Fam, I really need advice on the fIL situation here.EE

submitted by WrongToy from self.GenderCritical

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[–]Irascible-harpy 9 insightful - 1 fun9 insightful - 0 fun10 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

Are you set on cohabitating?

The way I see it, you're in a relationship with your partner and your partner only. You have no obligation to a relationship with his family. If you WANTED to spend time with them, that would be one thing. It sounds like he is spending a lot of time dealing with his parents needs. That's fine, so long as the impact on you only comes in the form of him being busier. If your partner can't respect that and expects you to care for his aging parents, he's taking advantage of you. Either he sets boundaries with his family such that they don't negatively impact you, or he's not worth it. If he respects and prioritizes you, he will understand that you are not and should not be beholden to his mother and father.

Key thing? You need boundaries. You need firm boundaries like, yesterday. If she needs help, it sounds like she's got plenty of money to get help. If they can't care for their pets, they shouldn't have pets. If you SO decides he wants to step up and take care of them, that's his business, not yours.

Adding money into this seems like a disaster in the making.

[–]WrongToy[S] 3 insightful - 1 fun3 insightful - 0 fun4 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I largely agree, and I'm trending toward just letting him do what he wants to "help out." I'll go with him for the first couple nights, maybe, to see how it goes but at 8 a.m. I am out of there. No I'm not interested in sticking around and having DIL's home-cooked breakfast and hanging around until lunchtime or later to trim their rosebushes or visit their dog or watch for their packages for free, even though DIL is set and is doing that for free. It's all work to me. If SO wants to go back and be bossed around by the DIL on a volunteer basis.

We see, in our neighborhood, so many cases of emotionally stunted men who moved in with, or never left, their mother's house. Many of these men are our age. If he prefers to be one of them, there's nothing I can do about it, but if he wants to retain keys to the house he'll have to pay the rent to do that. Love does not conquer all, sweetie.

So the newest, and the summary, of today is that fmil is calling him, mentioning that now there's a problem with the knee that renders her nonambulatory, but the main reason is that he's supposed to see ffil (it's his BIRTHDAY after all) and bring more underwear because he is soiling them, allegedly because the stroke place has him on a puree diet. Has anyone ever vomited stomach contents before? It looks like puree and that is not the reason he is incontinent. His stroke is.

I'm just going to wait a month or two for people to come to the same conclusions. They are both currently incontinent at times. Neither of them can walk with any reliability. They sure as hell can't drive. If hero DIL wants to do it for free, that's her issue. If SO invests an extra 8 in volunteering, it is on him.

SO kinda gets it, he wants to snuggle with me at night, he wants to hang around and decompress. The truth is that at minimum, he will have to cough up the rent to stay here, all of it, and not just the discounted rate that's he's further opted in by discounting it another $75. If that money is not forthcoming, then we go back to a dating relationship where he calls me before, knocks for me to let him in, and gets them to pay for all the stuff he has here, or he stores it at their place.