SoloMio

I'm a frequent business traveler, so this analogy always hits home.

I am so frustrated with a personal shortcoming I have of not being attentive to my own needs. Here is what is making me angry with myself and resentful of others today:

It occurred to me how my 4 kids NEVER ask me for money, but I have several adults in my life who lean on me for support and I allow it, when I really am gasping for air myself. To explain, and to vent, and to try to "write it out" for myself:

My brother called me and asked me for money. He's on SSDI, but he's also alcoholic. From time to time he'll call me and ask me to just get him through to the end of the month, which means $50 or $100. He spends a LOT of time under the care of his VA social worker, and he spends a considerable amount of time in sobriety programs, so it's not like he isn't trying. He called yesterday, and I could just feel the resentment rumbling. Grrr…...

DH has just become eligible for SS, and I asked him to call SS to start collecting. He's been unemployed for years now, since alcoholism destroyed his business. It's been 4 weeks and he hasn't called yet. He says he wants to work, but he won't apply to the retail box stores because of his pride. He doesn't want the neighbors to see him working there. Grrr….

BIL lives next door in a house that he owns jointly with DH. He has a menial, seasonal job at a golf course and can barely pay the property taxes. We do not ask him for any rent, which represents an opportunity loss for us. DH and I told his mother before she died that we'd "take care of him"--and so we have continued her enabling. He comes over for dinner now and then, and never reciprocates. DH will send him home with ALL the leftovers that would do us another meal. Grrr…..

Meanwhile, my financial difficulties stem from when I offered to cosign on a jumbo mortgage for my MIL in 2007, cashing out her primary residence so we could purchase the house next door to us for cash, as it was a foreclosure property. JUST as we closed on the foreclosure house and moved them down here, the recession came crashing down and all real estate activity stopped dead. I was stuck with a $3,000/month mortgage for 3 years… while we rented for a couple of those years, we wound up with legal battles to get a squatter out, expensive repairs to bring the old, unmaintained house up to snuff so it could be sold, and about a year's worth of keeping an empty house afloat. It cost me personally about $250,000. Because I was the "nice guy" and signed my name on that mortgage. When we sold the house, there was no extra money.

Meanwhile, when times were tough, I had "borrowed" money from one of my son's college accounts, which he has never used because he never went to college. He's moving into a new place and is short some money, so he called me up to ask for what is essentially his money, and he CRIED he felt so bad. I told him he is only asking for his own money back, and he shouldn't feel that bad because he has never asked for a penny. But I don't see my brother, BIL or DH crying over their dependency.

How do I start feeling more self-protective??? I am 63, with no money in the bank. I KNOW I should just say no to my brother. I KNOW I should demand that my DH run to Costco and Macy's and Home Depot and put in applications all over town. I KNOW I should tell my BIL that if he can't pay us half of the market value of the house he's living in he needs to move and give us the money so I can pay my debts--but I can't bring myself to do it.

What is wrong with me?????