Our feckless son-in-law

QOur daughter is in her fifties with two children and married to a loving – if rather feckless – man. Since she quit work to look after the children and he embarked on a new career, they’ve been chronically short of money. We subsidise their holidays, children’s pocket money, household and other expenses. She likes a bottle of wine every night and chain-smokes. He uses marijuana daily but apparently they’re trying to kick these habits. And yet they’re still unable to curb the habit of buying stuff they cannot afford or need – classic shopaholics. They row constantly but on the other hand they’re marvellously loving parents. We are in our nineties, disabled in different ways. I worry what happens when we die, even though they’ll come into a considerable inheritance. My wife thinks I overreact and says we should leave things to run their course. Is she right?

AName and address supplied I think she is. Obviously you shouldn’t have started subsidising them in the first place but, now you’re doing it, you’d better continue for the moment. But, while encouraging them in their attempts to quit their destructive addictive habits, maintain a vague threat in the background that this can’t go on for ever. Could you perhaps agree to subsidise them only if you’re allowed to scrutinise their monthly budgets? Have you discussed this with them seriously – perhaps talking to each one separately? And are you sure, by the way, that you have enough to provide for your even older age? It might be worth doing some accounts and showing them to your daughter and her husband, explaining that you really can’t subsidise them at the rate you are if you’re going to have enough to live on when you get frailer.