To not want my MIL to move into our annexe

[Groveparkmama]

My husband and I are in the process of buying a house which has an annexe. MIL currently lives on her own in a rented house, which she has just found out that the landlord is planning to sell. MIL has now asked whether she can move into the annexe (assuming all goes OK with the house purchase).

I am struggling with how to manage this request. MIL is not in the best of health and, although she (currently) manages living on her own, I worry that I will end up having to help her out and well as run a home, raise two children and hold down a very busy full time job.

MIL and I have an OK relationship but are not particularly close and I find her annoying after spending more than a few hours with her. I do feel sorry for her because she has had a terrible few years with her husband leaving her, ill health and having to sell the former family home.

My feelings are also clouded because my husband does not like my parents, which I find very difficult. It is a very long story, but I don’t agree with his views about my parents. I find it hard to swallow that he can barely stand being in the same room as my parents, but I am being asked to consider having his mother live in our annexe.

My husband and I are financially contributing 50/50 to the house purchase and my husband has already made it clear that MIL would have to pay rent to live in the annexe. The annexe has its own front door and there are no interconnecting doors between it and the main house.

Help!

@wonderingwandering99 tgd negativity for me is about the fact that it is almost always women who end up caring

it is much more rare for the son to do the caring

If OP’s DH would do all the work then I guess it would be worth considering as an option

but my haggard old self has seen all caring shit jobs (literal bum wiping etc) to be always given to the woman… whether is is her parents or his parents

maybe you lived in much nicer world where middle aged men take on caring responsibility for their parents as well as their in laws. I know none.

This is really really hard, because what does he say, no, but we will rent it to strangers. How do you do that without causing signficant offence.

unfortunately I think you’re screwed, when it comes to it, he will say yes, and she’s moving in. Everything else in the lead up is just smoke and mirrors.

It is because you don't have experience of it that you don't understand the warnings here. No one is telling the OP that she shouldn't care on some level for her mil if she needs it - and her husband certainly should care for his mother. But being the full time carer for an elderly parent can be soul destroying. I am at that stage - was out for dinner with 3 other couples last weekend and what we talked about was trying to cope with elder care whilst also working, trying to have a life, dealing with young adult children - or in some cases young children.

One guy spent every night sleeping in his mother's house - got to go home to his wife at the weekends because his siblings left their spouses and took it in turns to spend the weekend at home. one woman could never go away for a weekend - ever - because her father needed her. DH hasn't had a holiday this year as he is spending all his time going home and doing his share with his mother. My sister thinks she neglected her children at times because my mother demanded so much of her time.

It isn't a question of making a cup of tea and chatting with an older parent. It is full-on trying to figure out who can cover you if you go on holidays, helping with toileting and showering, spending 12 hours in a&e when someone falls, dressing, managing meds, dealing with a father who yells and shouts all night (another of my friends) etc etc.

It isn't being callous. It is a reality and no one should go into it without having their eyes open.

In the case of the OP, as I said earlier, the biggest impediment for me would be that any house move - indeed even a separation - in the future would have the added stress of rendering the MIL homeless too. Friends of my parents sold their home, built a granny flat onto their daughter's house and moved in. 3 years later her husband left her. Complete mess.

With respect, you don't know what you are talking about. Come back and preach at us when you have some actual experience of this.

Those other cultures evolved their norms in completely different circumstances to ours. They're not dealing with our population pyramid whilst also keeping people with often significant health problems alive and unwell for a long time. Norms from cultures where the ratio of healthy younger people to elderly needing care is so different to ours, are not something we can replicate.

Additionally, the reality of caring for elderly relatives even in cultures that insist on it is often glossed over. Most of them have some kind of shitwork class doing a lot of the hard work, either domestic or imported. Its not the people with status and options wiping the arses.

Then she can divorce him & leave him to wallow in the mess he has created for himself.

This would be non-negotiable for me. I’d be pulling out my 50% with immediate effect.

Don’t do it. We had my mum live with us for a few years but we asked her to move out because she was becoming unbearable. It’s not to say I don’t love her but our relationship has improved ten fold now we aren’t in each other’s pockets.

