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!

Agreed.

Add to this he lost his father at around 16. I wouldn't be in a rush to make him move out.

Not being unreasonable at all. DS knows that once he leaves for university, that's it.

Also if you are an experienced sailor you should be able to do the adventuring quite cheaply without selling your house? I spent several years hopping around boats helping to deliver them and had loads of adventures all over Europe while getting paid for the privilege.

Christ he’s only 20! That’s really young.

you chose to have children and yeah of course there’s a point when they need to move out but 20 is young

so yeah, you’re totally unreasonable and i feel for him

Yes. In context of this being a possibility the OP is considering. I'm just saying that when she tells him it's a definite, there's no harm in making it clear he has a home with her wherever she goes should he want it.

Mine know the opposite. They have a home for life and if a relationship becomes unhealthy or a job intolerable or whatever they will always be welcome back.

Just start planning and then go.

@CalledIt. What’s it? He can’t come home?

fuck me, my (young adult) kids don’t know they’re born. I’ll use this thread to tell them how they could have fucking hideous parents who literally boot them out once they turn 18

If you’re earning the same as him, can he not just take over the cost of running the household whilst you go off and live your life? I presume, the house will be left to him anyway unless you have other children too?

Hmmm, personally I think is quite tough on a lad who lost his Dad four years ago and now is going to be made homeless by his mum. I was expecting you to say your son was mid - late 20s and had been earning for years.
But then I learnt to my cost a few days ago on here that worrying about our young adult kids apparently means we're producing a bunch of losers 🙄
So I think there is a balance here, what you want is not unreasonable at all (though I share PPs' concern about where you plan to live in the long run). I would suggest a 1-2 year run way with you setting out your plans and putting the house on the market in about a year. He'll then be being expected to be fully "off your hands" around the time his contemporaries have left uni. It's difficult - you absolutely have the right to pursue your dreams, but your lad is not at fault here, I think it's worth trying hard to make sure he doesn't feel abandoned.

You haven’t mentioned your age and if this plan to travel means stopping work totally or temporarily.

I would personally leave my DS in the house and go off sailing, we did this with our DS but he was 23 and our planned trips in our motorhome were much shorter as MIL got cancer. It meant the house wasn’t empty either because there is that to consider. House insurance is null and void if you leave the house for more than I think it’s usually 3 months.

This means he has the familiarity of home, so less of a big change, it seems like a decent compromise, in the first instance. You love sailing but you have loved it as a hobby. This is a get to try that life but a smaller risk. We spent 2 months in our van and loved it but we didn’t know if it was really for us till we tried it as before it had been 2 weeks at a time.

I don't agree. Twenty years is plenty of commitment. And nobody would dream of saying such a thing to a man.

I can't believe how selfish some parents really are. Yes, you have lost your husband, but he has lost his father. Do you really think he can afford to live independently on £2k per month? In my family, dreams come after your child is emotionally and financially stable. He didn't ask to be born.

If I were you, it’s your parents I would “sacrifice” in this equation. You owe them absolutely nothing in terms of care!

You seem to think he’s just too wasteful and lazy to save. But maybe it’s simply, “I don’t want to leave home I’m not ready. I don’t want mum to sell the home I lived in with dad.” So he spends everything and lives a bit recklessly like a child, because he lost his teen spirit whilst watching his dad die..

His bereavement will undoubtedly have altered his formative adolescent years….

I simply couldn’t rush my son out of the family home in this way .I can’t quite see why you wouldn’t want to make sure he’s fine before you leave him permanently.

Go sailing when your son is ready in a few years time. And let your parents manage their own care. Then you’ll have years to enjoy yourself and your son will have securely launched his own life.

YANBU for wanting your own space and a bit of freedom. You've got your own life to live too!

I agree with this, particularly as ops son lost his dad at 16.

But more importantly I can't understand selling the house. Where are you going to live when you get too old or ill to live aboard @YourUmberOP

If you had said it was 2 years away you'd have very different answers. But I don't understand what you want him to be doing now to prepare for 2028?

My husband was 21 when we married, which was the age of majority back then. The age of majority is now 18 so this young man is almost 3 years into adulthood. He needs to start behaving like it. Frittering away £1,500 a month is juvenile behaviour, which he really should be growing out of. The OP deciding to live some of her life for herself while she can will hopefully be the wake-up call he needs.

To encourage him move out, charge him market rate for your area. Don't do his meals to take out.

Well ..yes he's 20 .. realistically the world has moved on from people being able to buy their own home at 20 ..if he rents he won't be able to save for a mortgage
Mine lived at home untill 27 and the 26 year old is still here , because it's horrendously expensive where we live ..
I've got to be honest,I think 20 is very young to be expecting him to move out .
My view ..is my kids didn't ask to be born ..I chose to have them . therefore I will try and make their lives as easy as I can ,while I can..
If I was you ..I'd put my plans on hold for a few more years ..or id
Go anyway and leave the son at home to manage the house ..come to some arrangement about bilis ..and go on smaller trips your going to need a home to come back to anyway

Exactly. He is unlikely to want to buy (and probably can't on what he earns now) so can move out with a deposit and first month rent. He doesn't need a 20 grand cushion - just an emergency fund, with the idea being that the wages obviously continue to come in.

Agree.
It’s shocking to me how some parents think that once their children turn 18, they’re no longer responsible for them or need to help them. Having children is a lifelong commitment, not something you just stop doing when they reach adulthood.

I moved out when I was 18, but I always knew I could go home. I did that many times when I was between jobs or going through a breakup. Having a safe, welcoming place to go while I got back on my feet meant the world to me.

It’s sad that we live in a society where some parents stop looking after and supporting their children, and then we’re surprised when those same children don’t step up to look after their parents when they’re older. The idea of family looking after and supporting one another is now somehow seen as a negative thing.

Some people have suggested renting the house to my son, moving him with me or waiting until he's older. I understand those suggestions, but ultimately he has his own life and I have mine. He wants to stay where he is, and I want to go somewhere else. Neither of us is wrong for that but keeping the house isn’t financially possible to achieve this.

Does that mean you need the capital from the house sale, and rental income wouldn't cover your plans? In which case fair enough, but it would've been worth considering otherwise.

Given the information in the updates, my guess is a 20 year old probably doesn't register the end of 2028 as soon enough to require any degree of action on his part, let alone urgency. I would probably up his rent pretty sharpish, if you're looking at making sure he's well enough prepared to be left and are willing to save him from himself to some degree.

You said you wouldn't expect him to buy somewhere as soon as you go, is that due to local prices?

Also ..you can't compare your life at his age to his life now ..the goalposts have moved ..it's not comparing like with like ..so you had a difficult life ..I'm sorry for that ..but don't take your son's home away because of that

I actually agree that sailing round Europe on your own is very different to sailing with a partner. I'm not saying don't do it but perhaps you can start with a campervan in the UK, weekends and holidays to begin with and work up to longer trips across Europe. When you have the confidence, rent your house out with your son as one of the renters/general manager for a smaller rent than the other parts of the property.

When you return from your travels you will still have a house to come back to and your son will have a better idea of living on his own and making his money stretch. Their rent can fund your lifestyle.