I would be lying to you if I said that this Christmas was the best Christmas. But it’s sure nice to have your wife understand what you’re going through.
The central difficulty at this point is the fact that we are forced to pay $6000.00 to build a house for our relatives without any notice or consideration for our own welfare. And without our contribution, no one else is willing to pay, leaving our relatives in a substandard house.
Paying $6000 will put is further into the financial hole we’ve dug ourselves in. $6000.00 translates to two years of college tuition. I will have to leave school because we just can’t afford to Pay for the house AND my tuition AND Nicolas’s school AND our down payment on the house AND for sponsoring mom’s neice to come AND pay our debts AND AND AND…. well, you get the idea.
And no one in our family seems to care. My wife has tried to explain this to them but they don’t care. They are so intent on persuing their goal that our financial well being comes in a distant last to their priorities.
They’ve ignored other solutions, such as bringing our relatives here to immigrate, in favour of persuing their dream of building their parent’s a house. The goal is to take care of them for the rest of their life, right? Immigration costs $3000 Total instead of the $28,000 they need to build the house. Any attempt my wife has made to push forward that solution has been met with deaf ears.
I want so much to provide for my family, and to move into our own place. But I just don’t see it happening if all these things are getting in the way. I look at how my son is growing up. He’s growing up under the influence of my grandparents – he’s cranky, he’s selfish, he’s edgy and they mess with his mind too much. I always dreamed of raising Nicolas in an environment of kindness, charily and respect. And I can’t do that here at my parent’s place.
I would much prefer to move out and find a place of our own, so we can give our son that environment where he will be happy and comfortable, without fear of being teased or messed with. And it looks like that it won’t happen for at least 10 years with this new financial burden being brought in.
My wife has made a sample budget, but it doesn’ t take into account real savings for my education. If we stretch things abit, it would mean that I take one or two courses a term extending my school for at least eight years. By the time I finish my fourth year courses, my first and second year courses will have expired since I took too long to take my degree. In reality, I will need to quit school, in spite of my A’s.
I look at the pros and cons:
Pros:
Mom and dad will have a good place to live in
We are helping mom and Dad in the Philippines
Cons:
We will put into further debt for another five years.
I will have to leave school so we can finance the debt.
Nicolas will be esenssially raised by my parents in my parent’s home and my parent’s influence for the next ten years.
We will not be able to afford a down payment on our home for at least eight years.
With me quitting school, I will be stuck here as a Technical Support Rep for the rest of my life since I don’t have the education to qualify for a supervisor position.
A part of me says that I’m being selfish. And I’m quite sure the rest of my extended family feels that I’m being selfish. But is it selfish to be concerned with my family’s future welfare?
Another thing is that I want to help them. They clearly need a new place to live, and they lived in poverty for so long. Perhaps another option would be to buy a new house for them. I wonder if that would be cheaper if they don’t want to move to Canada.
It’s a really big dilemma and it’s really put me through a lot. I’m forced to choose between two good things. If we choose one way, my family suffers. If we choose the other way, my parents in the Philippines will continue to suffer. And that’s the thing that’s hurting me the most – being forced to choose.
But in my heart, I strongly feel that I need to choose my family’s welfare over my parents in the Philippines. I just wish there was another way where both our needs and their needs can be met. We need to pray more about this, and we need to fast for it.