"It's a Brazil thing"

My wife and I have gone round and round on this issue for 7 months now. I've threatened to leave and she's threatened to leave a few times over it. The issue is her son Gustavo. He doesn't want to work. He wants to be a politician, although how he can even entertain the idea I don't know. He's got a criminal record that's pretty long, and, like I said, he doesn't want to work. In my experience in the US, if you have a criminal record you won't be elected, and you have even less of a chance if your competitor can come out and truthfully (unless your competitor is with the GOP) say "This guy hasn't held a job for years because he wants to be a politician and nothing else."

He says his "patron" won't let him get a job because .......hell, I don't know. Something about having to be available whenever the patron wants him to be. All I see is that he assumes that since I'm an American, I've got all the money in the world to feed, clothe, and house his worthless ass. This has been going on since November of last year. Even worse, he brings his girlfriend and her brat (4 years old, no manners, no discipline, just screaming and breaking things) and seems to expect me to be happy to feed them as well. It's gotten to where I am going to have to be exceedingly lucky to be able to go visit my parents for my dad's birthday at the end of July and hopefully see a childhood friend before cancer gets her.   Sure, the two of them have occasionally brought a 12 pack of beer by, but they drink it like it's water and unless I grab three or four the instant it hits the freezer and stick them by my desk, I'm lucky to get one. He's also somehow come up with money to buy food for a meal here and there.

Now, a little back story on him and his mother. They're originally from Recife. His dad basically kidnapped him one day when he was only a couple of years old and brought him here to Bertioga and told his mother not a single thing. Just disappeared. Then, about 4 years ago, 20 years after they disappeared, my wife's daughter (his sister) found him on Facebook and they began to talk. My son in law paid to bring Gustavo up to Recife so they could "meet."

I've told her a number of times that I think he's worthless and needs to go because he's not contributing and just costing me money. She refuses saying it's her obligation to care for him (he's 29, by the way) and pay for everything for him. That wouldn't be so bad IF she COULD pay for much of anything for him, but with a monthly income of only R$1100, she can't pay for much of anything, especially since she has this infuriating habit of seeing something she likes and wanting to buy it, whether I think we have the money or not. She went about 4 months with a negative balance in her Itau account because of that.

Now, my question for you is this: How many of my fellow expats have experienced something like this? What did you do? Has it been resolved yet? Is this REALLY a Brazilian thing or is it just her wanting to keep her son close so she doesn't lose contact with him again? I know in the US he would have been out on his ass months ago. I don't know any parent there that would put up with it. Especially with his basically demanding that his mother and her husband pay for food and drinks for his girlfriend and her brat. Other than not giving her son any discipline (which I'm told is actually her mother's fault because she watches the kid while mom's at work) and the fact that she drinks beer like she breaths, she's pretty cool. I don't mind her presence. What I mind is that I'm being required to pay all this while I'm trying to save money to visit my parents and see an old and dear friend before she dies. I'm told this is another "Brazilian thing." "We don't worry about money like that. If we can't pay for it and still buy whatever we want whenever we want, it wasn't meant to be." I think that's BS and a cop out. I honestly don't think she wants to visit the US because it would mean her having to be uncomfortable with a language she isn't fluent in.

My friend's brother used his AmEx miles to buy our tickets last year when we first started wanting to visit and thought getting her visa would be fairly easy and require proof of roundtrip tickets. Four denials and one flight rescheduling later, at a cost of $350US per ticket), we found out the consulate likes to lie (sure, there's no problem if you reapply two weeks from now) and that getting a visa to visit the US is next to impossible unless you own your own business or make R$5000 a month or more, I had to borrow the $700US to make the final reschedule of our flight once we have her visa. However, due to what I mentioned above and lack of payment from my main client, I've had to dip heavily into that money to pay for everyday life like rent and food. This is why I've been trying so hard to get her to be more economical with everything. I made a promise to my mother that I wouldn't use that money for anything but to reschedule our flight and my wife has basically made a liar out of me.

Oh, forgot one thing. My wife says we (meaning I) have to pay for most of her daughter and son in law's food and stuff (they moved down here two months ago) because they have a young son and my son in law is on disability and isn't making what he was making when he was working. "Ok. Tell them they need to quit having a champagne style on a water budget then."  "Oh, Carol can't do that. She has to buy the best clothes for Apollo (our grandson) and he has to have a new backpack for school every six months even though the only thing wrong with the previous one is that it's a little dirty."  Again, "It's a Brazilian thing." And yet, I see our neighbor's kid going to school with the same backpack he's had for a couple of years now.

Yeah. I'm just a little frustrated and really scared that I'm not going to be able to visit any of my family or friends because I'm "the rich American in the family." I do have to admit that Carol and her husband Junior help what seems to be as much as they can, when they can,