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Inlaws moving to live near us - how to manage for the best?
Mayflower10cat
Posts: 1,148 Forumite
My question is this;- has anyone else had their elderly in-laws move to be near them, (whether or not you get on well?!) and how has it worked out for everyone? Can we all make this situation work? Apologies, this is a long post!
Here’s the background for you all. My elderly inlaws have finally decided, after a fair amount of persuasion from both of us, to relocate from the Midlands to live close to us in the SW. They’re not from the Midlands originally, but moved there to be near to their middle daughter and her husband and spend more time with their two grandchildren.
Time ticks on and the two grandchildren, now in their late 20’s, have moved away, met long-term partners and set up homes of their own. And just late last year, their middle daughter and her husband very unexpectedly accepted a lucrative five year posting to the Middle East after which they’d have the financial freedom to take early retirement and possibly, buy a property in Spain. My in-laws were, privately, devastated by this decision as MiL especially is very close to her middle daughter. And her daughter has ‘kept an eye on them’ for the last ten years, despite a poor relationship with her father whom she can’t stand. More about that later. Oldest daughter has lived and worked in the US for almost 30 years and considers it her home now, with no hint that she might ever return to the UK.
So, suddenly being very much on their own, not in great health and increasingly frail, they finally agreed that to move near to us would be a good thing as mentally neither of them fancy the idea of ‘A Home’ as they call it – and to be honest I can’t blame them! Also a bungalow would suit them so much better, as both of them with arthritis are finding stairs difficult – though when we’ve mentioned it, the idea of a stair lift seems unpalatable and unacceptable to them. MiL also has COPD and FiL has high blood pressure, heart issues (and various other conditions he keeps very quiet about.)
So, their house is on the market now and they’ve had a few viewings, but it’s such a slow time for selling (and I think they might have to drop their price somewhat.) I can’t see their move happening in the near future.
Father in law is a hard man to get along with, increasingly over the last 15 or so years. I always used to make allowances for him as I knew he was in a lot of discomfort before he had his first hip replacement. For a long time, my husband wouldn’t hear a word against his Dad, even though more and more family members were confiding in me about how unkind he could be and the verbal bullying and nastiness that increasingly they were being subjected to. My MiL had told me of many dreadful, intolerable outbursts she’d had to deal with and though she never swore me to silence, I was always very careful how much detail I told my husband. She has admitted she tells me first so I can drip feed the information to my husband ‘so he won’t get too angry’. My husband was seriously ill in hospital just over five years ago and his Father subjected me to a spittle flecked rant about how furious he was that his son was so ill, it was all his fault for having ‘that big beer belly’ and it would ‘never have happened if he hadn’t been so fat’. Nothing to do with it, of course, just a spiteful swipe at his son. I snapped, finally, told him that his ‘valued medical opinion’ was worthless and how dare he speak of my husband, his son, in that cruel way in his own home under his own roof. I almost told him to get out and never come back. He seems to delight in bullying those he believes won’t answer back. And he can be very cowardly when he’s in the wrong or breaks something – he’ll almost never say sorry or admit it was his fault. He also quite deliberately upset me some years later, again in my own kitchen by grabbing the skin under my chin and waggling it as if to say, look at that flab. In case I’d misinterpreted his action, I actually said, ‘what d’you think you’re doing?’ and the nasty, sneer on his face as he did it again told me he really did mean it like that. And whilst I’m not overweight, at to closer to fifty than forty, I’m bound to have some loose flesh! I stood up for myself and made it very clear I was furious and hated the way he seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to criticise various members of his family to us, harshly and without reason and if he couldn’t say anything nice he was to shut up. A few days later, most unexpectedly, he sent me an apology letter. I rang him back and accepted his apology and also said I was sorry for shouting at him. He has upset every family member in the last few years including his grandchildren and has alienated almost all of the few friends his wife has maintained over the years. Just before Christmas I had a call from a distant cousin of my MiL, a very dear lady who’s had a tough life but cheerfully gets on with it, to warn me about the latest upset and how hurt she’d been by FiL’s actions.
