I love my Mother. She’s been my rock forever, since my Father died when I was a youngster, ahe’s always been there. Now, it’s my turn. She is retiring from her job, selling her house, and needs a place to stay in the interim. I’ve offered her a room at my place, we’ve got the room, but we don’t live well together. Any opinions, advice, whatever, would truly be appreciated as to how to make this transition run smoothly. Thanks in advance to all.
Mmm. What do you mean by ‘not live well together’? One of you is a morning person, the other isn’t? (Or something like that?) My first suggestion would be to find ways to minimize the frictions you know will arise.
Secondly, you may want to get together with her and make up some ‘house rules’: that way, it’s out in the open what you two are expecting of each other during this time period. I include in this things like ‘meals are fend for yourself’, ‘things marked with a (insert color) sticker are MINE/YOURS and will not be touched by the other party’, ‘do your own dishes’, or even ‘I am the only one who has a say with X, in return, you are the only one with a say in Y’.
It’s going to take some give and take on both sides in order to make the arrangment go smoothly: if you can get as much of it done ahead of time, it’ll be much easier.
It may help to think of her as a room mate, and not your mother for this.
Hope this helps!
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Put up some locks (on places you don’t want her to be) tell her its YOUR house and she can’t bitch about anything you do or don’t do like comming home real late , sleeping with 100s of women and being drunk, oh and lay down some rules.
There’s no turf wars involved, she and I both respect each other’s privacy, but we just have a tendency to get on each other’s nerves. We’re too much alike. She would normally be going out on her own, but that asshole ex-stepfather of mine cleaned out her bank. I’m not about to make rules for her, that would only cause tension, but I’m just curious if anybody else out here has gone through this, and how it worked out. She’s 60, and still in good health, so it will be a long stay.
Had my grand mother stay with my and my folks once she was an annoying person to put it mildly , if she has no money you could always do what parents often do for their children like give them some so they can go out and you can have the house to yourself. Or put her on your payroll so doing some of the house work to earn something makes it less of a charity case (my other grand ma on my mothers side always used to do stuff around the house tireless)
and i used to go buy her stuff or give her some money to go spend.
the interim between what? between getting another place, or death? If you’re talking a rest-of-her-life stay, you have some real issues to address. But if you’re talking a few months til her retirement cottage is ready, she obviously has a plan that doesn’t include you. Are you trying to change her mind INTO staying with you?
If it’s just a few weeks or months, suck in your gut and tough it out. VERY FEW adults ‘live well’ with their parents.
Lisa: Grandpa Simpson is the toughest of all the Simpsons!
Bart: Oh yeah?
Lisa: Yeah, remember how he fought when we put him in the home?
reads, and nods in understanding
Perhaps arranging things so you two are in the same place as little as possible? In a case like that, that’s the only thing that comes to mind with me. (Along with the previous advice from others to just suck it in and wait it out.)
Me, I’m going from the opposite end: living with my parents, as I go through college. Not the easiest thing to do at times, but at least Mom realizes that there’s only so much ‘family togetherness’ I can stand.
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