I have tried to explain to my boyfriend that there are other ways to take care of her and still honor his responsibility to her, without moving her into our home. She currently lives alone, 12 hours away, but he could help her sell her huge 2 story house, (that’s paid off by the way), and use that money to buy/rent a smaller place that’s one floor and safer and more functional for someone her age. Or he could find an independent/assisted living facility for her when she gets to the point of needing care. She has no major health issues except for being slightly overweight and stubborn about being safe and not doing things like changing a light bulb from a wobbly chair. He could even manage her finances online if he’s worried about that, I did this for my father for 5 years. And if she wants to be near him he could sell her house and mover her here and do the same things for her here, but there is no reason why the first and only option has to be moving her in with us permanently just because shes told him she wants to “combine” homes. I have extreme anxiety about having people in my home, I don’t like having guests unless it’s my kids, parents or brother, it makes me almost sick having to worry about my guests and I stress over everything while they visit, what should I do about where theyll sleep,, keeping them entertained 24/7, do they time alone, are they comfortable, should I wait till they are here and ask what they want to eat before I plan a meal? The thought of his mother becoming a permanent house guest, a woman I’ve only met twice and never had an actual Conversation with, makes me sick to my stomach and my chest tightens up even thinking about it. I work from home and I would become her 24/7 caretaker by default and I’m afraid it will affect my mental health and our relationship having her here for what could be 5-10+ years,
She’s never asked me if I was ok with her moving into our house and she just assumes that I’m going to be her caretaker when she needs something, I’m not even officially engaged to my BF and I find it extremely presumptuous for her or him to even suggest her moving in at this point anyways. She’s made comments talking to my BF before on the phone whe trying to manipulate him into letting her move in that “oh, if I move in you won’t have to worry about me, your GF can take me to the doctor and help me out, you wouldn’t have to take off work, you won’t have to worry anymore about me if I’m there.” And I’ve heard his response of “yeah that’s true.” When I voice my concerns about it and that I’m not in favor of it he always responds with, I’ll take care of her she won’t be a bother and you’re always home anyways what’s the big deal?” Well, my deal is that, at 50yrs old myself, I don’t want to live with someone else’s mother and become their caregiver for what could be another 5-10 years and I don’t want to be taken advantage of because I work from home and my BF doesn’t. I would never move my mother in with us if I worked outside of the home and my BF worked from home and expect him to take care of my mother for me. He thinks im
being selfish but he really has no idea what he’s getting us both into because when she does start to need help it’s so much more invovlved that he realizes and it’s physically too much for me to even try to help her out of a chair at this point in my life, my shoulder goes in and out of place with the slightest pulling/pushing tasks and I have health issues of my own to deal with. I don’t know how to make
him understand my side of this and how unfair it is for him to expect me to assume his responsibility when I have my own mother who lives 14 hrs away and will eventually need help as well. I already have plans in place for my mother and he would never have to lift a finger to help her.
If you put it to her in these terms, then it's putting the blame on HER SON for his dense lack of understanding of his own g/f's line in the sand decision on the matter. It leaves no room for arguments about you having to 'care for her' (OH I WON'T REQUIRE ANY CARE AT ALL) or her making noise & preventing you from working at home (OH I PROMISE TO BE AS QUIET AS A MOUSE). When you put it to her in the terms I wrote above, there is no room for negotiation. If Sonny moves her in, he buys YOU out and your relationship is over. Period. Plus it shows her it's nothing personal against HER moving in; the rule applies to your own parents too, and anyone/everyone else who wants to move in: no roommates means NOBODY moves in.
Keep the focus on you and your preferences. That way she can't say you don't want HER. Tell her:
1. You want and prefer your privacy, especially couple privacy in your own home. You can't share a home with another woman, any woman, or man or that matter.
2. You work at home, so home is your office. You need your office to be a quiet place where you can focus, do your work, have meetings, etc.
3. You understand that Sonny (her son) wants to move her in to take care of her, that he's a good son. However, Sonny will have to buy you out of your half of ownership. This is where she'll learn that you are an equal owner of the house, and that you'll move out if she moves in.
You don't need to say anything about her, her needs, her care, nothing about her personally. This way, she can't take it as an attack on her.
How to do it? I’d go back to my first suggestion. You could say ‘I wouldn’t be able to do my job if you are in the house while I am working, so I will be looking at an office share. This means that you will need to arrange your own care and company for day, and also for any night waking. If your care doesn’t work out, I will have to leave, and then the house will probably have to be sold. I don’t think this is going to go well for any of us, and I have been objecting since I first heard about the plan that BF says he’s made with you”.
That approach focuses on you, not on criticising her.
