I have a sitution that I don't know how to resolve. Early in November I had a close friend pass away so my husband and I was out of the office for about 2 weeks. Since this was little notice I couldn't get my usual temp person to watch our office so I asked my aunt to watch it. She had some doctor appointments so she had her son to come in and watch our office. It came to my attention when I was reconciling my November statement that there was a check that was not entered into the books and the check number was out of the back of the check book. I looked up the check and it was made out to cash, it had my husbands name on it but it wasn't his signature. The check was hand writen and the had writting was my cousin's. Now I talked to my family about this and no one knows what to do. The check was for the amount of 200.00. I'm not sure how to handle this. My cousin is 22yrs. old and has servere depression, but he won't get help. My husband and I did alot of things to help him out. I was wondering if anyone might have a idea to handle this sitution, I have to talk with him sometime today but I don't know what to do

 

I would actually confront him. If anyone knows about inter-family forgeries to obtain money, its me - I've been through too much of it. When you confront him, just sit him down and layout the check, see if he says anything. It is upsetting in the trust factor, but the forgery is a serious crime that he should be aware of and how easily he can be caught doing it. I'm sure you dont want to press charges against him, but if you don't confront him, he'll think and know he got away with it that easily and given the chance, he'll do it again. The bargain to deal with him personally, and let him off the hook (if that's the case), is to tell him the police will not do anything unless you go to counseling.

But again, if you don't do anything now, there are worse things that will happen in the future: for him and for you.

 

I've been on all sides of depression and you cannot let him hide behind that, especially if he refuses to get help. I have two different suggestions, both approaches have worked in past situations, the second one only as a last resort. Mind you, I am not giving professional advice.

OPTION 1: Confront him. Tell him that if he's in trouble you're willing to help out (I make an assumption here based on your statements), but stealing is not acceptable and that if it were anyone else that the police would be involved (another assumption on my part).

Don't be harsh, but be extremely assertive and bold in your statements and concerns.

Don't use the word 'you' to express negative concepts. The more that you put things in terms of yourself and not him the better.

"I am dissapointed that money was taken from our office. If someone else did this I would be involving the police, but instead I am hurt, upset and angry about my trust being violated" is an example of something I would say.

OPTION 2: A lot of depressed people feel different, so sometimes you need to treat them indifferently to get the point across. Numerous times loved ones had me arrested in hopes of getting my act together. I hated them at the time, and am still angry about it, but I understand why it was done and that there wasn't much other choice.

 

Thank you for your advice. Now I know at least that I do need to confront him face to face. You both have very good advice and I'm going to use it hopefully with good results. It really does hurt when you give soo much to a family member and then have them do these things to you. I do want him to go to counseling, and I may try to use this for him to get help. Thank you again, I know what I need to do now.

 

You might also ask him how he is planning to pay the money back. If he was put in a position of responsibility, he should, in fact, be responsible. If he refuses, then your aunt should be the responsible party.

 

You need to open up a can of whoopass!