Estranged Family + Money Question

[cramp]

Breaking this into 2 posts because it’s kind of complicated…

(1/2)

Kind of a weird situation and looking for some guidance.

My wife and I have been estranged from her family for almost 10 years now. To make a long story short, my in-laws were very abusive and toxic people and after 2 years of trying to make things work we decided to stop talking to them. The silence has gone on for these many years without any meaningful change and for all I know it may continue for the rest of our days.

Anyhow, when we were first married and quite young, my father-in-law, a fairly wealthy man, insisted on giving us money every month and paying our rent. My wife was pregnant and having trouble holding down a job and I was thinking about entering college. At first glance, this seems like a very generous act, though I believed then (as I do now) that he was the kind to use his wealth to insinuate himself in the lives of others. That is, so long as he was giving us money, I believe he felt he could treat us however he pleased. I didn’t want to accept this aid initially; I was young and proud and didn’t want handouts. I even told him so, politely. He insisted anyway, of course. I felt I had a good handle on his nature and didn’t want the strings and abuse that might come with said money. Eventually, at the urging of others in my life, I folded and accepted it for roughly a year. In retrospect, I sincerely wish I hadn’t.

It was at the end of that year, nearing the birth of our second child, that my wife and I decided we couldn’t bear to remain in contact with her parents and began planning to break away. The fights were getting to be too much and they were having an impact on my marriage. By this point, I’d become semi-dependent on his handouts, though. As the final months of that year wore on, I began saving this money he’d been giving us and I used it to stage an escape with my young family to a different place. My in-laws had been making our lives miserable for the first 2 years of our marriage and without their presence in our lives, things got a lot better afterward.

 

[cramp]

(2/2)

But I have some concerns all these years later. I’ve brought this up with a priest in Confession but have found myself drawn back to the topic lately. I don’t believe he was giving us this money in good faith, but as a means to control us and to insert himself into our lives, but at the same time, I recognize that my using his own gifted money to escape from him was deceitful. Furthermore, I’d been a student at the time; one of the pretenses he’d used for insisting on this monthly gift had been my enrollment in school. Some months prior to cutting ties with him, when I’d begun planning to remove my family from his influence, I actually dropped out of school. Even so, I continued taking his money and pretended I was still enrolled. A few months later, the break occurred. There was an explosive fight and we haven’t spoken since.

I brought this up in Confession and laid it all out to the priest. I asked whether this constituted theft and he didn’t give me a firm yes or no; what’s more, because of the nature of this estrangement and the potential negative implications it would have on my wife and (now 5) children, I don’t think that restitution would be possible. Not to mention that, even if re-establishing contact to repay him was advisable, I do not have anywhere near the money necessary to do so.

The priest gave me my penance, advised me to pray for my in-laws but, based on what I’d told him, to “love and honor them from a distance”. I performed my penance and I do not hate my in-laws; if they demonstrated a true intention to change their ways and sought to reconcile, I wouldn’t dismiss them out of hand. But I wonder if, in a case like this one, restitution is necessary? I have heard cases of making such restitution to charitable causes when it is impractical or impossible to make restitution to the one wronged.

It has been about 2 years since I returned to the faith, and in seeking to lead a life that is pleasing to God, I have been inspecting my past. At the time this occurred, I felt I was justified in using whatever means necessary to limit my in-laws’ damage to my family; latterly, I recognize that deceit is still a sin. have confessed it, but I am somewhat scrupulous, so if you think I’m overthinking this, please tell me so!

 

[Lou2U]

I do think you’re overthinking it

Trust your Priest. He didn’t tell you it was theft, he didn’t tell you to pay the money back. If you aren’t already, please get help for your scruples. Look after yourself, and continue to look after your family.

 

[Glennon_P]

This ^^^^^^^^^^^.

 

[midori]

Regardless of his motives, he gave y’all a gift. And as you noted, it’s very hard to accept being in someone’s debt graciously, whether that’s their intention or not. And once you’re in someone’s debt… it’s very easy to get used to.

And, as people who give gifts find out pretty quickly, gifts are not always used for the purpose that they’re intended. Once the gift is out of their hands, there’s nothing they can really do about it… whether it’s spending gas money on cigarettes, or taking rent money to the casino, or using a rental allowance to move across the country.

Since your FIL is/was a fairly wealthy man, I presume that the cumulative $x he gave you had more of an impact on your lives than it did on his life. In other words, suppose Bill Gates pays off my mortgage. My mortgage being paid off makes more of a difference to me than it does to Bill Gates’ bank account.

So rather than taking the $x he gave you and giving it back to him, see if you can do something profitable on his behalf. Suppose he gave y’all $1,000/month for 24 months… that’s $24k, just making up pretend numbers. Find a charitable organization. Suppose you can only spare $100 or $200 out of a month… take that $100 or $200 and pass on the blessing to someone else. “Dear God, thank you for FIL helping us out. Please give him the blessings and graces you most want him to have. In thanksgiving, I’d like to do x for someone else.” And x might be a clean water project through Cross Catholic Outreach or CRS or The Water Project; or help Haitian orphans; or feed the hungry through Food for the Poor or contribute towards a Salesian building project or schooling opportunity; or whatever. Once you do the first one or two things, your mailbox will get swamped from people selling your address, and you’ll have no shortage of suggestions as to other causes you could support. On the plus side, you’ll have a lifetime supply of address labels.

Just go through your list of Works of Mercy, and do things for other people— with your gratitude to him in mind. And in your mind, you’ll be taking that $x that he had originally given to you, and you’ll be passing it along to other people, which might help you purge some of the guilt from having accepted it in the first place. And hopefully, he’ll benefit from your good works in a way known only to God.

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[1ke]

But I wonder if, in a case like this one, restitution is necessary?

Please stop second guessing your priest.

This was not a loan. This was a gift from your father in law.

Let it go.

 

[cramp]

Thank you all for your responses. I appreciate them immensely.

 

[Irishmom2]

Another vote for: it was a gift. Let it go. Someday, you may be in a position to help someone, and you will do so with no expectations. Until then, forget it and move on.