If MIL is ‘normal’, she will be backing out of personal responsibility for this. If both MIL and BF are adamant about it, you really are better off backing out. It may be embarrassing to split again, I understand that, but it’s better than the alternative. If you look again, remember the old advice “Hope for the best, prepare for the worst”.
Bravo Whitsend!
You can SEE the issue.
You have explained what you see to BF as clear as you can.
Ball is in his court now.
He may be still deep in the FOG.. but starting to see & hear just a bit? Starting to see some new shapes in that FOG. New thoughts??
The F.O.G.
Fear: of upsetting Mom. Does he see his behaviour yet? THIS is his motivation.
Face that fear Man! LET Mom get upset! (Might even lead to a more truthful conversation).
Obligation: "she lonely and scared"
These are HER feelings - OK.
Mom needs to OWN them.
Then take responsibility for them. Her son does not have any obligation to FIX her feelings. Or fix her housing, financials etc. He can however help her to look for her own solutions.
Guilt: useless. Leave it out.
Superman felt guilty for not saving Lois Lane that time..
Many boys want to be superheros for their Moms..
Accepting the baggage of Mom's fear, wrapping it in superhero paper then passing to your girlfriend to open & deal with (like a bomb exploding in her life) is NOT hero-like.
BF can get still out of this well..
By standing up to his Mother.
I am devastated to know this Beatty!
Don't have any children with this guy. If you do, and you have to quit your job or work less so you can take care of the babies, then you will find yourself dependent on him financially. Then your option to move out (by yourself, or with kids) if mom moves in is not viable anymore or will be very very difficult.
Something you could consider is that it seems reasonably common for someone to go into AL when they have money, and then AL transfer the fees to Medicare when the money runs out. I think that some states require there to be a few Medicare beds, and that’s the way to get them. If that applies to you, it might not be so good to encourage BF and MIL to realise her assets, spend all her money, and then for her to be penniless when she finally has to find other care. You might like to check it out. Best wishes, Margaret
of her money and budgeting it because she will surely squander and over spend till she can force the issue again I’m sure. I have to make sure she knows, one way or the other that I am uncomfortable with her living here and will not ever become her caretaker so she knows it’s not a possibility so she can save her money for someone else to do
it.
Whitsend - don't even give him the option that she may move in at a later time. Shut that door tight and throw away the key, or else he/she/they will kick that door wide open.
I so hope you get the word NO across. I think you need a good talk with Mom. No BF present. Tell her in no uncertain terms, you will not be her caregiver ever. Just because u live with her son, there is no obligation there. You own half the house and you pay your way by working from home. Working from home means you clock in and clock out like any other job. You bosses have the ability to check on you to make sure you are working 9 to 5. So you would not be at her beck and call, which you wouldn't be even if you were just sitting around. She needs to stay where she is or downsize hiring aides if she needs them. Because...she is not moving into your house. Good Luck.
its a “have to” situation by my standards, then I’ll tell him she can buy me out of my portion and move in with BF and I’ll be on my way and he can take care of her
by himself remotely from work, like through osmosis or a psychic link since he thinks he can take care of her somehow 24/7 when he’s not here!
I saw your LOL (Laughing Out Loud) under my comment on the thread. You're not the first person to think this arrangement is funny and that I'm joking.
Let me assure you. I am not.
I've seen many marriages ended because of a needy, elderly parent either being moved into a marital home, or a married couple relocating to move in with a parent.
I am divorced from the man I have reconciled with. It ain't our first rodeo as they say. It isn't even our first time at the rodeo together. We've learned from our past mistakes.
We have lots of elderly people in both our families and more than a few senior brats as well.
Having a legal arrangement keeps us both from getting dragged down the rabbit hole of caregiving.
Oh come on!
This may make you laugh (or weep..) A poster's DH had that kind of Momma's Good Boy, who did not yet know how to say NO to his Mother.
Suffered that grandeous delusion of Me-Hero-Man will always help Mother! Help how? By moving his Mother in & ordering his wife to be Mom's new 24/7 help.
He of course would continue to work outside the home, return to a clean & tidy home, hot meal on the table & well behaved children. He even pulled the big rant *take care of MIL-or-I-will-divorce-you*.
I always wonder how that worked out for him?
So - any divorced women out there enslaved as their ex-MIL's 24/7 caregivers???
I think NOT 😂😂😂
I too felt for my ex because his home life had not been good. Mom died, foster care for 4 yrs because State didn't think Dad could care for 4 boys ages 10 down. Dad remarried and moves from the South to the North. Step-mother not liked and has 2 more children. Thought he would appreciate a home, wife being there for him and some stability. Was I wrong. The man was self-centered and 5 yrs only made it worse. He remarried, didn't work. He stayed single and alone dying at 69 from CHF. He never learned how love anyone. He didn't know how.
