To want to have a bit of peace at Christmas in my own home?

[ILiveInAPineappleCoveredInSnow]

Just had probably the most stressful phone conversation ever with my mother!!!

We are buying a house, and my parents are moving into the top floor as a granny annexe because my mum is disabled and my dad needs some help looking after her (it's a 3 storey house). They will have a bedroom, shower room and living room on the top floor.
We will share use of the kitchen, but the rest of the house is ours. There is no spare bedroom.

The house is most likely not going to be completed until the end of November, and according to Persimmon, they need two weeks after it's built before we can move in - so that's going to be the middle of December. We are renting the house we are in at the moment, just waiting for the new house to be built.

We are putting on a conservatory as soon as the house is finished, obviously weather permitting for the laying of the groundwork - this will be a shared area, but will be quite large (9m x 3.3m).

My mother, without discussing it with anyone, decided to invite my grandparents and uncle down from Scotland for Christmas, to stay in the new house. She has decided that she and my dad will sleep on a sofa bed in their living room, my grandparents will sleep in my parents room and my uncle can either sleep in my DS1 or DS2(not yet born....) bedroom.
I initially agreed to this after much ranting at DH on the proviso that the conservatory was built and this would be the "living space" that was used when they were down- not our family living room. This was initially ok as the house build was well ahead. It has since fallen behind so we are back to probably only getting in mid-December.

Today, my mum starts going on about Christmas again, and I pointed out that it was now more unlikely that the conservatory would be built do maybe she and my dad could go up to my grandparents as obviously the deal was they'd only come down if we were settled and the conservatory was built.

She started going on about it being one of the few Christmases they have left (the very thing she berated my MiL for when DH's Nan was still alive!!!) etc etc.

So now I am properly dreading Christmas. I am even considering retaining the rent on this house until January and becoming an antisocial recluse over Christmas because I am so angry an upset about being pushed and guilt tripped into spending my baby's first Christmas in the very way I didn't want to - 7 adults crammed into my living room for a week, having to pander to other people's times, needs and wants instead of my children's, not being able to lie on my couch and snooze, watching what I want on tv after being up and down half the night with the baby.

I know writing this down makes it seem so selfish, but my mother has a history of "showing off" and I know that this is why she has to have Christmas the way she wants it, with no real thought to the fact she is imposing on MY living space and my first Christmas with my new baby and DS1 as a big brother.

I even suggested she could go up there with my dad - my grandparents don't like travelling and are in their mid 80s, but she puts a huge amount of pressure on them every year to come down at Christmas, despite the roads being very busy and the weather so poor.

I can't rant to DH about it as he has just spent 3 weeks in a psychiatric hospital with severe PTSD, and the stress of hearing me on the phone to my mother earlier was even too much for him - so goodness knows what he will be like if she insists on going ahead with it. Waiting for my brother to call me to chat but he is ill as is his wife and DS so I fully expect not to hear from him tonight.

I'm just so frustrated at being effectively forced into what will be a really stressful christmas, after having just been through the worst period in my life while DH was in hospital, and about to have a new baby at the start of November.
I'm hurt that my mother thinks it's ok to try to guilt trip me with my grandparents deaths and I just feel like screaming about it all ??

Am I being unreasonable in feeling like this, or is my mother?

YANBU

It would be mental with a very ill husband and new baby even if the house was fine. You will still have boxes you haven't unpacked.

Put your foot down with your mum.

It's not just Christmas I'd be rethinking. This does not bode well for the future.

I think you really need to rethink the whole thing.

Do you really expect them to just live on the top floor?

I cant see them cooking and carting their food up 2 flights of stairs on a stairlift every meal time or coming down for a drink of water or cup of tea and taking back up again.

Oh dear. This is never going to work.

the whole plan sounds flawed. they aren't going to manage on the 3rd floor imo.

i don't think any of this sounds like a good idea.

Yanbu.

Say that due to the conservatory works the house is now structurally unsound so you will be away from your house for the next six months. Send a card for Christmas.

I agree with ihearsounds.

This is never going to work. The idea of them living on the top floor is unworkable. A stairlift isn't going to make it any easier for your mum. She is effectively going to be a prisoner on the top floor.

They will obviously be downstairs all day, to eat, to drink, to chat.

Granny Annexes are on the ground floor. Could you not convert the garage or something? Or a ground-floor extension rather than a conservatory (which will be too cold or prohibitively expensive to heat in the winter months to make it any use as communal living space)?

We will own the house, and be paying the mortgage. They will share the utility bills.

My mum is seriously disabled and my dad is not able to provide care on his own, she is 57, so not old, but incredibly infirm. The only other option for her is a nursin home in a yr or 2's time which I couldn't live with knowing I could have given her this.

