There are times I wonder how some people muster the gall to so relentlessly demand what isn’t theirs, all while cloaking it in concern and age. My mother-in-law is the very picture of such a person. Her name is Margaret Whitmore, sixty-seven years old, and for the last two years, she’s nursed one singular ambition—to pry my husband and me out of our two-bedroom flat in Manchester and squeeze herself in, generously offering us her crumbling “manor” in the Yorkshire countryside in return.
On the surface, she’s the caring mother, a woman of advancing years, weary of household drudgery. But behind that facade lies cold calculation. The house she’s trying to foist upon us ought to have been condemned long ago. Cracks spiderweb the foundation, the roof leaks, the window frames are rotten, and inside—damp chills the air, mould creeps along the walls, the floors sag, and the scent of mildew lingers. Margaret Whitmore hasn’t lifted a finger to fix a thing in years, save for tending her flowerbeds and pruning a currant bush—that’s the extent of her stewardship.
Whenever she visits, she starts the moment she steps through the door:
*”Oh, how cosy you’ve made it here! So neat, so tidy. I’d love to live like this…”*
And then, as if by chance:
*”Perhaps you might reconsider moving? I could take the flat…”*
At first, I held my tongue. Then I deflected with polite jokes. Now, just the sight of her—eyes brimming with veiled pity—sends my hands trembling. *”Oh, I’m getting on, no strength left… that house is such a burden…”* As if the floors in a flat scrub themselves! The dust vanishes? The repairs happen by magic? Margaret Whitmore seems to think a flat is some hotel with round-the-clock maid service. She doesn’t grasp—or pretends not to—that my husband and I pour our earnings, our time, our effort into this home. That none of it came free, but through labour and sacrifice.
We offered her the sensible solution:
*”Sell the house, add a bit, and buy yourself a bedsit. Live in comfort, no garden to tend.”*
But no! She insists her derelict property is worth a fortune—no less than three hundred thousand pounds! In truth, I’d wager it barely scrapes half that. Enough for a cramped studio at best. We’ve told her plainly. It goes in one ear and out the other.
*”Who’d even want that place?”* I pressed.
*”It’s got soul! Your Edward was born there! It just needs a touch of polish,”* she retorts.
Polish… when the walls are falling apart?
And on it goes. Every visit, the same refrain:
*”Your flat is so lovely! Won’t you think it over?”*
Recently, my husband snapped:
*”Mum, we won’t hand over the flat. And we won’t move into your house. Drop it.”*
She huffed off in a sulk, hasn’t rung in a week. Plays the wounded party. How dare her son and daughter-in-law deny her “happiness,” refuse to surrender the home they’ve poured their hearts into?
I’m exhausted. I don’t understand how someone can be so deaf to others’ boundaries. We’re a young couple, working, making plans—perhaps children soon. Where would we raise them? In a draughty ruin, cracks snaking across the ceiling? Or pour more money into a lost cause?
What galls me isn’t even her proposal, but the way she frames it. As if we’re the selfish ones. As if our flat is her salvation, and we’re heartless, barring her from “paradise.” All we ask is to keep what we’ve built.
Now we’ve resolved to avoid the topic altogether. She knows our answer. It’s final. If that house is truly too much, let her sell it and find a place within her means. But she won’t live under our roof. Because our flat isn’t some prize for ageing, nor payment for motherhood. It’s our home. And we’ll surrender it to no one.