I think your aware of what u will need to do. It will be a big NO.
To be considered a Common Law marriage both people have to consider themselves married. Just living together does not make a Common Law marriage.
"To enter into a common-law marriage, a couple generally has to satisfy these requirements: be eligible to be married and cohabitate in one of the places that recognize common-law marriage, intend to be married and hold themselves out in public as a married couple. In other words, a couple who lives together for a day, a week, a year — states don't have a time requirement — agrees to be married and tells family and friends they are."
1. Put up with Narcissistic tendencies knowing full well I don’t deserve this kind of disrespect and
2. I know his background from childhood and I know why he reacts immediately with so much drama and takes things as attacks on his ego, intelligence, manhood, competence, etc. when all I’m wanting to do is have a constructive conversation and compromise to make everyone satisfied and not feel slighted.
3. He has become more self aware of his issues recently and takes accountability for when he loses his filter and what effects it has caused and he apologizes and has mad some progress.
But it helps to have unbiased opinions about this and be able to tell my side of the equation and explain my feelings and be heard because that is very hard to do with him and I haven’t wanted to let my loved ones know I’m going through this so this has been therapeutic and educationally reconfirming to me. Hopefully this will work out for the best, one way or the other for both of us. I do care about his mom but I won’t sacrifice my emotional or physical health and surely my relationship, just so she can be comfortable in my home when I’m not afforded that pleasure myself.
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat their animals. And this guy is messed up.
Buying a house with him has unfortunately complicated your severing ties with him.
You seriously need to examine why you would be in a relationship with someone so disrespectful and this is before the mom moving in talk. Just the cat situation should have told you everything you need to know about who he is.
And no your relationship is not based on love. If he loved you he would have never treated you the way he did when you moved in together. He is using you. Now are you strong enough to break ties with him?
Ask him who is going to take her to doctor appontments since you work all day?
If he throws out the word selfish again you need to give it right back at him. Doesn't he see that it is selfish of him to expect you to watch his mother and deal with all her issues? What is he doing to help?
I like the suggestion of teling them mom has to buy you out of the home. This way there will be plenty of room for her things there. I'd come up with that figure ASAP. Those are his options...mom moves close by but he is solely in charge of her care or she buys you out of the home and you leave.
I love my husband, but before he started to work from home himself, he was as guilty of this as anybody. I would get so upset with him. When he had a day off work, he would pop into my office and just lounge around and want to talk, or ask me to come help him do something, or ask me how much longer I was working or if I could come out for an extended lunch with him. I work a professional, salaried job that requires me to be in meetings, that requires me to do tasks, that requires me to meet deadlines. I have worked for my company for many years and I have worked from home for a large number of those years. I'm blessed to have a job that lends itself to telecommuting. But I have to schedule my time very wisely and ensure that I get all of my required tasks done, attend all of my meetings and have a quiet environment in which to do so. it would infuriate me that he didn't seem to respect that. For some reason it is very hard for a lot of people to understand that working from home is real actual work.
So I can just imagine that if her boyfriend is disrespectful enough to just decide to move his mother in without consulting her, he's disrespectful enough to expect her to give up her time without regard for her job to take care of his mother and he's going to expect her to respect his job and his time because it's outside of the home and working from home implies a level of flexibility that just isn't always there.
Dh used every tactic in the book to get me to bend and I did not. We still had 2 daughters at home and a teenage daughter? They'll suck you dry, emotionally.
When I finally said "Ok, I will move OUT with the girls and you move dad in, that will be the only way he'll live in our home".
20 years and I am still being called selfish and small. I ended up going to FIL's condo 3 times a day to get him meals, dress his MANY wounds and make sure he was taking his meds. It was hard and I was more than a little resentful, but I did it for a few months. Dh did absolutely NOTHING in the 'care' dept. Fecal blowouts make him gag. FIL vomiting made him gag. He didn't so much as put a dish in the DW. Any type of care that involved blood, feces or urine or vomit--he'd sit on the couch and try to keep from puking. I scraped feces crusted underpants off his dad, stripped him naked and put him in the shower---and I never received a thank-you from my DH. Because, as he put it "we take care of our own". I don't know who the 'we' was in this scenario. Maybe he had a monkey in his pocket.
After 20 years, I am still a little mad at my vacant DH. He did literally NOTHING for my parents, yet he expects me to step up for his. Doesn't see the irony.
My situation is different in that I was married--had we been living together--that's a horse of a different color.
Hang in there. Do NOT get sucked into this drama.
