My mother-in-law is trying to talk us out of taking out a mortgage. She insists that we live with them, and then their home will go to my husband anyway, since he is their only heir. But my husband’s mother is only forty-five now, and my father is forty-seven, what inheritance is there?
My husband and I are the same age, we are twenty-five. My husband and I are working, our salary allows us to rent a place to live, and I don’t want to spoil relations with my husband’s relatives because of everyday problems.
My spouse’s parent insists on living together. At first she just pressed her lips, and then began to actively insist. My parents have a three-bedroom apartment, there is enough room for everyone, but I don’t want to come to someone else’s territory, as I will feel like a guest there. I’m not too comfortable living at my husband’s parents’ house.
After the quarantine began, the landlady of the apartment we were renting asked us to move out, because she was planning to let her niece and her family into it. We couldn’t find a place that suited us quickly, so we had to move in with his parents. My mother-in-law and father-in-law made us feel welcome. My mother was not terrorizing me, but nevertheless she was always telling me that I was doing this and that wrong.
My husband and I had thought of taking out a mortgage before, but then we realized that the time had come. We decided that while we had the opportunity, we should try to save up as much as possible. Of course I wanted as quickly as possible to move out of my parents-in-law, but I realized that if we move to rental housing, we will have to save for a long time.
Despite the fact that my parents-in-law did not interfere in our affairs, they have developed their own traditions and habits which were very different from ours. My husband and I are constantly adjusting to them, since we also came into their territory. At first glance it was no big deal, but still I was uncomfortable with my husband’s in-laws.
From the first days of my life together with my mother-in-law she removed me from cooking. She mildly explained to me that it was her kingdom and no one else could go there. However, I find it very difficult to eat what she cooks, because she is too fond of spices, and very much in the dishes puts onions.
Maybe to someone it may seem like a minor detail, but I have a serious problem with it, because after I decided to cook for myself mother-in-law took offense at me, she thought that I made her a bad hostess.
Every Friday my mother-in-law does a general cleaning. After work, she cleans the whole apartment. My husband and I come home from work very tired: we just want to go to bed quickly, and she is offended that we do everything somehow. When I asked her why she does her cleaning on Fridays and not on Saturdays or Sundays, she said that we should rest on the weekend.
And there are enough little things like that to go around. All this time my soul was warmed by the fact that my mother-in-law was not mocking me, it was just her way of doing things and that it was all temporary in my life.
My husband and I agreed not to tell his parents that we were saving up for our own place. We paid half the utilities and gave my in-laws money to buy groceries and saved up the rest. And then the other day we started talking about the car my spouse’s cousin bought. Then my father told my husband that we should also think about a personal vehicle, and my husband said that it was more important for us to buy our own home.
– How many years you have to save up? – my father-in-law asked. My husband then told my father that we are not saving up to buy an apartment, but to make a mortgage payment.
– You can live with us, why do you need a mortgage? You will get our apartment! – said my mother-in-law.
My husband and I began to explain that we wanted to live on our own. But my husband’s parents said that this was silly, because if we lived with them, we would not have to pay too much to the bank. When my mother-in-law realized that this was not the way to get through to us, she started telling us that we needed to think about our children, not about mortgages.
Every day we had to listen to her arguments in favor of living together. Her words had no effect on me, but my husband started to get her ideas, and then he told me that his mother was right. He told me at the time:
– We don’t need this mortgage. My mother was right. We live peacefully, without quarrels. And when the time comes this apartment will be given to us.
– This apartment will be ours in fifty years. – I began to resent.
However, after this conversation my husband began to talk more and more about the fact that his father and mother are already old, and they might start needing care, and the mortgage is a bondage, it will be much harder for us to pay when I go to maternity leave.
But I want to be a full-fledged mistress in my house now, rather than wait for my mother-in-law to die…
