Money, Parents, and Life - Oh My!

[itsmerap]

Help! My husband and I have been married for 11 years and I'm not sure what to do with my current predicament.

We moved into our home about 3 years ago and in the building process we decided to add on an in-law suite for my parents as they are aging, take care of our two elementary aged children and have had health/money problems.

During our building process we lived with them in their 2 bedroom condo, sharing a room with our children, and paying $900/mo for the duration of 18 months. In that time my father side swiped my husband's vehicle and didn't pay his HOA almost leading to eviction and us needing to pick up the almost $4,000 HOA back pay in order to keep a roof over my family's head until we could move and they could sell the condo. Turns out that they couldn't just sell and it was a short sale because of their financial neglegence and we never got paid back for the money we lent them and to fix my husband's car.

They didn't pay us rent for over a year and continued to pay other bills in front of paying us and bought purchases like new furniture and things off of Amazon. My husband was losing his s*** and I all bit demanded that I be there go between after a huge falling out between them (which triggered some serious childhood trauma for me) and that enraged him. We were finally getting paid monthly what we asked of them and then my hubby lost his job of 14 years and we were so bad fiscally at that point that he felt he had to cash out his 401k to pay off debts. Ever since then we fight at least biweekly about how he feels I betrayed him and care about my parents more than him because I didn't stop them from hurting him and his life savings is gone. I want to move forward with life and find a path together but he doesn't see one that involves my parents still living here. He feels they belong on the street because that would be justice but I can't find it in my heart to kick them out because my boys love them, my father has Parkinson's and Lewy Body Dementia (also had a stroke a couple of years ago) and my mom has high anxiety and panic disorder. He doesn't understand why I won't let them fend for themselves. I just can't. 

This is all we fight about. Always. And it's wearing on me and the kids. I just don't know where to go or what to do. I'm in counseling for myself to have better coping strategies and boundaries surrounding my parents but I feel at a loss. He refuses couples counseling because he said he's done too much counseling in his youth and doesn't believe in the validity of it.

[BaileyB]

Very tough situation.

I completely understand your husband’s point, I would be very upset about the situation if my partner moved his parents into my house and they were not able to make responsible financial decisions. I think his hesitation to attend counselling has a lot to do with the fact that he is likely seething with resentment and not feeling like he can trust you to protect and keep your family safe. 

I know it’s hard, they are your parents and you don’t want to see them on the street. But - you moved your family into a two room condo with them for 18 months - I’m surprised that your husband has stuck it out this long to be very honest. That’s a long time to feel like he doesn’t have his own space or control over this situation. 

You’ve made a little progress in that your parents are now contributing to the financial management of the home but they still owe a huge debt to your husband. It’s not just the car - you made some other decisions that you probably could not afford and have cost your family including the decision to build a larger home with a suite for the in-laws. This, with everything else, has caused your husband to lose his retirement savings and that would make me very angry if I was him - and very concerned if I was you. This is your financial stability - your future!! 

At what point does your father need to go into a care home? Because, he has multiple diagnosis that will affect your ability to care for him at some point and that’s only going to put more pressure on your marriage. 

I think you have some very hard decisions to make here. It starts with a hard conversation with your parents to determine whether they have the finances to begin to pay your husband what they owe him. They need to repay their debt - again, not just the car.

You need to decide whether they stay with you or whether there is somewhere for them to move - seniors housing, a care home. Personally, I would agree with your husband that the time has come to prioritize your family and your parents need to find somewhere else to live. I would ask - how are you going to support your parents if your marriage breaks down because that’s where this is heading… 

And, I don’t think your husband is going to agree to counselling until you show that you are working to support him and resolve the issue with your parents. I think there is a long road ahead, but I hope you find a way to work this out in a manner that is fair to your husband and your parents. 
 

Edited May 22 by BaileyB

[Els]

18 hours ago, itsmerap said:

They didn't pay us rent for over a year and continued to pay other bills in front of paying us and bought purchases like new furniture and things off of Amazon. My husband was losing his s*** and I all bit demanded that I be there go between after a huge falling out between them (which triggered some serious childhood trauma for me) and that enraged him. We were finally getting paid monthly what we asked of them and then my hubby lost his job of 14 years and we were so bad fiscally at that point that he felt he had to cash out his 401k to pay off debts. Ever since then we fight at least biweekly about how he feels I betrayed him and care about my parents more than him because I didn't stop them from hurting him and his life savings is gone. I want to move forward with life and find a path together but he doesn't see one that involves my parents still living here.

Can you blame him???

I understand the desire to help your parents, but you can only help people who are willing to help themselves. Any reasonable person would be livid about their retirement funds going to their in-laws who are splurging on fancy new stuff all the time. You should have set boundaries a long time ago with your parents, and you didn't. You also haven't mentioned any concrete plans for how you intend to set boundaries with your parents in the future...

