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Hello!

I’ve trawled the archives, but I haven’t found anything in the breakups tag addressing the overlap of

1) Nothing is glaringly wrong

2) I live with this person

Also, I’m definitely overthinking this.

I’m a woman who is living with my boyfriend. On the whole, I enjoy dating him and living with him, but I’m starting to think this is not the person I want to be with for the rest of my life. No big flashing GET OUT NOW signs or anything like that, just an overwhelming sense of “this is fine for now, but not forever”.

So, if I know I want to break up with him eventually, is it unethical to stay with him for the next couple of years while he finishes school? He’s a student, and there’s a good chance he’d have to drop out (due to housing instability) if we broke up. I don’t want that to happen. And like, I love this man! I generally enjoy dating him! But it feels… icky to decide to leave and then not Go for another two years.

Agh! What’s the ethical thing to do here?

Thank you

Hello there!

May I issue a the strongest possible recommendation against staying  in a relationship that you’re planning to end for years (!!!)l, without telling the other person how you feel or what you intend. Lying to people you love, purportedly for their own good, in a way that takes away their choices? This is not the way.

When you end an important relationship, there is no perfect way to deliver the news, there is no way to prevent the other person from getting hurt and upset, there is almost never a magic reason you can offer that will make it all right , and there is no way to plan for every possible eventuality. May I suggest the following order of operations, to be adapted as you see fit?

First, I see a lot of worry about how a break up will affect your partner, but almost none about what will happen to you. It’s time for you to daydream yourself into your new life, one where you are only responsible for you. If you knew for sure that you were breaking up, say,  a month from now, what would work best for your housing, education, and career options? What are your emergency funds like? Who could you call on for moral support, a place to crash, and other help? What would make all of this as easy and painless as possible for you? Thinking this all through doesn’t mean committing to any specific course of action, but I want you to remind yourself that you have options before you make any big decisions.

Next, when you’re ready, tell your boyfriend how you feel and give him a little time to react and make his own plans. One kindness you could do here is to take responsibility for the decision and make it as sure and as unambiguous as possible. “I’m so sorry to say this, but my feelings have changed, and I want to break up.” When he asks why, do your best to make the “whys” about yourself, and don’t seek to justify it by listing his perceived shortcomings or convince him that this is for his own good. He didn’t do anything wrong, but your feelings have changed. You’ve realized that, while you love him, you don’t see yourself together in the long term. The fact that you want to break up is a good enough reason, you don’t need to manufacture an airtight case to convince him that it’s the right thing to do.

After that, maybe after everyone’s had a few days to process, it’s time to talk logistics: Who moves out, who stays, how and when does that happen? If you need to continue sharing the living space for a while, what are the ground rules and expectations for that? This is where I suggest getting extremely boring and specific, especially about money, space, and time. “For the next two months, howabout I’ll sleep in room A, you can sleep in room B, headphones and/or a closed door on either of our parts means ‘I’m not here’ unless there’s an emergency, we’ll split the bills this way, we’ll both agree not to bring any new partners or dates back here, and we’ll both do our best to give each other a lot of space and be considerate roommates while we find our footing.”  Keep in mind, he most likely hasn’t been doing the same planning you have, so it’s okay if he needs a little time to catch up. When in doubt, “Ideally, how would you like to handle ______?” is a good question to keep things constructive.

Once you’ve made & communicated the decisions, the sad, awkward grieving time starts for both of you. It’s not fun, nor is it avoidable, but also, it doesn’t last forever.

