I'll try to make this as concise as possible but be warned it's going to be a long one: My aunt (who I absolutely adore) is in her early seventies. Her husband passed away twenty years ago and she lives abroad with her son and his wife. She had emigrated many moons ago to the US, met her husband there and raised a family. Her son, my cousin, is relatively wealthy and can afford to rent an apartment for his mother should she choose that, but she decides instead to live with her son, his wife and their DD.
There are a few issues here: My aunt is a wonderful person, but there is a constant (sometimes low-sometimes high) level negativity that she emits in various ways. It is all related to a dissatisfaction she feels with her own life, which has negatively impacted her mental health. When her husband passed there was no life insurance and anyone familiar with the US knows what that means. If it wasn't for her sons comfortable status, she would be financially screwed.
I know that my aunt would be capable of living a quality life independently, but she just refuses to accept my cousins offer of paying her rent. Instead she chooses to live with her son and his wife, going around the house sighing all day every day, generally making her misery felt like some sort of forcefield around her, moaning, muttering, complaining and snapping anytime anyone asks her what's wrong or how they can help. Needless to say this has put an unreasonable strain (to say the least!) on my cousins marriage.
This has been going on for the entirety of his marriage and at this stage I think my cousins wife is a walking saint. She certainly loves the bones of my cousin because I have seen this situation with my own eyes many times and believe me most women would have walked out by this point. The constant huffing and sulking, the crabby crotchety attitude, the narky snapping and - worst of all - the relentless maudlin signs...
I realise that I am not painting the picture of a wonderful person here, but this is only one aspect of her behaviour. The problem is because her mind is obsessively focused on the lack of her own financial independence, it's the side of herself she shows the most. I find I can pull her out of this humour, but to have to do so daily would be hard work. I visit a few times yearly, so that's a different matter. I certainly wouldn't want to be taking someone else's mood on as a challenge every day, especially not if they were under my roof!
I can see the strain this is putting on my cousins marriage and that saddens me. My cousin has only ever done his best for his mother, from paying her mortgage as a very young man not long out of college after his dad died, to renting her several apartments in the twenty years that have since passed, to putting her up in his own home for years at a stretch between apartments, but the central problem and the mood issue that accompanies it has never gone away.
My aunt, when she talks to me about this privately, as she's often done, says the same thing over and over. I swear to God I've never had the same conversation so many times in my life. She'll say "I need my own place." I'll say "Then let Paul help you, let him rent you a place." - "No, I can't ask him to do that again." - "Then your only option is to stay." - "I know I'm not wanted here." And round and round we go. The truth is she's made herself miserable to live with and I don't blame my cousin and his wife for feeling the obvious strain, all that huffing and sighing would send me berserk. She complains constantly about her situation but refuses to allow her son to help her.
I'm very close to my cousin so we've discussed this also multiple times. The problem from his end is he's too soft. I've told him he needs to frogmarch her down to the estate agent and have her pick out an apartment. The thing that's stopping him is guilt. He doesn't want to make her feel unwanted, but her behaviour has bloody well caused her to be unwanted! Who'd want that in their ear all day?!
The underlying issue to all this is mental health, my aunt has been on anti-depressants for a very long time. When she's not in these moods (and even when she is) she's a lovely warm, generous, giving person. She's very giving of herself, she's very empathetic and thoughtful. She hasn't a shred of venom or nastiness in her. Her problems are all inwardly rather than outwardly directed, she just can't help them spilling out of herself and affecting everyone else. I can't fight the feeling though that there is a certain edge of selfishness in the way that she's behaving and I'm not the only one; her daughter in law has told me directly that she resents her at this point.
I finally decided to post about this tonight because I spoke to my cousin and aunt earlier this evening on the phone. My cousin told me that his mother is just knee-deep back in this rut again and when I spoke to her we just ended up back in that circular conversation - "I know I'm not wanted here" - "You need your own place" - "I can't afford my own place" - "Let Paul help you, he'll rent you a place" - "No."
This time I'd fucking had enough, we've been having this conversation for years. I said "Look, I'm not doing this groundhog day conversation again. I've told you my opinion over and over. You need your independence. You need your own place." She just said "I'm getting off the phone. I'm going now. Goodbye." She didn't bang down the phone. I said "Okay, I'll call you tomorrow. Take care."
So when I call tomorrow, what the fuck do I say? Is there any way out of this? If I can convince her to allow my cousin to rent her an apartment and then to return to counselling (which she obviously needs) on the other side of lockdown, it would lift a huge strain off everybody. They are my family and I love them. Please be honest and give it to me straight. What exactly should be done here? Maybe you'll all see something I'm too close to see. Somethings got to give. This has just become so difficult to watch.