Hi Reddit,
I honestly had no idea where to go with this issue so I'm going to cross post this into a few different subs in an attempt to get as much advice as possible.
To give you guys a quick backstory, I'm an 18 year old college student, studying abroad. I come from a poverty stricken part of Russia and moved to the United States when I was 8. My mom was a Russian mail order bride and met my stepfather through the online service, eventually prompting our relocation to the US. It is no surprise that their relationship has never particularly been functional.
Recently, my mother found out that my stepfather is in extreme financial turmoil due to the massive debt he's acquired that she was oblivious to. He kept her in the dark about all financial matters until she decided to check her credit score, purely out of curiosity, and noticed how much it plummeted. Upon some investigation, she managed to get the full story.
My stepdad is in his mid 60s. There's close to a 20 year difference between him and my mom. He used to be quite wealthy and brought in a six figure income each year. That was around 2 years ago. He got fired from his job and has since been unable to find a new one. He is practically unfit for work but he insists that he's in the process of finding a job to help pay the bills. He's asking my mom who has a little under 80k to her name to help pay the bills and the rent. He's already a month behind on rent for a very expensive apartment costing around 5k a month, located in manhattan.
For reference, my mom hasn't held a job since her 20s, has no higher education and barely even possesses basic English proficiency. Her net worth entirely consists of expensive presents and other things my stepdad has bought her over the years. Because she co-signed the lease for the apartment, she's now entitled to pay for it too. My stepdad is currently unable to pay and doesn't consider the option of renting it out to other people. To pay for the remaining 6 months of the lease will take away more than a third of everything she owns. She's afraid that the building management will go to court if they break the contract and she along with my stepdad will be held legally responsible.
She's lost as to what she can do and so am I. She's currently in Russia and not sure whether she should even go back to the States in the first place. All of her possessions are located there but she's afraid of having to face my stepdad and possibly having to pay a huge sum of money. She said he's been getting much more aggressive lately and is currently drinking heavily. She doesn't know whether to divorce him and ensure that he pays at least 50% of the rent or to just not pay for it. What could she do? If anyone can offer advice for us, it'd be much appreciated.
Submitted December 12, 2018 at 08:15AM by ldamien65 https://ift.tt/2Gdf1wG