Many other cultures welcome living with their parents and consider it their duty as children to care for those who once cared for them. I just wonder why in Britain this is such an unpopular practice and we’d rather put them in care homes

Four things, @wonderingwandering99:

Many of the cultures you mention have multigenerational living as a norm, so carers aren't racing from one home to another
Birth rates are often much higher, so even if it's "all left to the women" at least it's not just one woman who bears the load
While the UK has poor infrastructure, too many have none at all beyond what the family provide so there's even less choice
And probably most importantly, some have much lower life expectancy than in the west, so the ailments of extreme old age are less common and the time spent suffering with them will be less

Very much so.

It's possible to sustain a norm like that when you don't have that many people who live long enough to need substantial care, and when your medical system isn't good enough to keep people alive and ill for long. It tells us nothing about how to manage the situation in the UK.

Surely @wonderingwandering99 is talking about traditional cultures which are very different from the culture we are discussing, traditional cultures where you rarely leave the family Clan, women are expected to subjugate themselves.
In these circumstances the older people in need of help would be in their 60s and the women who are expected to care for them in their 20/30s/40s.

So you admit you have zero experience of doing it?

Theres your answer then. Until you have done it and have experienced the exhaustion, mental load and physical strain you have no idea what you’re talking about. Get back to us when you’ve spent half the night cleaning smeared poo out of the bathroom and bedroom floor or picking someone up from the floor for the 12th time or washing urine soaked sheets for the 5th time that week. Add that to constant worry stress and guilt along with cognitive decline where the person can’t remember who you are and shouts abuse at you on top of only a few hours sleep.

I guarantee you won’t then be on your high horse wondering why people aren’t queuing up to be carers.

'I admit I have no experience of caring for parents as mine are still young. But the fact that this is our culture saddens me. Many other cultures welcome living with their parents and consider it their duty as children to care for those who once cared for them. I just wonder why in Britain this is such an unpopular practice and we’d rather put them in care homes.'

Just think how much sadder you would be if your life was stretched between a full time job, kids needs, the home, a husband as well as caring for another adult.
Worrying about how the other adult is managing while you are at work. Wondering if she has fallen, or perhaps set the house on fire.
You would be very sad, if you were running on empty, and trying to catch up all
the time. You would be even sadder if your friendships had to go, because you simply don't have time to maintain them.

Forget yoga, or a night out, because I can guarantee your husband isn't going to take his Mum to the toilet and wipe her backside.
As time progresses, your nights will be disturbed, but you will still have to carry on regardless. Don't get ill, because you cannot abdicate responsibility.
You will probably damage your back with the lifting/ assisting angles, because you are not a professional, but sadly, you will have to carry on.
You husband will probably be quite disgruntled by now, because you are tired all the time.
In other cultures, the mother does not usually have to travel to work full time and ferry the kids around, as well as running the house.
Even with the best of parents, perhaps we would not 'rather' put them in a care home, we have no other practical option.
That makes you guilty enough, without the condemnation and 'saddening' of someone who has no conception of what it is like.

I admit I have no experience of caring for parents as mine are still young

Then how about you STFU and actually listen to those of us who have been there? If you actually read what people are saying then maybe you would understand why it’s so hard.

You need to be careful what you say here, life has a way of slapping you in the face after making self righteous statements like that. One day you will find out what it’s like and I suspect it won’t be such a mystery to you then.

Do not buy the house with the annexe. It will be the thin end of the wedge.

@wonderingwandering99 come back once you've done it.

I'm an immigrant in the UK and from one of those "cultures" that have "embraced" this. This is the reality:

1. People in my home.country live a lot less. You're not caring for someone with Alzheimer in their 90s, they'll be dead of a stroke by 70.
2. Those women have NO choice and are similarly unhappy about it. Don't make the mistake of thinking poor women are somehow kinder or happy to sacrifice themselves for everyone else.
3. There are other relatives around so it doesn't usually ALL fall to ONE woman
4. The one woman who does most of it isn't also working full time.
5. There is no choice to put your in laws in a care home. It's literally a choice between letting them starve to death in their own filth or bring them into your home. Obviously no one can bring themselves to do the former.
6. Those parents will have given an enormous amount of support to their children as young adults so there is a certain quid pro quo that doesn't exist in the UK.

The UK has a social care system, a benefit system and actual care homes. They may not be ideal but this MIL has plenty of choices.

