I don't want to lose the close relationship I have with my parents, and I really don't know how to handle this in the best way.

First of all, I want to tell you that I can relate to this, to a degree. My mother told me many times that a relative who was alive when I was a young child really took a shine to me, and promised my mother that money for my education was assured. When this relative and her husband died, the finances fell to their son, who seemingly used up my money.

Granted, I have no proof that the money existed, but my mother seems to believe the relative's words. She said that this relative was so adamant about it that it always stuck in her memory. I never heard the words. I never saw the money. It never really existed for me, when it comes down to it. This is what I've learned to tell myself.

That didn't stop me from being upset. The truth of the matter is that the relative's son had pissed me off about a different matter years prior to my need of the college funds, and my subsequent confrontation with him. He denied the existence of the money, and that conversation is the last one I had with him.

However much money was there, it certainly wasn't millions of dollars. The person allegedly stealing from me was not a parent. Mine was also not in a trust fund.

If your money was actually in a trust fund in your name, you can verify that the money was removed and confront them with the evidence. If your relationship with your parents is as close as you claim it is, there's no reason not to speak to them directly about your concerns.

Come to think of it, that doesn't sound very right, anyway. How could your parents be stealing millions of dollars from you and still be "close?" I would think that their theft would be much more likely to cause a rift in your relationship than would your dissatisfaction of that theft. I can understand them using a portion of the money in raising you, but I can't see that being even one million dollars, let alone several.

Frankly though, it sounds like the basis for some kitschy formula sit-com, and what will happen is that there will be a bunch of wacky misunderstandings, and at the end your parents will have invested it in something groovy for you or something. You'll all look lovingly at one another with humor in your eyes, and hug, and all will be right with the world.

Then again, maybe your parents are really just jerks who stole a buttload of money from their kid. The only way to find out is to talk to them.