To feel between ' a rock and a hard place' with dh and ds...

[Andonandonamdnn]

Dh is 62 .
Ds , 25.
Ds is doing a funded post grad professional on the job qualification which means that he gets a minimal.wage ( not a grant) whilst he trains and works and quaifies.
Dh and I both worked all our working lives in public service jobs and in early 60s ( took pension then ) we have a pension for life , of 1.5 k pm dh and 450 pm me.
. We both work ... Me pt ,he 3/4 time in minimum wage jobs to top up income .
Borh dc thro uni , then ds decided on post grad as above. ..
Dc could not afford rent ( v high in area on the temp wage whilst training) so we pay a proportion of his costs and rent to.help him which has meant the need to earn more income.

.. he is texnically a student/ dependnant ?.. he could have lived in cheaper place with students but as he now is doing a professional placement via a school.. we/ he felt he needed a quiet ish flat not one with undergrads who want to party as he needs have quiet to prep in evenings for class. Etc.

Dh works 5 days a week. I work 3 to in part faciltate this and it means we have to be careful.with money.. we cant travel.abroad as hopes/ plannes etc. As we send money eaxh month.. Ive offered to do more work but dh says he does not wantme to as i do a physically hard cleaning job and have some health issues.

.The rock and rhe hard place is this.... ds need s finiancial support till he qualifies next year in order to .stay in this decent quiet ish flat to study etc and go.to.work.5 days a week in school( v few available in a uni city were most places are busy student undergrad places) .. dh has started saying things like .". he is 26 years old .."." when i wasthat age" etc" ,i am in my 60s."." when will.the support end.". hes said to ds he is looking forward to the time he can work less.. he is grumpy a lot.. i think he resents the commitment of the support as he is tired.. its that he feels adult child of 26 wd not need ongoing £ support at this stage of life and whilst he wants to.support him , he also.resents it and it comes to.surface ? I dont know what to to.. he is withdrawn with dc on phone( notes by ds) as he is tired , resentful? , fed up, but also feels he should help.. it seems to.be increasingly hard for dh to do his.
. Ds has said to.me.why is dh like this ( withdrawn on phone) and i feel.stuck between the need to support ds and dh s wish to help him but the fact that this is coupled with tiredness and occasional ( what feels like resenment/ anger/ wanting freedom from supporting adult dc/ occasional pride in it. Its as if the wants tohelp ds but is tired and is starting to resent it at the same time. I dont want either dh or ds to feel bad . Plus we have said we will help.ds and the last thing i want is for ds to feel bad about it.

@EmbarrassingHadrosaurus

Still laughing at your post that the son being pissed off at being woken by people shagging in his house share could possibly constitute a mental health diagnosis!

And that he could claim PIP for it as well!

🤣🤣🤣

What is your son doing in the school holidays to earn money to help fund himself during term time?

If course your husband is feeling resentful, he's tired, no doubt he is also worried about how much YOU both have to live on and the pressure than creates.

Glad to see your son is looking for a flat share but he also needs to find extra work to supplement his income at the moment he sounds incredibly selfish and the burden he is putting on you and your husband is completely unfair.

If he really needs downtime and doesn't have the funds then he needs to be creative about where and how he lives. There are charities which match young people and older people with spare rooms who need a little support, just one thought I had that could work. He really doesn't need his own flat (and his mother paying for it!). You aren't actually helping him become an independent adult and your husband is probably right to be fed up with it at this point.

Oh come on! When I was 22 I started my teaching postgrad while living in my own flat. Did placement from 8-5 every day, went home and ate then worked in a supermarket 6:30-11:30. Worked in a bar Sat night to top up. Never occurred to me as a grown woman to ask the bank of Mummy and Daddy for support. Your DH is right.

Yeah, this. He is 26 and sounds entitled and spoiled.

I'm with your husband. Time for your son to support himself.

I'm with your DH. Uni libraries are often open till midnight. He can work in there and live in shared accommodation. You should not be working extra hours to support him. He can work extra hours - he's 26!

I do sympathise. I have a DS too and am way too soft on him. I need other people to point this out to me sometimes too!

