High price to pay for brotherly love
My brother approached me four years ago in financial distress. He’d gone through terrible situations, including job loss, divorce, then another relationship breakdown.
He wanted a loan, insisting that he would pay me back quickly. No firm timetable for repayment was discussed, however. I am his only close relative, so I felt obligated.
He won a lottery recently but insisted he needed the whole winnings to pay debts, so gave me nothing. At the time of the loan, I did not inform my husband. He has found out and is livid. We have three children, two at university, and the cost is astronomical. I need the loan repaid immediately. Now there is a wedge in our family that I don’t know how to fix. Help!
Loaning money to a relative is like driving up Hwy. 400 at 200 km/h. Occasionally, maybe, it works out and you arrive home safe. Some- times you even try to “justify” the stupid behaviour — after all, you were trying to get home to your kids. Blah, blah. But the danger is tremendous and when things go bad, they go very, very bad. Now you feel guilty and wish you’d behaved more responsibly, more carefully, with more wisdom. But carnage is everywhere and there’s no setting back the clock. That’s your situation. Honestly, I don’t want to be nasty. The sad truth, however, is you did everything wrong a few years ago. You loaned money to a guy with a history of financial trouble. You didn’t involve a lawyer, didn’t document the loan, didn’t get a firm commitment about terms. You justified the behaviour, citing misplaced familial obligation. And then, to top it off, you didn’t discuss it with your spouse — not because you forgot but because you knew he would, wisely, say no. So much for familial obligation!
Now you want a magic bullet that will make everything OK again. Well, no such potion exists.
So let’s talk reality instead. As on the 400, some things you can fix and others must be written off.
First, you need to write off the money; you’re not going to see it again. Your brother isn’t going to willingly pay it back; he already won a lottery and gave you nothing against the debt. So your odds of a voluntary settlement are about nil.
Yes, you could sue your brother but the amount involved is beyond the limits of the small-claims court. This means a full-blown lawsuit, leading to an endless round of “he said, she said” — no one wins except the lawyers (the same ones you didn’t use four years ago).
Now let’s focus on what actually is possible. You need to invest 100 per cent of your energy on fixing the relationship with your husband. Love, emphatically, does not mean you never have to say you’re sorry, the song lyrics notwithstanding. You made a bad mistake. So apologize, and mean it. And ask for hubby’s help to put Humpty together again. It’ll take more than a sticking plaster but time, commitment, grace and hard work can make wonders happen.
And greater sins than this have been forgiven. Send your questions to star.ethics@yahoo.ca