Quarterback Sneak

Last night, my wife told me that my eldest sister called, saying that she was really struggling emotionally in the wake of the end of a relatively long relationship/affair, has a week off, and wants to come back to Utah for a few days to be close to home and take a break. Then she said that she usually doesn't "cut it this close," but just made a major purchase for her younger daughter, and asked whether we would make her a loan, including her airfare for this proposed visit. I told my wife no, I don't want to do that, I don't like the context (some color below), and I don't want to form a pattern.

We now pause for...

A little background on my sister: Her income --"her" income, she's divorced-- puts her in the top 12-15% of U.S. households. (I only know her income because I helped her to obtain a loan for something several years ago, and she's long-tenured union, so the likelihood of that income having dropped significantly in the interim is low. But in light of the recession, let's say she's at least in the top 20%.) But her profession puts her in circles where she socializes above her tax bracket, which creates certain expenditure pressures: living in the right neighborhood, wearing the right clothes, collecting the right art/antiques, traveling to the right places, etc. And the fact that her husband is a miserable deadbeat (they have 4 kids) doesn't help. She has always been kind to me, and generous in many ways. No major financial bequests, but some CDs here, a coat there, a box of Belgian truffles, bags of her used dress shoes for my daughter's dress-up games, letting me spend a night in her upscale business hotel room when our paths have crossed abroad on a couple of occasions, etc.

>link to Scott

> link to Leonidas

>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Income-curve-$10k.png

A little background on some recent financial points relating to my sister: Earlier this year, she was in town, found herself "in a jam," and borrowed well into four figures for us for some type of medical procedure. I don't know exactly what it was, but I'm pretty sure it was cosmetic of some kind. It took her three or four times the agreed-upon time to repay us -- reason had something to do with it being the IRS having messed up with her tax return. That was the first time she's asked for or received financial support from us. Early last month, I called her to wish her a happy birthday, but got her voicemail, later to learn that she was on Sicily on a solo birthday trip she'd given herself. No problem, none of my business. Two weeks ago, I learned that her daughter and son-in-law had flown back to her home for visit. As the two are struggling undergrads at a local university, with one waitressing job between them, I assume that they didn't pay for the flight. No problem, none of my business. "Ring ring, hi, can I have a plane ticket and loan?" Problem, now it's my business.

...and back to our regularly-scheduled program.

My wife thought I was being selfish and immature last night. I asked her whether she was motivated by guilt at having taken a several-thousand-dollar commission from the bank several years ago while, as a mortgage broker, helping my sister to refinance her house, a commission that she used to enroll in a financial management/investment strategy course in an effort to curry favor with its get-rich-quick instructor. Our discussion went nowhere, topped off with my wife saying, "Besides, I feel a surprising empathy for her situation. We have many parallel struggles, like her financ...never mind, you never do well on subjects like these." "No, this is interesting. Please try me." "No. Forget it." I don't know the entire extent of that list of perceived parallel struggles, but I can virtually guarantee that it its Top 5 includes deep disappointment in a husband who has failed to meet nearly every expectation, a panicked sense of perpetual financial limitations, and unforeseen and formidable difficulty in being a mother. We went to bed seperately and angrily.

By late morning today, I'd softened my position a bit and e-mailed my sister that I my wife had passed along the message but not all the details, and that I wanted to know what exactly my sister had in mind (i.e., amount, timeframe, etc.). I sent this to open the dialogue, to hear what she had to say, and to talk frankly through my reservations (enumerated above, plus a correction of her possible misperception that we're flush with cash), open to the idea of giving her the loan, depending where the conversation led and what my gut said at the end of it. I never heard from her.

Then tonight on the way home from work, I called my wife to give her my ETA, and asked if, in preparation for a trip to the Caribbean we have coming up soon, she'd like --once the kids were in bed-- to go to a salsa lesson or go read some travel books at Barnes & Noble. She said she had other plans with the kids and her parents, who are in town for an extended visit. No biggie. Then, in an effort to offer an olive branch of sorts, I told her that I'd emailed my sister, what my intentions were behind the email, and that I was awaiting her response. She said it was now moot, because my sister had called her this morning after I left for work, my wife had purchased her the plane ticket and agreed to a loan.

I got home as my wife, her parents, and our two eldest children were heading out to their event. I told my wife she had to talk. She said that I "totally mismanaged the situation last night," and that my brother-in-law would have said, "I'm sorry she put you in that awkward situation, honey. Let me handle it." To which I responded, "That's why he's a senior executive in a Fortune 500 company, and I'm [derogatory description of my profession]!" She said there was nothing to discuss. I said there was. She tried to leave. I stood in front of the door and said, "We're not going to resolve this now, but I need you to please put everything else aside for a moment and focus on one sequence of events: The conversation last night in which I said I didn't want to make this loan to my sister, and the decision you made this morning without even trying to contact me." She said that she wasn't "completely subject" to my "hang-ups about money" and that I was being "incredibly immature," laughed, turned away, and left the house through a side door.


>>Link to RJB

I'm upset at three people:
1) My sister, for having asked, and for having asked my wife instead of me, when she knows perfectly well how to contact me.
2) Myself, for lacking unconditional charity.
3) My wife, for having (I'm going to use a word that sounds painfully, gaspingly, eyerollingly patriarchal) defied so blatantly on this.

And I'm concentrating (some might say "projecting") the anger on my wife right now to such a degree that something between canceling the credit cards / putting everything in my name / direct depositing my paycheck to a private account, and divorce, is the only range of options I'm able to see at this moment. This is compounded by the fact that she told me just this weekend that the $100 agreement we made a couple of years ago (i.e., that we would discuss and reach an agreement before making any out-of-the-ordinary purchases over $100) was an obsolete joke, and she didn't plan to "participate in it" anymore. Which is odd, because the only time in the last six months that it's even arisen was when she told me she was purchasing a new chair that she'd had her eye on for a while, "$350 on sale from $1,800," to which I responded simply, "Sounds nice, I'm sure it'll look great in the house." So why she's feeling strangled by the tyrannical $100 scheme is a mystery to me.

That said, the looming financial backdrop to all of this is that we were outbid (a longer story than that, but "outbid" is the easiest explanation) by $75,000 on a house we wanted, and so I know she's feeling tethered by my income. (Which, incidentally, is in the top 12% in the nation.)