I really need to get some perspective on a situation my family is going through right now. I will try to be brief but there are quite a few details.
My husband’s parents divorced when he was a baby and rarely saw each other. But fast forward 30 years to the time when my husband and I had our first child together. After a few brief discussions about daycare for the baby after I returned to work, my husband asked his mother (a recovering alcoholic who still drinks sometimes) to move up here where we live and move in with his dad. I thought it was very weird that ex spouses would live together but my husband said I should trust him so I tried to let it go.
So my in-laws moved literally 2 doors down from us. They argued for the better part of a year and my FIL finally kicked her out a couple of weeks ago. I was assuming she was going to move back down to where she was living before (she previously lived with extended family) but my husband got mad at me for thinking that we were going to ‘throw her out on the streets’. (His words, not mine).
We have been paying for her to stay at a hotel for the last 2 weeks but that quickly got too expensive.
So I then started researching daycare rates in our area and figured out that full time care would be about the same as rent for a small apartment. I suggested that we simply pay her rent/utilities and call it even. We are always struggling with money so there just isn’t enough to try to take care of a third person.
Supposedly, she is going to get a part time job to pay for her cigarettes, clothes, makeup, etc. But 2 weeks later, still no job. She thinks she ‘might’ get a job cleaning hotel rooms next week but it is not a certainty. In the meantime, she is 100% reliant on us for EVERYTHING. Literally everything – food, drink, cigs, etc. We even bought her a prepaid cell phone to use for emergencies but she uses it to call her other family, my husband, etc all the time. So of course that is just one more thing that we are stuck buying for her.
I have tried to tell my husband that it would be better for our marriage if we put our daughter in daycare. I am constantly worried his mom is going to start drinking again. It would also end up being much cheaper for us because there is so much extra stuff that she expects from us. My husband is absolutely against anyone besides his mother watching our daughter.
My MIL is not unpleasant at all, she is usually pretty pleasant but I am harboring a huge resentment that a 52-year old woman that has bounced around from place to place, man to man and job to job is now reliant on her son to provide all of her financial support. We have enough stress in our lives without adding this to the mix. We are also paying for her doctor visits, medication, etc. She has some beningn cysts on her spleen and pancreatitis in addition to Hepatitis C, undoubtedly all from drinking. Yet she still continues to drink at nights and on the weekends. Am I wrong to think we are throwing our money away on doctors and medicine when the alcohol use is still prevalent?
I admit that I have went a bit overboard arguing with my husband about his mother. I need to find a better way to address my husband instead of nagging and *****ing. I got so pissed at him the other night that the words ‘F-ing mama’s boy’ came flying out of my mouth. But he is insanely sensitive about her and if I even say her name the wrong way, he freaks out and starts cussing at me.
I have thought about leaving over the last couple of weeks. I do love my husband with all of my heart but I think that his mother has an unhealthy dependence on our family. I appreciate that she has cared for our baby while we work but had it been up to me in the first place, it never would have happened. My husband did not get my input at all before he moved his mother up here – he told me to trust him and deal with it.
I am seriously in need of advice here! Or at least another perspective! Maybe it is me that is being the selfish one, I don’t know.. But I don’t think so. I am a Christian and believe wholeheartedly in the whole ‘leave and cleave’ principal. But right now, I feel as though there are 3 people in our marriage.
I am very close to my parents and love them very much but I only see them once every week or two. I think I have a healthy relationship with them but I don't consider my husband's relationship with his mother healthy at all. She lets him boss her around and will do anything he tells her to. In return, she is dependent on him, almost like he is the parents.
And just on a side note, is it weird that she was in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago, talking to him while he was peeing?? He is 31. I thought it was very weird but didn't say anything to him. Should I?
I am scared that our finances may get bad in the next few weeks and that he might tell her she can live with us. We live in a tiny duplex and it just wouldn’t work. She would literally be around us all the time. I would probably leave if that were to happen.
I made an appointment with a Christian marriage counselor at the end of the month. We really can't afford it but I don't want a divorce. I just want my husband to realize that he is not doing the right thing for his family. I feel that his mom is a grown woman who needs to stand on her own for once and take care of herself. I find myself resenting her more and more every day for being the way she is. When we first got married, I never dreamed that we would be supporting his mother but just a couple of years later, here we are.
