Depression

Oblio

Oblio

Utah
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It is 100% okay to have those feelings. Your parents' choices aren't yours. Just don't do it. Yeah, it is easier said then done, but you need to do what is best for you.

If you do decide to do it then you need to have a real uncomfortable conversation, setting up ground rules. Better to have that conversation before a duplex is purchased than after. For example rule one, you will never share a unit.

Sorry, I don't recall your relationship status from previous posts. If you are single, what if you meet someone? How does that work? If you are already involved, what does your partner think?
 
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Zaara

Zaara

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Long term partner of 20 years, unmarried. He doesn’t like it. The idea of having no say and one day she walks in and tells us where we live chafes him as much as it does me. We are intensely private and like our space, living in a third floor loft with no neighbor downstairs. I know it sounds like a weird set-up but that is how it would have to go. The average closing period on houses around here is a week, most are getting snapped up within 1-2 days, and we both work 50 hours a week. So if she came into a house that hit the checklist she'd probably have to pull the trigger immediately.

We had planned to try and do a part time thing living in the US for part of the year and Puerto Rico the other part, he has a home there already bought and paid for, and we cannot afford a house on our income in Massachusetts (We live in a county that is responsible for the fact that the average/median home sale in the state is 575k/620k.) So; this would work a little better than paying 6 months rent a year to maintain an empty apartment in the states.
 
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Gavinmad

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Zaara said:
Pops died of lung and brain cancer a few days before Thanksgiving this year, 67.

I was part of his hospice care, it was 5 months on the dot for his 4-6month prognosis. Fucked to say but we were blessed; it only got truly bad at the very end, and it went fast. Still, seeing him like that definitely changed me permanently.
I feel so incredibly bad for my mom. She did everything with him. She has her family and her social network, lots of support, but when the strong facade falls she talks about how she doesn't know what to do with herself any more.

I know there's that panic that happens in the wake of a husbands' death, but now she is desperate to get out of the apartment they shared. She came into money after the death of one of her siblings and can afford to walk into any house she desires. Problem is, soon as he died she rounded on me and proposed we live together/she buy a duplex. What a blessing to get a free house, is the idea. Problem is, we would have zero say in what she selects, and then...I'm back to living with my mom, especially if it turns out the way I expect where all duplexes are so astronomically overpriced that we end up having to move into together.

I love my mom, and seeing her feel so alone is breaking my fucking heart, but I feel a lot of anger and resentment towards my dad. He knew what he was doing; when I was a kid he would go on melancholic drunk tirades about he was going to die before her and that it was going to be my responsibility to take care of her. Now that we've arrived at that point I realize all those moments where she went 'when he's gone I'll live 6 months with you and 6 months with your sister' was for real, at least in her head. My sister has offered to put an addition on her house, but nope. She wants it to be me and her.

I feel awful. I feel like a piece of shit for resenting the fact that I can't take care of her from a remove, that for her it requires me being around every day to stave off her loneliness. It's not that she's a hard person to live with, I just have an insane aversion to the feeling of being manipulated by money or objects to do what my family 'expects' of me. My uncles and others have been picking at me here and there when I see them to figure out why I'm not going in on this cohabitation idea, but the truth is a selfish and shitty one. My dad dies early, and potentially for the next 20+ years I'm stuck where I'm living and can't move on because of it. I never wanted to stay here, and she refuses to go anywhere else, literally- she wouldn't even move out of the city we're currently in. We had plans and ambitions and now because he died I'm looking down the barrel of my father's choices dictating how the rest of my life goes for a decade or two.

Don't know what to do, but I know the 'honorable' thing of "taking care" of my mom is probably what I will be forced into. She's holding the keys to my ability to retire. Tattoo is a great career but if I'm being completely honest I missed the boat on being able to accumulate meaningful wealth on my own, and I have my own shelf-life before I won't be able to do it anymore/age out. Every single one of them- her and her siblings- have no intention of being in a nursing home. She won't be the only person requiring care. I feel really sad about it. Feel free to tell me how much of an asshole I am.
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So you want your mom's money when she dies but you don't want to have to do anything to get it? It's your dad's fault that you're ~40 years old and apparently have no real plan for the future beyond mom's money?

Please correct me if I'm misreading or taking things way too negatively because as it stands right now I want to say things a trifle harsher than 'asshole'.
 
Zaara

Zaara

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You can do that Gav, you might end up taking this the wrong way too but I'm not particularly concerned about correcting your schadenfreude when it comes to the reality of someone trying to have at least a modicum of financial solvency when they are too old to work/when the career path they took didn't allow for this 100k-250k salary that everyone on FoH professes to have. I do well for myself as an independent contractor but the reality is I won't be able to save enough per year to retire if I'm taking only my finances in account. This is true of 95% of tattoo artists, shop owners included. Every shop owner that I've met that had that going for them was also a proper owner/landlord/had other sources of income. I won't go into the specifics of the trust she's executor of but it was not money meant to be contingent on saying yes to having the next twenty years of my life decided for me. I planned for the future as much as my profit margin allowed. If the argument is that I should have somehow bucked expectations at 18 by seeking a better degree than the one I was expressly told I had to acquire as part of the family legacy, you can save it. I came up literally in the golden age of white women pushed towards career rather than family, and I was stuck between the options of 'largely meaningless degree (from an Ivy League associated!)' or Emerson to be a fucking writer.

