“Two years ago, I said I had had enough and sent money just to pay for my mother's living expenses, no matter how much she asked me for help or how big my sister's gambling problem seemed. You didn’t talk to me for months.”
Rappler's Life and Style section features advice columns from husband and wife Jeremy Baer and clinical psychologist Dr. Margarita Holmes.
Jeremy holds a Master of Laws from the University of Oxford. A banker who has worked for 37 years on three continents, he has spent the past 10 years training with Dr. Holmes as a co-instructor and sometimes co-therapist, especially with clients for whom financial concerns have entered their daily lives. I have received.
They wrote two books together. Love triangles: Understanding the psychology of machos and mistresses and Imported love: Philippine and foreign actors.
Dear Dr. Holmes and Mr. Bear:
I'm a 32 year old Filipino working abroad as an IT professional in Santa Fe. I'm the youngest in my family. I have two older brothers who are married and have good jobs in California. My sister “Marie”, our oldest sibling, lives in the Philippines with her mother. She has a gambling problem.
Since moving abroad, I have been sending money to help my mother with her living expenses. My mother sometimes asks us to help Marie pay for her gambling losses. We all had obligations, even my two brothers who don't give her an allowance every month like I do. But after a while, it seemed like we were also paying for her sister's gambling allowance.
Two years ago, I said I had had enough and sent money just for my mother's living expenses, no matter how much she needed me to help, no matter how big my sister's problems seemed. She didn't talk to me for 2 months, which was fine with me. In March of this year, I received a phone call from her mother asking me to once again help her sister with her debts. Her mother was in a panic because her debts were in the hundreds of thousands of thousands of dollars and her creditors were getting impatient. She still refused.
She hasn't talked to me yet. I wrote her a letter saying that I would like to meet her as she would be going home for the New Year (for the first time in three years). She hasn't answered me. what can i do?
vivian
Dear Vivian
Thank you for your e-mail.
It is often taken for granted that the more fortunate members of the family, whether parents or siblings, join together to support those less fortunate. This is especially true when there are medical/disability issues, but even when they don't exist, the default setting is that one has a duty to help.
If the problem is the result of antisocial or addictive behavior, an appropriate response can be even more difficult. Until two years ago, your family was more or less united and you were willing to pay child support for your sister, and you were also supporting your mother. However, as your sister's gambling debts continued to increase, it became clear that this was not only not solving the problem, but was actually prolonging it. You were actually enabling her girlfriend.
When the problem became serious, you and your brother decided that enough was enough, but your mother did not agree with this and stopped talking to you to express her disappointment in you. . However, it is not clear whether she has also stopped speaking to your girlfriend's siblings or whether you have continued to pay her living expenses.
It's probably unlikely that you'll be able to immediately convince your mother to change her current position other than taking on your sister's debts, but showing your sister a different kind of support would be a positive move. For example, you (and your brother?) can persuade her to join Gamblers Anonymous by offering to pay for treatment for her gambling addiction (gamblersanonymous.ph, gaphilippines.com, and her gamblersanonymous.org). By doing so, you will be helping your sister and at the same time showing support for her sister to her mother. But in the end, it must be realized that this is not a problem that can be completely solved without the active cooperation of her sister.
There are limits to what you can do on your own. The rest is up to her.
all the best,
JAF Bear
Dear Vivian:
Thank you for your letter.
Please allow me to share some rather disturbing information about your relationship with your mother. She doesn't like you, Vivian. She doesn't know if she's ever done this before or if she'll start doing it in the future, but here and now, her distaste for you is as clear as a knife.
This fear and disgust is not about whether you help your sister and her gambling debts or not. It's just a surface your mom uses to protect herself. Your family's problems are more basic and fundamental than that.
On the other hand, what I have just shared can also be seen as potentially lifelong trauma. On the other hand, this can also be valuable information that can help you make better-informed decisions about what is in your control in the future.
Example: Refraining from helping “Marie” pay her gambling debts seems like a reasonable decision that harmonizes with other life choices you've made.
I wish you the best. If we can be of any assistance to you, please contact us again.
MG Holmes
– Rappler.com
Please send comments, questions, and requests for advice to [email protected].
