Reneging on a Financial Promise

Not coming through with promises is never a good thing. After all, human interdependence requires that we be able to rely on others to come through. When we can’t, we no longer stand on firm ground. And when this occurs within the family, things can become even more complicated.

“My in-laws promised to put me through law school after yeshivah. True to their word, they started to pay for my education, but by the time I was in second year, they had financial problems and said they might have to cut back. I got very anxious about the prospect of having to take on huge loans. Then my wife’s younger sister got engaged, and all of a sudden there was this huge, over-the-top wedding her parents were funding… and my anxiety turned to anger.”

Whether parents offer to support a child in learning for a number of years, send him to school, set him up in business, buy him a house, fund a nanny or otherwise gift him with significant amounts of money, they generally do so with full hearts and good intentions. (Of course, it can also happen that a particular parent knows full well that the gift can’t be fulfilled, offering it only in order to facilitate a shidduch.)

When the money doesn’t arrive, it doesn’t always matter to the would-be-recipient whether its absence is due to intentional or unintentional factors. “I wouldn’t have gone to law school if I didn’t receive that financial assistance,” says Chaim. “My own parents have lived a life of constant financial stress, and I wasn’t planning on doing that. Law school costs a fortune where I live, and I didn’t want to start my life off with massive debt because I know how hard it is to get out of that sort of thing. But here I was in the middle of my program with my wife’s parents telling me ‘sorry.’ I feel like they ruined my life.”