If you were in a financial situation where you could loan a sibling quite a bit of money, would you do it, or would you refuse?

In this story, it’s a tale of two siblings with a sister-in-law thrown in. The problem is that a brother wants to borrow money from his sister…again!

Let’s see how the story plays out.

AITAH for refusing to lend my brother more money after already giving him $65k, especially when his wife resents me for telling them to be more financially responsible?

My brother (32M) lives abroad with his wife (30F). Over the past few years, I (29F) have lent him a total of $65,000 for various things:

• $25k for a house deposit.
• $25k for their wedding.
• $15k to pay off a loan from loan sharks.

When I lent him that final $15k, I made it explicitly clear that this was the absolute last time I would ever help him financially.

But her brother didn’t think she was serious.

Just under a year later, he is back asking for another $15,000. He has several loan installments and believes that paying a lump sum will help reduce their current monthly expenses, with his wife covering the rest.

I refused. I told him that he and his wife must be responsible for their own expenses and need to learn to live within their means.

His wife got furious at me for saying this. She claims she hasn’t spent “a single dollar of my brother’s money,” which seems absurd given their lifestyle choices.

Here are some examples of their lifestyle choices…

I feel justified in my refusal because I believe their financial distress is largely self-inflicted due to poor decisions:

• Expensive Rent: They chose to rent a very expensive house, despite the fact that they are paying the mortgage of a smaller home they could have lived in. I believe this is a joint decision between the two.

• Over-the-Top Wedding: I advised them to either have a small wedding or use the $25k I gave them as a holiday gift instead of overspending. The wife insisted on a wedding for ~200 guests, which blew through the money and likely cost even more.

• Expensive Holiday: They recently took a week-long holiday that cost about $6,000. His wife is now claiming she has to pay for it all by herself, as if that’s a tragedy, and seems to imply I should be footing the bill. I can’t see why she shouldn’t pay, as she was part of the trip!

Her mom is even on her brother’s side.

The wife has been making comments such as “now I have to cover the debt”, which admittedly some are because of my brother’s own choices but I don’t think she’s fault-less.

She’s also told my mom that if I don’t help my brother, he’ll have to file for bankruptcy and a divorce.

So even my mom is mad at me for not helping.

I’ve already sacrificed a huge amount of my own financial stability to help them multiple times. I feel like I’ve done my part.

She has already loaned her brother too much money. She does not have to feel guilty about refusing to loan him money anymore.

Let’s see what Reddit thought of this story.

She was never obligated to loan her brother any money.

This person explains why her brother’s wife is upset.

She is NOT an ATM.

It’s about time she stood up for herself!

Her brother is going to have to figure something else out.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.