Not sure how I can shorten this without leaving important details but my parents who live in a different state have helped my 30 year old brother recover from continuous drug relapses his entire adult life. Sadly, he now experiences psychosis episodes that draw him from reality. My brother has never left the house and has been, among many other things, a financial burden to my parents. To make matters worse, my parents don’t have a nest egg to rely up upon their retirement coming up next year, and will rely mostly on their both Social Security payments and a single retirement annuity.
I was able to help financially support my parents here and there for a few years, however, things have changed now that I’m back in school for a grad degree. While I do bring in enough through my revenue streams to pay my bills and put cash towards my goals, such as finishing my Emergency fund savings and opening an IRA, I don’t know if I want to continue helping my parents anymore.
I’ve talked to my parents about their impending retirement coming up early next year and my concern that they haven’t begun saving. Their concerning answer is that they’re not able to since they have to take care of my brother. Although the reality is that my brother is not mentally capable to make it on his own on without my parents, I’m really bothered that my parents (possibly) can’t/aren’t financially preparing for the day that they will no longer work and smoothly enter retirement.
I feel Like i have been just how my parents were towards my brother his whole life: supportive, yet enabling. I want to help my parents but I don’t want to enable them anymore.
Have any of you experienced this before?
Submitted November 11, 2018 at 01:52AM by Whentheredfernferns https://ift.tt/2AWZIDF