Whitsend, you mentioned that you work from home. Let me just give you a quick snapshot of how this will go if you don't put a stop to this now. My FIL has FOUR caregivers. One of them 100% dedicated(my SIL). Two live in (SIL and BIL) by their own choice. And then two backups (myself and DH). And unfortunately it takes all of us. SIL does not work outside of the home and BIL sets his own hours. DH and I both work from home.
Let me explain to you what a lot of people think work from home means. They think it means that you can do whatever YOU want when YOU want to. Even after COVID and the rush to do many jobs from home. too many people still think that working from home means that you aren't really working. Or that you can just stop working and drop what you are doing whenever you want to. They do not equate working from home with actual work. They do not understand that you likely have set hours and need to be doing your job during those hours. And if you are like me, you probably actually work MORE because you work from home. I likely work more hours from home than I would if I worked in an office. And though it does afford me some flexibility, I am 100% working when I'm working, I can't just drop everything I'm doing.
I learned this the hard way when I volunteered to FIL-sit for a while SIL/BIL went out of town. My DH's computer had to be hardwired to our home network and mine didn't so I moved my work from home set up to FIL's house while SIL and BIL went out of town. DH continued to work from home during the day. I even sat FIL down and told him that I was working during the day and that he could not behave as he would with SIL (he yells, whistles, claps whatever it takes to get her attention when he needs something for example and then he will start blowing up her cell phone if she doesn't respond).
Those three days of working from their home were horrible. Even though he knew and I repeatedly told him (and quite frankly he was better for me than he normally is for her) it was still like I had a toddler in the house. The constant needs and calls for help and phone calls while I was working were next to impossible. Normally he sleeps all day. He chose those three days to be wide awake all day. It was nearly constant. To the point where I just cleared my calendar and did my best.
Why do I say that? You know why. Even if you draw a line in the sand and tell him that you will not help her during the day when he is gone to work....you will be in that house alone with her. She doesn't need help right? Just wait. She will, even if she doesn't really. She will find 5,001 things in her new home that she has questions about, places she wants to go, things she needs to move, find, go buy, questions, etc. And she will come to you because you are home and it will be "really quick".
I don't mean to be a Negative Nelly. I am actually a big proponent of generational living - my family actually does it well on my side (not FIL, but my own personal family with my mom). but when you don't choose to do it and you are forced into it, that's a terrible start to begin with. That is your home too, and those decisions should be made together. There are other options.
He needs to understand that you will not be caring for his mother. But you need to understand that even if you come to that agreement, that's not what will happen in reality and figure out how to deal with THAT as well. What will she do with her days when he's not there and you are? How will you handle that part?
Because not allowing her to come is the only answer and that is what you have to figure out. Because once she's there, he is going to make her your responsibility.
It's the same job as when you go into the office only shoes are optional.
Same work, same hours, footwear optional.
Therefore you should be in survival mode and be ready to dissolve this relationship should it come to that. As selfish as this sounds, you need to put your needs first because no one else will. I know this because I’m going through a similar misery. Good luck, I hope it all works out for you.
You are right to fight this because you know what will happen. His mother who you barely even know has absolutely no respect for you and couldn't care less whether or not you want her there.
Your boyfriend and his mommy have plans that you have not been made aware of.
Those plans are that he moves her in and you become enslaved to her caregiving needs as they increase.
There is no such thing as 'combining' households. That will not end well.
There's a wise old saying my former FIL used to say. Back in Poland he raised honey bees and continued that tradition in America.
'One queen in a hive'.
There can only be one queen in a hive because when another tries to step up they cannot co-exist and will fight to the death.
Now you are the queen bee of your home. Your boyfriend's mother will want to be in that role. Then it will become a competition for his attention. He will choose mother and you will become the worker bee in your hive. No way!
You lay it on him straight. His mother is not moving in. If he insists, end the relationship. Tell him he will have to buy you out of the house, or it will have to be sold. I hope it doesn't come to this for you, but if it does believe me you will be better off.
It is possible to separate/divide the house while you two are living there.
Once a separation is happening, think of it as purely financial/legal. You will feel bad, but leave that out when discussing it with your attorney.
Why would you allow this? If he’s so adamant, get a new boyfriend.
Sounds like he needs to get his priorities straight
This is how he thinks. His mother is his first priority, clearly. There will be no changing his mind.
I know that is easier said than done, as I assume there is an emotional attachment and you do value him in many ways, and as people have pointed out there is the issue of who owns the home, and can you buy him out, or he you.
I dont know for sure, but I would guess this is not the first time he has shown his selfish colors, but it will not be the last.
You are young enough to move on without him, find someone new eventually, and live a better life.
Having her move in would be horrendous on so many counts.