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Is it unreasonable to buy something for my mum that my dad can't afford?
AIBU, which stands for 'Am I Being Unreasonable', is the perfect platform for sharing your thoughts and opinions! So, for today's AIBU discussion, we have this story from Reddit/ThrowRA27281804:
'I’m a gay 30-year-old male. My dad and I had a falling out when he found out I’m gay. We still keep in contact and talk to each other, but it’s very emotionally distant. We live on opposite sides of the country.
'I work in corporate finance, and I do well for myself. My dad works in IT and isn’t that great with money. I came out of the closet last year to my family, but before that happened, I used to manage my dad’s finances and retirement accounts since I know how to manage money.'
'After coming out, my dad told me he didn’t want me managing his accounts anymore so I backed off. He made some bad investments and lost some money (not a huge amount of his portfolio, but significant). Earlier this year, he decided that he would buy a house that’s 9x his yearly salary on a mortgage. And after purchasing it, his plan was to sell the current house. I told him that I think it’s a bad idea. This was all back in March.'
'Fast forward to now. My parents bought the house with a 7% interest rate. And sold their old house for $75K under asking price because they only got 1 offer and became desperate. I told my dad that I’d be happy to help in any way, but he never took me up on it. Luckily, they’re keeping their heads above water because I made sure my dad contributed maximally to his retirement accounts over the years when I was managing his money. As well as the fact that I chose some good long term options contracts for him that helped bring in cash flow.'
'Here’s where I might be unreasonable:'
'In the midst of all this, my dad became very stressed about money. And he started compromising by not making any upgrades to the new house other than what was necessary. But that’s it. No new furniture, no kitchen or bathroom remodelling, etc. My mum had picked out a particular sofa that she’s wanted for a very long time (it’s always on display at her favourite furniture store). My dad told her no. My mum was pretty sad about this, so as a present I decided to buy it for her and I also rented a truck and picked it up and assembled it at their new home.'
'My dad got super pissed and said that I was undermining him. I’ll admit that I was super pissed at him about a lot of things in that moment and, without thinking, I just said “well if you can’t afford something she wants, then I’ll step in to make her happy.” Am I being unreasonable?'
