Sorry, this is long! I have too many very personal emotions about this to know if I am thinking straight.
My sister is in her mid 30s and has always lived at home, apart from a one-year period when she moved out to go to college, and then moved back almost immediately.
She has a well paid job and has been with the same guy (who is lovely) for over a decade. He also works. Their income together must be around £80,000 a year, so enough to buy a house even in an expensive place. Yet they both live at home.
The official reason she refuses to move out is because she is 'anxious'. I believe this - it is a family trait that I share. But she is completely functional to work and do everything else that she wants to do. I know this sounds awful, but I think the real motivation for her to be there is simply greed and convenience. My parents allow her to live there on a very small rent. She has consequently been able to save a massive deposit for her first home, which will allow her to skip several rungs of the housing ladder and move straight into a property that most ordinary people would have to save into their 50s to afford.
My parents do a great deal of things for her: washing, ironing, they make her breakfast and they cook for her. It is like she is living a lifestyle with two servants to take care of her. The house is chock-full of stuff, and is increasingly untidy, despite my Mum liking things neat. My parents have repeatedly said that they are fed up with the situation, and I am concerned about their wellbeing. I want them to be able to enjoy their retirement in their own space. I also worry about her, because I don't think it can be good for someone in the long term to be dependent on others. What would happen to her if (god forbid) something happened to my parents?
But I am also very aware that I have personal feelings about this that may be clouding my judgement. My sister is so obviously the favourite, and I receive nothing but criticism from my parents. Partly this is because my sister shores up her position by constantly briefing against me, twisting everything that I say to the most negative meaning, and lying about me when she can't do this. There is nothing I can do to stop this or to correct the falsehoods, because they are never openly stated. She is much more clever at that sort of thing than me.
Meanwhile, I have roughed for years it in horrible flats, sometimes without any heating or anything to eat. I have had to be really resilient to get through some horrible situations alone. I have also experienced anxiety for years, yet I don't get anything like the same support! A while back, I went through a divorce from a man whose behaviour was erratic at first, becoming violent later. Earning much less than my sister, I couldn't afford to pay my half of the mortgage on the house I owned with him while it was up for sale and live elsewhere. So I slept in my car for weeks until I met my DH who let me move in with him straight away. Most people would have been able to move in with parents for a while - I couldn't, because she was already there, her anxiety trumping every urgency of my own situation. In fact, my family responded by accusing me of having an affair (so untrue and so hurtful), and by offering my ex support. My sister even told him my plans and whereabouts, even though I had said that I didn't want him to be given this information and feared for my safety if it were handed over.
Anyway, I recently received a text from my sister asking me not to mention her housing situation because she found it upsetting when I did. I am afraid that under the influence of PMS I replied in a rather bad-tempered way. I said that I cared very much about her, but that I thought I had a right to mention it since it affected others as well as her. I went on to say that I genuinely didn't think that living at home was the best thing either for her or for my parents in the longer term, and that 10 years of shutting up on the subject hadn't achieved any change. She called me a drama queen, said I was lying about our parents' feelings, and told me that I was being unsupportive of her feelings and that I needed to back off. I replied that I thought she was old enough to see the moral side of the situation and to be able to stand on her own two feet rather than exploiting our parents. She asked who made me the sherriff!! I suppose I was a bit pompous.
BTW, I will probably be excommunicated from my family for some time for taking it this far.