You mention that breaking up and living separately might jeopardize your boyfriend’s housing situation, and that’s not a silly fear. The question “But where will I live now?” will almost certainly come up in some form once he knows you want to leave the relationship. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to have the answer or solve the  problem. Breaking up means recusing yourself from planning the other person’s future. While it may not seem so, living with you is not the only choice he has. Roommates and shared housing options exist, on-campus housing exists, applying to become a Resident Assistant in exchange for free or less expensive on-campus housing exists, taking a semester off to work and save up exists, friends and family exist,* student loans exist (they SUCK, but they exist, and keeping students in school during a reversal in fortune is one of the things they’re actually for). Honestly, now, when he’s a student, might be the time he has the most outside resources and assistance available to him. I don’t know what his exact set of options looks like, and I won’t claim that they are all great compared to the life he planned with you, but I know that your partner had to figure out where and how to live long before he met you, and I trust that he will figure it out now. Of course, if you are in a position to put some “get back on your feet” funds aside for him without jeopardizing your own financial situation, that would be a very kind thing to do, but it’s not a requirement before you’re allowed to sever the romantic relationship.

[*Note: I don’t know if this applies to you, but over the years I’ve received many letters from people who are worried that if they break up, their partner will lose their “only person.” Even if that’s true, and the partner has managed to cultivate and maintain absolutely zero ties outside of the romantic relationship, it doesn’t fall to their soon-to-be-ex to make up for all other people on earth by staying in a situation that they don’t want to be in. In your case, if he’s a good, likable, pleasant guy that you’ve enjoyed dating, there’s absolutely no reason to think he wouldn’t be able to find someone equally great down the road. ]

It’s admirable that you are thinking about how a breakup will affect your partner, but withdrawing from a relationship means withdrawing from both responsibility for and control of the other person’s choices. Being honest with your boyfriend means giving him information that is essential to his ability to make good choices for himself. If he needs to plan for a future on his own, then it’s important that he knows that as soon as possible. Assumptions that he will be utterly helpless without you or that staying with him when you’re secretly planning to be gone is some kind of favor are kind to no one.

P.S. Surprise! Comments are open. I repeat: Comments are open on this post, at least for the next few days.. I want to hear from readers who have experienced Pretty Good Breakups, ones where even though there was crying and moving house and money stuff and difficult logistics, everybody was maximally considerate and kind under the circumstances. What specific thing did an ex do to make life easier for you, what did you do to make it easier for them, and how did it all turn out?

The post The Best Wedding Entrance Songs To Get This Party Started appeared first on A Practical Wedding: Wedding Planning, Inspiration, and Ideas.

Hi Captain Awkward,

I (she/her) and my partner (he/him) have been planning our wedding for nearly the past 3 years at this point. Pandemic concerns forced us to push it off, but last summer we were finally able to settle on a date (late summer 2022) and booked a venue, multiple vendors, and laid all the groundwork. Partner and I have had much support—emotional and financial—from family and friends with planning this wedding. Ultimately, we can afford to pay for what we want to do, but it is a big financial commitment and our families want to gift us with help so we can save our money for our future married life.

But unfortunately, all throughout last year, my mom began suffering from mental health concerns that have been growing and spiraling out of control. This has been tough for me for many reasons, but primarily because while I love my mom, we have always had a strained relationship. My mom is the center of her own world, and despite wanting to good by others, she is truly unable to understand that other people have different wants and needs than her. She also struggles with low self esteem and projected this onto me as I was growing up. She spent much of my childhood and young adulthood confiding her feelings and struggles in me when I was too young to support her, and often based her happiness on my achievements and whether or not I was doing what she wanted. I learned that I could not be my true self around her because every time I expressed my feelings, she would invalidate me because ultimately, her feelings are more important to her. Additionally, she is often incredibly rude to others and takes her anger out onto others because it is difficult for her to balance how other people feel with her own feelings. It has taken a lot of therapy for me to be able to set better boundaries with her in order to maintain a relationship with her, and more importantly a relationship with my father, who is truly my hero.

