Family Matters
lauralee1020
member
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Living with ILs
So, I've been living with my in-laws for a year and a half now. I love them. They are great people. They tell me to make myself at home there and I can do whatever I want. But I just can't get that comfortable. Some days I feel like I'm in prison. I try to explain it to my fiance but all he hears is me being ungrateful for them taking me in and feeding me everyday. How can I get him to understand where I'm coming from?
Re: Living with ILs
If this is about "oh we have to save some money until we are ready for marriage or so that we can pay for our wedding...."
Forget it.
Don't get married until you are self-sufficient. If you cannot afford to live on your own with just the 2 of you, forget it. That doesn't bode well for your marriage.
It is also never a good idea to live with anyone. The 2 of you need your own place, even if it is a one room studio apartment. As long as you are under somebody else's roof, it's going to be their rules...and you follow them., A prison, as you said.
And other than telling your FI that you feel like a prisoner, what else is it that you're trying to say? Do you want to move out? Does he?
Basically- what's the bigger picture here?
I'm not sure I understand what you mean? Are you trying to convince him to move out? Because, unless there is a really extenuating circumstance, that is what you all should be working towards and STAT! Generally speaking...unless they are going to school/college...grown adults should not be living with parents for an extended period of time. If your FI doesn't agree with that, I would find it alarming. Let him know it is very important to you that you all have your own place that you can put your own mark on.
If you have no plans to leave his parents house any time soon, than he is kind of right. Yes, it feels like a prison...because it isn't your own place with your own rules. But it is a prison you have made for yourself by agreeing to live with them. If there is some reason you all need to stay there, what do you all do for them? Do you help clean? Help cook? Pay them for rent/bills? If you don't do all three of those things, you might feel more in control of your life and less like a prisoner if the two of you start pulling your own weight.
Dick met Jane when he was in the service. He was also freshly divorced and had a 3 year old child.
They got engaged and moved up North.... to live with his cousin and the cousin's wife...and the cousin's two kids. The kids were 8 and newly born. So this was 6 people in a small 2 bedroom flat.
Dick also had no job. (I have no idea what he did when it came time for child support) The premise was that they were going to live with the cousins until they were married the following year -- and when they got married, they moved in with Dick's stepfather..
They moved out of the stepfather's house about a year later and then moved to the next state and in with Dick's mother and her husband. It never ended. (Later on, Dick's mother and husband very kindly hosted their other son and his wife --- this is Dick's brother so you can see that this entire family structure is kerfluey)
Dick and his wife both had jobs by the time they were married so I can't understand how they were not living on their own by then. Surely you can afford a studio apartment or the cheapest of basement one-bedroom flats! They still lived with some body???
I am trying to figure out what man with any common sense and plans for the future -- and respect for his future wife -- gets engaged despite the fact he doesn't have a job to support himself, let alone support a wife.
Daughter broke up with one guy that she was living with for nearly 3 years, she met another guy -- and within 2 or 3 months she moved in with him...and his parents.
"They even have their own room," her mother reported to me. Gee, you act like this is the greatest thing in the world, your 24 year old daughter moving in with some guy's PARENTS. She didn't move in with the boyfriend, if you ask me.
Then you have your work cut out for you.
You pack up and you announce, "I am moving out. I no longer want this living arrangement" and you leave! (You will, of course, find your own digs first, even if it is a furnished room or the least expensive of studio apartments!)
Indeed do it: it will be highly interesting to see what his reaction to you leaving for your own place is!
If you said to him tomorrow, "Let's get our own place" he will do it no questions asked and he would ensure that you and he found your own place, together! This is how it should work...but I get the idea that he isn't going to ever find a place for the 2 of you alone. That's a great big red flag.
I would like to know:
3-Why do you and your FI have such poor communication with each other and such poor finances...and a poor concept of what a healthy relationship dynamic is? You don't live with a parent or parents or somebody else; don't move in with anyone.....Somebody had to make a decision that you and he were going to live there and I want to know who it was. If he decided...and you had no say? Let him go shit in his hat. What else will he decide FOR YOU??? Do you want that kind of life?
8-Why are you with a guy who you cannot talk to??? If you cannot talk to him about how unhappy you are about these shitty living arrangements -- and they are shitty by fact of the matter you are not happy with them -- what can you talk to him about??
Where's your future with this guy?
Right now -- what can he bring to your table? What are his savings, what does he own outright, what is his debt, his assets, what has he got put away for retirement (he does have a 401K or something like that, from work, no?) Suppose a kiddo entered the picture: can he provide for you and a child-- and himself--- right now, with no problems? Is he insured and has he got you on his health insurance plan...or at the very least, is he financially reimbursing you for the amount you pay per month???
Clue us in....give us some answers to these questions.
He doesn't sound like much of a prize.