Sorry i think youve spoiled him-did you pay for his travel for his gap year aswell

i dont know how a date can change for graduating isnt it usually set-youre in your 60's working till so you can pay for your sons rent its not normal sorry he can start taking care of himself

2k a month between two is a "big pension"? Blimey. FYI it's an average wage for one person. What you mean is, how dare those evul boomerz expect anything like a nice life after a lifetime of work, paying a mortgage (which all being well they will pass on as property tax free), bringing up the son etc? Work til you drop and give your kids your money.
Yes, the 80s/90s. Jobs for life. Must have dreamt DH being made redundant twice in that period.
And if you are still regulalry subsidizing your kids in their late thirties your choice but it's frankly ridiculous. Nice gifts, yes.

Stop infantilising him. DS's girlfriend trained to be a secondary school teacher with absolutely no help from anyone, her mum had passed away, her dad a drifter. She worked weekends and holidays in a very busy hotel to pay her bills. She's now qualified and has never felt as well off.

EmbarrassingHadrosaurus low mood was not ro do with the houswmates only.. however , had been isolated in the house for months.. quite toxic... it waa with a group of nosiey , rude young men.. he retreated to.his room to.try and deal with it for some months as the tennancy held him there. In the the end , that and another peesonal thing wore him down a bit.it wasnt a mental health thing but rather erosion of confidece as well as another private thing on top.

It's one thing to work until 67 because you need to in order to have an adequate pension. Quite another to have the means to retire but be unable to do so because you're subsidising a 26 year old man.

Sounds like your DH got resentful around the time he found out this arrangement was expected to last for yet another year. I'd encourage your DS to find a flat share and be truthful with him when he asks about his DF "Yes I think your father is finding working to be very tiring these days and wishes he could afford to retire." If that doesn't prompt the young man into action, goodness knows what will.

A long shot - but could he get a job for the next academic year Sept 2022 - July 2023 at a ''private'' boarding school ? A lot of them provide accommodation to staff if they are located in rural areas. They also need staff to supervise pupils during non teaching hours - being on the premises at night etc.

Read the bloody post, why don't you. He's still working and that's why he's tired. But yeah, how entitled to want to retire before the statutory age after decades in work - parents probably not graduates so already worked more than forty years. Got it.

Clucking Bell.

You need to stop mollycoddling him. You’re really doing him no favours by not letting him grow up. How do you expect him to stand on his own 2 feet when he has no idea how to because he is still being supported by you? I did part time jobs all the way through Uni, and then worked nights in a bar during my first low paid job at a university. I now teach students and that’s what they all do. Most of them aren’t that rowdy after first year; they all have jobs in supermarkets, clothes shops, care homes or bars. Your son hasn’t even they maturity they have. Is he not mortified to be still sponging off his parents at 26? An apprenticeship may not pay a high salary, but it is perfectly adequate to live on for a year or two when you don’t have any dependents.

I have only read your posts OP so am probably just echoing other people here, but this in your OP seems to encapsulate the whole thing to me:

"Ds has said to.me.why is dh like this ( withdrawn on phone) and i feel.stuck between the need to support ds and dh s wish to help him but the fact that this is coupled with tiredness and occasional ( what feels like resenment/ anger/ wanting freedom from supporting adult dc/ occasional pride in it. Its as if the wants tohelp ds but is tired and is starting to resent it at the same time. I dont want either dh or ds to feel bad . Plus we have said we will help.ds and the last thing i want is for ds to feel bad about it."

Your son is 26. He asked you why his dad was withdrawn on the phone, and it sounds to me that you did not answer your son's question so that he wouldn't 'feel bad'? Given that your husband has "said to ds he is looking forward to the time he can work less" he really shouldn't have to ask - should he? He already knows, really.

Frankly, at 26 he should have worked it out for himself that he's getting a LOT of financial support from his parents, and he should have worked out for himself that since his dad has actually retired but it still putting in 30ish hours/week in a minimum-wage job - maybe his parents are struggling to provide that level of financial support.

Is your son inclined to shove his head in the sand? Because as I've said, he really should be aware of the financial pressure he is putting on you and your husband. What steps has he taken to finance himself? Yes he is working five days a week, but he has evenings and weekends, no? Has the idea that he could do a second job never been raised? Hospitality is crying out for employees right now, which means evening and weekend bar work, for example, is available. My DS, 23, is doing just that. Why isn't yours? Why is he instead just sitting back and letting his parents fund him from their minimum-wage jobs?

