DM and I had an argument today (or rather she ranted and I said very little, which is usually how it goes). She wants us to sell up and chip in to buy a house with her. Her reasoning as follows:
- We could afford something much better together (true - probably a large house and garden with a decent sized annexe. She is currently in a 4 bed detached and we are in a small flat)
- She would be around to help with childcare as DH and I are both shift workers (sort of true - but she finds it very difficult to look after both DCs at once, doesn’t often as we don’t ask. Don’t think that would change.)
- It would be cheaper otherwise as only one set of council tax etc
- Fundamentally and most importantly - she is lonely. She hates living alone. My dad left her 10 years ago and she has never really got over it. She currently lives half an hour away. We see her at least once if not twice a week but she thinks it is not enough. She says she would never have left one of her parents living alone.
My reasons for not:
- We did briefly move in with her just before and after we had DS1 while we were house-hunting and it was horrific. She was incredibly controlling and unsupportive and the whole situation hugely contributed to my developing PND. She acknowledges that didn’t go well but says it was my fault as I was in ‘a funny place mentally’, (so nothing to do with her constantly hassling me to stop breastfeeding and waking me up whenever I managed to nap while the baby did as I ‘should be up and about’
) and says it would be different if we were in a main house/ annexe type situation with own kitchens etc. I don’t think it would be.
- DH doesn’t want to. Because of above. He has in fact said over his dead body will he ever live with her again. She does not accept he gets an equal say in this.
- She is incredibly wearing and negative. (Admittedly mostly because she is lonely), but I find spending time with her incredibly draining. She also undermines my parenting.
- Purely practicallly, I don’t want to settle in this area for ever. I’d like to be free to move around over the next few years and don’t want the added complication of either having to move all together or extricate ourselves financially.
- I don’t think any house we bought with her, regardless of the arrangements of who was living where, would ever feel like ours, because she would take over.
I do feel really bad. I’m actually very pro extended family living together- I can see how of it works for all involved the benefits are huge. She is desperately unhappy and I know it would partially relieved if we did this (though I think not as wholly as she thinks it would be). But I can’t do it. It would put an incredible strain on my and DH’s relationship and would quite possibly destroy my mental health. I was very clear today that it wouldn’t happen, but she made me feel like the worst, most ungrateful daughter in the world. At one point she said she knew DH was the main stumbling block - and I said that honestly even if I was on my own with the DC I don’t think I would want to live together - and that went down like a lead balloon. She said I’m selfish and never consider her, and then started asking if there were courses she could go on to learn to be ‘hard’ and not to care about people. I don’t know what to do. I CANNOT do this but I don’t know how to make her accept that, and accept that I’m not evil for not wanting to. Or am I just being horrible? She says it’s jsut what people ‘do’ with elderly parents who’re alone (though she’s not elderly - she’s 61 ffs) but I don’t think it is? I don’t know anyone else in this position!!