The difficult journey of collecting debt after lending money to my cousin.
Last year, my cousin (the only son of my aunt, who is very close to my parents; he’s much older than me, and we don’t really keep in touch) brought his whole family to Los Angeles for a visit. Since my partner and I work in Los Angeles, we treated them to a meal.
1. A month after that meal, my cousin asked to borrow money from me. He promised he would repay it as soon as his salary came in the next month. After thinking it over, I lent him the money.
2. After borrowing the money, he never contacted me again. When I asked about it, he kept dragging it out. I asked again, and he continued to delay… By the end of last year, he was about to get married and had just bought a car, so I had to beg him for $3,000. The remaining $2,000 continued to be delayed indefinitely.
3. I had been asking politely a few times out of consideration for my aunt’s feelings. Though I didn’t rely on this $2,000 to get by, it really bothered me that he hadn’t paid it back. It felt like I was being deceived by my cousin.
4. In June this year, I finally decided not to tolerate it anymore. With the idea of getting my money back and then cutting him off, I started demanding the money, pressuring him to pay up.
5. The result: By the end of July, he finally paid me back. I’m done with this cousin. There was never any real affection between us, and he’s so untrustworthy.
6. During this nearly year-long struggle to get my money back, my mom once mentioned that my aunt and my parents are very close and suggested that for the sake of my aunt, I should stop asking my cousin for the money. But you’re close to my aunt, not me (there are three kids in my family, and my aunt always favored my younger sibling, while I didn’t really receive much attention). Moreover, it’s a separate issue. It wasn’t my aunt borrowing money from me, it was her son, so I should go after him.
I don’t care about old-school family obligations. Whoever owes me, I’ll go after them. If someone’s been kind to me, they repay their kindness, and if someone borrows money from me, they pay it back. Once I gave up on these so-called family ties, it felt really satisfying.
#Relationships #LendMoney #Relatives
