**Diary Entry – 12th March**
Sometimes, I find myself baffled—how can some people be so brazen, demanding what isn’t theirs, all while hiding behind care and age? My mother-in-law is the perfect example of this. Her name’s Margaret Whitmore, sixty-seven years old, and for the last two years, she’s been fixated on one thing: pushing me and my husband out of our two-bedroom flat in Manchester and moving in herself. In exchange, she’s generously offering us her crumbling cottage in the Lake District.
On the surface, she’s the loving mother, an older woman worn down by life. But beneath that façade? Pure calculation. The place she’s trying to offload on us is practically a ruin. Cracks in the foundation, a leaky roof, rotting window frames—inside, it’s freezing, mouldy, with uneven floorboards and a stench of damp. Margaret hasn’t lifted a finger to fix it in years, unless you count tending to her rose bushes and trimming the blackcurrant bushes. That’s the extent of her upkeep.
Every time she visits, it’s the same routine the moment she steps through the door:
*”Oh, it’s so cosy here! So neat, so tidy. I’d love to live like this…”*
Then, ever so casually:
*”Maybe you should reconsider moving? I’d be quite happy in your little flat…”*
At first, I kept quiet. Then, I tried brushing it off with a joke. Now? Just the sight of her—that carefully crafted look of pity—sets my teeth on edge. *”Oh, I’m so old, so tired… the cottage is just too much…”* As if living in a flat means the floors mop themselves or the dust vanishes on its own. Does she genuinely believe a flat runs like a hotel with round-the-clock service? She either doesn’t grasp—or pretends not to—that this home is built on our sweat, savings, and time. Nothing here *”fell from the sky”*—we’ve worked for it.
We offered her the logical solution:
*”Sell the cottage, top up the funds, and buy yourself a one-bed flat. No garden, no hassle, just comfort.”*
But no. She insists her dilapidated pile is worth a fortune—no less than £300,000! In reality, it’s barely £150,000, and even that wouldn’t cover a decent city flat. We’ve told her straight. It goes in one ear and out the other.
*”Who’d even want that place?”* I’ve tried reasoning.
*”It’s got character!”* she shoots back. *”Your Thomas took his first steps there! It just needs a bit of sprucing up.”*
Sprucing up? When the walls are literally crumbling?
And still, she persists. Every visit, the same refrain:
*”Your flat’s so lovely. Won’t you think about it?”*
Last week, my husband finally snapped:
*”Mum, we’re not giving you the flat. And we’re not moving into that cottage. Drop it.”*
She huffed off and hasn’t called in a week. Playing the wounded martyr—how dare her son and daughter-in-law deny her this *”generous”* swap and withhold the home we’ve built?
I’m exhausted. How can anyone be so wilfully blind to boundaries? We’re a young couple—working, planning, maybe even starting a family soon. Where would we raise kids? In a draughty, cracked-shell of a cottage? Or pour every penny into propping up a lost cause?
What galls me most isn’t even her proposal. It’s the guilt trip. As if we’re the selfish ones. As if our flat is her salvation, and we’re heartless monsters barring her from *”paradise.”* All we’re asking is to keep what’s ours.
We’ve agreed to avoid the topic now. She knows where we stand. If the cottage is truly unbearable, she can sell it and find something within her means. But she won’t live under our roof. Our home isn’t a prize for outlasting us, nor a tax for raising a son. It’s ours. And we’re keeping it.
**Lesson learned:** Sometimes, the kindest thing you can do is say no—and mean it.