Speaking of my father, he is currently taking care of my mother throughout this current crisis. He is a fixer and is always trying to do whatever will solve the problem right in front of him. And the current problem is that my mom now will not be well enough by the summer time to attend my wedding. In January, my mom asked partner and I to consider postponing until she was better. Partner and I were both incredibly upset that she would ask this because at the time, there was no timeline for when better would be. We had already committed to the date and paid for many things and while both my parents offered to recoup all debts incurred, it’s not just about the money. Every friend and confidant we have asked for advice has said a resounding chorus of, “this wedding is about the two of you!” along with variations of “People should be focusing on how they can be there to support you. You should not be focusing on how you can accommodate others.” Partner and I expressed many concerns with postponing to my parents (we already made commitments! My parents aren’t considering anyone but my mom in this situation!) and the past two months have been emotional hell.

I am frustrated that my mom views my wedding as an Event In Her Life and not an opportunity to support her daughter, but also, this is the kind of person she is. I am frustrated that my parents didn’t consider my partner in all of this. I was also heartbroken about the possibility of having neither of my parents at my wedding (not that my dad would refuse to be there, but my mom would be unbearably upset if he went and she could not be there). My father, the fixer, hates seeing both his daughter and his wife heartbroken, and finally asked me again: if we agree to a date, and this date is the absolute line in the sand, and all the booked vendors have this date available, will you please consider it?

Partner and I asked our vendors about the new date and at first, we didn’t think availability would work. Plus, we really wanted to stand our ground because honestly, this is a pattern of us having to plan our lives around accommodating my mom. I told my dad no due to vendor availability and while he was sad, he understood. My mom, however, did not understand and expressed this to me through a barrage of “you don’t know how miserable I am” and “why can’t you do this for me.” The next day we heard back from more vendors and realized that logistically, we could make this work, so we gave in and officially postponed the date.

Partner was actually the one who convinced me in the end that maybe we really should postpone, and while we are sad, we are ultimately relieved. If we didn’t postpone and moved forward as normal, I likely would have had to sever all ties with my family and risk losing their financial support to avoid the emotional fallout. We made this choice to protect our peace. But I can’t help but feel like we were backed into a corner and pushed into accommodating my mom. It feels like a step back on the work I’ve done to set boundaries. I’m honestly worried my therapist is going to disapprove of us giving in to my parents like this (she has been a strong proponent of “don’t move your date to please your parents”).

At the end of the day, partner and I are happy with the choice we made, but how can we make sure that in the future, we’re not forced to make a sacrifice like this again?

Sincerely,
Dutiful Daughter

Dear Dutiful Daughter,

Congratulations on your upcoming (eventual!) wedding and condolences on being in a situation where you both absolutely hate it and feel obligated to justify the sucky parts to others, including your therapist. Rock? Meet Hard Place.

You’ll notice that I kept your email subject line as the post title, with its question: Was it right?

If I were to say that your therapist and your friends made some excellent points, would it matter? You and your partner felt that it was the best option given the circumstances, you’re the ones who have to live with the decision, and you’ve already done the necessary scheduling adjustments. Here’s where I can maybe help:

First, you don’t need my permission, but you have it anyway: It’s okay to be angry and upset and not actually “happy with the decision.” You feel like you were backed into a corner because you were backed into a corner. You can make the compassionate, diplomatic choice to not make these feelings the center of how you communicate with your mom or how you and your partner communicate about your decision to postpone the wedding yet again. But I fail to see any upsides for you in pretending the feelings don’t exist or being mad at yourself for having them, and I fail to see how it’s your therapist’s place to approve or disapprove of you.

It’s okay to wish things were different. It’s okay to have compassion for your mom while she’s in crisis and hope for the best and also place her demands within the context of a lifetime of boundary-stomping behavior from her. It’s okay to grieve the experience you hoped you’d have. You’re not a bad person for wondering*, welp, what happens when the new wedding date is coming up and your mom insists on pushing it again or tries something else to wrest control of the event and make it about how you’re a bad daughter?

