DH wants us to invest in country house with his parents!
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Anonymous
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I'm anti.
I love my in-laws but they are a bit, odd. First some background. I was raised going to bed hungry poor while he had a pretty standard middle-class childhood. I will admit that I am insecure about money and perhaps always will be. His parents have been looking for a house for 15 years! They cannot make a decision. DH is an only child. His parents are fit, healthy, and young. Maybe 58 and 61. I don't want to invest with them for many, many reasons. How do I talk him out of this? Right now I list one reason at a time. Should I just list them all out so it stops coming up? He just mentioned his idea to them this weekend without even getting me to agree first! Some highlight reasons: Inability to make a decision. They are paranoid about chemicals so I worry that if we negotiated home repairs, they would always want the best top of the line chem-free option and since it would be 3 against 1, I'd loose every time. They will live forever, they are so healthy and I'm not sure I want to live with them. DH contends that we will inherit their money. I think they will outlive it and also give it to charity like the private schools that they went to. Finally, and I just hve to mention this: I brought in 2/3 of the family wealth when we married and throughout our marriage I've earned 2/3 of the money. I'm not saying that I have earned 2/3 of the vote...but to be honest, I don't want to be outnumbered in financial decision making and I have no family on my side. And no, i do not for an instant think my in-laws have my best interests in mind ever. They are first, he is second, our child is a distant third and i'm maybe number 17. |
Anonymous
| Hmm, sounds like a bad idea. I wouldn't really want to go in on buying a house with anyone other than my husband, to be honest. |
Anonymous
| You say, "this has to be a joint decision, and I say no, so the answer is no." |
Anonymous
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I would start with whether you would want to buy a second home if the parents weren't in the picture-- that's not clear from your post.
If the answer is no, then that seems like a pretty easy path to go down in terms of explaining all the reasons why (check out the long thread here if you need more ideas  )
If the answer is yes, then it becomes more complicated. |
Anonymous
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Well, at least you can write about it in an entertaining way!
Put your foot down. Co-investing is not even your in-laws' idea, just something that occurred to your husband, right? It should make it easier to say no. Just an aside about the chemicals. Your in-laws are completely right - we just renovated our house and insisted on the least toxic options. You don't want your home to off-gas cancer-causing formaldehyde, especially if you have a little one. |
Anonymous
| "Honey, I love you. This is a decision that impacts us as a family. It is not one that I am comfortable with. If you want to discuss purchasing a house together as a couple, I'm open to that. But I'm not open to the idea of spending our money to co-own property with a third party, even family. " |
Anonymous
| You have to be honest -- you contribute 2/3 of the wealth and you don't want to subsidize his parents. It is how you actually feel. |
Anonymous
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Thanks all. I'll look for the link for reasons to not buy another home. I'm on the fence about buying an investment property for retirement. I don't really want to do it but see that it could be a wise decision. Our next door neighbors did it and it worked well for them.
I hear you about the chemicals. I purchased an IKEA rug recently and almost brought it back. almost. 30 dollars for a room rug is hard to beat! |
Anonymous
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I think the more reasons you give, the more they have to "chew" on so to speak
Just say no |
Anonymous
This. Stop coming up with your arguments, The more reasons, the more engagement. Just say it makes you uncomfortable and keep repeating that. He'll get the message faster if you keep your answer simple. |
Anonymous
| I don't even have to read your post. Don't do it. |
Anonymous
Please don't do this. There is nothing more frustratin that talking to my wife about something and she just repeats no again and again. Have a logical structured POV to share, but don't just say "its a joint decision and I say no". That will not make it feel like he's being heard and hell want to dig in. Open and honest communication is the path. |
Anonymous
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Thanks 7am:
I agree that talking it through is best. Next time I"ll pick a good top 3 reasons. I have many reasons but I"ll pick the "best" most logical 3. Sometimes i wonder if he just gets ideas and likes to play with them and this is one of those. i can only hope. |
Anonymous
Why don't you listen to your wife then? People only stop giving reasons when they know what they are not being listened to. OP's DH eventually is going to hear a flat no - so OP stand firm on it. |
Anonymous
Agree with this. You want him to agree with you that it's a bad idea and he's not going to do that. You have to have the gonads to just say "no" and deal with the consequences. This would be hard for me, too, btw. I'm not so good at saying "no" but I can recognize when other people should.  Good luck, OP!
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