I can feel my love and respect for my parents slipping away due to my mother being the victim of multiple scams and my father’s passivity. I feel guilty and angry - AT THEM. How to move forward?

God, the title makes me sound so mean. Maybe I AM mean, and just don't know it yet...

A couple of years ago, my (40s) mother (60s) started really getting heavily into Facebook.  She’s never been a really extroverted person to begin with and only has a couple of semi-close friends because she’s judgmental and feels superior to just about everyone she meets. And she and my dad live like roommates in their home, spending hours apart in their own worlds.

Facebook slowly filled in these gaps.  She began accepting friend requests from pretty much anyone who sent her one until she had 823 “friends”.  Strange for someone who disdains real, live people, but all that her FB “friends” ever showed her were their best sides, of course.

Then, about a year ago, escalation: she started having emotional affairs with several random men that she had friended.  She started texting them from her cellphone with her real number, giving out her work email, etc.  These misadventures were only discovered once she started borrowing money heavily from her family and friends – and from me.

At first, I thought it was a gambling addiction; I had no idea she had gotten so sucked into FB.  But when she contacted me again to borrow another large amount of money urgently, it tipped me off that some fucking shenanigans were going down. 

I started asking the hard questions and the story came out: she had been siphoning money via wire transfers to some internet asshole who had been feeding her flattery and romance for months.  He convinced her that he was a millionaire living on a yacht in international waters, and that he was sending her over a “security box” via a “diplomat” that was full of over $1M in cash, stocks, and bonds, but that he needed her to continue send money to various accounts for VAT fees, customs, applications, etc.  Of course, every time she sent him money, he gave her another excuse as to why the “box” wasn’t in her hands yet, and why he needed more money to get past the latest roadblock.  Hallmarks of classic scamming. 

My sister and I finally convinced her that it was all bullshit, and to stop wiring him money and block him immediately…but not before she had already wired him over $60K that she had borrowed from others.  There was no way to stop the wire transfers, and no way to recoup the funds she had wired to places like Ghana, Ivory Coast, and Nigeria (go figure).

My dad sat by during this discovery and although he claimed to be upset, seemed pretty blase about it, considering they had just lost the equivalent of over a year’s average salary.  

My mother seemed to eventually understand – after many tears, much cajoling, and a visit from the police to take an official report – that she had been gullible in her need for attention and her greed in getting a huge ROI.  In the end, she had to take out $$$$ from her retirement account in order to pay everyone back.  I thought the hard and expensive lesson she had learned would at least cultivate in her a little healthy skepticism.

Wrong. I just found out this past week that SHE HAS FALLEN FOR ANOTHER SCAM.  Not only has she lost another $7000 before I was able to find out and intervene, but she was also being blackmailed by a different “friend” that he would release all of their romantic texts on FB if she didn’t pay him $2000.

When I asked her how she could have gotten into this same situation again, she protested that these were “different guys” and the situations were “not at all the same”. 

My father again seemed only slightly disgruntled, even though they are now perched precariously on the rugged cliffs of bankruptcy.  I don’t know if that’s because he is not aware that the background behind her falling for this latest scam is my mother’s flirting and romancing with some random men on the internet (I have seen texts pop up on her phone, so I know it’s not just innocent friendships). Maybe he thinks she was being compassionate and noble in helping a “friend”. Maybe he's just resigned. Maybe he knows about her affairs and just doesn't care.

The first time it happened, I did feel sorry for her.  I understood she might have been lonely and not super savvy regarding technology and its dangers.  But this time around, I am torn between being absolutely disheartened and disgusted by my father’s passivity and obliviousness and my mother’s deceit and lies and gullibility…and feeling guilty for thinking such mean things about the people who raised me.  I feel like my reserve of respect and love for both of them is quickly diminishing.

I don’t want to feel this way about my mom and dad.  I know intellectually that the financial problem and the relationship between them is not mine to fix, but the emotional toll when I think about them with anger, disgust, and contempt is really painful.  What can I do to move on??

  TL;DR – My mother has been scammed twice (for $$$$) by random internet strangers she had emotional affairs with, while my father sits by passively.  How can I stop feeling anger and disgust at them both?

Also, sorry for any funky formatting with the paragraphs.

Submitted July 27, 2018 at 02:55PM by Caligulette https://ift.tt/2LsqzhU