Everyone goes through medical conditions as they age. That doesn't necessarily entitle them to live with their children, and it especially doesn't entitle them to live off their son-in-law's retirement funds while they buy whatever they like. It's not your responsibility to look after them. I feel like you might have the parent-child relationship reversed here.

Your parents definitely need to start by paying your husband back so he can start to establish his retirement again. Then you can all have a discussion (and I mean a discussion, not just you telling your husband what you're gonna do) about the living arrangements moving forward, and about setting boundaries if they continue to live with you. But nothing can happen until your parents have actually taken responsibility for the pain they have caused your husband.

 

Edited May 22 by Els

[BaileyB]

Sorry, I should maybe have said - the path forward starts with your parents paying your husband back for the car. That is really important. 

You’ve allowed your parents to take advantage of your husband financially and he is rightfully upset. I realize that it’s not an easy conversation to have with your parents - nobody wants to tell their parents that they need to honour their financial obligations. But - for goodness sake - you paid them a significant amount of rent when you stayed in their two bedroom condo for a year and a half - it’s not fair that they chose to pay down their debt at your expense when they move in with you. 

Now that said, I have a friend and in her culture - she is responsible for providing and caring for her parents, financially and otherwise. I appreciate that there may be a cultural influence here that you did not mention but may be a factor… But, you are married and you owe something to your husband as well. He has lost his trust in you - you have put your parents ahead of him and that’s not a good strategy if you want long term happiness/or even to keep your marriage. 

 

Edited May 22 by BaileyB

[BaileyB]

19 minutes ago, Els said:

You also haven't mentioned any concrete plans for how you intend to set boundaries with your parents in the future...

This is what I would need to hear before I agreed to go to counselling and/or stay in the marriage.

Maybe he has it in him to renegotiate and continue this arrangement with better boundaries and if your parents make amends with the finances/pay their debt. But given his comment, I don’t know that he does… and I don’t blame him. There must be a lot of resentment for him and that’s not easily resolved…

Edited May 22 by BaileyB

[Els]

28 minutes ago, BaileyB said:

Now that said, I have a friend and in her culture - she is responsible for providing and caring for her parents, financially and otherwise. I appreciate that there may be a cultural influence here that you did not mention but may be a factor…

I'm from a culture where this is fairly common as well, and I suspect that the OP is from a similar culture. Something being expected doesn't necessarily make it right, though, and the younger generations are thankfully pushing back against these expectations.

Also, if the plan all along was to have the parents live rent-free with them for a whole year, the OP should have discussed this with her husband well in advance of getting married. So unless the husband had explicitly agreed to that upfront and reneged on his agreement (which sounds very unlikely), IMO cultural influences don't really exonerate the OP's behaviour.

Quote

Maybe he has it in him to renegotiate and continue this arrangement with better boundaries and if your parents make amends with the finances/pay their debt. But given his comment, I don’t know that he does… and I don’t blame him. There must be a lot of resentment for him and that’s not easily resolved…

Agreed. It would already have taken an extraordinary amount of patience for him to put up with so much. To make things worse, the OP doesn't even seem to think that she's done anything wrong - she wants to just "move on" without addressing any of this...  I imagine that this would be a contributing factor to his resentment as well.

[BaileyB]

49 minutes ago, Els said:

Something being expected doesn't necessarily make it right, though, and the younger generations are thankfully pushing back against these expectations.

Agree. 

My coworker is a single parent of a preschooler. Her parents recently moved to live with her - she bought a house because they came to live with her. She makes appointments for them, she is paying for them to return home to visit the family they left oversees… She is exhausted and financially spent - but she is the oldest daughter and thus, feels they are her responsibility. Our conversations of late have tended to become a discussion about self care…
 

49 minutes ago, Els said:

Also, if the plan all along was to have the parents live rent-free with them for a whole year, the OP should have discussed this with her husband well in advance of getting married.

Agree completely. This is the kind of decision that needs to be made together and everyone needs to know what they are signing on for… Of course, things happen in life and we all need a little help/support in difficult circumstances. But, if this was always the expectation within OP’s family, I would hope that he knew that before he said “I do.” 

It may be different if this couple was in the position finically to support her parents. If there was unlimited money - it amy make things a little easier to tolerate. But the fact that this living arrangement is putting great financial strain on the family is a real problem. The fact that he felt the need to cash in his retirement to pay off the debt that has resulted, at least in part, from the fact that he is being asked to financially support her parents is HUGE. That is not an easy decision to make and it has HUGE consequence - for the entire family. 
 

49 minutes ago, Els said:

To make things worse, the OP doesn't even seem to think that she's done anything wrong - she wants to just "move on" without addressing any of this...  I imagine that this would be a contributing factor to his resentment as well.

