SiL wants to live with us 2 months a year

[ploomo]

Sorry this is so long, there's quite a lot of detail required to avoid drip-feeding.

My DH's sister is 55, my DH is 59. She worked for the police in an administrative capacity for many years and was early-retired/ made redundant (she's never told us which) at 50. She married young and had a child, but they split up by the time she was 30 and she's been on her own since then. Her son moved to Ireland years ago and has a family there. After leaving the police service she was diagnosed as being high-functioning ASD, which didn't come as a huge surprise to anyone.

When she received her redundancy/ retirement money she sold the house she'd lived in for years and bought a beautiful-looking 'lodge' on a holiday park site. It has a really stunning sea view. We could see the attraction, but not as a main home. We, and everyone else who was aware of her plan, pointed out that she wasn't allowed to live there all year round and has to vacate in January and February each year. We also pointed out that the contract stipulated that after 20 years she'd need to replace the lodge with another. The site fees add up to nearly £6000 a year and she had another decade to go before her state pension kicked in. She said she'd had years of work and compromise and for once she wanted to treat herself to something special. She said she'd done a deal with the site owner and he'd allow her to live there all year round, despite the regulations.

She moved in and it was heaven for a while but within a few months she'd fallen out with the site owner and also with several other lodge owners who'd come down at the weekends with their children who ran around and made noise. That first year she came to stay with us for new year and didn't go home till early March. DH and I both work and we're not hard-up so we just gritted our teeth and coped. DH made it clear that she needed to make alternative arrangements for the next year.

The next year she went to Australia for two months and had the holiday of a lifetime. The year after that she stayed with her son and his family in Ireland for a month and then in Air BnBs in southern Spain. The cost of all this was clearly getting out of hand and last summer she decided she needed a long-term solution and decided to buy a camper van to live in over the winter. She's spent nearly £60,000 on a brand new bespoke VW camper van done out to her own design. It's been resprayed her favourite colour, it's got leather seats in her favourite colour, the worktops are her favourite colour — but it's tiny and she needs to have an electricity supply so that she can use the microwave and the heater.

In late December she packed the stuff she'd need to get through the winter and went off in the van to park up in the yard of a friend who owns a farm. We're not sure what happened, but after a fortnight she left there and has been staying in the van outside various peoples' houses. She came to us during the cold spell in February and we ran an electric cable out to the van so she could have the heater on in it 24/7. She came in to use our loo and bathroom and washing machine each day and ended up just living with us during the day and sleeping in the van at night. It's as if Covid regulations don't exist for her. At the end of February the site owner contacted everyone who owns a lodge to say that because of Covid the site wouldn't be open until after Easter, so it looks as if she'll be around for another few weeks.

A couple of days ago she came up with a new solution to the problem. She wants us to convert our garage into a studio flat so that she can come and live here in the winter, and so that she has a fall-back in a few years if she can't afford to keep the lodge. My DH talked to her and we suspect she's blown all the money she got from the sale of the house and her savings and is now struggling.

I say she needs to get a job and work until her state pension kicks in but she won't hear that. Nor will she think of selling the camper van. We've suggested she rents out her lodge for £1000 a week from Easter to September and lives in the van and she assumed we were joking. She doesn't have visitors, it's her private paradise, she'd never dream of renting it out and she'd very offended we'd suggest it.

I realise there's nothing we can do. She's made her decisions and has to live with them. What I'd like to hear are the experiences of others with family members who live in static homes or similar situations, and those with experience of relatives who anticipate that they'll be looked after by family. Where do you draw the boundaries? My DH is worried sick about her. I think there's a strong likelihood that he'll start preparing to convert the garage and utility into a studio flat for her and I can see her ending up living with us permanently, which isn't something either of us want!

@maynardgkrebs

My friend's husband has Asperger Syndrome, as does another friend. As you are a leading world expert, perhaps you can tell me if I am wrong in thinking that that is now just referred to under the blanket heading of ASD, which as I pointed out also encompasses my relative. Not sure why you felt the need to put inverted commas around relative...

Not sure why you need to put inverted commas around 'diagnosis' when talking about the OPs sister-in-law.

I wasn't disputing AS now being under the autism banner. I saying that your general idea of autism, especially in the HF sense is wrong.

@willibald

I'm hoping that she'll be able to think what we've said through and come up with her own solution. Work is the obvious answer, although whether she'll be able to get the kind of thing she's used to where she's living I don't know.