My husband has finally accepted that his Dad is no angel and that his parent’s marriage is not a happy one. He has been hurt and disillusioned by this knowledge but being a very loving person, he still adores him. But I can tell he’s lost a lot of his respect. I suspect that he’s even keener now for them to move down here so he can keep an eye on his Mum and dare I say if the worst happened and she had to walk out, she would be safe with us.
They’ve just spent the weekend here with us, viewed a few properties and did some hard thinking about reducing their asking price. I also had the chance to have a conversation with MiL about how we will NOT be living in each others pockets when they move down here and we will each have our own lives and our own sets of friends. Obviously there might be some overlap, it’s only a little village, but they have to commit to joining some clubs and societies and meeting people for themselves. And that my worst fear was that we’d feel end up feeling solely responsible for their happiness. I said I’d been thinking of joining the Garden Club myself for a while and I know a few of the older ladies already, they’re all very sweet and adore their gardens. There’s a lot to get involved with if you want to, and I showed her the diary of events for this month in the Parish Magazine – literally something on every single day. She kept saying, but husband won’t want to join that/do that/go there…….
Any ideas or thoughts on how we can make this work? I really do want them to be happier than they are now and to have more scope for time apart from each other for hobbies or whatever. Somehow FiL needs to cheer up and start taking an interest in life beyond his armchair. I work from home, so it’ll be me who’d visit them during the week and both of us, or just husband, at the weekend. MiL also has her ‘moments’ and can be extremely judgmental, echoing FiL’s racist sentiments or commenting loudly on peoples weight/sexual preference/clothing, pretty much anything! It seems extremely daunting right now, I must admit!
Here’s the background for you all. My elderly inlaws have finally decided, after a fair amount of persuasion from both of us, to relocate from the Midlands to live close to us in the SW. They’re not from the Midlands originally, but moved there to be near to their middle daughter and her husband and spend more time with their two grandchildren.
Time ticks on and the two grandchildren, now in their late 20’s, have moved away, met long-term partners and set up homes of their own. And just late last year, their middle daughter and her husband very unexpectedly accepted a lucrative five year posting to the Middle East after which they’d have the financial freedom to take early retirement and possibly, buy a property in Spain. My in-laws were, privately, devastated by this decision as MiL especially is very close to her middle daughter. And her daughter has ‘kept an eye on them’ for the last ten years, despite a poor relationship with her father whom she can’t stand. More about that later. Oldest daughter has lived and worked in the US for almost 30 years and considers it her home now, with no hint that she might ever return to the UK.
So, suddenly being very much on their own, not in great health and increasingly frail, they finally agreed that to move near to us would be a good thing as mentally neither of them fancy the idea of ‘A Home’ as they call it – and to be honest I can’t blame them! Also a bungalow would suit them so much better, as both of them with arthritis are finding stairs difficult – though when we’ve mentioned it, the idea of a stair lift seems unpalatable and unacceptable to them. MiL also has COPD and FiL has high blood pressure, heart issues (and various other conditions he keeps very quiet about.)
So, their house is on the market now and they’ve had a few viewings, but it’s such a slow time for selling (and I think they might have to drop their price somewhat.) I can’t see their move happening in the near future.
