Living with family - and relationship in a bad way

[Lister989]

We’re staying with family as our finances are terrible after covid because my husband and I both lost ALL our work. We both have work now, but are letting our house out and staying with my family because we had gotten into debt in covid (to pay the mortgage after the mortgage holiday ended and our savings dried up) and my family offered us this chance to clear it. We’re very lucky to be able to.

We’ve been here for four months now. we’ve got two more to go until the break clause is up in our house and we can give our tenants notice (so another four months here).

My family are lovely, completely non intrusive, but DH and I are falling apart. I can’t tell if it’s the stress, or if it’s being very unsettled so our kids are acting up (which they are), or if DH and I really should get a divorce.

We hate each other at the moment. I’m certain we’ve managed to keep it under the radar. I am very careful to not let my parents or our young children know anything.

A friend causally mentioned that when she stayed with her in-laws for five months (home improvements) she and her husband nearly divorced.

So I’m wondering… is this normal to fall apart a bit when living with family?!? Even as I’m typing, I’m not sure if I’m making sense.

I am miserable. I feel like my marriage is on the verge of ending all the time. It’s like living with a nervous, sad feeling that you have to keep secret in the background. It’s horrible.

We can’t afford to get divorced. I don’t want to live with my parents any more even though I love them. Everything feels quite hopeless.

We’ve tried therapy, it helps a bit but I don’t think either of our hearts are quite in it. Plus it’s on zoom at 8pm in the evening, and i’m concerned that my parents or our kids might hear it, so it feels horrifically awkward. We do it in our bedroom with white noise on while the kids are in bed, but their room is right next door, and next to that is my parents’ bedroom.

I also don’t have a single person to talk to about it all in real life. I feel like I’m constantly faking happy to my parents and my kids.

Why do you feel you need to fake happiness to your parents?
Presumably, as they;ve offered to put you up en famille, you are close?

Can you not take them out & have a private chat with them?
You need some real life support, you've had a horribly stressful few years.

Sounds hellish.

Could he go to his parents or friends for a bit as a break from the situation?

It sounds like it might be salvageable if you were back in your own home, since you both seem to want to?

What are the specific issues between you? Is it Ks k of time and space away from each other? What’s the therapy bringing up between you?

I would seriously talk to your mum - your parents sound lovely

4 months isn’t far away at all but I really do feel for you - it’s probably the combination of Covid and all that stress and negative stuff rather than not loving each other

The therapy is bringing up that we both argue, defend, neither de-escalates. Also that he doesn’t listen when I have worries; and vice versa. So we both feel quite alone with our own stuff.

After a therapy session, we try for a day and then the arguments start again.

Today we went out for Mother’s Day, and he said something I thought was a bit misogynistic (about an unattractive dad and an attractive mum - Ie: how did he get a “hot wife”), and I told him I thought the comment was gross. So we argued so much about that that now we’re not speaking to each other. The kids were in the playground when we argued, then we all went home. Kids are watching tv while he’s on his laptop and I’m on my phone. We probably won’t speak again until tomorrow. My parents are out now, but we’ll all pretend again when they come
back later.

We’ve talked about that, but I don’t know how to tell the kids or even my mum
and dad what’s happening.

I don’t want to make life worse for anyone - especially our kids whose lives have also been turned upside down by the move! We had to temporarily rehome our ancient cat (staying with a friend) as my dad is allergic, which has become something older DD cries about every other day. (DD is very sensitive and misses all her things - half are in storage in the garage here, half we left for the tenants, like the sofa etc.) I feel terrible guilt that moving here was the wrong decision for everyone. I think if DH left too, older DD would really struggle with that.

I also feel rotten being so beholden to so many people! It’s really chipped away at my self esteem.

Thank you for reading and responding! I can’t tell you how much I appreciate it!

Definitely stressful living in someone else’s house as adults, especially with DC in the mix. We lived with my parents for 6 weeks with 3 DC when we came back from abroad and it was awful. It was like regressing back to us being children again and having to keep on constant alert of not leaving any mess, DC being noisy and trying not to intrude on parents life.

You have to accept it’s hard on everyone but the end goal is a positive one where you’re free of debt and find coping mechanisms.

I’d be wary of your tenants actually moving out when you want them to though especially in the current rental climate. Are they aware you’re going to invoke the break clause? You may find it takes much longer if you have to go down the eviction process.

We weren’t going to invoke it so soon. We were going to leave it a year, but told the EA we needed the break clause in case things didn’t work out at my parents. Told them to pass that onto the tenants as an FYI. (I did stress that this was important and these tenants were apparently ok with it.)

DD’s reaction and DH and I’s relationship turmoil is why I think we should get back in as soon as we can. Being debt free again will be a huge weight lifted and we’re extremely lucky that we have family who can help us like this.

Living with family is exactly as you say - we’re trying to keep quiet (younger DD is VERY loud!), mess free and unobtrusive. Also making sure we cook more, clean more, buy more food, contribute more in general to show how absolutely grateful we are and also don’t want my parents to resent us or to affect our relationship with them. Also planning days out every single weekend and lingering out after school as many evenings as we can - while trying to spend no money - so we can give my parents a break. It’s so weirdly stressful doing this!

I’m just so worried that we’ll get back and DH and I will be so broken that we’ll divorce.

@Lister989 in your post at 17.03 you show such compassion and tenderness towards your dc and the disruption they are facing, how it makes them feel and behave.

Could you show that compassion and tenderness to yourself? And to your dh? You are all suffering from the disruption, the loss of your own space. You and dh are having to accept that 'someone else' is in YOUR home. Opening your front door, using your oven...

Can you spend time looking at the similarities you are facing, and understand that this (relatively) short pahse is very difficult.

Is there anything in that you can 'join' on? Be on the same page about? Feel sad about things together? Make plans for how you (together, and as a family) will reclaim your own place, make plans for how within all the shared space you each carve out your own sanctuary.

Break it down into the number of days: How long till you give notice (and what can you do during that phase - buy the cat a new toy every week?) get the coundown going and the excitement increasing.

Is there anything that you will miss about living with your parents? e.g. do they look after your dc one evening a week so you and dh can go out for a walk, a drive in the car, a beer in your local? Do a reverse coundown: sadly only 8/7/6... more evening when we can easily have this couple of hours to ourselves..