My husband developed PTSD after we bought the (not yet built!!!) house.

My dad basically looks after my mum, and has retired early from work to do so, and they have their own living room upstairs which is 21feet by 15 feet (so huge!), plus the conservatory as shared living space, and the kitchen diner as shared space.

I have been clear and said "my" living room when referring to my families lounge, and my dad also agrees with me regarding them having living space on the top floor and us having our own space/ living room seperately as our own family.

I'm going to chat to my dad when he is not around my mum, as I'm willing to bet that he wasn't privy to that conversation. He knows what my my mum is like, and is a very moderating influence on her! Have spoken to my brother who also said he doesn't think my dad will have been aware of what she is planning, so think that's the way forward.

Other than this, the whole thing is very smooth. My mum pretty much doesn't leave the living room in their house anyway, and my dad gets everything for her that she needs, so it won't be a huge change, and her living room being upstairs won't be an issue as she will have the stair lift, at least this way I can help my dad with the care of her.

I have to protect my DH from stress right now, so I know I need to put my foot down about it. He's in a delicate position as it is.

Off to text my dad to ask him to call me when he is alone.

Thanks for the replies.

I have no words really apart from the living arrangements sound quite mad.

Blimey the whole situation sounds like an absolute nightmare, I honestly cannot imagine anything worse!

I love my own space and really wouldn't cope with family living with us!

The builders are likely to be late anyway so chances of you being in for Christmas are slim so what will happen to the rels then??

This has disaster written all over it.

well you have it planned out, but i would put my foot down about christmas. you need to have a quiet, relaxed time with your new baby!!

Speak directly to your GPs and say the building works will not be done in time and it will not be pleasant for them to stay, so it can't happen this year. They will be relieved anyway, from what you've said about their dislike of the travelling. Why not offer to go up and visit them for New Year?

Then tell your mum when it's a done deal. Whatever she says, remind her that you had an agreement and so you just couldn't allow her arrangements with the GPs to stand. Do it. You'll feel guilty, but you'll also feel better. And Christmas will be manageable.

Christmas has to be a no. Call your relatives yourself and explain that you possibly won't even be in the house.

Longer term, why haven't you had a kitchen fitted into your parents' living room? Sounds big enough and would make it much more self contained. They are not going to keep going up and down the stairs, they'll just use the downstairs living area.

I have had to read this about 4 times just to check I'm not going insane.

Which part of having your disabled mother live on the top floor of your 3 storey house with a shared kitchen and conservatory on the ground floor, did you ever think was a good idea?

It's quite possibly the most bonkers living arrangement I have ever heard.

What happens if your mum is in the conservatory and needs the loo? Does she need to take the stair lift up the 2 flights of stairs to her own loo as the one downstairs is yours?

I can understand you wanting to help your Mum and Dad but a granny annexe on the ground floor would have been far more sensible and would have given your parents the opportunity of some independence.

I might be wrong but this sounds like you want the house you want and you also want to appease your guilt about not having your Mum having to go into care.

Sorry, but Christmas seems to be the least of your worries.

I do not understand this at all. Your DM is disabled and your DF is her carer. So far so good. Why oh why do they have to live in a house with you? This will end badly and I think you know it.
You airily state that it's all no problem in the future as DS will just sleep on your bedroom floor....is he not getting older then? Your DM is only in her fifties.
You have not thought this through at all...................

OP, what would happen in a fire with your disabled mother on the 3rd floor? And your own stairs would be full of stairlifts. WIth 2 young children, this is just not a workable solution. I think you need to look into making the downstairs for your parents, and having a private upstairs living room etc. This means that it will be able to be your own space.

Your dh developed PTSD after the house purchase? This should be ringing huge alarm bells. Seriously, you need to rethink this plan now. It seems as if you are more concerned over your mum than your dh. I'm actually shocked at this.

i really think some of these posters should back off, a couple seem quite nasty. the OP is happy with her general arrangements she has already said. i hope you find something that works for you this xmas, good luck.

My DS will happily sleep in our bed with us or on a blow-up on the floor in our room, so again a non-issue for the future.

Yeah, that's going to work when he's fifteen.

Zower- I think a lot of people are raising legitimate concerns. This is much more than just a Christmas issue....

Dear god, christmas will be a disaster. It's also the LEAST of your problems.

Don't move your mother in. Under any circumstances.

is there any chance you could swap living rooms?also I'd keep the rented house over christmas and move to new one in the new year. Your DH deserves as quiet a christmas and move as possible.

friday16 why will their DS need to sleep on the floor in his parents room when he is 15?? The GP's / uncle are only visiting for Christmas (at most)! Plenty of people don't have a spare room and make do when they have guests.