Anonymous wrote:Op here- you are both right. We could have done more.
My SIL made these decisions (making in-laws move many states away from where they always lived to move in with her and care for her children) and never asked for our impute until now.
Still I do understand that living in the same house for 17 years has not been easy and apricate that they had them there.
I do think giving everyone some heads up would have been more appropriate. Dropping this on us in an email with a "then need to move out ASAP" and not even having so much as a conversation with my in-laws that they need to move out ASAP seems insane to me.
I also think they could have moved them to an apartment and asked us to split the rent 10+ years ago instead of waiting until now.
Sounds to me like kids are now grown and SIL feels the IL are no longer useful. Pretty gross, frankly. Where is your brother in all this? And why is she running this? What if you say “we need more time”. She will have to figure things out.
My sister moved in with my parents over a decade ago and has lived free all that time, working only part-time. Yes, she did/does help them out, but now that things are harder due to their age, sister suddenly feels overburdened and wants me to fly constantly cross-country to help more. I cannot without destroying my own life/job prospects. Instead I offered alternate suggestions which were unacceptable. So I’m now saying ‘your rules, your choice, your consequences’.
In this case, your SIL doesn’t get to call the shots on her timeframe. You are allowing it. She’ll have to either delay the renovations or live amongst the chaos to give you the time to get in-laws settled.