Any opinions?
My husband’s parents divorced when he was a baby and rarely saw each other. But fast forward 30 years to the time when my husband and I had our first child together. After a few brief discussions about daycare for the baby after I returned to work, my husband asked his mother (a recovering alcoholic who still drinks sometimes) to move up here where we live and move in with his dad. I thought it was very weird that ex spouses would live together but my husband said I should trust him so I tried to let it go.
So my in-laws moved literally 2 doors down from us. They argued for the better part of a year and my FIL finally kicked her out a couple of weeks ago. I was assuming she was going to move back down to where she was living before (she previously lived with extended family) but my husband got mad at me for thinking that we were going to ‘throw her out on the streets’. (His words, not mine).
We have been paying for her to stay at a hotel for the last 2 weeks but that quickly got too expensive.
So I then started researching daycare rates in our area and figured out that full time care would be about the same as rent for a small apartment. I suggested that we simply pay her rent/utilities and call it even. We are always struggling with money so there just isn’t enough to try to take care of a third person.
Supposedly, she is going to get a part time job to pay for her cigarettes, clothes, makeup, etc. But 2 weeks later, still no job. She thinks she ‘might’ get a job cleaning hotel rooms next week but it is not a certainty. In the meantime, she is 100% reliant on us for EVERYTHING. Literally everything – food, drink, cigs, etc. We even bought her a prepaid cell phone to use for emergencies but she uses it to call her other family, my husband, etc all the time. So of course that is just one more thing that we are stuck buying for her.
I have tried to tell my husband that it would be better for our marriage if we put our daughter in daycare. I am constantly worried his mom is going to start drinking again. It would also end up being much cheaper for us because there is so much extra stuff that she expects from us. My husband is absolutely against anyone besides his mother watching our daughter.
My MIL is not unpleasant at all, she is usually pretty pleasant but I am harboring a huge resentment that a 52-year old woman that has bounced around from place to place, man to man and job to job is now reliant on her son to provide all of her financial support. We have enough stress in our lives without adding this to the mix. We are also paying for her doctor visits, medication, etc. She has some beningn cysts on her spleen and pancreatitis in addition to Hepatitis C, undoubtedly all from drinking. Yet she still continues to drink at nights and on the weekends. Am I wrong to think we are throwing our money away on doctors and medicine when the alcohol use is still prevalent?
I admit that I have went a bit overboard arguing with my husband about his mother. I need to find a better way to address my husband instead of nagging and *****ing. I got so pissed at him the other night that the words ‘F-ing mama’s boy’ came flying out of my mouth. But he is insanely sensitive about her and if I even say her name the wrong way, he freaks out and starts cussing at me.
I have thought about leaving over the last couple of weeks. I do love my husband with all of my heart but I think that his mother has an unhealthy dependence on our family. I appreciate that she has cared for our baby while we work but had it been up to me in the first place, it never would have happened. My husband did not get my input at all before he moved his mother up here – he told me to trust him and deal with it.
I am seriously in need of advice here! Or at least another perspective! Maybe it is me that is being the selfish one, I don’t know.. But I don’t think so. I am a Christian and believe wholeheartedly in the whole ‘leave and cleave’ principal. But right now, I feel as though there are 3 people in our marriage.
I am very close to my parents and love them very much but I only see them once every week or two. I think I have a healthy relationship with them but I don't consider my husband's relationship with his mother healthy at all. She lets him boss her around and will do anything he tells her to. In return, she is dependent on him, almost like he is the parents.
And just on a side note, is it weird that she was in the bathroom a couple of weeks ago, talking to him while he was peeing?? He is 31. I thought it was very weird but didn't say anything to him. Should I?
I am scared that our finances may get bad in the next few weeks and that he might tell her she can live with us. We live in a tiny duplex and it just wouldn’t work. She would literally be around us all the time. I would probably leave if that were to happen.
I made an appointment with a Christian marriage counselor at the end of the month. We really can't afford it but I don't want a divorce. I just want my husband to realize that he is not doing the right thing for his family. I feel that his mom is a grown woman who needs to stand on her own for once and take care of herself. I find myself resenting her more and more every day for being the way she is. When we first got married, I never dreamed that we would be supporting his mother but just a couple of years later, here we are.
Any opinions?