Reply to My niece lives with us and recently got engaged — navigating changing family dynamics.

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]She is welcome to stay if she chooses. She was vulnerable, and had no where to live, so I couldn’t say no to letting her live with us. Her parents tried to encourage her to get a job, but she declined. Her fiancé is kind, from a well-to-do family, and they have been together for nearly a year. She understands the importance of not relying on a partner, but currently wants to stay at home. Her fiancé covers all her expenses. She occasionally helps with babysitting when breaks are needed, cooks breakfast and dinner a few times a week, and usually does the grocery shopping. Before her engagement, we covered all her expenses, with her fiancé contributing as well. The engagement is genuine, and she is actively planning the wedding, which is expected within the year. I will need to tell her about specific family and non-family time expectations.
,OP.[/quote]

You could say no. Or you could tell her to get a real job! Oh, but she "wants to stay at home" -- guess her family is obligated to support and enable her forever, then? Come on.

You think you are being kind but really you are robbing her of the experiences she needs to become an adult. It's fine to be a wife/SAHM, but that's not what this is. She isn't working anywhere near as hard as an actual wife/SAHM would and she doesn't have even slightly the amount of responsibility. She's an overgrown child and the farther she falls behind developmentally, the harder it will be to catch up.

Young men sometimes think they want a wife who's sweet and amiable and goes along with everything and looks up to them and never asks much of them. But eventually they get a little more perspective, they get bored of that and become embarrassed at their wife's lack of education and naivete, and want a relationship of equals. That's when things fall apart.

[/quote]

Also, when a 24 year old man is going to law school and is attracted to a woman who does not work, has no degree, and is homeless, that is a red flag about him. If a man wants to marry a young woman who has literally nothing going on, it’s likely he has little regard for women, and doesn’t think of them as separate beings with agency. These men think of women as accessories to them, not as actual people. [/quote]

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