[*Is anyone reading this…not …wondering …that? My MIL almost didn’t make it to our wedding due to an untimely flare-up of a chronic illness, and it would have been so sad if she’d been absent, but one thing she did NOT do is demand that we move the whole shebang. My godfather had the same thing happen and unfortunately had to cancel his trip. I missed him, but nobody was mad at anybody about it. So I’m gonna remain forever skeptical of anybody who claims that your compliance with demands that make you worse off are the *only* way to make them better.]

Which leads me to the second way I might be able to help: You made a bargain in exchange for peace. It may have been a bad bargain. But you can’t get the cow back, so it’s time to plant these magic beans and grow as much peace as you possibly can under the circumstances. And I have two very concrete suggestions for where to start. They are:

1. Ask for the promised money now.
2. Stop planning your wedding, at least as far as your parents are concerned.

I’ll explain.

1. Ask your family for the promised wedding money *now.*

Goal: To remove concerns about money as a source of pressure on decisions about your wedding, and to regain a sense of agency and control over your financial future as a married couple.

If your parents are offering financial support for your wedding, they’ve promised to absolutely make it up to you for having to move the date, and one of your recurring fears is still that they’ll withdraw it at some point if they think you aren’t doing enough to accommodate your mom, what’s the worst that happens if you ask for that money now?

“Dad, we were able to rebook everything, the new total is $X. Are you still planning to contribute $Y, as we discussed? If so, are you able to advance us the funds now, so that it’s all settled and out of the way?” 

You and your partner have made a great effort to honor your parents’ wishes and set their minds at ease. Could they do something concrete to set your minds at ease by following through on what they’ve already promised?

This *shouldn’t* be a huge ask, right? As you point out, your families have made it clear that they want you to have a great party and be equipped to start your married life on the best possible footing. If postponing the wedding was in fact the right move, and things go according to plan, these contributions are a normal, expected, agreed-upon part of the plan. Your parents have both promised that this is so. But money is still a source of anxiety in your letter.

Because, of course it’s a source of anxiety! “When should the party be?” “It should happen when we’re reasonably sure Mom will be well enough to be there” is a far, far different calculus than “Should we buy a house, if yes, where/when/how much?” “Idk, it all depends on whether Mom feels up to attending this one party that we’ve already had to postpone multiple times and how Dad feels about that at the time, we can’t spend any money on anything just in case.”

Neither COVID-19 safety concerns nor your mom’s illness are anybody’s fault, but neither are they “just” about this one day on a calendar. If you and your fiancé know for sure that the wedding costs are completely squared away, it frees you to move ahead with the financial planning for all of those other parts of your married life, without it being contingent on how your mom is doing at any given time.

I feel strongly that removing pressure from a difficult situation rarely makes anything worse, which is why I think you should ask for the money and ask for it sooner rather than later. A “yes” will add greatly to your overall peace of mind and ability to plan your future on your terms, and a “no” will give you essential information for the next batch of decisions you’ll need to make.

First, even if your gut reaction is “nope nope nope, I can’t possibly ask for that right now,” that is information about whether you believe that your dad will keep his promise to cover the costs no matter what happens with your mom.

Second, if you ask, and your parents balk, that is potentially information about:

• Whether they believe that the wedding will really happen as re-scheduled.
• Whether they envision the money as a gift or as a bargaining chip in case they want you to move the date again.
• If your mom is in the kind of crisis where “show up for one day in a nice outfit with six months to prepare” is out of reach for her, are they are still in a financial position to give you any money?

No judgment, especially about that last possibility! Just, if any of these things are true, I think that it’s essential that you find out now and adjust accordingly.

The goal is for you to reclaim financial security and a sense of agency with regard to your wedding.

The hope is that you’ll be able to have your wedding on the new date, at the budget and fanciness level you’ve decided upon, with the financial support your families have offered, with your mom back up to full “yeah” strength and able to attend.

The reality is that your best bet might be making the decision right now to pay 100% of the costs of your wedding yourselves, even if that means scaling back to a cheaper/smaller event and then treating any and all family money that comes your way as a nice surprise.

