To not want my MIL to move into our annexe

'I admit I have no experience of caring for parents as mine are still young. But the fact that this is our culture saddens me. Many other cultures welcome living with their parents and consider it their duty as children to care for those who once cared for them. I just wonder why in Britain this is such an unpopular practice and we’d rather put them in care homes.'

Just think how much sadder you would be if your life was stretched between a full time job, kids needs, the home, a husband as well as caring for another adult.
Worrying about how the other adult is managing while you are at work. Wondering if she has fallen, or perhaps set the house on fire.
You would be very sad, if you were running on empty, and trying to catch up all
the time. You would be even sadder if your friendships had to go, because you simply don't have time to maintain them.

Forget yoga, or a night out, because I can guarantee your husband isn't going to take his Mum to the toilet and wipe her backside.
As time progresses, your nights will be disturbed, but you will still have to carry on regardless. Don't get ill, because you cannot abdicate responsibility.
You will probably damage your back with the lifting/ assisting angles, because you are not a professional, but sadly, you will have to carry on.
You husband will probably be quite disgruntled by now, because you are tired all the time.
In other cultures, the mother does not usually have to travel to work full time and ferry the kids around, as well as running the house.
Even with the best of parents, perhaps we would not 'rather' put them in a care home, we have no other practical option.
That makes you guilty enough, without the condemnation and 'saddening' of someone who has no conception of what it is like.

So you admit you have zero experience of doing it?

Theres your answer then. Until you have done it and have experienced the exhaustion, mental load and physical strain you have no idea what you’re talking about. Get back to us when you’ve spent half the night cleaning smeared poo out of the bathroom and bedroom floor or picking someone up from the floor for the 12th time or washing urine soaked sheets for the 5th time that week. Add that to constant worry stress and guilt along with cognitive decline where the person can’t remember who you are and shouts abuse at you on top of only a few hours sleep.

I guarantee you won’t then be on your high horse wondering why people aren’t queuing up to be carers.

Surely @wonderingwandering99 is talking about traditional cultures which are very different from the culture we are discussing, traditional cultures where you rarely leave the family Clan, women are expected to subjugate themselves.
In these circumstances the older people in need of help would be in their 60s and the women who are expected to care for them in their 20/30s/40s.

Very much so.

It's possible to sustain a norm like that when you don't have that many people who live long enough to need substantial care, and when your medical system isn't good enough to keep people alive and ill for long. It tells us nothing about how to manage the situation in the UK.

Many other cultures welcome living with their parents and consider it their duty as children to care for those who once cared for them. I just wonder why in Britain this is such an unpopular practice and we’d rather put them in care homes

Four things, @wonderingwandering99:

Many of the cultures you mention have multigenerational living as a norm, so carers aren't racing from one home to another
Birth rates are often much higher, so even if it's "all left to the women" at least it's not just one woman who bears the load
While the UK has poor infrastructure, too many have none at all beyond what the family provide so there's even less choice
And probably most importantly, some have much lower life expectancy than in the west, so the ailments of extreme old age are less common and the time spent suffering with them will be less

Don’t do it. We had my mum live with us for a few years but we asked her to move out because she was becoming unbearable. It’s not to say I don’t love her but our relationship has improved ten fold now we aren’t in each other’s pockets.

This would be non-negotiable for me. I’d be pulling out my 50% with immediate effect.

Then she can divorce him & leave him to wallow in the mess he has created for himself.

Those other cultures evolved their norms in completely different circumstances to ours. They're not dealing with our population pyramid whilst also keeping people with often significant health problems alive and unwell for a long time. Norms from cultures where the ratio of healthy younger people to elderly needing care is so different to ours, are not something we can replicate.

Additionally, the reality of caring for elderly relatives even in cultures that insist on it is often glossed over. Most of them have some kind of shitwork class doing a lot of the hard work, either domestic or imported. Its not the people with status and options wiping the arses.

With respect, you don't know what you are talking about. Come back and preach at us when you have some actual experience of this.

It is because you don't have experience of it that you don't understand the warnings here. No one is telling the OP that she shouldn't care on some level for her mil if she needs it - and her husband certainly should care for his mother. But being the full time carer for an elderly parent can be soul destroying. I am at that stage - was out for dinner with 3 other couples last weekend and what we talked about was trying to cope with elder care whilst also working, trying to have a life, dealing with young adult children - or in some cases young children.

One guy spent every night sleeping in his mother's house - got to go home to his wife at the weekends because his siblings left their spouses and took it in turns to spend the weekend at home. one woman could never go away for a weekend - ever - because her father needed her. DH hasn't had a holiday this year as he is spending all his time going home and doing his share with his mother. My sister thinks she neglected her children at times because my mother demanded so much of her time.