Father in law is a hard man to get along with, increasingly over the last 15 or so years. I always used to make allowances for him as I knew he was in a lot of discomfort before he had his first hip replacement. For a long time, my husband wouldn’t hear a word against his Dad, even though more and more family members were confiding in me about how unkind he could be and the verbal bullying and nastiness that increasingly they were being subjected to. My MiL had told me of many dreadful, intolerable outbursts she’d had to deal with and though she never swore me to silence, I was always very careful how much detail I told my husband. She has admitted she tells me first so I can drip feed the information to my husband ‘so he won’t get too angry’. My husband was seriously ill in hospital just over five years ago and his Father subjected me to a spittle flecked rant about how furious he was that his son was so ill, it was all his fault for having ‘that big beer belly’ and it would ‘never have happened if he hadn’t been so fat’. Nothing to do with it, of course, just a spiteful swipe at his son. I snapped, finally, told him that his ‘valued medical opinion’ was worthless and how dare he speak of my husband, his son, in that cruel way in his own home under his own roof. I almost told him to get out and never come back. He seems to delight in bullying those he believes won’t answer back. And he can be very cowardly when he’s in the wrong or breaks something – he’ll almost never say sorry or admit it was his fault. He also quite deliberately upset me some years later, again in my own kitchen by grabbing the skin under my chin and waggling it as if to say, look at that flab. In case I’d misinterpreted his action, I actually said, ‘what d’you think you’re doing?’ and the nasty, sneer on his face as he did it again told me he really did mean it like that. And whilst I’m not overweight, at to closer to fifty than forty, I’m bound to have some loose flesh! I stood up for myself and made it very clear I was furious and hated the way he seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable to criticise various members of his family to us, harshly and without reason and if he couldn’t say anything nice he was to shut up. A few days later, most unexpectedly, he sent me an apology letter. I rang him back and accepted his apology and also said I was sorry for shouting at him. He has upset every family member in the last few years including his grandchildren and has alienated almost all of the few friends his wife has maintained over the years. Just before Christmas I had a call from a distant cousin of my MiL, a very dear lady who’s had a tough life but cheerfully gets on with it, to warn me about the latest upset and how hurt she’d been by FiL’s actions.
My husband has finally accepted that his Dad is no angel and that his parent’s marriage is not a happy one. He has been hurt and disillusioned by this knowledge but being a very loving person, he still adores him. But I can tell he’s lost a lot of his respect. I suspect that he’s even keener now for them to move down here so he can keep an eye on his Mum and dare I say if the worst happened and she had to walk out, she would be safe with us.
They’ve just spent the weekend here with us, viewed a few properties and did some hard thinking about reducing their asking price. I also had the chance to have a conversation with MiL about how we will NOT be living in each others pockets when they move down here and we will each have our own lives and our own sets of friends. Obviously there might be some overlap, it’s only a little village, but they have to commit to joining some clubs and societies and meeting people for themselves. And that my worst fear was that we’d feel end up feeling solely responsible for their happiness. I said I’d been thinking of joining the Garden Club myself for a while and I know a few of the older ladies already, they’re all very sweet and adore their gardens. There’s a lot to get involved with if you want to, and I showed her the diary of events for this month in the Parish Magazine – literally something on every single day. She kept saying, but husband won’t want to join that/do that/go there…….
Any ideas or thoughts on how we can make this work? I really do want them to be happier than they are now and to have more scope for time apart from each other for hobbies or whatever. Somehow FiL needs to cheer up and start taking an interest in life beyond his armchair. I work from home, so it’ll be me who’d visit them during the week and both of us, or just husband, at the weekend. MiL also has her ‘moments’ and can be extremely judgmental, echoing FiL’s racist sentiments or commenting loudly on peoples weight/sexual preference/clothing, pretty much anything! It seems extremely daunting right now, I must admit!
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Comments
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Your MIL is lucky to have you! I suspect many people would do everything they could to stop this man moving near them. Your life is not going to be easy.
As you live in a small community, your FIL's behaviour could rebound on you. You're probably going to have to accept that he's going upset neighbours and friends of yours who might not like to say anything to you and could, instead, try to distance themselves. I would be tempted to let people know in advance that he can be "difficult".
Your MIL is going to have to get out and make friends on her own. Are there any women's oriented clubs - W.I., flower arranging for the church, etc - that you could sign her up for?0 -
I would think that initially MIL may be more inclined to go to things with someone else - are there events/groups you could go to with her to start with? Then when she feels a bit more settled and it's all less daunting you could pull away a bit, hopefully by then she'll have met some new friends.
It seems like some hobbies of her own would do her the world of good, but she may need some gentle persuasion about this if she's used to only ever doing things with her husband.
