Is This a Situation that Merits Ammends?
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 3
Is This a Situation that Merits Ammends?
Hello everyone,
Hope this is the right forum, I wasn't sure. So I am thinking about Amends at the moment, and theres a situation I can't put my finger on:
So a few years back I took my first shot at getting clean. I was talking with my aunt at the time when I was struggling and she insisted that I move in with her, telling me she would help me get back into college.
I was honest with her about everything. Quickly though it became a situation of control, she acted like she had to "fix all of my flaws". She demanded absolute perfection in everything. She insisted on buying me all these new things because the things I had were not good enough for her standards: like clothes and such.
After buying all this new stuff, she turns around and tells me that I now owe her around $1700.00 and has a list of everything she bought for me, and helped out with. $1200.00 of it was for a few new clothes, towels, and bedding, it didn't make sense that it cost that much. I ended up getting my own place a bit later and moving out.
I've never been able to pay her what she said I owed her. A few years later after a relapse, she is claiming I owe her $6000.00. Had I known I was going to rack up thousands of dollars of debt, I would have never accepted those items or moved in with her. If she would have just given me a little time I could have taken care of these things myself, and for much cheaper! Theres a couple of things I wouldn't mind reimbursing her for, but I feel like billing me thousands for things she acted like she was buying to help me out and be a better person is a bit ridiculous.
I would like to make ammends with her so we can quit arguing, but the issue of this money is going to come up and I'm not sure how to handle it. Are my feelings about this situation realistic, or am I being selfish? Any suggestions would be helpful!
Hope this is the right forum, I wasn't sure. So I am thinking about Amends at the moment, and theres a situation I can't put my finger on:
So a few years back I took my first shot at getting clean. I was talking with my aunt at the time when I was struggling and she insisted that I move in with her, telling me she would help me get back into college.
I was honest with her about everything. Quickly though it became a situation of control, she acted like she had to "fix all of my flaws". She demanded absolute perfection in everything. She insisted on buying me all these new things because the things I had were not good enough for her standards: like clothes and such.
After buying all this new stuff, she turns around and tells me that I now owe her around $1700.00 and has a list of everything she bought for me, and helped out with. $1200.00 of it was for a few new clothes, towels, and bedding, it didn't make sense that it cost that much. I ended up getting my own place a bit later and moving out.
I've never been able to pay her what she said I owed her. A few years later after a relapse, she is claiming I owe her $6000.00. Had I known I was going to rack up thousands of dollars of debt, I would have never accepted those items or moved in with her. If she would have just given me a little time I could have taken care of these things myself, and for much cheaper! Theres a couple of things I wouldn't mind reimbursing her for, but I feel like billing me thousands for things she acted like she was buying to help me out and be a better person is a bit ridiculous.
I would like to make ammends with her so we can quit arguing, but the issue of this money is going to come up and I'm not sure how to handle it. Are my feelings about this situation realistic, or am I being selfish? Any suggestions would be helpful!
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Join Date: Jul 2017
Posts: 573
If she insisted on buying you things with no agreement that you would pay her back, I would consider them gifts, and therefore of no need to pay back. If you had offered to pay her back at the time, or if she had said "you can pay me back when you're back on your feet someday" or something to that effect and you had agreed, then yes, by all means I would consider it a legitimate debt to be paid back. But based on what you wrote here, I would say your aunt is not only out of line, but downright vindictive. Just my take.
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Join Date: Sep 2015
Location: America
Posts: 4,136
So a few years back I took my first shot at getting clean. I was talking with my aunt at the time when I was struggling and she insisted that I move in with her, telling me she would help me get back into college.
I was honest with her about everything. Quickly though it became a situation of control, she acted like she had to "fix all of my flaws". She demanded absolute perfection in everything. She insisted on buying me all these new things because the things I had were not good enough for her standards: like clothes and such.
Had a hard time reading the rest of your post after reading this far.
Umm: Huge red flags here of being put into bondage in a relationship. Controlling. Expecting absolute perfection in everything. Yuck.
You're totally right, she should have just allowed you to make changes on your own and pay for things as you went along.
I going on an assumption that you are much younger than her and still have some experiences to go through before you learn how to establish healthy boundaries for yourself. She sounds like a doting aunt who perhaps meant well, but you have been her "improvement project" and she quite literally took over everything. Not healthy. That's not good your own growth and development. There some things people can help us with, but there are many things we need to do on our own.
And NOW, she wants you to pay her back? Again, further bondage. So she put you in bondage right away by insisting on "things" and now you are financial bondage? Yuck. Just, yuck. I'm sorry you're going through this.
What you can take away from this? Learning about putting boundaries in place before things get out of hand and you are stuck in bondage. Some things we don't learn until we look back on what we went through and we go, "I'll never do that again. Look where it ended up. Look what it ended up costing me."
I was honest with her about everything. Quickly though it became a situation of control, she acted like she had to "fix all of my flaws". She demanded absolute perfection in everything. She insisted on buying me all these new things because the things I had were not good enough for her standards: like clothes and such.
Had a hard time reading the rest of your post after reading this far.
Umm: Huge red flags here of being put into bondage in a relationship. Controlling. Expecting absolute perfection in everything. Yuck.
You're totally right, she should have just allowed you to make changes on your own and pay for things as you went along.
I going on an assumption that you are much younger than her and still have some experiences to go through before you learn how to establish healthy boundaries for yourself. She sounds like a doting aunt who perhaps meant well, but you have been her "improvement project" and she quite literally took over everything. Not healthy. That's not good your own growth and development. There some things people can help us with, but there are many things we need to do on our own.
And NOW, she wants you to pay her back? Again, further bondage. So she put you in bondage right away by insisting on "things" and now you are financial bondage? Yuck. Just, yuck. I'm sorry you're going through this.
What you can take away from this? Learning about putting boundaries in place before things get out of hand and you are stuck in bondage. Some things we don't learn until we look back on what we went through and we go, "I'll never do that again. Look where it ended up. Look what it ended up costing me."
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