Listen, I despise wedding budget-shaming in both directions, I don’t think the performative cheapskates who brag about how they found a friendly spider to weave their wedding dress and fed their guests by foraging in restaurant dumpsters are morally superior to the caviar-and-champagne crowd. But sometimes the cheapest way to pay for things is with money. If postponing means buying you and your partner many more months of money stress, even if the promised cash eventually appears, that still might be Too Expensive. Your parents theoretically have the power to remove that specific stress from you right now, so will they or won’t they? You asked for advice about ensuring you aren’t “forced” to make sacrifices like this again, and I think getting very straightforward about the money piece is one of your best bets for being able to say, “I’m so sorry, but we’re not moving it again” if things don’t go according to plan.

“But it’s a gift, you’re not entitled to anything from them!”  Quite right! But your parents offered money for your wedding in the first place and offered subsequent reassurances that they would absolutely honor this commitment. You’re not some kind of brat for wanting to know that those offers are real before you write big checks.

2. Stop planning your wedding, as far as your parents are concerned. 

Goals: A) To free yourself as much as possible of having to weigh every single thing about your wedding against how your mom is doing or feeling at any given time. B) To find ways of maintaining boundaries with your mom with maximum care and gentleness for your mom, who didn’t ask for this crisis to be happening to her. C) To give yourself a break. You’ve been planning this wedding for three years. You planned the ever-loving shit out of it. It’s okay to be done for a good while.

In past wedding planning posts on the site, managing the expectations of all the people who are not members of the couple has been a recurring theme. Who decides what? Who needs to know, and when do they need to know it? What’s the difference between asking for input and communicating decisions that have already been made?

With the best of intentions, people want to head off future discomfort by talking everything through like adults, spelling out expectations from the start, and giving people plenty of reasons for why they are doing things this way and not that. Alas, some people are unwilling and/or incapable of engaging in good faith, and perceive “more discussion and more time to come to terms with decisions” as “more time to argue.” You mentioned in your letter that you don’t have an easy time being “real” with your mom, and that is unlikely to change now, so my suggestion is that you give yourself permission to not try so hard to include her. Why discuss a thing that you’re already pretty angry and sensitive about with a person who you already know tends to make things all about herself and who stresses you the entire fuck out, even when she is not in the midst of a crisis? Why buy yourself X more months of the same arguments you already had, and hated?

It is time to be as brief, boring, and breezy as possible. Think:

• “Oh, Mom, thank you, but it’s all handled!”
• “Mom, I’ve had all the wedding chat I can handle for two lifetimes. What else is new with you?” 
• “Oh, we’ve already done the hard part,, we’re just excited to actually show up on the day at this point.” 
• Think of it as a formula: “It’s going well” + “Thanks for asking” + “Howabout that subject change where you get to talk about you?”

If (when) this appears to backfire and you get accused of “shutting her out,” don’t take the bait! This is an area where it is okay to be honest and a little bit blunt.

• “Ha, mom, we’ve been planning this wedding for three years. I know you are excited and want to help, but  I beg you, can we talk about books or current events? Watching anything good lately?” 
• In case of a shame/apology spiral, interrupt it! “Mom, at this point we’re just relieved that we could move the date. Please, let’s not!” 
• “Mom, you have one job right now, and that’s getting well. Don’t you dare stress yourself out over decisions that we made two years ago.” 

If she won’t take the subject change life-preserver you’re throwing, cut the conversation short and try again some other time.

If/when she makes specific suggestions you don’t like, don’t argue! (That’s also filed under “The Bait”)

• “Interesting suggestion, we’ll think about it!” 
• “Oh, Partner/Partner’s family is handling all of that, but I’ll mention it to them, thanks!” 

Promise nothing. Whatever fantasy either of you had about what a Mother-Daughter bonding experience this was supposed to be is long gone. Disengage.

When all else fails, time travel to a safe place that is all about her: The Past.

