Have you ever been stabbed in the back by your own family
The Credit Card Debt and Double Cross
I tried my best to be cordial with him. My parents seemed to like the improvements in our relationship,.
They invited me more often for family dinners, game nights, and movie nights in an attempt to get our relationship back to what it was before. But the thoughts still stung.
After a few months of rebuilding my trust in Jim again, I felt like I could laugh a little more and be myself again around him. I didn’t have to guard my purse as much anymore.
Soon we would hang out by ourselves and go on brother-sister outings. One of our favorite things to do together was ziplining.
There was this ziplining place near my parents’ house where we would go a lot as teenagers. The zip line started from the top of a cliff sort of in the woods and would drop you off into the lake.
It was so high up, and I never got used to the drop, but it was fun going there with Jim again. When we returned home from our little adventure, we went to a fast-food place back in the city because we were starving.
As we pulled into the drive-thru to pay, I noticed that my main credit card was missing; this was my everyday credit card. I wondered if it could have fallen out of my pocket at the ziplining place.
Jim asked me if everything was okay, and I told him that my credit card was missing. He said it was no worries and offered to pay for our food with his.
We got our food and headed home. I had to drop Jim off back at our parents’ house because he lost his car in a bet about a year ago.
When I got home, I checked my wallet again and found my credit card. It was in a different pocket in my wallet than the pocket that I usually put it in.
I figured I was just tired and that was the reason I hadn’t noticed it before, so I went to bed. The next night I got a text message from my credit card company asking for authorization for a casino near my parents’ house.
This was the same casino that Jim spent his entire check on every other Friday. My heart dropped; I couldn’t believe that Jim had pulled the same stunt again. I immediately declined the transaction,.
I checked my other accounts. He must have taken pictures of my credit cards and put them back in my wallet when we hung out the other day.
My other credit card apps showed that I had hit my limit for the month, and I knew that wasn’t the case. I tried to call and dispute the payments.
But the merchants showed proof of my brother being the one making the purchases. They declined my request to dispute the charges, and now I am left responsible for the debt.
I called my brother, and he didn’t respond. The phone clicked in the middle of the tone, like he declined the call; my blood was boiling.
I called my parents and my mom answered. I told her the situation and how Jim racked up $7,000 worth of debt across all of my credit cards that night.
She told me that she would call him and would call me back after she spoke with him. I told her no need and that I was coming over that instant.
It was almost 11:00 at night as I headed to my parents’ house and waited in the living room for Jim to return home,.
As he walked through the door, he flickered the light on. I scared the daylights out of him when he saw me sitting in the living room chair.
I asked him where was my money, and he looked puzzled. I told him that I already knew about him stealing my credit card information and threatened to call the police if he didn’t tell me where the money was.
He broke down and confessed, saying that he felt bad about me not being able to get into my first house this year because of him. He wanted to make up for it, so he used my money to play at the casino because he wanted to win the money back for me.
It went without saying that he didn’t win any of the money back and he lost everything. I told him that if he felt so bad about stealing my money in the first place, why would he do it again?
That’s when my parents came downstairs. My mom tried to de-escalate, but I was past that point.
He had taken my house down payment from me and left me in a ton of credit card debt. The chances of me getting a house within the next few years were getting slimmer and slimmer,.
My parents had nothing to say about his actions. He apologized profusely, but there was no coming back from this.
I cut him off for good this time. I told them never to contact me again and that I was done.
In the next few weeks, my updated credit report came back and my credit score went down over 100 points. The loan I applied for was no longer available to me.
I was forced to get a second job on top of my current 9 to 5. I had a goal in mind and I was determined to get my house and live the life that I wanted.
In the following weeks, my phone rang off the hook; I had calls from my parents and Jim. I ignored them both.
If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have had to work these long hours to pay off this debt. The worst part was Jim didn’t even offer to help pay it off.
He felt that since his stealing my money to make me more money was coming from a nice place in his heart, he didn’t have to pay it off. I could never trust him again,.
I tried time and time again, and just as I thought we were making progress, he goes and steals my money again. I continued working off the debt.
With the second job, it was making it easier to pay off the debt but harder to keep going. I would come home exhausted from my second job, get four hours of sleep, and wake up to get ready for my first job at 6:00 a.m..
This repeated cycle declined my mental health. Just as I got to a semi-comfortable spot in saving money, I quit my second job and cut back on my expenses as best I could.
