my mother used to borrow my pocket money, too. She did always repay it, but I never had any choice as to whether or not I wanted to lend it to her.

Cat - I totally understand the horror of feeling indebted to parents. I have never borrowed money from them, and I never would. I ran up quite a big debt in my late teens due to being bamboozled by a boyfriend, and the bank manager told them, though he should not have done so as I was a legal adult. They paid it off and expected me to be grateful. I was not grateful because they claimed if they had not paid it I would have gone to jail which even at that age and naïveté I knew was nonsense. They never asked me to pay it back - I think because they thought they could hold it over me whereas if I paid it back I might not feel indebted to them. Not that I did feel indebted to them, but they didn't know that. They told me I should feel that way and, I guess, assumed I did. I would rather die in a ditch than ask them for money. I don't mind accepting gifts but I always treat them as just that. Any hint of strings and I am not interested.

[xredshoesx]

@SeaBreeze i caught my mother stealing from me as well.  she also never used the back child support she got for me when she got custody of me back from the state on me, and neglected to tell me i did well enough on a standardized test for a small scholarship.  her narrative only included HER.  HER feelings, HER needs, etc.  anyone else in the picture, me included, was a tool to use to get whatever SHE wanted.

[Boat Babe]

Yeah, I avoid asking my mother for any money - from the age of 18 onwards I was totally financially indpendant (very poor but independant) I did ask her for help with the deposit to buy our family home but I had a small child and had to swallow my pride in order to create a financially stable home for the family. She was actually OK about it and I made sure we paid every penny back, plus interest, in the time we said we would. Recently, she was very ill and asked me to look after her finances for her, which I duly did. I found out that she has saved a lot of money over the years whilst living like an absolute pauper. She has refused to spend a penny of it on herself, saying that it is all for me but I haven't asked her to do this and would rather she spend her money on herself and have a bit of comfort as she is in her early 90s and she has worked for every penny. She is kind of using it to "buy my love" which is crazy because although I have very mixed feelings about the woman, I am a kind and dutiful daughter to her because partly obligation and guilt and partly choosing to be a good person.  Anyway, it's complicated.

[mustard_seed]

I'm VLC with my UPD-mom who is worth a significant amount $$$. Some of that money she inherited from my dad when he died. They were separated at the time of his death, but dad forgot to change his right-of-survivorship, etc. on significant accounts.

My siblings are still in contact with UPD-mom and there's a good chance my brother (a perennial mooch, masterful manipulator and former/relapsing drug addict--possibly PD himself) will try to convince mom to disinherit me and split her estate between he and my sister.

I'm pretty committed to not letting this affect me in my decisions. I am fortunate to be in a stable financial situation myself--not sure what it would be like otherwise. For me, it's best to just think "no amount of money is worth being abused" and leave it at that. I know it's not this easy in every situation... just sharing my perspective...

Thanks for bringing this up--it's so cathartic to share here.

[feralcat]

My 89 year lderly unPdM is in receipt of 3 pensions, from her own jobs and a financially astute late husband. Mark 2.
She throws it about , trying to buy 'love' and obligation -  to stop family running away, basically. She hates it that I won't take more than remittance for shopping, and a minimum of fuel money ( cos the road only goes one way, you know). Doesn't stop others taking it.
Atm she and one sister have a really weird thing going on because she 'prefers' family to care for her , and so Sis is her paid carer. Gimme the Monaay ! Until she decides not to. Then she'll expect other family members to 'support' her . When either one doesn't act suitably grateful, they slag each other off , as we Brits say. It's totally toxic. Everyone else has backed off.

Never seems to occur to either of them that it would be best using that money to pay ( sustainable, reliable, consistent ) professionals.

[Poison Ivy]

Wish me luck, friends. The conversation has started in earnest about finding paid care for my mom, and I anticipate that there might be some bumps as Mom and my siblings and I discuss the money issues.