• “Mom, I can’t believe I’ve never asked you this, but what was your favorite part of your own wedding?”
• “Other brides all all say that it ends up being a blur. What are the best things you and Dad actually remember about your wedding?” 
• “Did you and Dad, or you and Grandma & Grampa ever argue about wedding planning? What was the biggest disagreement about? What happened?”

Ultimately, you cannot hope to manage your mom’s emotions and reactions to anything involving your wedding. Mom is going to Mom! But what you can do is get very clear with yourself about the difference between “sharing a decision you and your partner have made about the wedding” and “asking others for their input” before you engage. If you know that your mom is likely to mistake the first thing for the second, maybe she doesn’t need real-time updates. Or any updates.

From there, I think it’s pretty much about contingency planning and reminding yourself & your partner that you are allowed to carry on, as planned, with or without your mom’s presence. You have done everything you possibly can to ensure that your mom can celebrate with you when the time comes, but you don’t actually need her in order to be married to each other. You are forming your own family unit where you prioritize each other, and this is where it starts. If moving ahead would really mean potentially cutting ties with that whole side of your family, that would suck so much, but that would also be a choice that they are forcing on you, not one that you invited by being inconsiderate or uncaring. Time to find a way to give yourselves credit for handling a hard thing in the best way you could at the time and figure out how to be a team during whatever comes next.

I don’t think it’s all going to be smooth sailing from here, but I hope your wedding happens according to plan and that it is a fun, joyful occasion. with everyone you most want to see.

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Dear Captain,

I (mid-30s, she/her) could write a novel about my mother-in-law’s transgressions (highlights: announcing our engagement on social media after specifically being asked not to, making petty comments about my race/weight/hair whenever Husband is out of earshot but tearfully telling him she wants to be my friend, secretly changing our wedding plans last second so everyone could see her walk down the aisle). Husband has trouble setting/maintaining boundaries with her, which often creates frustration for me. He sees his mom as a great person who’s dealt with SO MUCH in her life, “but she’s losing her mental clarity which is why when she says/does mean things–but she doesn’t intend it that way.”

Background: Husband started taking care of MIL at 16 due to her many serious health problems. She’s had dozens of surgeries and has multiple physical/mental challenges. Despite giving up on his dreams of military/college/doing something for himself, he’s diligently taken care of her for 17+ years. Her health challenges are real, but that doesn’t stop her from martyrdom, manipulating emotions to get away with bullshit, and relying on him for basically everything.

MIL and her new husband lived with Husband before we started dating. As our relationship progressed, I agreed to move in only if there was a plan for us to live alone within a year. MIL wanted us all to live as a big happy family, but she tried to control EVERYTHING, wouldn’t let us be alone, and made me miserable. Anytime I politely brought up an issue, she’d cry, overreact (“I guess I’ll just go die in a hole!”), or be extra passive aggressive for days.

They moved out two years ago and I kept the peace by choosing my battles carefully. Then MIL’s husband was diagnosed with cancer last year, and all she can think about is moving back in with us when he passes.

Husband and I have had MANY discussions that can be summarized as:

Me: “I understand this is extremely hard for MIL, but I can’t live with her again long term—X, Y, and Z are better options. I work from home, you work 12 hour shifts, and I’m not qualified nor want to be her caretaker/roommate.”

Husband: “I want my mom to live here because she’s scared of living alone and if anything bad happens to her it’ll be my fault. I’d do the same for your mom. Other options work logically, but I’ve been guilt-tripped my entire life and believe I owe her everything for birthing me. Let’s just figure it out when the time comes.”

Captain, I need one of your step-by-step plans to help me keep my home MIL-free. Please help!

Signed,

I don’t want to be her caretaker

(PS – Extra background if needed: All of this is more complicated by the fact that SIL died last year and we’re in the process of adopting our 15 year old Niece. MIL body shames/tries to control/manipulate Niece who already has self-esteem issues/grief/past trauma.