That money was put aside for me to pursue my career goals to my full ability while I was still able to meaningfully produce, until I can't anymore. 20 years puts me at 57. I cannot expect to have a meaningful independent publishing career or to start as a tattoo shop owner at 57. It's just not how shit works. Believe me, I wish some days I'd gone into something with a better profit margin, but there is only so much you can do with my degree in this day and age.

I do see where you're coming from thinking I'm worse than an asshole. Nobody's entitled to anything. But I can only work within the framework my life has.
 
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Oblio

Oblio

Utah
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Zaara Zaara if there is a hierarchy to relationships, which I believe there, your partner comes first. Not that there aren't moments we put our family above our partner, surgery, hospice etc. But all those are short term and if we picked right, our partner will understand and expect the same when they need that time for their family.

Overall, I would say "no" based on what you have stated your concerns to be. However, if the perfect living situation came up like a detached ADU, where you actually had some space, then cool. Tell your Mom that you aren't committing to anything before you see the place. Explain to her that you are grateful for the opportunity, but your relationship has to be heavily considered. What if, God forbid, you move into a less than ideal situation and then 6 months later your partner says he needs to move out for his sanity. Now you will in a real tough place with a no win decision to make.

Make sure she understands that you are not dictating anything to her, it just has to be the right fit for you. If she take offense to that, then oh well. Don't let her manipulate you emotionally or financially.
 
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Zaara

Zaara

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You are correct there is a hierarchy. My partner comes first to me. He has made many sacrifices when it came to his own family to be with me, living out of the country as he does and has. I want him to be happy and the idea that he made as many concessions as he did and would still be on the hook for decisions made outside our realm of control is what causes a large chunk of my angst.

If I was alone this wouldn't even be a question. I would become my mom's companion. But I have my own companion, with his own job and needs and wishes. That he would be dragged in to any decision I made is not fair. I already told him the scenario- flat and plain. I told him, 'this is where you can bail out.' He has a lot more opportunities to continue on with aspects of life than I do, to put it both vaguely and bluntly.

I think we've made headway from where everything stood right when my dad passed. 'Headway' in terms of being able to talk rationally about what it would all entail. I posted here because believe it or not it is helpful to get outside perspectives that aren't sanded down around the edges.
 
Gavinmad

Gavinmad

Mr. Poopybutthole
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Zaara said:
You can do that Gav, you might end up taking this the wrong way too but I'm not particularly concerned about correcting your schadenfreude when it comes to the reality of someone trying to have at least a modicum of financial solvency when they are too old to work/when the career path they took didn't allow for this 100k-250k salary that everyone on FoH professes to have. I do well for myself as an independent contractor but the reality is I won't be able to save enough per year to retire if I'm taking only my finances in account. This is true of 95% of tattoo artists, shop owners included. Every shop owner that I've met that had that going for them was also a proper owner/landlord/had other sources of income. I won't go into the specifics of the trust she's executor of but it was not money meant to be contingent on saying yes to having the next twenty years of my life decided for me. I planned for the future as much as my profit margin allowed. If the argument is that I should have somehow bucked expectations at 18 by seeking a better degree than the one I was expressly told I had to acquire as part of the family legacy, you can save it. I came up literally in the golden age of white women pushed towards career rather than family, and I was stuck between the options of 'largely meaningless degree (from an Ivy League associated!)' or Emerson to be a fucking writer.

That money was put aside for me to pursue my career goals to my full ability while I was still able to meaningfully produce, until I can't anymore. 20 years puts me at 57. I cannot expect to have a meaningful independent publishing career or to start as a tattoo shop owner at 57. It's just not how shit works. Believe me, I wish some days I'd gone into something with a better profit margin, but there is only so much you can do with my degree in this day and age.

I do see where you're coming from thinking I'm worse than an asshole. Nobody's entitled to anything. But I can only work within the framework my life has.
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If anything it was dismay rather than schadenfreude as I still somehow haven't shed this absurd tendency to idealize/assume the best of FoHers, or at least long time members, and your post kinda felt like it was prologue of one of those AITA reddit stories where you develop a steadily increasing desire to strangle the author. I also benefit from the experience of a lifetime of misinterpreting and/or reading things the wrong way which is why I asked for a little more exposition instead of immediately opening up with both barrels. The bit about the trust definitely frames things in much less of a "im a selfish monster without a single shred of filial piety" light.

I'm probably retreading things you've already had suggested to you but maybe she should adopt a cat like all the other empty nesters do, or join a bridge group/some other old people pop culture stereotype. Do you think she's the type to hold the trust hostage if you don't obey?
 
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