Your son sounds very passive in all this, leaving it to you and your husband. Why wouldn't your husband feel resentful about that? And I also have to ask - what do you feel about continuing in "a physically hard cleaning job" with your health issues to finance your son? Because rationally, you too should feel resentment. Your husband has stopped you for working more because of your health issues, it sounds to me as if he'd rather you didn't work at all but financially you have to - and I expect your husband resents that! (As my dad would.)

I guess I'm trying to say that it is perfectly rational for your husband to resent
this situation, resent it for his own sake and also for the burden placed on his wife. And maybe, instead of you worrying about your son 'feeling bad' (no evidence that he would, in my opinion), you should stop infantilising your son and back up your husband and point out to your 26-year-old son that he needs to step up a bit more because you and his dad just cannot do this any longer. He's an adult and he needs to take on adult responsibility. Once he does I would expect the relationship between DH and DS to improve. This financial dependency is the root cause of any problems in the relationship.

Our other dc is about to leave uni and has asked.to.come home for.a while and i think that he is perhaps overwhelmed.
Yes, your husband is feeling overwhelmed. Has your other DC made any indication of what they will be doing once home? Because they need to know that you and your husband are financially struggling and that they cannot just come home , doss, and hoover all the food from the fridge. They might think that's exactly what they can do given how their older sibling is being catered to, but you need to accept right now that you cannot do that and make no offers. Can you do that?

I agree , it doesnt make sense.
Unless the DS is doing a part time PGCE ...

I totally agree with @Ferngreen when I had children I expected it to be a lifelong commitment because my life‘s been particularly tough due to lack of parental support and I’ve seen the quite wonderful lives the other people leaved with it. I know which I choose for my children and grandchildren.

I think some of the problem is that decisions were made about accommodation that are now hard to reverse. Your son presumably can't just move somewhere cheaper in the middle of a tenancy.

What is it about your finances that makes this so unaffordable. You seem to have a decent income. Do you still have a large mortgage?

Maybe everyone just needs a plan. You will support him until the end of xx but then the financial support stops.

Is there anything else you can reduce during this period in terms of spending so your husband could drop a day to get more balance?

He sounds exceptionally spoiled and pandered to- like a 'little prince' - but partly of your own making OP. I think at 26 it's time to draw the line too-- he needs to get where he does of his own efforts- he does not need quiet peaceful times - he needs to be able to work around all situations, because that's real life.

OP we are in our 60s and both still working full-time. Not physically demanding jobs but stressful ones and I worked 12 hours a day every day last week.

We have a 27 year old son finishing his PhD, full-time. He has been subsidised all the way BUT he also does some freelance work and has found temporary contracts in the holidays, etc, as well as having a gap year when he saved 50% of his earnings. If he was not voluntarily freelancing and earning, we wouldn't be as happy to help. When he was an undergraduate he lived in shared accommodation and as well as having a whale of a time, he studied in the library in the evenings.

I think you have molly coddled your son to a level that is disproportionate to your income.

Serious question @Ferngreen - do you ever intend to cut the apron strings and let your children be independent adults?

Also, if you have children in their late thirties then you must have been adult yourself in the 80s/90s. If you think the norm then was a job for life, you lived a very sheltered life, and have no right to castigate the OP.

I don’t understand why he won’t now qualify till next year. Is this a PGCE? When did he start it? They run from September to July.

I think the DS has decided to do it PT.
Bank of Mum and Dad funding it.
Or failed ...

OP your son is a grown man being babied by his mummy. Let him grow up and suffer the realities of breaking away from youth like we all had to do. I know people in their 40s with full time professional teaching jobs still having to house share and it’s imperfect but it’s sadly the modern way. it’s what we all have to do. You sound like my stepmum who babies my half brother and thinks he needs this perfect safe quiet life when what he needs is responsibility and independence and a bit of self reliance. Your son will never learn to stand on his own two feet if you keep finding his comfortable life style.

OP, when I didn’t teacher training I worked part time in a supermarket. One evening a week straight after school until 10.30 and then all day Saturday. I got a Sunday off work where I did planning, marking and essay writing. I was living withDP and paying my own way. Your DS is the same age I was when I did this. He is big enough to support himself without relying on the bank of mum and dad.

you and your DH deserve some down time.