I let my son and his family move in with me. Now I’m stuck renting a place while my ex-daughter-in-law lives in my flat with another man…
At the last meeting, the boss didn’t even pretend. “Two choices—either find another job or pray for a miracle,” Lucy told us, dropping her bag wearily by the desk. “I get it… but where do you even find work these days?”
She walked into the office with a face like stone. Inside, her stomach had been twisting with dread for weeks. The company was sinking—that much was obvious—but she’d hoped they’d scrape through somehow. Now, the verdict was in. Lucy needed this job like oxygen: two kids, no child support, elderly parents who needed more help than they could give.
She sent out CVs like clockwork, rang every contact, scoured job sites day and night. Sometimes she joked with colleagues, “We spend more time thinking about second jobs than the one we’ve got.” A few had already landed something; others had vanished into thin air.
“If you’re really desperate, try the supermarket,” a mate from another department nodded. “Decent pay, flexible shifts. I’ll put in a word.”
Before, an offer like that would’ve made her cringe. Now? At least it was something.
A quiet sob cut through her thoughts. Lucy turned—by the window stood Margaret, the long-time accountant, steady as a rock, never one to complain.
“Margaret, what’s wrong?” Lucy shot up. “The layoffs? You’re pension age, you’ve got nothing to worry about. C’mon, I’ll make tea—got some scones left. Sit with me.”
“Reckon I’ll be retiring under a bridge,” the older woman muttered.
“Under a bridge? You’ve got your flat, your son’s grown—you don’t even live with him—”
“Oh, the flat’s still there. Just not for me. I’m renting now. Six hundred quid a month, and that’s cheap.”
Turns out Margaret had a two-bed, bought with her son decades back. When he married, she took them in—then things spiralled. The daughter-in-law got pregnant, moved in properly, then the baby came. Margaret endured the rows, the slammed doors, her son crashing on mates’ sofas. They blamed the hormones, the “adjustment period.”
A year later—another pregnancy.
“I cracked. Moved out,” Margaret sighed. “Got a studio. Thought it’d be temporary.”
But “temporary” stretched into years. She came round at Christmas with presents—only to see a debt notice on the door. Her flat. Over five grand owed.
“Why should we pay?” her daughter-in-law had shrugged. “Your name’s on the deeds—your problem.”
Her son just shrugged. “Skint,” he said. Margaret drained her savings, signed a plan—four years to clear the debt.
“I never even complained…” Her voice frayed as she stared out the window. “Just called sometimes. Asked after the kids. He’d say, ‘All good.’ Then I bumped into a neighbour. Told me he’d divorced. A year ago. Now the ex is shacked up with some bloke in my flat. Pregnant again.”
“And your son?”
“He said, ‘I’ve got a new family now. Can’t kick out the kids.’ Right. Can’t kick them out. But me? No trouble at all.”
Now Margaret pays utilities for a flat she can’t enter. Her ex-daughter-in-law and some stranger treat it like home, while she juggles work and grim rentals. Her pension covers meds and rent—just. No savings. No help.
“I get she’s got nowhere to go… but why’s it me on the street while she plays house with my flat?” Her voice shook. “Why didn’t he stand up for me?”
Lucy listened, lost for words. What do you say when a mother becomes expendable to her own child?
“Have you… seen a solicitor?” she ventured.
“What’s the point? She’s on the tenancy. The kids? Would a court turf out a mother with children? The debt’s on me. It’s not criminal. All legal.”
And there it was—the whole tragedy. All “legal,” not an ounce of decency.
That night, Lucy lay awake. Margaret’s hunched frame haunted her, along with the words: “Just once, I’d like to live like a person.”
Where’s the line between family and betrayal? When does a son decide his mother’s just some old woman who’ll “put up with it”?
Maybe it starts when we stop calling. Stop asking. Or when it’s easier to assume parents are “fine” while it suits us.
Now Margaret’s paying more than rent. She’s paying for trust, for kindness, for trying to help. And the question remains:
What do you do when a mother’s given everything—and ended up with nothing?