I 100% believe it wouldn’t be good for Niece, Husband, or my mental health for MIL to move in. Husband thinks if we “tell MIL she has to adjust to our house rules/treat me as woman of the house/not force diets on Niece” MIL will go along with it and everyone will get along and be happy. Obviously, I disagree—she won’t change.)

Hello Don’t Wanna,

I’m so sorry that your family is dealing with your mother-in-law (MIL)’s husband’s illness and your sister-in-law (SIL)’s death all at once. That is a lot of grief and uncertainty to be wrangling, and trying to make big decisions in the midst of grieving is not easy. Your husband has already experienced a great deal of parentification, a form of child abuse where adults force their children into adult roles like caretaker, emotional support, confidant, and on-call childcare for siblings. This was true when your mother-in-law (MIL) had another child and a spouse in the picture, and I think you’re correct that when she really, truly doesn’t have anyone else to rely on she’s going to try to fly back like a cursèd Mjölnir.

Unfortunately, your husband’s repeated entreaties to “just deal with it when the time comes“* when you try to discuss it have an entirely predictable outcome. By refusing to work with his mom and her husband to make a plan where she lives elsewhere (a detailed-paperwork-and-money-behind-it-kind-of-plan), it’s not that your husband isn’t making any plans at all. There is totally a plan in place! That plan is: MIL will keep on planning to move in with y’all, assuming that he’ll be unable to say no to her that you’ll be unable to say no to him, and that will be that. There may be some pretense when the time comes that it’s “just for now,” but we all know that’s a fiction. He’ll continue to work 12 hour shifts. You’ll do your best to work from home, but you’re not going to totally ignore a sick old lady, so over time you’ll become the default caretaker. She has 17 years of evidence on her side that says that her son is not going to suddenly grow a spine and push her out again once she’s landed. And you know from experience that his promises about her good behavior aren’t worth a damn. “She doesn’t mean it!” “Weird, then how does she manage to only say offensive things like that when you aren’t here?” It’s only getting worse from there.

[*””Let’s just figure it out when the time comes” reminds me immediately of that scene in Walk The Line where Johnny Cash tries to reassure June Carter about their relationship: “June, that stuff will just work itself out.”  And June (correctly) is like: “No, it does not work itself out. Other people work it out for you and you think it works itself out.”]

You can’t really control what your MIL will assume or do, nor can you control what your husband will do about any of it, but I think you can, with great difficulty, push back on the assumption that it will work out “somehow” because you’ll work it out for him at the expense of your own happiness and well-being. What happens if you refuse to work it out? It sounds like you’ve already raised possible alternative solutions (X, Y, and Z) where your MIL is housed and cared for but not living with you, with no luck. And right now, you can probably vividly imagine scenarios where your MIL moves back in and you and your niece put up with constant boundary-crossing and verbal abuse from her until *something* goes down in flames: your niece moves away as far as she can get, your marriage snaps under the pressure, and/or your MIL’s health declines to the point that she must be in some kind of facility or she dies, whichever comes first.

But I want to suggest another possible path, one I’ll call “That’s not happening.” If you were to create boundaries for yourself along the lines of “I will not live with a person who goes out of her way to make me miserable,” and “I will not subject my niece to controlling behavior and verbal abuse in our home,” what would you need to do to preserve them? Something like:

“Husband, if you want your mom to move in here, or you want to move in with her so she won’t be alone, I guess that’s your choice, but I need you to understand that I will not live under the same roof with her again, and I won’t subject Niece to that, either. So it sounds like we’ll need to plan around two households. My strong preference would be that the three of us live together in one and your mom lives in her own place with plenty of X, Y, and Z support in place, but if that’s not what you want, we’ll need to make another plan so that Niece and I can be comfortable in our own home.” 

