Should I move in with mum-in-law?
DEAR BEL
I REALLY enjoy reading your advice, so I hope you can also give me your opinion on what I should do in this situation.
I’m getting married and I don’t know which option to choose. Should my partner and I create our own marital home together.
Or should I move into my partner’s family home where his mother is now a widow — but healthy mentally and physically.
Her children have all flown the coop. I feel depressed thinking about this ethical dilemma of leaving a parent behind.
Is it terribly immoral to not be with your elders every day?
CATALINA
THIS is a good question i respect. it is relevant to point out to readers that your real surname is from a world culture which has always attached great importance to respect for the older generation.
in the words of the Chinese philosopher Confucius, ‘there are three degrees of filial piety. The highest is being a credit to our parents, the second is not disgracing them; the lowest is being able simply to support them.’ What’s more, i have a friend married to an Eastern European who told me he was naturally fine about her elderly, widower father moving in with them, because that’s how it’s done in his country.
in this society, we are far from embracing that (admittedly often difficult) duty. yet at the same time i have nothing but sympathy for your wish to have an independent married life with the man you love. (i’m guessing he’s still living with his mother, the last one in the ‘coop’).
Far from it being ‘immoral’ i see it as perfectly natural — especially when your partner’s mother is perfectly healthy. That last point is surely key.
What does she think? Might she feel happy to be alone at last? your guilt may be misplaced, so i hope you and your partner can have this honest conversation with her and include his siblings, too.
i would seek a compromise that allows independence and support — like living nearby. As she becomes older, you could consider buying a place where she has her own quarters. i live next door to my son, 12 minutes from my parents and 20 from my daughter, so i know that careful proximity can work, with both love and duty satisfied.