AIBU to expect my adult son to move out so I can finally live the life I've always dreamed of?

[YourUmberOP]

AIBU to expect my adult son to move out so I can finally live the life I've always dreamed of?

I'm after some honest opinions because I'm increasingly frustrated with the situation and wondering whether I'm being unreasonable.

A bit of background. I've worked continuously since I was 16. I've never had a gap year, never had that period of freedom to just go and explore the world and do the things I've always wanted to do. I've always put everyone else first, or something life threw at us has taken priority.

Living by the coast, having a boat and being able to sail and explore Europe has been my dream since I was six years old. This isn't some recent midlife crisis or a whim I've suddenly developed. My late husband and I always planned to do this together. It was something we'd always talked about and intended to make happen.

My husband died four years ago. That's really the only thing that's changed about the dream. I still want the same life, even though my world has fundamentally changed.

My son is 20, nearly 21, lives at home and works full-time. He earns around £2,000 a month after tax. I've explained that I want to relocate and that he needs to start making plans to get his own place. This isn't news to him; we've been discussing it for months.

His only regular fixed outgoings are car insurance (£160) and a phone contract (£40), plus the usual costs of maintaining and running his car. I charge him £300 a month board, which I've actually been putting into a savings account for him. He doesn't know about this, as I want him to have a little nest egg when he eventually moves out.

Even allowing for fuel, food (which I buy all his meals to take to work anyway) and personal spending, he has considerable scope to save. He has £1,500 each month after his fixed bills and board. We're now four months down the line and he's saved virtually nothing.

i personally earn about the same as him so I know how to make money stretch.

There seems to be no urgency, no real plans and no apparent recognition that he needs to start taking responsibility for his own future. I appreciate that I shouldn't be the one saving for him, but equally I'm trying to make sure he has a decent start when he does leave home.

I understand that renting is expensive and that moving out for the first time can be daunting. I'm not expecting him to buy a house or live in luxury. A room in a shared house would be a perfectly reasonable starting point.

I, on the other hand, have very little tying me to where I currently live. I moved here 12 years ago for my husband's work. I have no real friends here, I hate my job and there are very limited alternative employment opportunities locally.

Most of our friends were through my husband's work and, since he passed away, we rarely speak or meet socially. I feel like I'm in a bit of a hole here.

My son is settled. He has lots of friends locally through school and work and understandably doesn't want to relocate with me. I understand that, and I'm not expecting him to give up his social life and move somewhere he doesn't want to live. But I don't think his preference to stay here should automatically mean I have to stay here too.

There's another reason I feel quite strongly about doing this sooner rather than later. My parents are getting older. Realistically, I know there may come a point in the next 5–10 years when I'll have caring responsibilities for them. I want to make the most of the time I have now, while I'm still young enough, fit enough and able to sail, travel and explore.
If I put everything off for another five or ten years, I could easily find myself having spent my entire adult life looking after everybody else, only to reach a point where I'm too old or have too many responsibilities to do the things I've dreamed about since childhood.

It sometimes feels as though I've spent my entire adult life fulfilling responsibilities and putting other people's needs first. I don't want to reach retirement age having never actually lived the life I've spent decades dreaming about.
I don't want to spend my life waiting for the next family responsibility to finish before I'm allowed to start living.

I love my son and I'm not looking to abandon him. But he's an adult, he's earning a decent wage and I think it's reasonable to expect him to start building an independent life.

I've worked since I was 16, raised my child, dealt with losing my husband and kept everything going. I see this next chapter as my opportunity to have the gap year or two I've never had.

So AIBU to say that I'm moving ahead with my plans and that he needs to make alternative living arrangements, rather than continuing to put my life on hold because he hasn't bothered to save?
At what point do you stop organising your life around your adult children and start living it for yourself?
And more importantly, how do I actually get this message across to him? Do I set a firm deadline and stick to it, regardless of whether he's saved enough? What do I do if that deadline arrives and he still hasn't made any effort?

I genuinely don't know whether I'm being unreasonable, whether I'm expecting too much or whether I just need to accept that it's time to put myself first.

I suppose that's why I'm asking the internet!

Ok, come back to us when you DC is 21yo and has lost his father.

It's not about practicalities and finances. It's about love, care and abandonment.

