Reply to We had to move my mom in with us and it may wreck my marriage

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Is this somewhat of a class issue? I am an immigrant but close friends with 5-6 American families, [b]parents are well off[/b] ( 3 have second homes on the eastern seaboard of MD). However, in 2-3 cases parents developed health issues and our friends (their kids) brought them home to live with them. Now, keep in mind there are millions in inheritance in all these scenarios, but I always thought and it appears so that our friends genuinely respect and love their parents and are happy to support them during their old age.

Not once have I heard a comment like the ones I am reading on this forum, so maybe it is the case that parents did right by their kids and now kids are returning the favor. I am so confused reading this thread as my experience with American families taking care of parents has been positive.[/quote]

I think the bolded is the key.  When you're well off, you can afford to outsource help and likely have sufficient space and other resources to make this work with minimal disruption/impact.  When my widowed FIL moved in with us, it nearly broke my marriage before DS agreed to have him moved to a nursing facility.  My 3 kids were in one bedroom, DH and I were in another and my FIL was in the 3rd bedroom.  The kids, DH and I shared a bathroom because FIL had too much equipment and stuff for us to do anything other than wash our hands in it.  We were tied to the house unless we hired someone to be with him.  We also couldn't afford to outsouce any of the household work. The level of care he required was a full time job - yet, DH and I both WOH FT and our 3 kids were under the age of 10.  We had to pay for a lot of counseling to get our marriage back on track.  Even now, 10 years later, I don't know if I should have stuck with it. I resent that I had to give DH an ultimatum - marriage or caring for his father.  Both could not be done.

Back in the day, my grandmother had her MIL living with her for 15 years and, after she passed, had her mother living with her for 10.  She swore she'd NEVER live with anyone of her kids.  I don't know why people think things were different back then.  None of my Gma's friends liked having their mother/MIL live with them. [/quote]

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