Lent my brother in law ₹17 lakhs to help him during financial issues. Now we found out he’s been having affair for 3+ years. Not sure what to do.

About a year ago my BIL got into serious financial trouble because of business losses. he had loans and creditors chasing him, and he asked our family for help. we ended up giving him around ₹17 lakhs so he could clear the loans. The understanding was that he would return the money later when things get better. It has now been a year and he hasn’t paid back anything.

Last week things got even worse. My sister found out that he has been having an affair for at least 3 years (thats what we know for sure, it might be longer). This obviously shocked the whole family.

Now we are in a very difficult situation. My sister has a child who is currently in LKG, and she is trying to figure out what to do about her marriage. At the same time, I’m also worried about the money I lent him. The problem is he doesn’t really have assets anymore because he already lost everything due to the business losses. That’s actually why we helped him in the first place, to clear his debts. So now we feel kind of stuck.

If my sister decides to separate from him, things may become even more complicated financially.

I know lending money to family is always risky, and maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but at the time we were just trying to help.

Is there any realistic way to recover the money, or should I just accept that it may be gone?