Renovations and Repayments.

AlexLK

DollyDee wrote: »

And take a realistic wage from the business - you won't bankrupt it, stop punishing yourself. You were reckless with money in the past but you aren't now. Draw a line, the past is the past.

Throw the money at the renovations, make your family home comfortable. Forget overpaying for now - get your family home sorted so that you, your wife and son can be together.

I fear having a higher income will make me reckless, I see things I would like to buy all the time.

In some ways I would miss the house if it were sold. My wife and I have learnt a lot of skills by working on it and have a few completed jobs that I'm quite proud of. We enjoy working on the house together when we agree on what we're doing.

Tilly_MFW_in_6_YRS wrote: »

Evening, this question has just crossed my mind.....

How would your parents feel if they knew that your (you, your wife and LittleK) futures do not lie in the 'big house'.

I wonder how this would change the dynamic in terms of your relationship with them.

Parenting never ends, as we all know, but neither does it have a price tag. If your parents chose to put all their energies into creating £ then they cannot be surprised when they turn round and find you have your own life. You can carve time out of your life to spend with them but it is not to be at their beck and call.

As you start to think of your life with your son and your wife you change in how you post. When you are stuck minding your parents, even if some of the caring is gladly done, your mood goes down.

I really wish you well but please don't try rewarding the sometimes poor behaviour of your parents. Take care of you and your family.

Best wishes Tilly

My parents would not be at all happy. Mother comes from a family where a house has been passed through the generations for over 200 years (farm). After the things my father has recently told me about his formative years, I understand why he has the views he has and why he doesn't want future generations to need to look after themselves. I suppose I think who am I to deny them their wishes.

Parenting doesn't have a price tag, I know that but my parents have always liked to throw money at problems. Over the years, I have often been the problem and have never been good enough for them.

I find looking after them difficult and it does affect my mental health. I know I should look after them and should want to but often I don't want to. They have an interest in me when they need me for something, that's how it always has been. As the years have passed I realise that they didn't really want a child but a means of passing on their assets, proving to themselves that they'd done something worthwhile. Spending money on a child cannot make up for caring about your child and having an interest in the child's life. I used to think it did.

kelpie35

I've told my wife I am planning to go back and give things another try.

That is the best news I have heard from you in a long while.

I do hope and pray that things will work well for all of you.

Have you packed your bags yet?

-taff

Just wondering.....
You are giving your son time and effort, and all the stuff you're supposed to give children.

What happens when he grows up and you start pressurising him to move in with you, to look after you , to cook for you, to take you to appointments, to listen to you ramble about how bad you are but not really change, to take advantage of him by letting him do your work but not paying him for it....see where I'm going with this?

If you wouldn't do it to your son, why would you accept it from your parents? Because they are doing that to you and you are letting them.


And in other news, good to hear you're going back, hope it's rosier on the flip side

Suffolk_lass

Well done Alex. I sincerely hope this is the right thing for you. It is the decision I made, and it worked for us

JustAboutThere

DollyDee wrote: »

And take a realistic wage from the business - you won't bankrupt it, stop punishing yourself. You were reckless with money in the past but you aren't now. Draw a line, the past is the past.

Throw the money at the renovations, make your family home comfortable. Forget overpaying for now - get your family home sorted so that you, your wife and son can be together.

I've heard it said that people don't value things they get for free.

Is it possible your parents - or yourself (subconsciously) don't put value on the work you do for the company if you don't draw a realistic salary?

You do the work, you deserve to be paid.

Even if you don't want it, its a means to an end - perhaps completing renovations on your own house.

Just a thought . . .

hiddenshadow

Brilliant news, Alex.

AlexLK wrote: »

I fear having a higher income will make me reckless, I see things I would like to buy all the time.

The solution to this is called "paying yourself first". The minute you get income, you lock away whatever of it you don't want to spend. Us peons generally do that via pensions , but you could easily open a regular saver for any house plans that are 1+ years away, or even something as simple as a current account that you don't have a debit card/chequebook for, so that you would have to go in to the bank to get cash. (Not an insurmountable hurdle, to be sure, but certainly harder than just clicking "Buy It Now" on whatever classic car website you happen to be on )

Whatever you haven't locked away is what you can spend for the month. I highly recommend allowances, provided you (and MrsK) can figure out what numbers are workable (too high and you buy another car, too low and you feel deprived). I also recommend arranging as many DDs for the same day/week of the month, and paying yourself right before that. Then you get paid, money immediately leaves the account for whatever you've committed to, and the remainder is your food/fun/misc money.

(TL;DR: use a budget )

I find looking after them difficult and it does affect my mental health. I know I should look after them and should want to but often I don't want to.

You possibly should look after them (to an extent), because you do care about them and their well-being, and it needn't make you suffer to look after them. That said, you could easily do that with much less time/effort/mental strain than you're doing now. Just because they raised you doesn't mean you're their slave for live. You need to put your own needs first (family, house, time commitments, etc.) and fit them in around that...and they need to realise that's the case. Even (especially!) if your "needs" include taking a weekend afternoon for an outing with MrsK and LittleK and not interacting with your parents at all that day....they will manage, by necessity if nothing else.

As for wanting to care for them....yes, if you care about them, you'll want to make sure they're not suffering. That's not the same thing as thinking "if I could choose anything to do today, I would jump up and down to listen to Father ramble on about that summer when he was 17 again". And that's OK.

(Forgive my saying, but it doesn't sound like they're at all appreciative of the time/sacrifices you've spent on them the past two months, so they deserve a bit of a reality check IMO!)

Red-Squirrel_2

AlexLK wrote: »

My wife doesn't really like my parents, nor what she thinks they stand for. She gets it from her father who is rather bitter about all kinds of, I suppose, class related things.

Step back from this for a minute and think about it some more.

If that was the real reason your wife doesn't like your parents, wouldn't it logically follow that she wouldn't have got involved with you either? That she wouldn't like you for lots of the same reasons? I think its well established that whatever her flaws, she certainly does like you very much!

Is it not more likely that she dislikes your parents for other reasons? Perhaps because they are rude and unpleasant to and about her and to and about her family? Perhaps because of the way they treat you, the man she loves, and all the harm they have done to you over the years for the sake of money and pride, which she cares little about? Perhaps because of some of the very mean things they have said and done to her very young son?

edinburgher

I am always confused by tl; dr. Surely when you're writing the overly long post, it's more helpful to put it at the start, like an executive summary?

I appreciate that if you're 'tl; dr'ing someone else's post, it would naturally/logically fall after said post.

heartbreak_star

Everything crossed for you, Alex. MrsK has not been an angel, but it definitely sounds like she wants to make a go of things now!

Much love to you both, and to LittleK!

HBS x

hiddenshadow

edinburgher wrote: »

I am always confused by tl; dr. Surely when you're writing the overly long post, it's more helpful to put it at the start, like an executive summary?

That does make sense, I think I've only ever seen it at the end - I guess because you start reading, you read for a bit, you scroll a bit and realise how long it is and then you're already at the end so you could read the TL/DR there?

I end up writing it at the end because it takes me until then to realise what the summary should be. Though granted, that doesn't prevent me from moving to the top...that's laziness kicking in.