Family Matters
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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Thank you.
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.
Want my own house!!
We are currently living with my in laws in a 2 Story house I have three kids 12 yrs, 18 months and eight months. I work a full-time job my husband works and then I come home and cook for nine people clean for everyone while my mother-in-law retired does nothing. We pay no bills but we do foot the grocery bill for our five family members upstairs, his stepmom, dad, and 22 ur old brother. I'm EXHAUSTED my husband who is younger than myself finds this arrangement A-Ok, he LOVES living at home. I on the other hand have lived on my own since I was 16 years old and want my own space!! How do I get him to agree?
Re: Want my own house!!
I'm also wondering how you wound up in this predicament.
Assuming you're financially capable of getting your own place, do it. You have three children, 2 of which are young, and your family simply needs its own space. You're buying groceries for, cooking for, and cleaning up after all those people... does your husband contribute?
Have you talked to him about this, expressed how exhausting this arrangement is for you? I'm generally not a fan of strong-arming someone but if your husband isn't taking you seriously and doesn't care how you're feeling I'd put it out there - "We're moving and that's final." And follow through, find a place and get the ball rolling.
WHY are you living WITH PEOPLE????
Move the heck out and get your own place!
When you live with others and it is *their* roof you are under, he who owns the home tends to make the rules. And that's whether you like it or not.
Move out and do it, asap. THis is too many people under one roof. Holy crap:
You
Your H
12 year old kiddo
18 month old
8 month old
MIL
5 family members residing upstairs.
If you prize your sanity, get dancin' and get your own place!!!
Why did you agree to live with a whole army full of people??? Methinks you and your H need to learn how to be a team and communicate AS ONE!
I'd be exhausted from the 18 month old and 8 month old alone!
Why isn't your husband doing at least half of the cooking? Especially if he's the one who really wants to be there. It sounds like you're trading your time for money - money you and h don't have to spend on rent, and money the inlaws don't have to spend on groceries. It's a great deal for everyone except you. Renegotiate.
So who looks after your 18 month old and 8 month old during the day? Your 12 year old after school?
It sounds like you are living in a multigernerational home (kind of) but that the arrangement isn't working. Why are you living there? How long have you lived there? Why were you still having kids when you weren't stable enough to live as a family unit on your own?
Alright. Bed's been made. How to get him to agree?
What is your actual role in this home? Is is actually agreed that you foot the grocery bill for everyone? If so, make that reasonable, but less comfortable. Meal plan this to death, and cheapen it up because you are "saving for your own home". Breakfast = cheap cereal and milk, for everyone. With whole wheat bread for toast, cheap jam and cheap peanut butter. Cheapest juice you can find. Lunches? Everyone gets a sandwich, you buy enough cheap sandwich stuff for everyone. They don't like it? They buy something else.
Dinners are simple, cheap, healthy and you are not a short order cook. No elaborate freezer pizzas, etc. Just big family meals on a budget. Snacks? Fruit in season and things like that. They want something different? Chips? Soda? They can buy it themselves. Providing full groceries and meals for your own family is expensive, providing it for 3 additional adults can make it extreme. See if you can scale back by providing reasonable, healthy, budget friendly food. If they don't like it they will start looking to change the arrangement, no?
The cleaning - what cleaning do you actually do, and how was this arranged / agreed? Have your immediate family members only use one bathroom and keep that one spotless. You are living there rent and bill -free, so I agree that you should help with the upkeep at the very least, but why is this falling to you and not your husband as well as 12 year old? Does the 12 year old not have chores? Could this not include helping with the dishes, setting the table and hoovering the ground floor every evening? What is your husband doing? How about emptying the garbage every evening, helping with dishes, wiping out the bathroom sink nightly and doing up the laundry?
If he's getting a free ride right now then I can certainly see why he likes it, wouldn't you? You go to work, come home and get to hang out with your wife, kids, parents and sibling while your wife cooks you dinner, takes care of the kids and then cleans the house. Nice, right?
Get him cooking and cleaning up after 9 people and he'll start to see how much this sucks. On top of that, talk to him. Tell him how you feel, constructively, that you aren't happy like this, this isn't what you wanted or envisioned and that it's wearing you down - that this can't continue. Go over your savings plan and budgets and set a realistic savings goal and date to move out.
Chronically hilarious - you'll split your stitches!
I wrote a book! Bucket list CHECK!
http://notesfortheirtherapist.blogspot.co.uk
It seems that a lot of the problems you are having would not be resolved by moving into your own home. Unless you have a serious discussion with your husband about household responsibilities, you will find yourself taking care of your husband and three children without much help just like you are now. I suggest that you have a long conversation with your husband about how much you want your own home, how overwhelmed you feel with household chores, and what steps you both need to take to fix the situation.