Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

FIL to stay long term, I'm not enthusiastic...aibu?

229 replies

littlemisspigg · 18/01/2020 11:59

My mil passed away recently and this is something I've always dreaded...my fil is likely to come and stay with us long term. I know it sounds selfish and insensitive, but he can be quite demanding in terms of food and entertainment. At this point in my life, there's a lot going on....I am in training and will need to sit exams soon, one child has GCSEs and the other will have them in 2 years time and then A levels, university applications etc etc....I can handle all that, but to have to cook special meals for one more person on my life will just tip me over. OH, well ...I have told him, but of course, he needs to weigh up the moral obligation of looking after his dad versus the needs of his own little family...how can I prevent his dad from coming over now (I'd be better prepared to take him on after about 5years as all these issues in my life would have settled)...or what to do? I'm really stressing about this as I'm not sure I'll be able to cope.

OP posts:
AutumnRose1 · 18/01/2020 18:15

OP this makes no sense

Do you always let your husband decide what’s happening?

IntermittentParps · 18/01/2020 18:21

Nope, DH won't be doing anything...I speak from past and current experience. He never does anything. It's all me.
OK, so tell him you will not be cooking specially for your FIL/neglecting your DC to deal with him/etc. If your DH wants his FIL living with you he will have to start acting like a grown-up and doing things.

UYScuti · 18/01/2020 18:21

you speak as if you need a strategy to covertly persuade your husband not to go along with this, as said you are a grown ass woman, joint head of the household, unless you both want it it doesnt happen, he needs your permission to move his father in
do not grant him permission

Jaichangecentfoisdenom · 18/01/2020 18:30

Yeah, no, look, can't you tell your husband that your view is more important and valid than his friend's? And also, I really do think your FIL would be much better off and happier staying where he is!

Nanny0gg · 18/01/2020 18:33

3. What points can I raise with my DH to make him think a little deeply about this plan

You say No.

Cherrysoup · 18/01/2020 18:38

Yes, exactly. Say no to yanking your poor fil away from his comfortable house where he has his own space, maid and cleaner service plus he knows his area, presumably has extended family and friends? Would your dh really prefer him to be in a remote area without friends and no access to health care when he has chronic health issues? Just say no. It’s a frankly ridiculous idea.

Nat6999 · 18/01/2020 18:41

My mum's dad wanted to move in with us after my Nan died, he was already coming all day Saturday & for lunch & tea on a Sunday. He claimed my dad's chair as his & we were only allowed to watch his choice on television, he had to read all the papers first & insisted on taking all the magazines home with him so we never got chance to read them. He had been hunting about moving in, my dad threatened that if things didn't change & Grandad spent more time in his own home, he was moving out, my dad was at work monday to Friday & then at weekends felt like his home wasn't his own. In the end my mum had to tell her dad that there was no way he was moving in with us & she used to clean & shop for him on a saturday morning & he just came for lunch on a saturday then got taken home.

TatianaLarina · 18/01/2020 18:45

Nope, DH won't be doing anything...I speak from past and current experience. He never does anything. It's all me.

Then the ‘moral obligation’ line doesn’t stand. No-one can be morally obliged to volunteer someone else for a huge amount of work. That’s not not ethical at all.

UYScuti · 18/01/2020 18:47

He claimed my dad's chair as his
sounds like he didnt miss your nan as much as he missed being master of all he surveyed

UYScuti · 18/01/2020 18:49

No-one can be morally obliged to volunteer someone else for a huge amount of work
ah, but you see he does a little 'sleight of mind' trick where he regards his wife as a domestic appliance owned by him...and that makes it alright

CeeceeBloomingdale · 18/01/2020 18:51

Not a cat in hells chance I would agree to that.

BoredOfTheBoard · 18/01/2020 19:04

This is absolutely ludicrous. You are going to be trying yourself in knots and taking on all of the work while your DH does fuck all of the hard graft. I cant really suggest anything other than telling him no and if he overrules or ignores you, seeing a solicitor and serving divorce paper. Hes treating you like his personal servant.

And I don't like how you seem to be scared of saying no to him. Because that's all that's really needed here. Does he subtly "nicely" bully or coerce you into a lot of things?

LemonBreeland · 18/01/2020 19:54

I think your DH feels duty bound to do this, but as well as the impact on you and the DC this sounds awful for your FIL too. He will be coming to a different country and culture where he only knows your family. Does he even know you that we'll or just his son? He will be miserable. I have also read on here before that no big moves should be made for a few months after a major bereavement.

LemonBreeland · 18/01/2020 19:54

I meant to add that I think if you frame it as concern for your FIL then you will have more luck with DH.

AnyFucker · 18/01/2020 20:00

I would move out myself before I agreed to this particular situation

WhatchaMaCalllit · 18/01/2020 21:15

My suggestion - if your FiL has a decent setup in India, then if I were in your shoes (and I knew I could manage) I would simply tell my DH that if he brings his father to stay, it becomes a very straightforward question: Dad or me. Because one of us isn't staying long term. Simple as. He chooses. Does he pick his father or his wife?