Best of luck with it all.0 -
You both make very good points. FiL's behaviour, unless he modifies it, will indeed alienate possible friends. He does it all the time! There are so many clubs and societies they BOTH could join, but certainly one or two that I don't mind joining with MiL until she finds her feet a bit. Already our closest friends have met FiL and 'know the score', and any rude behaviour has simply reflected badly on him. I so wish he hadn't taken early retirement - he was so happy and occupied being bossy and 'in charge'!!!!0
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Has he always been like this or has it gradually got worse over several years? - if it has been getting worse it *could* be a medical problem...0
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Do they have to move into the same village? Could they move into the next one? A little distance may be good.Try to be a rainbow in someone's cloud.0
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Would they need to buy a bungalow? My MIL was a priority for a housing association sheltered apartment scheme a few miles from us, as she was in her 70's with no relatives nearby (200 miles away). I was worried that she'd expect us to be at her beck and call as she has a low boredom threshold and likes to be entertained every day, but luckily the housing association lay on lots of outings and activities - not to everyone's taste admittedly, but there's line dancing, bingo, coffee mornings, and meals out plus various coach trips and other stuff going on. They could let the house in the midlands to provide rental income for their new place.
I can't say I really looked forward to her move as she is a very selfish and demanding lady. She abandoned my husband at 15 so she could "live her own life", leaving issues which have sometimes made being married to him difficult! Anyway, that's another story:o. The outcome is that it has gone much better than I'd thought - mainly because of the type of accommodation she's now got. Settling into a private bungalow with no support network except OP and family would I think be much harder.0 -
To DS4215 - he has always been somewhat bad tempered, but he has decidedly got worse over the last few years, yes. The verbal abuse towards his wife is far worse than ever. There was an incident on holiday a few years ago when he was quite drunk that shocked me when MiL told me about it, but despite the D word being bandied about, she said to me 'I know which side my bread's buttered on' which I thought bizarre to say the least. He is on various medication and visits the Doctor on a very regular basis, so you would hope that his GP would pick up a problem?!
To CH27 - they've viewed a house in our village which they really liked. Whether it'll still be on the market when they sell is another matter. If they moved to the nearest small town, that'd be fine and we have been looking within a 15 mile radius.
To Alikay - we've suggested renting out their current house but they are absolutely not going to do it, so no joy there. They have a large nest-egg in the bank which means they are lucky enough to be very comfortable, unlike many other pensioners. I doubt they'd be eligible for any form of local authority sheltered housing. There are many private retirement flats and apartments, warden controlled, in the local area but they won't even consider this either..... Sigh!0 -
Can't understand some of this. You say you've 'persuaded' this couple to come and live near you, but you don't seem to be all that keen on it, or at least, not keen on some of the possible consequences.
The way you describe FIL, I wouldn't want him living on the same planet as me, never mind in the same village!!!
MIL says she 'knows which side her bread is buttered'. One of those rather odd old-fashioned phrases which means: she is prepared to stick with this extremely unpleasant man come hell or high water because of - maybe - pecuniary advantages, the comfort of having a home that he's paid for, the furniture, just the ease and comfort of it. Well, to quote another old-fashioned phrase: 'she made her bed, now she must lie in it'.
You say: 'they have to commit to joining some clubs/societies'. Well, no 'have to' about it. Some folk are just not 'joiners'. DH and I don't belong to any local clubs or societies either but we manage to find enough to occupy us.I suspect that he’s even keener now for them to move down here so he can keep an eye on his Mum and dare I say if the worst happened and she had to walk out, she would be safe with us.
One can only hope that one day she might develop enough backbone to do just that, but somehow, I doubt it.
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Æ[/FONT]r ic wisdom funde, [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]æ[/FONT]r wear[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]ð[/FONT] ic eald.
Before I found wisdom, I became old.0 -
To Margaretclare; husband has always wanted his parents to live closer to us, even more so in the last 10 years. Yes, I do have mixed feelings and reservations about it and so has he if the truth be told. But family is family and they don't have anyone else to watch out for them. And, I'm glad you have interests that keep you busy and occupied without joining any outside clubs; the inlaws don't have any hobbies aside from tidying the garden and sitting doing sudoku. FiL is always protesting that he's 'bored'! And I agree, she won't ever leave him, no matter what happens.
To Landyandy; you've summed up my worst fears, that this is the first sign of something more than simple bad temper. He also has faecal incontinence which may have no relation to his behaviour at all.0
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