Okay, stop right there! This hinting and hoping and your wishy washiness with her, letting her stay for months at a time, letting her move into your home except for sleeping the night in the van, has led her to believe the solution is to convert the garage and live with you, not as a 'fall back' but as the solution to her money problems.

As Black and Amaryllis have pointed out, this is how she functions and sees things.

So you and your H must first have a very serious conversation because if you do this, she will be living with you full-time quite shortly. For good.

She will not think through the way an NT person will and come up with a viable solution. BUT she can get it that living with you and the conversion is not going to happen and once she gets over being angry and upset she might well be willing to engage with some financial planning help.

BUT, you need to be present NO as a united front and your h needs to realise she'll get upset and he needs to be prepared for it and prepared to weather it and not back down.

This is EXTREMELY important in dealing with a person who has ASC. They are capable of getting it. My son will even do this with dinner. 'We're having meatballs'. 'No, I want a steak pie,' cue meltdown. You have to weather it. 'No. It's this or it's nothing' (he loves meatballs, btw, he agreed meatballs on the meal plan) and give him space to process it. Then he comes round and eats his dinner.

'No. We are not converting the garage to an apartment for you. You cannot use us as a place to stay when things don't work out. We are willing to discuss other options and see a financial planner with you, but that one is not an option.'

Keep it simple and be blunt. NO hinting or sometimes or justifications or background.

No to Ireland and moving near her son. I can guarantee the reason she only stayed a month at his and several at yours is because he and his wife have told her NO and been firm about it. If they wanted her around they'd have presented this as an option. They have not and I can guarantee there is a reason for this.

And yes, this is a hill to die on so if you do not want her living with you forever and your home converted you need to make this very clear to your husband.

His desire to help her is admirable, but he's doing her no favours by enabling her. I have to really struggle not to enable my son for an easier life because it's not doing him any favours and I do not want him to turn out like my BIL. I want him to lead his own life as much as possible. He has the intelligence to do this. And he has to learn that other adults are not there to mop up his problems because one day, hopefully, we will die before him as should be the natural order.

She has probably burned through all of the money.

Lodges like this are for rich people to have fun. My sister is very successful now. She has one of these lodges with her family. It's for having some fun holidays and as a bolthole and they don't care if they lose money on it because for them the enjoyment of the property is worth the money. The site fees are staggering but the park has incredible amenities. They've offered it to us to stay in and refuse to take money for this and we've taken them up but have always paid for a professional clean after, left it immaculate, sent them a thank you hamper or tickets to theatre or something we know they enjoy.

You two first need a very serious talk to agree a realistic plan of action and then present it to her because as pointed out, right now she is single-mindedly going to pursue this as she sees it as the only solution.

You have to stop being so passive about this. You really do. NOW whilst you are all relatively young and in good health. Things can change in an instant.

Very good advice. I too have a family member with ASD and you do have to be direct and weather the storm.

[quote Cadent]@ploomo what have you decided to do?[/quote]
We're going to wait for a couple of weeks/ whenever she is able to return to her lodge and then get advice/ do more research/ speak to her ex-husband and son and see if we can exert some group pressure. In the meantime we've talked to her about her finances and offered to help her sort herself out — though not give her anything. We've said that she can't come here every winter and we've made it clear that we may well be moving once we retire in a year or two.

It's also occurred to me that she needs to work for another 7 years if she's to get the full state pension and when I mentioned it over the weekend this seemed to sink in: I think she does understand the pension system and I think we may be able to persuade her that work is the best option for the next decade at least.

Op if she is 55 she will not get any state pension until at least 67. You can go on the gov.uk website and find out using her DOB. She can do a pension forecast on the site as well using her NI no. I think you need other I'd as well. I had to use my passport and DL I think. But when you have done it once they give you a gateway no to use for further enquiries. You can request it also in writing.

If she looks on the Government Gateway as suggested by PP she will be able to see if she has any gaps in her NI contributions as well, this will affect her pension

@MrsClatterbuck

Op if she is 55 she will not get any state pension until at least 67. You can go on the gov.uk website and find out using her DOB. She can do a pension forecast on the site as well using her NI no. I think you need other I'd as well. I had to use my passport and DL I think. But when you have done it once they give you a gateway no to use for further enquiries. You can request it also in writing.

Well, yes, Mrs Clatterback. I'm very aware of state pension ages. I was talking about the number of years of NI contributions. I've used the pension portal myself – which is what made me think that she needs to check her own account.