If you want to light a fire under him and make him understand that he needs to make plans to move on, put your house on the market, start looking at places to move to. YANBU OP. You've done all that could be expected of a parent and it's your time now

That's how you end up with 40yo's still bludging off their parents

What rot to suggest having some concern for a 20yo who's paying his way is even remotely similar.

He's 20. Lost his dad only a few years ago and now his mum wants to sell up and sail around Europe.

Yes he's not a baby, but he's a young adult who still needs support.

I moved out at 14 and I lost both my parents life goes on 🤷

YANBU but given the context of him having lost his dad at c16 that does change things a bit

what do you plan to do with your house. Could you come to an agreement that he increases his rent to cover the mortgage (if you have one) while you are
away. He could even get a flatmate too.

if that’s not feasible then give him a strict deadline to move out in say 6 months. But make him understand that you’re not abandoning him just leaving him to grow up for a bit and make it clear he can rely on you in the future again but not necessarily in the same location

I am sorry about the loss of your dh op 💐

What an interesting thread! I am of an age when I was expecting to retire but can’t quite yet bc one of my adult DDs is still living at home and one still needs financial support after uni, and I know I am not the only one among my friends in this situation, so I think the question of “how much do we owe our young adult children and for how long?” is relevant to many women our age currently.

When do women catch a break nowadays? My parents retired in their mid-fifties and because they started having dc earlier, they had twenty years of leisure time by the coast before becoming more frail and needing to move nearer family. But their three children, including me, all moved out between the ages of eighteen and twenty-one and never lived at home again.

My mother never worked ft and her parenting was terrific, but in alignment with the norms of the time, it was much less intense than the way we parent nowadays when we are expected to work ft, facilitate a great education and extensive extra curricular activities for our children and have the time to parent them in a very emotionally responsive and sensitive way and for much longer than before, all while keeping ourselves fit and muscled, maintaining a designer home and producing professional chef level nourishment 😃😆

The expectations and demands take it out of us op and I for one am more than ready to do something just for myself. I’m conscious that the clock is ticking and I know that sounds selfish but after two and a half decades of working and running a home and putting other needs first and enjoying nurturing our dc, and loving every stage of their development, and enjoying spending time with them as young adults too, I don’t think it’s selfish to want something more for myself while I am healthy enough to enjoy it.

So op that is a very long-winded way of saying “go for it”! 😃

One caveat, you don’t say much about your son?

How has he coped with the loss of his father?
I take it he is an only child and has never lived away from home before? Apart from not wanting to move with you, has he expressed any other interest in living independently? How involved are you in his life now op? He obviously drives and takes care of his own transport, but why are you buying his food for work? What about laundry, cooking and cleaning?

I think YAB a tad unreasonable to expect him to have “urgency” about his life aged twenty, or interest in taking total responsibility for himself as being looked after is all he has ever known to date?

Suddenly having to fend for himself might be great for him and give him the push he needs, or a bit of a disaster! But he has the opportunity to grow and learn.

He is definitely not ready to save yet so hang on to that deposit for when he is older and more mature or he will blow it on unnecessary things! Four months is no time at all in which to become financially responsible.

Thinking of my DDs, many young adults of your son’s age have had time “testing out” being an independent adult at university, by bouncing back between terms and afterwards while job hunting, so I suppose ideally, it might be good if you could organise it for a year or so that you are between two places? But overall no op, I don’t think you should put your plans on hold for too much longer. As you know all too well, you never know what is around the corner.

Don’t underestimate the positive effect on your son of seeing a mother who is happy and fulfilled. It will have been of great benefit to him to see how you survived and coped with the trauma of your dh’s death and it will be of benefit to him to see you put yourself first for once too! But he may need an arrangement initially which is a stepping stone or half way house situation in order to adjust. Good luck with your plans!

You know those mothers who complain they never see their DGC and DILs family always come first.

If Op goes though with this you can guarantee she'll be back in a few years as one of those moaning Grandmothers.

I really hope @YourUmberOP has all the relevant qualifications to sail abroad. Skippers certificate, ocean masters etc. The checks abroad are much stricter than puttering about in the UK.

I would learn to sail a dinghy, learn marine maintenance if she's planning single handed.

The best way would be to sign on as crew. Learning the ropes next summer. There are flotilla companies she could sign up with. That's Europe sorted. Then she could sign on for the Caribbean over the winter.

It's doable if planned properly. If you don't you've the rnli picking you up in UK waters. Very embarrassing, expensive salvage costs.

