My sister is on SS disability and cannot drive due to cranium pressure that comes and goes, and was diagnosed bipolar a few years ago. Her husbands been through a lot (threats of biting his throat and letting him bleed out, calls to the police saying she’s killed everyone, playing ‘hide and seek’ with the police in town, her being in and out of mental institutions, malicious spending in the 30k+ region, or buying $900 at a gas station and signing the receipt (F you <husband name>). She even used her kids (F and M, ~15 and ~12) to call federal agencies and threaten them.
Anyways after 3 or 4 years of this with my sister not trying to improve (Doc told her exercise/stop drinking/smoking weed, and take meds, she doesn’t) the husband had enough. My sister went out to see friends in another state, and he declines to have her move back/files for a divorce. Its been close to a year since this happened, and the divorce is dragging on (my sister stated she wanted to make it as long and drawn out as possible due to feeling slighted). They’ve spent ~25k so far, all on cc’s.
She says she cannot work because she’s disabled, and is being passed along her friends group for housing while waiting for a payout on her divorce. I’ve offered to cover her living expenses/get her a rental for 4 or 6 months if she wanted to move to my state/get back on her feet, but she’s declined this. She says she can’t do anything until her divorce is finalized, and that she’s been abused for years by her husband (I called her every other week for years, and she never mentioned abuse once). During the divorce she’s been weaponizing the kids (telling them santa’s not coming this year, they’ll have to sell the house/move). Her children want nothing to do with her anymore because she consistantly tries to upset them.
During this time she’s also stolen money from the household (several months of the kid’s SS disability payment, and several thousand from joint accounts, plus a propane payment that was put on a joint card/she got sent money to pay off, then did a chargeback/kept the money. She’s only seen her children once during this time, and when she did it was chaotic/planned within a day vs weeks in advance I feel to intentionally upset the husband. Because of her behavior she has to be supervised to see her children, and yet she wanted to see them/take them somewhere without sharing any details with him.
Im confident she can work if she wants to as she’s able to talk intelligently on the phone for hours and there’s plenty of remote work these days. Earlier in her life she did CS work and was one of the best in the state. I’m afraid she’s going to squander the divorce money once she gets it and I pointed out if she had a job she could’ve saved 30-40k by now as the divorce was proceeding/be able to rely on herself vs her friends. She didn’t like this and feels I’m ignorant of her situation.
My questions are;
1. Is it wrong of me to sympathize/side with the husband? I have limited first hand experience (I have heard her on crazy rants), but hear a lot from family and court filings that point to the husbands story being correct.
2. Am I ignorant expecting her to work/provide for herself? If she can’t, after the divorce money runs out she’d only have ~$1200/month SS to live on, and free food/insurance benefits. I feel she finds this life easier than working and is milking the system.
3. My family is well to do ( divorced mother has ~3 million, father has ~15 million, I’m halfway to a million myself). All of us want to provide limited support, with me being the most generous with the offer of several months covered expenses. We feel the money would just be squandered providing continual assistance, like she wasted it with her husband, and it’d be good money chasing bad. Is that a wrong way of looking at it?
4. Should I just stop interacting with her? Every time I do, I try to encourage her to get a job/fend for herself, and this upsets her.
TLDR: Sister is crazy, how much should I side/entertain her antics because she’s my sister? Or should I just reduce ties?