I am quite certain that we bear no responsibility to support my brother-in-law and his family or to provide them with a flat. Allow me to clarify from the very start: the three-bedroom flat we live in is mine, purchased in a rather dreadful state before I ever married. You can imagine its conditionwhy, the front door barely hung from its hinges, leaning against the frame. Still, I was pleased with the price, and everything else I put to rights little by little. But that is not what I wish to dwell on.
When I first met my husband, I had already renovated two rooms and even managed to furnish them a bit. The flat had begun to feel rather homely by then.
My husband was a handsome and upright man, living in rented accommodation at the time. A few months after we started courting, he moved in with me. After our wedding, we prepared one of the rooms as a nursery, and in due course, I gave birth first to a boy and then to a girl.
Life was tranquil and happy, until one chilly autumn evening when our peaceful family life was suddenly upended by my mother-in-laws arrival. She appeared at our doorstep that very day, tearful and carrying several cases.
Could I stay with you for a little while? she sobbed. My sons brought a lady friend to my flat. I do hope things work out between them and that perhaps shell become his wife, and theyll settle down together for good. I shant be a botherIll help out, collect the children from nursery and school, cook their meals. I have no one else but you!
Moved by her tears, I let her in and gave her the largest room. My mother-in-law had been retired for some time and, true to her word, helped care for the children. Yet she never ventured home, as her younger son was making his life there now. He resided in her one-bedroom flat, with his young wife and two children: one theirs, and the other his wifes from a previous marriage.
Many years before, my brother-in-law had married a girl hed known since school, almost immediately after finishing. My in-laws then sold their house and with the proceeds, bought themselves a bedsit and a two-bedroom place for their son. Not long after that, my father-in-law fell ill and passed away.
My brother-in-law and his first wife had two children before they divorced. He left the flat to his family. Now, his former wife lives there with her new husband and their three children. Following the divorce, their son came back to his mothers. Mum, Ill stay with you. Im a free man at last, and I have dreams yet to fulfil! Ill manage somehow, Ill find a flat. But nothing quite went his way, and before long hed brought his new sweetheart into his mothers home.
Each weekend, my mother-in-law would bring both the children from his first marriage as well as those from the second round to oursa proper madhouse if you ask me.
A year later, I told my mother-in-law she needed to sort out her living arrangements. She fell to weeping hysterically again.
So it fell to me to tell my brother-in-law that it was time he moved out from our mother-in-laws flat. Yet he refused outright, claiming he had children and a modest wage and was in no position to afford rent. Whats to be done in such a case?
Lately, my relationship with my husbands mother has grown terribly strained. I scarcely wish to return home after work now. I resolved to speak to my husband and insisted he find a solution to his mothers housing situation, or else I would have no choice but to seek a divorce.
My words left my husband speechlesshe was at a complete loss as to where his mother might go, for he certainly couldnt just turn her out.
I told him his mother could easily rent a flatafter all, we have the means to help her do so. But my mother-in-law flatly refused to consider rented accommodation. Instead, she insisted we provide a two-bedroom flat for my brother-in-law and his family, so she herself could return here.
I took this as the height of cheek and told her plainly that if she did not leave within the week, her belongings would find themselves at the door. What else am I to do?
I see no reason why we ought to support my brother-in-laws family, much less house them ourselves!
