One woman recently had a very tough time in her life, and she wrote us a letter in which she shared everything. The woman is having trouble with her 19-year-old son, whom she and her husband have asked to leave the house. There are plans for the young man’s parents to move to a smaller home so they can enjoy their early retirement. But now there is a big fight in the family, and the woman needs help and advice from our readers about what to do.
Everything was fine for Sarah’s family until one day.
“My husband and I are both 45 now, and we have three kids: a daughter who is 25 and two sons who are 22 and 19.” This is how Sarah started her letter. Peace has always existed in our home and among our family members. We got along great with all of our children, and our lives were full of wonderful moments.
They had great plans for their lives together. “My husband and I have always planned to work hard when we were younger so that we could retire early,” the woman said. Thank goodness we’ve been lucky, and we can now do that with all the money we have saved. Three of our children have already moved out. The youngest is the only one who still lives with us.
“Our four-bedroom house is in the country, and it’s a big empty house for just us and our 19-year-old son,” Sarah said. We’re going to sell the house and move into a smaller apartment in the city. We want to travel a lot, so we don’t need a big place to live. In a few months, we’re going to sell our house.
The spouses didn’t think there would be any problems with their plan, but now there is a big fight.
Sarah continues her story by saying that her youngest son’s response wasn’t quite what they thought it would be. “Our youngest son isn’t happy about that at all,” she said. He got even more angry when he tried to get us to take him with us but failed. He won’t give up! He thinks it’s unfair that his siblings got to stay at home until after college, but he has to leave now.
It didn’t work out, even though the parents were there for their son. “Dad and I offered to pay the first, last, and security deposit for any apartment he finds,” Sarah said. “But he thinks that a few months’ notice wasn’t enough time to move and look for work.” He even says we’re to blame for having that plan and leaving him behind, which is not true.
Their son thinks it’s unfair, but their parents have their own reasons for making the choice they did.
Sarah continues to confess, “I told our son that he was very fortunate to have a good childhood with lots of comforts.” I told him that even the fact that we were willing to pay to help him get settled was kind. He got so mad that he said we put our retirement ahead of his health. He also told me and my dad that we’re lucky to be able to retire at all. He went even further and included all of his siblings and other family members.
Sarah said, “I was surprised that our kids helped their younger brother.” They think we should either wait a couple more years to be fair or bring the youngest child with us. When we wouldn’t give in, our daughter said he could fly over to her house and stay there, even though she shared a bedroom with her partner and our granddaughter. We had no idea what to do when our kids acted so disrespectfully.
Everyone in the family is now arguing, and no one can see the truth in it.
Sarah wrote, “It drives me crazy that our three kids think we’ll stop everything for years so the youngest can live with us.” But none of our kids have talked to us much, so I guess they’re just against us as a whole. Our older son even told us that we won’t be able to stay with him when we visit when he buys a place of his own. Right now he lives with roommates.
She also said, “Even our parents are against us in this case.” People are basically saying that we’re being selfish and that we’re denying our child a home life, which is not true. We’ve just given him a good start to his life on his own. My husband and I are now at a loss; we can’t talk about this with anyone else because they will judge us right away. What should we do?”
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