Does that seem drastic?  I definitely wouldn’t start with that *conversation* with him out of the gate, mind, but in your shoes, I would start including “two parallel households” as a very real, concrete possibility in any plans you make for the future, starting now. It’s time to at least start making some lists about what would need to happen logistically, legally, and financially to protect yourself and your niece if your husband does decide to move your MIL in over your objections.

There are two additional list-making tools that I, personally come back to again and again for managing my own anxiety around conflicts and difficult choices. The first is disaster preparedness: If the thing I’m dreading actually happens, what will I do about it? Write it down. Okay, worst case scenario, what will I do then? Write it down. If I run into stuff where the answer is “I don’t know what I’ll do,” I write down “I don’t know” or try to quickly come up with who I could ask for help or where I could find more information, and then I keep going. What I end up with is a list of options that does double duty as a reminder that I have options. They may all suck, but spelling them out makes them automatically more manageable than the expanding, unnameable dread, even if it’s only a matter of ruling out what I won’t do.

The second tool is also effectively a list of options, it’s a reminder that other people have choices about how they behave. Your husband”s mom has choices about how she treats you and your niece. And she has choices about her own future, and about where she lives, that don’t involve invading your home. The sooner that she and her husband and the rest of her family (incl. your husband) make an actual plan for what happens when she’s on her own, the more choices about all of that she will have. The more everybody kicks the can down the road, the more narrow and urgent the choices will become, which is something she and your husband seem to be counting on.

Your husband also has lots of choices here, choices like “get a therapist to help him process his upbringing and get support in setting boundaries with his mother” and “actually listen to his wife when she reminds him that you all already know that living together absolutely does not work. If his choice is “She’s my mom and I owe her and I want her to live with me so I can take care of her and I expect you to make it work somehow,” then so be it! But recognizing that as a choice *among other possible choices* gives everybody a clearer, more honest picture of what’s at stake. In a scenario where “My sonsband will always choose me over his mean wife!” and  “I can’t just abandon my mom!” clashes with “Well, I can’t have her up in my business all the time, especially when it’s me and a vulnerable child and not you who will have to deal with her antics,” somebody is bound to be disappointed. If your husband is choosing that the disappointed person is you, every time, then at least let’s name that? He can’t say no to his mom, but he can assert himself on her behalf when the happiness of the woman he married and his grieving, traumatized niece is on the line? How interesting.

Using the lists together can help you figure out what your own deal-breakers are and what your resources and support system actually look like before you try negotiating the hard thing again. I should be clear that the lists are meant to be private, process-tools for you to figure out your own mind and prepare for discussions, and you do not have to “show your work” or share every branch of your decision tree with your husband in real time when you discuss it. (People incredibly do not like it when they learn about private pro/con lists you’ve made about them.)

From there, there’s no “one discussion to rule them all” that solves all of this for both of you. It may take a lot of time and the services of a couples’ counselor to really get through. You’ve been doing a great job of expressing yourself so far, so we’re really talking about degrees between “I can’t live with her again long-term, I think X, Y, and Z are better options” and “Okay, but I am telling you that I won’t live with her again, at all, so we’re going to need another plan.”  If you take living with her completely off the table for yourself, and use that as your *starting* point in any negotiation, what else becomes possible? I don’t think you and your husband can really figure it out as long as everyone pretends that postponing the decision is anything but acquiescing. Setting and communicating your boundaries now can make that a more informed choice on his part.

This is so hard, because it feels like potentially letting your MIL “win,” by reaping the fruits of her years of grooming if he does give in to her and you end up having to move out. But your husband is an adult. If he knowingly puts his mom first, even when you’ve told him how it will hurt you, that is a choice he is making.

Immediate next steps: My hope is that your husband will get a therapist, like, yesterday, to deal with the enmeshment, and that you’ll at least be more equipped to operate from a place of knowing for sure what you need in order to be happy and well and how far you’ll go to protect your space, your health, and the vulnerable kid who is about to come under your care.

In closing, I hate this for you. Please take very good care of yourself and your sweet niece.