OP is now attending counselling to learn how to establish better boundaries with her parents but further to your point Els, I would worry that it’s almost too late. These discussions should have happened before you made the decision to build a house and move in together. To move forward, OP and her parents will need to acknowledge and take responsibility for what has happened and then work to rectify the situation (by repaying the debt). Ie, there needs to be more of a plan than individual counselling to establish better boundaries with your parents so that you can run interference between them and your husband. That would not be enough for me. 

I hope that you are able to stay together and work this out in a way that’s fair to everyone involved… But, I don’t think it will be easy. It may require that your parents move. If there is no acceptable solution to be found, your husband may well ask for a separation/divorce. That would be very sad. I get the sense that OP wants her husband to attend counselling so that he can better understand and accept the situation with her family… and I don’t know that he is interested or able to do that. 

Edited May 22 by BaileyB

[BaileyB]

23 minutes ago, BaileyB said:

That would be very sad.

It would be very sad if he asked for a divorce because the fact that he’s stayed this long demonstrates that he loves you and he is committed to your family. If it does come to that, it will be because the situation has absolutely exhausted him - financially and emotionally. 

I hope you don’t let that happen.

[Els]

2 hours ago, BaileyB said:

It would be very sad if he asked for a divorce because the fact that he’s stayed this long demonstrates that he loves you and he is committed to your family. If it does come to that, it will be because the situation has absolutely exhausted him - financially and emotionally. 

I hope you don’t let that happen.

This.

From reading the OP's post, I get the sense that he's at his last straw, but also that he's very accommodating. So it's possible that even something like having the parents move back out (without the debt repayment) might be enough for him. If she won't do that and won't get them to repay him, though, he'd probably leave.

And honestly, my thought is good for him, if he does that. How awful to love a person so much and be taken advantage of so much in return.

[BaileyB]

59 minutes ago, Els said:

So it's possible that even something like having the parents move back out (without the debt repayment) might be enough for him.

Agree. 

But the right thing to do is for her parents to reimburse the money they owe him for the car - at the very least. The rest can be negotiated. Maybe he will allow them to stay, but I would do so only under specific circumstances. Among those circumstances - for me - would be that they repay the money they owe him and contribute their appropriate share of the monthly expenses - ie. rent, utilities, food costs, etc…

Edited May 22 by BaileyB

[Els]

12 hours ago, BaileyB said:

Agree. 

But the right thing to do is for her parents to reimburse the money they owe him for the car - at the very least. The rest can be negotiated. Maybe he will allow them to stay, but I would do so only under specific circumstances. Among those circumstances - for me - would be that they repay the money they owe him and contribute their appropriate share of the monthly expenses - ie. rent, utilities, food costs, etc…

Welp, I happened to see that the OP was viewing this thread the last time I posted, but she hasn't responded. Looks like this will just be a drive-by. Probably because she didn't get the validation she was hoping for....

Edited May 23 by Els

[BaileyB]

Hopefully she took this different perspective into consideration for the sake of her marriage. Something to discuss possibly with her counsellor.

[Sanch62]

I would contact the human or social services department of the hospital where my parents have had care. I would ask for an appointment with a social worker. I would ask the SW for referrals to potential resources, especially a financial planning specialist, to determine how to find my parents housing and care based on their income and health conditions.

I would report my findings and my intentions to husband and tell him that I hear him, I care about how badly I've positioned him, and I'm willing to do what it takes to get his needs and desires met. I'd ask him to partner with me on this as a team on the same side, rather than viewing me as his adversary, because I have learned my lesson and I will no longer cater to my parents above him.

I'd ramp up for a rigorous process of navigating bureaucracies to obtain help for my parents, and I would continually tap the social worker for input and additional referrals to more help as needed. I would also inform my parents of the troubles they've caused me and my marriage, and I would insist that they begin repayments back to my husband for the money they owe him. I would tell them that I will intercept all packages delivered to this home until those payments are made, and if they fail to cooperate with the resources I bring in to help them settle into a new place, I will begin an eviction process, and they will be on their own. 

[ShyViolet]

On 5/21/2025 at 6:33 PM, itsmerap said:

They didn't pay us rent for over a year and continued to pay other bills in front of paying us and bought purchases like new furniture and things off of Amazon.

I don't know how on earth you let this go on for a year.  At like the two month mark of them not paying rent, that would be the time to make a serious issue out of it and take more control over the situation, not give them a choice.  If they are getting too old to live by themselves, then you should be more in control of their finances and not allowing them to be so irresponsible and ruin you financially like this.

Your husband has a lot of reason to be angry and so much damage has been done.  I hope the damage can be reversed but it's going to be a long road.