'AITA for 'stealing' from my mom by not paying her back when she drunkenly paid off my credit card?'
"AITA? My mom passed and my brother won't stop bringing this 'stolen money' issue up."
Backstory: My mother was an alcoholic, but a well-off alcoholic. She would occasionally gift me or my brother small sums of money. Once, she even paid my credit card bill for me when I was out of work (this comes into play later).
My brother gets a call from my mother, who is VERY drunk. She says "Your sister stole a large amount of money ($5000) from my bank account". My brother calls me and demands to know what is going on and I have no idea what he is talking about.
My brother finally manages to articulate that I "broke into mom's account" and "stole" this $5000 from her. I am still completely confused and he seems to realize things aren't as they seem. We hang up, he says he'll call back tomorrow. However, he is still angry with me.
The next day, he, now calm, calls me back and says he has figured it all out - Mom had accidentally paid my credit card instead of hers, and she thought I took the money because she was drunk when she paid it. She regularly accused people of stealing from her while drinking, but it was the first time she'd accused a family member and I was pretty offended my brother believed I'd done this.
My brother says to me, I just need you to return mom's money and we'll be fine. Here's where I might be the a$$hole. I did not have the money. In fact, I had a $4700 balance on my card that I had been working to pay off. I had maybe a couple hundred in a savings account. I tell him it's impossible, I was in debt.
I can't even return the extra she'd paid because it was a credit unless I requested it by mail which would take a while. I'd be happy to pay her back over time, but I can't pay her back in a lump sum, I simply don't have it.
My brother is absolutely furious, and goes on about what a loser I am and how this is basically stealing from my mother. My mother, on the other hand, tells me not to worry about it and not to rack my card back up again. She literally never brought it up again. Soon after this incident, my mother passed. Now, my brother won't stop bringing it up and I am so frustrated.
I even gave him $5000 from my half of the inheritance and he still doesn't care because "she didn't get it from you". He will not let it go and the amount he's clinging to it makes me feel like I am the scum of the earth. AITA for not being able to pay my mother back when she paid my credit card bill by accident?
TL;DR: My mother accidentally paid my credit card bill instead of hers while intoxicated and I didn't have the money to immediately return it because my credit card had a balance. Brother has remained very angry with me about this for a very long time, even after our mom passed and I reimbursed him the full amount.
What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:
NomadicusRex said:
NTA - And giving your brother the full amount was a bad move, even if your mom hadn't told you to "forget it", he wouldn't have been entitled to more than half. Your brother is totally wrong.
[deleted] said:
NTA!!!!!! Jesus your brother doesn’t seem to understand personal responsibility. Your mom was drunk and paid the wrong CC, nothing you can do about that. I don’t know how he expected you to come up with $5K. The fact you gave him $5K now is so wrong — not of you but that you felt you needed to. He didn’t deserve that money.
Maybe this is part of his grieving process so I don’t want to shit on your brother too much, but the fact he still brings this up is out of hand. And not to be crass, your mom couldn’t take that money with her to the afterlife. Not mention the fact she wasn’t broke and didn’t care that she paid the wrong card. I’m sorry for your loss.
SmallTownAttorney said:
NTA, Personally I wouldn't have even given him the $5000 out of your share of the inheritance if her estate was divided equally between the two of you and you had paid her back before her passing he would only have ended up with $2500 of that $5000.
The fact that she didn't ask you to pay her back for what was ultimately her fault should be enough for your brother. My guess is that he is fixated on it because of his grief over her passing.
typicalaquarius said:
NTA - you paid it back to the estate. It’s your mom’s fault she got off her ass and paid it, and your brother frankly has nothing to do with it in the first place. (And really, if you gave him the full $5000, you actually overpaid since you received a portion of the inheritance, unless your portion was a set amount instead of a percentage.)
Edit from OP:
Wow, thank you for all the comments, I can't reply to everyone so I will put an update here. The most commonly asked question seems to be why did you give him the full 5k instead of half or none at all? Mom left us both quite a bit and we are both quite well off right now. I did it as a "token" to try and right the situation and it has obviously failed.
I know 5k is more than half, but I was trying to make a gesture. Ultimately it is a drop in the bucket and my brother has been being very weird so I tried everything I could to fix it, including that. I am definitely going to think about my actions with my brother moving forward after the feedback received here. Thank you for being real with me.