Sometimes, just walking away can be the only thing that will keep you sane. It's just too much to deal with.
A friend of mine and his sister have basically decided, since their folks are gone now, to walk away from their much younger brother, who has made some amazingly bad choices, especially since he has an IQ off the charts. They both have bailed him out dozens of times over the years, and given him a lot of money that never was repaid. He can read a book and do whatever the job is that the book talks about, and do it well. Seriously. But he can't do it honestly.
He was a surprise baby, born 20 years after my friend and 18 after his sister. Mom was pushing 50, and she admitted she was hoping for a grandbaby to take care of but instead got Jim. Jim was a nightmare from almost as soon as he became mobile. He got into everything and would hide food everywhere. He killed a freezer full of food when he took an ice pick to chisel something out, poked a hole in one of the lines and the whole thing, food and freezer had to be tossed. He never told anyone, and the smell was insane. He finally admitted it after the hole was discovered. He was 10.
A huge kid and an even bigger adult 6'8", Jim never could do anything the right way, he cheated at almost everything, and famously took a solo ride in mom's car at age 8, driving to his grandparent's house after some sort of argument with his dad. He arrived safely with the police right behind him. The cops told him he can't drive, but he just said, "Why should I wait until I'm 16? It's not hard or anything!". He would go on to drive many times before he turned 16. Most of them he got away with.
He managed to stay out of any really serious trouble until after he got his GF pregnant and their daughter, who is 20 now, was born. I don't know exactly how he did it, but he ended up getting busted for stealing about $30K from his employer, who he had convinced that he was a great employee. He could have stayed out of prison for that, but he violated probation by cashing a couple of grandma's checks and overdrawing her account. The judge had cut him some slack, but had finally had enough and sent him to prison for about 2 years. That was a long time ago, but he didn't learn. He has some serious social skills that enable him to get a lot of women to fall for him, and do things they never thought of doing before they met him. A certain percentage of women have some sort of radar and know he is to be avoided, but most don't and think he's "A wonderful guy" until they end up talking to the police. One of those women who know something is off is his daughter.
My involvement with Jim's schemes came when he took his brother's car to work one day, copied the keys to my house that were on the keychain, and let himself in while I was at work and helped himself to several thousand dollars worth of my stuff. The only reason he got caught was I had just installed a couple of internet connected cameras in my house and I had video on my phone of him doing it. About 5 minutes after he left, I watched the video, made a list of all the stuff he took, and called his brother to tell him. 2 hours later, I had my stuff back and he "apologized". I told him he got his one break and if he did anything again, I would bust him. If he had done anything to my then elderly dogs I wouldn't have been so nice about it.
His getting caught in my house didn't accomplish anything. He ended up stealing a distant cousin's identity with the same name (Middle name spelled differently) and who sort of looked like him. With his cousin's degree and resume, he got a job that paid well. And the bosses loved him. But Jim did his thing, and got some young girl involved with him romantically, and she ended up being his partner in stealing a lot of money from the company. The company and another had made a merger agreement before he was hired, and a full audit was done, and Jim got busted, along with the 24 year old girl. Jim did do something I was kind of surprised at, he told the girl to testify against him, and she did, keeping herself out of jail. Jim got himself about 10 years in federal prison for his troubles, and will be about 50 when he gets out. My friend and his sister told him before he went away that they had reached the end of the road with him, and they didn't want anything to do with him when he gets out. The daughter had been burned too many times, and she told him the same thing. He swears it will be different this time, he's finally wised up. Nobody who knows him believes him at all. I totally expect him to try to hit me up for some cash when he gets out. I don't know if I will laugh, or get angry. Either way, he's not getting a dime.