Until then I wouldn't sell up.

I also wondered this. If you need the capital from the house to travel then no, but otherwise there might be some advantage to keeping a UK base and income? Maybe a lodger or friend of his could move in too, if you'd need/prefer more rental income than he's currently paying.

I'm sure that was very difficult and not what you would choose for your child. Of course this young man will survive, most of us hope for better than that for our DC. I just don't think it's the way to help him thrive or to expect a decent relationship going forward.

And respectfully, you don't have any experience of parenting a young adult. You will see thing differently when you do

I think you should have the freedom to do what you want. But how far along is your plan? If it's still in the talking about it stage he isn't likely to do anything about moving out because he has no reason to.

I agree do what you want but also most people don’t have a year or two sailing the world you know… I went straight from college to uni studied nursing so was working shifts, worked as a nurse and still do have 2 kids etc. maybe losing your husband has shifted your view (im sorry for your loss btw that’s hard especially with a young son) but he also does need to be included in your plans somehow surely!

You’ve been widowed but hes lost his dad. That is also a big deal and I can’t imagine kicking my child out so I can go on an adult gap year, but maybe I’m too soft! I don’t know a single 20yr old living outside the family home except for uni students and most of them will be heading home after Uni.
I lost my parents young, please don't underestimate how hard it is being in that position when none of your peers understand.
Ultimately, I believe when you become a parent you put your child first however old they are.

There seems to be, speaking generally,growing amount of people going 'i want a baby, i need to have one or my life is over but they will have an expiry date so as soon as their service is no longer required they can leave'

Yes there will be a time when most children leave home that is normal but it seems like parents just want the cute baby stage and think of children as an ornament and disposable

Absolutely this - we only get one life.

@YourUmberOP I would just say to him that you want to re-locate now, so you can fulfil your dream of sailing before it’s too late. I would say that you’d be very happy for him to come with you, but if he doesn’t feel that’s right for him, then he’ll need to start looking for somewhere to move to in the area, as things might move quickly once your house is on the market. Put your house on the market. That will focus everyone on next steps! Will you be able to offer him storage for some of his stuff in your new property? If he’s going to rent in a shared house, there may not be room for everything.

Is leaving him in the house, charging him rent and renting out the other room an option for a few years.

I don’t think moving away is unreasonable but I think at 20 I’d expect my DS to still have somewhere to call home for a few more years.

Just to clarify - you still make his lunch for him?!

he is too comfortable at home with mummy doing everything for him. Stop making him his lunches, and charge market rate, hopefully living with friends will look more appealing.

are you planning on selling the house? In which case you will have money to fulfil your dreams and he has a bit of a bigger nest egg. Though what is he spending £15000 a month on?!

if you plan to rent out the property then he needs to move out. Either way, make your plans and tell him you plan to leave on x date, so the house needs to be vacated a month before.

I do not agree with posters saying you are abandoning him, he is 21 not 12!

You are not wrong to prioritise yourself, but equally selling the house and travelling the world is a fairly nuclear option. Why not travel (and sail) a little bit to start with? In fact, why haven't you done it already?

I appreciate a 20 year old is plenty old enough to live on his own, but actually it's also a very normal age to live in the family home (more so in countries outside the UK). I think if you force him out now it will cloud your relationship forever.

This is what I was about to say also. I'd rent out the rooms in your house on a lodger basis (including son), and use the income to test out your dream first of all.

You then have regular income, still have your home, and if things don't work out you can lose the lodgers easily enough and get your home back.

I think you plan on burning all bridges as a means of getting son to move out. That's a bit drastic given his young age really.

I wouldn't "do the dream" by selling my home just yet. Give it a year, travel around, see how it works for you and then make your decision. That will give son time to get used to the idea that you are planning big changes!

Give him a clear timescale and so he can plan and save.

I have to say though, the greatest thing my parents did for me was enabling me to know throughout my adult life that there was always a safety net of a home to go back to. That I would never be actually homeless.

Put his board up. He won't save it so you'll have to. Calculate how much you want from him, a pretty significant chunk. Half of his take home should do it. He may decide to move out on his own

But he's still young really and lost his dad early on. So he'll either have to move out or come with you. Make your plans as if he's relocating with you. Once he sees things are moving he might have different thoughts.

Plan
Set a date
Go be happy.
He is not your problem or expense.