It isn't a question of making a cup of tea and chatting with an older parent. It is full-on trying to figure out who can cover you if you go on holidays, helping with toileting and showering, spending 12 hours in a&e when someone falls, dressing, managing meds, dealing with a father who yells and shouts all night (another of my friends) etc etc.

It isn't being callous. It is a reality and no one should go into it without having their eyes open.

In the case of the OP, as I said earlier, the biggest impediment for me would be that any house move - indeed even a separation - in the future would have the added stress of rendering the MIL homeless too. Friends of my parents sold their home, built a granny flat onto their daughter's house and moved in. 3 years later her husband left her. Complete mess.

This is really really hard, because what does he say, no, but we will rent it to strangers. How do you do that without causing signficant offence.

unfortunately I think you’re screwed, when it comes to it, he will say yes, and she’s moving in. Everything else in the lead up is just smoke and mirrors.

@wonderingwandering99 tgd negativity for me is about the fact that it is almost always women who end up caring

it is much more rare for the son to do the caring

If OP’s DH would do all the work then I guess it would be worth considering as an option

but my haggard old self has seen all caring shit jobs (literal bum wiping etc) to be always given to the woman… whether is is her parents or his parents

maybe you lived in much nicer world where middle aged men take on caring responsibility for their parents as well as their in laws. I know none.

I think you might want to tweak your post to ‘Many other cultures welcome women skivvying for elderly parents/PILs…’

Hmm is your MIL mean or anything? If you think of it from her perspective she must be in a tight spot to have to ask. If she's got her own Annex would it be that bad? She is family. If you make your husband promise to do the care and if it means he has to be nice to your parents forever then couldn't it work? Why does he hate your parents? Has he stopped you from seeing them? He's shot himself in the foot of so.

@Groveparkmama

1. MiL is losing her home anyway, so if you don't get that house for whatever reason, what is going to happen?

2. Would your DH leave all her care to you?

3. WHY doesn't he like your parents?

Everyone here assumes he's in the wrong, but do we know the reasons?

I’ll get shouted down for this but I do find it sad that the prospect of caring for your parent/in-law in their old age is so repelling. When the OP is told “You will become her carer” this has only negative connotations, why is that?

I admit I have no experience of caring for parents as mine are still young. But the fact that this is our culture saddens me. Many other cultures welcome living with their parents and consider it their duty as children to care for those who once cared for them. I just wonder why in Britain this is such an unpopular practice and we’d rather put them in care homes.

It is so common. Two of my friends were run ragged after their own parents before they went into a nursing home, but they were wonderful people and she adored them. But it was hard with children, house and job. Their husbands were never involved. When their husbands parents started needing help, appointments etc., they both thought their wives who "knew the ropes" would step in. They were so wrong. Both have had zero involvement in any way. It has meant their Saturday golf has gone out the window which they are grumpy about. If they had ever even slightly helped with their in-laws there might have been reprocosity, but there wasn't so they have refused to be in any way involved.
IMO men will foist this on their wives given half a chance.

Not only would I be rethinking the house, I would be rethinking the marriage.
You are being lined up to be carer, no matter what story they feed you.
It is impossible to enforce boundaries in this situation.
He can't stand your parents?
Have you posted about him recently?
Anyway, not a chance would I agree to it.
It will be very difficult to change this once it happens so you would be mad to consider it.
Deal breaker imo.

We offered my parents our annex as they were about to retire in a few months. My DH was on board. It took one holiday with them for me to can the idea. We have since helped them in another way that has a longer term care arrangement should they need it in the coming years.

I just felt too claustrophobic having my parents in my space for extended periods of time and I projected that to a living situation and it just spooked me completely.

We are particularly house proud and my parents like to tinker in the garden. I am also not the softest person around and I just don’t think I’m cut out for any sort of caring role. That a a multitude of other differences between us just meant that it didn’t feel right.

I would put it on air bnb

Pull out of the purchase. Whatever way you go with the annexe it will cause problems in the future, resentful mother in law or you resentful of your husband if she moves in. I know someone in a similar situation who went ahead with the purchase thinking they could 'manage' their mother's disappointment, it all went downhill from there. And yes if she moves in you will end up her carer, possibly round the clock if she ends up incapacitated.

If her current home is needing to be sold by the landlord she might well be eligible [& move up the queue as she gets closer to the end of her tenancy & potentially homeless] for sheltered housing. Speak to shelter to find out more.

I think it would be fairly hard in any situation, but since you don't get on well it's unlikely to be a success. Can you invent another use for the annexe?

No way. You will end up doing small things at first and personal care by the end . You’ll also end up divorced so just say no!