They are paying for the house 50/50 so the OP would be mad to do that knowing he will most likely try and foist it on her.
OP should hang on to her money.

We’ve just had advice that the most ‘rent’ you can charge in this situation is £600 pcm before it needs to be taxed. The annexe also needs to have shared amenities and also there must be some element of shared living ie the annexe may only have its own bathroom, no kitchen - so that you are living together rather than it being a completely separate dwelling on your plot. That may potentially alter your plans. It may also affect your mortgage (if you need one) as lenders will ask what other adults will be living there as they could potentially lay claim to a share in the house.

I believe you’ll need a very very amicable relationship and want this for it to work.

Buy a house without an annexe. She is a CF for even asking. Rent or no rent, it is an imposition and would become increasingly so as she gets older and more frail, and given your husband’s attitude to your parents why should you even consider it?

@wonderingwandering99 I helped provide care for my grandma in her late 80s and into her 90s. Luckily it was before I became a parent, I couldn’t do it now. Let me tell you a bit about what it was like, to help you understand why people don’t want to do it, especially on top of childcare and full time work, even if it’s for someone they love.
My grandma was v heavy, and immobile, so I had to use a hoist (meant for two people to use, but there was only me) to get her up out of bed several times a day to get her cleaned up and her incontinence pads changed (urine and faeces). It’s not like changing a nappy, an adult human eating adult human quantities of actual food produces a lot of waste, and it is horrible. Using the hoist wrecked my back, and it will never get better. I was only doing weekends and evenings, as was working full time, and it was still exhausting. Other family members shared the rest of the week, as we had promised her, but none of us knew what we had agreed to till it was too late. She used her panic button every hour overnight as a minimum, usually about every half hour, and the responders have to call whoever’s number they have on file. It meant I would be called at least a dozen times between going to bed and getting up to get started on her care, because she was lonely, or scared, or her hot water bottle was cold. She only used the button when I was deeply asleep and could not hear her calling out. Imagine being telephoned every time you fall asleep, and having to go and settle an elderly person, then going back to bed and the same thing happens. And again. And again. She couldn’t feed herself, or do anything except lie there for the last few years. Luckily her dementia was pretty bad the last few years, and she was content, but there were several years where she knew SOMETHING was wrong, but not what it was. She would get confused and scared, and sob, which was heartbreaking, then angry and physically lash out. Even a bedridden person can hurt you when they hit you every time you go near them. Before she was bedridden it was sometimes scary. I was hit, slapped, punched, had chairs thrown at me. She would accuse people of trying to poison her, and throw her food across the room. In some respects it was easier when she was bedridden, as at least I could back away when she got physical.
She had to be cared for for 12 years. During that time we were all permanently exhausted, stressed, and wrung out. It affected my career, my relationships, my health, everything. I couldn’t even think about starting a family until it was over.

Now, tell me, do you still think it’s “sad” that people don’t want to sign up for this?

Op, I’m not sure if anyone else has mentioned this as only read your posts and the first couple of pages of the thread, but how is MIL intending to pay her rent? If she is reliant on housing benefit, then that may be an issue if she is renting from her son. I don’t know what the rules are these days as I’ve not been involved in housing law for a long time, but it would be worth looking into as it may not be possible anyway if she can’t pay rent.

good luck!

Thank you@BabyFever1345 for telling it like it really is 👏🏻

My grandma was v heavy, and immobile, so I had to use a hoist (meant for two people to use, but there was only me) to get her up out of bed several times a day to get her cleaned up and her incontinence pads changed (urine and faeces). It’s not like changing a nappy, an adult human eating adult human quantities of actual food produces a lot of waste, and it is horrible. Using the hoist wrecked my back, and it will never get better
And thank you@AllTheChaos for being open about your actual experience.
It wasn't all that long ago when the standard refrain on here was 'they looked after you when you were a baby and now it's your turn to look after them'. As we can see from your post, caring for an elderly person is nothing whatsoever like looking after a baby.

I ignore the they looked after you as a babies bollocks. No baby has a choice, a person who needs care does and it's selfish to insist on family do it.

I agree. People have their whole lives to plan for their care in old age. A baby isnt able to do that. Not to mention, the nappy stage is over fairly quickly for babies. An older person with dementia and incontinence can go on for potentially 20 years.