My DH has two younger sisters, one of whom has a long history of being a drama queen who must be the center of attention. Trying to keep this shorter, she is married but separated from her DH, the father of her 4 yr old and 2 yr old.
The reason she is separated is that about 3 years ago she went missing for several weeks, until she was found to be on a bender of substance abuse with an ex-boyfriend from high school. Once she came back, she claimed the reason she had left her husband was that he was an abusive alcoholic. She and the kids then moved back in with my in-laws, and unfortunately the drug abuse continued for several months, along with stealing all kinds of money from my in laws, until finally she got into rehab, and the ex-boyfriend was arrested.
She did briefly try to reconcile with her husband, which resulted in a second child, but it didn't last long as he continues to have an alcohol problem. She has continued to live with, and mooch off of my ILs since then, never holds a job, and did not help much around the house. When she finally filed for WIC/welfare a year or two ago, the state forced her to go for CS, which she has been getting, but no one is entirely sure what she spent all of it on, as she wasn't helping IL with bills.
Things were smoother, until 2-3 months ago, when apparently the ex-boyfriend she had gone on the bender with is now back in the picture. He is out of jail and working, so they decided to move in together recently, the IL couldn't stop them.
The problem is there is no custody agreement with the kids father, her DH, generally he has been extremely uninvolved, and sees them maybe once a month. But he has been trying to get his life together recently, and she won't tell him where she is living and hasn't been letting them see the kids much. He has been stalking my ILs house, trying to find her and the kids. He has a lawyer and has started filing paperwork demanding she tell him where the kids are, and taking steps towards custody.
She finally plans to file for divorce, and sought advice from a lawyer, who told her that she needs to file an order of protection this week to keep her DH away for now while they start the divorce and custody proceedings. Her DH can be unstable, and we do worry if he found out she is living with the kids and this ex-boyfriend, that there could be violence/some sort of a scene. The police have been called on her DH in the past.
She spoke to my DH two days ago, and told him that the lawyer wanted $3000 as a retainer for her case, and she has no money and wasn't sure what to do, but did not ask for money. Now today, we get phone calls from my DH's other younger sister, asking us to give her/loan her the money, and that the other sister was too embarrassed to ask. My DH's other sister is in grad school, and has no money. My ILs also talked to us about giving her the money, neither of them have great jobs, and their savings have been drained in dealing with her and her expenses in the last several years.
We are seen as the responsible relatives, I have a very good job, and DH is just about to graduate with his pHD in December. We do have the money, but I am due with our first child very soon. DH is interviewing, but has not yet found a job yet, so is going to be unemployed in January, and I am taking a maternity leave that is mostly unpaid, so we need our savings. The ILs know this, but want us to help anyways as there isn't really anyone else.
I'm extremely against giving her any money, she is irresponsible and even if we made it a loan I doubt we'd get any of it back. The money seems to be a lot for a lawyer, they live in a small town, I'm somewhat doubtful whether all of this is just for lawyer fees.
I'm just worried that DH's family will keep calling and guilting him about it, as he is always the nice guy that wants to help. So far he's on my side, that we aren't going to help her, but he is worried about our niece and nephew of course. Luckily they live about 90 minutes away, and with being pregnant we were thinking we wouldn't see them for Thanksgiving, so at least they can't go at us in person. This is a lot of stress that we really don't need right now.