Cheesespreading · 18/01/2020 22:50

You don’t have room and your husband is lazy and trying to add more workload for you which isn’t right. Say no and leave it at that.

AfterSchoolWorry · 18/01/2020 23:57

Hah! So he has a maid and cook in India! Fabulous! I'd house swap with him, he comes to stay with husband in England, and you and kids go to India to experience the culture, and the maid and the cook!

Your dh wIll be delighted, quality time with his Dad! Yay 🙌

TatianaLarina · 19/01/2020 09:05

Care will be a lot cheaper in India than it is here.

Sh05 · 19/01/2020 10:05

Knowing how the Indian visa works, I don't think it likely that he will be granted it. Has he visited you regularly before his wife passed away? Has he always returned home before the visa has ended?
If it is first time applying after his wife has passed then the visa office will question whether he is planning to overstay and so might not grant it anyway.
Your best option is like many pps have said to send your husband over to visit his dad in India.
Here's hoping that as your fil doesn't yet know of the ongoing discussion between yourselves in regards to him coming here, he will be delighted to hear that his son is visiting him!

messolini9 · 19/01/2020 11:11

Let me get this straight ... DH's friend tells DH to get his dad to move into your house. DH tells you he wants to install his dad into your house. You are not consulted or considered.

FiL has not even been consulted about it yet either, & is likely not to be allowed into the UK under the current harsh migration climate. Even if he is, his healthcare will not be covered. If he wishes to risk that, he will be sharing a room with his son, & spending every weekday alone in a house in a cold foreign country where he knows nobody else at all. His DiL will have no bedroom, his GC's will have to share their beds with their mother.

OR he could enjoy an extended visit from his son, retain the comfort of his own familiar home & surroundings, keep his maid & domestic arrangements, continue to enjoy the friends & social life he already has in place, & presumably, as the owner of a few houses, have the means to pay for any healthcare needs that may arise.

FiL would be mad to accept an offer to bunk up with his son in a hostile country with comparatively rotten weather & no friends.
Tell this to DH.

If DH persists, remind him that you live in Britain, where a wife is legally equal to a husband. That you do not wish to compromise the kids exams, your own training & exams, & that sharing rooms will certainly disrupt not just study but peaceful enjoyment of home life for all of you. That FiL will be cramped, cold, lonely, have no healthcare service, no maid (because YOU will not become the replacement maid) & entirely probably no legal permission to stay in the UK.

Then you broach this rotten old egg:
Nope, DH won't be doing anything...I speak from past and current experience. He never does anything. It's all me

Tell him you have had enough.
Tell him whether FiL can come over or not - that his assumption that he clicks his fingers on a whim & you do all the work has opened your eyes to how your marriage works & you are no longer prepared to put up with it.
That if he wishes to live with his FiL, he can either go to India & move in with him, or he can take on the work, admin, risk & bother of trying to sort out visas, healthcare, sleeping arrangements, shopping, cooking & cleaning.
Or that he & FiL can buy their own UK house or flat & look after each other, as you want a divorce & the kids are staying with you in the house.

You don't have to accept this OP. Use the suggestion as an opportunity to review the dynamics of your marriage. If you don't, FiL or not, when you are older & the children have left home, you are likely to end up as your DH's full-time maid & carer. How does that prospect feel?

I am so sorry you are being browbeaten like this - I'm also aghast that your FiL may be about to be encouraged to leave a comfortable life full of familiar friends & routines, for a lonely existence in a cold country where he knows nobody & has no security of tenure or health provision.

UYScuti · 19/01/2020 11:36

I wonder if the husband is keen to move the father-in-law in because this is a way of sabotaging the OP's ambitions with her training and studying etc?
Maybe he cooked up this plan with his mate ....both of them discussing ways of keeping the Mrs under control and in her place?

AngelsSins · 19/01/2020 11:45

For Christ sake OP, stop being such a bloody martyr. It’s 2020, it’s widely accepted now that women don’t exist to skivvy for grown men. If you choose a lifestyle of servitude to your husband and playing mummy to grown adult men, then you can’t be surprised that your husband thinks he owns you and your time.

Stop being such a doormat, tell your husband you will not be the one providing free domestic services, stop acting like you have no choice but to give up your own bed, and grow a backbone. Value yourself!!

Sorry to be harsh but I do not believe misogynistic men are owed a resident vagina owner to wash their pants and cater for them as if they’re mini kings.

anomoony · 19/01/2020 13:35

Why on earth would a man who has several homes, a maid who cooked and clean for hi want to move to England and share a bed with his adult son?

This. It sounds to me like
a) OP does not want FIL to move
b) OP's teenagers probably don't want FIL to move
c) FIL won't want the change in lifestyle just to sit around in an apartment far away from home
d) OP's husband is feeling some guilt because of a stray comment by a friend.

MimiLaRue · 19/01/2020 15:13

Stop being such a doormat, tell your husband you will not be the one providing free domestic services, stop acting like you have no choice but to give up your own bed, and grow a backbone. Value yourself!

I agree with this. The OP is kinda acting as if this is all happening TO her against her will when actually, its half her bloody house. She can certainly say NO if she wants. Its very passive aggressive all this "how can i out it off?" just fcking tell him no.