~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
long version - in order to update you on the car situation I kinda have to backtrack and reveal what's been going on in our lives. And I'm pretty sure I'm gonna sound like a whiny little bitch but whatever.
Hubby and I are pretty much barely squeaking by. Due to his long time unemployed and consequent jobs making way less than he was at his previous job,and of course the accident and fees which resulted from it, we fell into a hole. Not one so insurmountable that we couldn't try and get ourselves out of it little by little, but one big enough that at times we've had to figure out which bills we were going to pay each month and which ones we were going to let accrue late fees.
So, after hubby's car accident last year, hubby's family kinda stepped in to offer help. And by help I mean his parents offered to let us buy their car from them cuz they weren't using it anymore (which we couldn't do cuz they owed way more on it than blue book so therefore we couldn't get anyone to agree to give us a loan for the amount they needed) and his brother, J, offered to let us use his Ford Explorer as long as we made the monthly payments and put the insurance in our name. Since his brother's payments weren't too outrageous we agreed to it.
That was almost a year ago. And we've been pretty decent in payments. But we've fallen behind. I honestly had no idea we were so far behind (we owe for Aug, Sept and Oct). Hubby usually takes care of the finances and, like I said, he's been having to pick and choose what gets paid. Priorities have been to house payments, DTE and water with everything else fitting in where they can.
Add to this the fact that hubby's mom and dad aren't well. his mom has Parkinson's and diabetes and generally doesn't take very good care of herself and his dad has Alzheimer's. And apparently his dad's been getting worse. To the point where a couple weeks ago he had to have exploratory surgery cuz he was hemorrhaging and he's currently in a nursing home. And hubby's mom needs someone to help her with things.
So with these things going on J, his wife, hubby's other bro K, and his wife, have all been taking turns helping out their mom (in-law) and stuff. At one point hubby stayed the night with her, even tho we live 45 minutes away (vs. their 15) because J kept hounding him and telling him it "wasn't fair" that he hadn't helped out at all.
Before you go jumping all over me, I firmly believe parents should be taken care of. But I also believe that it should be a family decision as to how they should be taken care of ... especially if said parent needs so much care that they can't be left alone for any long amount of time and they need help getting dressed/showering/eating.
So when J called me on Friday and left me a message that it "wasn't fair" that hubby wasn't going over to help out mom ("it's his mom too!") or visiting dad ... well I exploded.
And I called up J and basically let him have it with both barrels. Telling him that I didn't care what was "fair". That hubby works everyday and doesn't feasibly have the time to dedicate to helping out like J,K and their wives do. Not counting the fact that we live 3xs as far away as they do....hubby leaves the house every morning around 9Am and doesn't get home sometimes until almost midnight. He only has 1 day off (which he spends most of it sleeping in) and gas until recently has been so expensive we couldn't afford any extra trips. And did I mention hubby works every day sometimes 12-14 hours?
So J counters with "I work every day and J2 works every night and we take care of 3 kids and we still have time to go over and help mom and see dad"
Well you know what? That's great. More power to you for being super people. But don't tell my hubby and me that it's not fair that you're doing this and we aren't.
I also got stupid and brought up that his family didn't help us out at any point in time and we've had to struggle to keep our house and pay our bills but we've managed. And J says "well K hasn't had a job and he's still got his house AND he's helping out with mom" yea? well K's wife has parents who are paying for their house and when K's car took a shit his parents GAVE them their car (you know...the one we had to buy outright) and K didn't pay the note and got it repossessed.
So J brought up that we haven't been paying for our car and I explained that we're doing our best and trying to dig ourselves out of a hole (see beginning of post) and he's all "We're trying to dig ourselves out of a hole too...I'm trying to move my family into a new house."
Sounds great in theory....until you learn that he got a settlement for an on the job injury recently and spent it on 2 motorcycles, 2 cars and an $8,000 landscaping job. Not to mention the $500 Magglio Ordonez autographed plaque featuring the baseball he hit in the ALCS. Yes...he currently has 4 cars (including the one we were using) and a motorcycle ... he got rid of 1 bike about a month ago.)
Then he said some shit and I said some shit (including bringing up how pissed I was that he couldn't be bothered to come to our "day after our wedding picnic" or help us in ANY way for our wedding ... but he took off an entire week to drive down to Louisiana not even a month later to help out some people (who bought their old house) when their daughter got married) And he said he was gonna "repossess" the truck on Saturday.
So I hung up and I cried and called hubby and told him what I did (I was stupid I know) and he told me not to worry about it and that he would take care of everything. And he did. He called J Saturday and talked to him like 3 times and explained that I was frustrated and just trying to stick up for him with the whole "it's not fair" thing and we'll get money to you asap and everything seemed to be fine.
I even suggested to hubby that we go down and see his parents and his brother on Sunday instead of football Sunday cuz I felt really bad about what I had done. Hubby agreed and he also talked to J everyday. As a matter of fact he received a text from J last night around 10:30pm right after he received a phone call (that hubby didn't take) reminding hubby that J2 was gonna be around tomorrow(today) to pick up some money for the truck.
So this morning hubby goes out to go to work and with the truck not there he calls his brother first thing and J denies that he has it.
Later on I receive a phone call from the insurance company stating that the local agent had a message from J stating he had re-taken possession of the vehicle.
After numerous attempts, hubby finally got J on the phone and it was confirmed. And why did he lie to us this morning? He wanted Kevin to sweat like he did waiting for the money each month.
And in the process we filed a false police report and a false insurance claim and cancelled all our checking activity (cuz there was a checkbook in the car)
And apparently the entire family knew this was going to happen. I asked hubby to call his mom to see if maybe she could intervene on our behalf. I don't know, maybe talk J into letting us have the car back on conditions. That's when he told me apparently she knew and did nothing to stop it.
So now we have no car and J wants all the $ we owe before he lets us have it back (and all our stuff is still in it too) and now I know where I stand with his family.
So I say it now, I will never speak to those people or do anything for or with or about them ever again. I am done with his family.
