A spoilt brat and his enabler.

LegacyUser

I just want some outsiders perspective on this before I crack up!

Personally, I find the relationship between my boyfriends mother, Caroline* and her younger brother Todd* (my boyfriends uncle) more than a bit odd.

*names changed!

My boyfriend is 25 and Todd is at least 36. Caroline is about 46/47.

Todd is the youngest in the family while Caroline happens to be the eldest of the seven,( she had my boyf when she was about 21.)

Todd lives in the original family home and farm, with his wife and kid, the father is still alive and he is about 80 and lives with them in the house.
The rest of the brother and sisters live in the surrounding area, one even lives directly across the road!

Caroline on the other hand lives about an hour's drive away.
The father is unable to fully care for himself so Caroline goes down after work and does his washing, cooks his dinners and brings him to doctors appt.
She also stays there most weekends.

Todd and his wife, who is unemployed, live with this man and yet can't look after him??

About 3 years ago my boyfriend lent Todd his car to use for about 2 weeks. When the car was returned it was destroyed, the clutch was gone and it needed to be professionally cleaned.

Todd had driven the sh**e out of the car across the farm and there was about 500euros worth of damage done.

My boyfriend was FURIOUS and also very upset. He tried ringing Todd to confront him but he wouldn't answer the phone.

Caroline said 'forget it, don't cause trouble' and paided for the damage herself!
Nothing was ever said about it again.

While I was in college, myself and my boyf used to never see each other, we were on opposite sides of the country.
Every 6 weeks I would head down to his house for the weekend, this was during the building boom and Todd fancied himself a bit of a hotshot property developer.

He would tell my boyf that there was concrete coming for one of his houses, at 8am on the Sat morning, Caroline used to guilt my boyf into going down to help him (because if he didn't Todd would have the granddad out helping him)

So after working the entire week as a plumber, waiting 6 weeks to see his girlf, he would have to leave the house at 7am and drive an hour down to Todd.

When he would get there, Todd would tell him the concrete was ''late'' and put him to work on the farm until about lunchtime, when the concrete would actual arrive.

In the mean time I'm sitting on my own in his house an hour away, making polite conversation with his parents while inside my blood would be boiling!

When the construction industry collasped Todd ended up with huge debts, I'm not meant to know this but Caroline is actually paying off a rather large loan for Todd.

There are a millions of incidents over the years but the most recent one was on Sunday.

It was the first time in ages that myself and my boyf were alone just the two of us in his house, his parents were in Todds, looking after the granddad.

My boyfriend's sister came home and asked if one of us could drop her into town because she was baby-sitting for Todd and he would pick her up in town and bring her back to his house.

We both said ''no effing way, if Todd wants you to babysit, he can come and get you himself, why should we use our petrol?''

The sister agreed with us, and rang Caroline to tell her.

The next bit is what has my head totally wrecked.

Caroline turned around to her husband and told him to go get the sister. Todd was in town, which is only about 15mins away from our house, yet the husband now has to drive 1 hour home to pick her up and then one hour to bring her back to Todds!!

Probably passing Todd on the road on the way!!

This just isn't normal, it couldn't possibly be. It dawned on me yesterday that Caroline puts Todd and his wife before her son ALL the time.

Like she was happy for me or my boyf to give up our evening together to drive into town and back, all to save precious little Todd a 30min round trip.

It's not normal behaviour, as far as I can see. Like I'm just absolutely furious about Sunday and I'm on the verge of saying something to her but don't know if that would be crossing the line?

Nody

Discuss it with your bf to keep a strict line about it and leave the rest of his family to worry about it.

C-J

I really don't think it's any of your business. Just tell your boyfriend to stand up for himself, his mothers family is none of your concern and would cause trouble if you interfered.

Plek Trum

Tell your boyfriend that you wont play second place when you have time scheduled together & that any jobs / errands for Todd & co will have to wait when you have plans already made (once its nothing urgent of course, eg. sick Grandad etc)

He'll have to find his voice and put his foot down. Outside of when he is with you, whatever he, his mum & sister decide to do really isnt any of your concern *in a nice way*. I can assure you now that things there will not change anytime soon

If its impacting on your relationship then have a word with your boyfriend. Other than that leave them at it and dont make it your issue. Never worth bringing up or getting stressed over 'in-law' family business!

LegacyUser

C-J wrote: »

I really don't think it's any of your business. Just tell your boyfriend to stand up for himself, his mothers family is none of your concern and would cause trouble if you interfered.

No I definitely would not say anything about the rest of what Todd does, it was just what happened on Sunday.

She thought that I would drive the sister in to meet Todd if my boyfriend wouldn't do it. I just felt it was very inconsiderate of her!

Stench Blossoms

Try to encourage your boyfriend to put his foot down, and not to let them ruin any of the time you have together.

Regarding his mother paying his debts etc. it's not really any of your concern and you shouldn't let it bother you.

LegacyUser

No I would NEVER say anything about the uncle! Most of it I'm not even meant to know!!

It was just about myself and my boyfriend being expected to drop everything and as usual give up our plans for Todd.

tinkerbell

Talk to your boyfriend about this - sounds like he is a pretty reasonable guy, he probably needs support with this, as in when he says no to whatever Todd's latest request is, it'll be nice for him to know that he's got someone (i.e. you) backing him up on this and letting him know that he is being perfectly reasonable.

As for expecting to drop everything, tell them no. Your boyfriend now is old enough that he doesn't have to dance attendance to anybody, he's not a child. The whole situation is just ridiculous really. I can't believe your boyfriend's mother is constantly bailing him out, that's just nuts.