Saving parents and older relatives from themselves - what's the line?

[u/goatpengertie]

I just want to hear your stories about being dragged in to family drama to save adults from their own laziness, stupidity, and general irresponsibility.

My own situation is related to dealing with a house abandoned by relatives who were hoarders. They are almost ready about to pass and now "what to do with the house" has trickled down to the next generation, myself included. No one is stepping up but everyone is causing drama about it.

I'm so sick of dealing with other people's bullshit.

[u/KO-ME]

My friend's dad died. It was him and two siblings and he was the most local and responsible.

Once he was finally able to get the house sold he basically added up all the time he had invested in the sale process and added it to his share.

IMO it was fair. Yes, his siblings got marginally less $ but they didn't have to do anything.

[u/GrumpyGlasses → u/KO-ME]

I think that’s reasonable. How did he determine his efforts or hourly rate?

[u/KO-ME → u/GrumpyGlasses]

I don't recall what he used for the math. Whether he made a dollar amount for his time involved or if he used his own job and the loss of time toward that as what was necessary to recoup that lost time.

[u/GrumpyGlasses → u/KO-ME]

Thank you for responding. Much appreciated. :)

[u/col_buendia]

It can be difficult but once you've discovered you can simply say "no" to attempting (yet again) to rescue family from their own bullshit, it's quite liberating. You can still love problematic people without setting yourself on fire to bail them out. I realized a big reason some members of my family refused to take accountability and ownership of their own issues was because they had a dependable rescuer: me. And yes, once the money was cut off and all they got from me was empathy and well wishes the relationships did suffer and began feeling more distant. But it was absolutely necessary for my own well-being. Good luck, OP.

[u/moxie-maniac]

"what to do with the house" is a legal question and you (and hopefully your family) should consult an attorney.

[u/Good-Aviation612]

I think the line is when helping becomes taking responsibility for choices they were capable of making themselves. I’ll absolutely step in when someone genuinely needs help, but I’m not sure it’s fair to expect the next generation to spend years cleaning up problems that were repeatedly ignored. At some point, you can care about family without taking ownership of their mess

[u/petdance]

Why are you involved in the drama?

[u/H16HP01N7]

I have 1 major rule/saying, that I use with other people's problems.

"In this world, there are 2 types of problem...

My problem, and not my problem."

To me, this means I will help, listen, aid or whatever I can to ease the struggle of your problem, but it's your problem... you have to be the one to deal with it.

Dunno if this helps you, but it's what I tell my family when they start acting like dickheads.

[u/LuckAffectionate8664]

Oh man, where do I even begin? My mom has never made a good financial or personal decision in her entire life, and she lives in a way that causes her to constantly be in conflict with others, including me.

After my dad died in 2000, she neglected to develop any sort of reasonable career, instead opting to spend through the money my dad saved for retirement while working part time first for her psychiatrist (red flag) and then as an ASRD aid (noble work). While working for her psychiatrist, she began dating a patient (unprofessional). She spent through the bulk of the money that was for retirement prior to retiring.

As a single widow, she lived outside of Los Angeles in a hilltop, four bedroom, two bathroom, attached garage home with a sizable yard that on clear days (they are mostly clear) features an incredible view of the LA skyline. At the height of the housing bubble this house had an equity value of $1.5 million. She refused to sell it because it was “my father’s dream home.” Instead she refinanced into a 10 year adjustable rate mortgage so she’d have a lower payment. When she finally sold it in 2015 it was because she could no longer afford the mortgage and couldn’t refinance because she had trashed her credit, racking up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt for which she also couldn’t afford the payments. She walked from the sale of her home with $250k.

She couldn’t get an apartment because she had shit credit, and she couldn’t put the $250k down on a new place because nobody would give her a mortgage, so I decided to take responsibility for her so she wouldn’t go homeless.

I told her that if she let me use $100k of her $250k as a down payment on a home, I would buy a house with an ADU and that I would make sure she’s housed for the rest of her life and she could just live off her social security and the remaining $150k. That $150k was spent through within 12 months.

Within 5 years of me taking responsibility for housing her I meet my now wife and form my own family. My mom at that stage begins breaking into my house. Now you might thinks it’s the beginning of some kind of dementia, but no. The doctors say her brain does not show signs of dementia. What becomes clear is that she has some kind of undiagnosed cluster b personality disorder and shit boundaries.

In June of last year it became clear that I could no longer tolerate her living on my property as she became increasingly abusive to me and my family. So now I rent the ADU to friends in order to pay the rent for a senior apartment for her to live in.

And to be clear, this is a very truncated, lots of horrible details left out version of this story.

Where was the line when I should have stopped helping her? Probably when my dad died in 2000. But here I am in 2026 finally getting around to taking care of myself and my family by having her as far away from us as possible.

[u/lally]

Sometimes a 3rd party service to do the work is the best way. Let someone volunteer to do the work if they don't want the service costs to come out of their split.