Dear Prudence,
Whenever my husband’s family members come to visit, they always end up living with us for months and months at a time. My husband will tell me that they are coming for two weeks—and then they will end up staying for at least six months.
For example: My mother-in-law is currently at our house. She has been taking over a bedroom and the entire kitchen for the past seven months so far. Our space is really tight, and the kids and I have literally been sleeping in the garage—which was converted into living quarters—for this whole time. Sometimes my stepdaughter and his sister also come to stay.
My husband comes from a different culture than I do, and I understand that this is normal for his culture. But my boundaries have been obliterated over the past few years of this kind of thing happening. I feel so unheard and disrespected by him and his family. We got married during COVID when we were living separately and in different countries, so I didn’t realize that I was marrying into this dynamic.
For the first few years of our daughter’s life, I cared for her all by myself, and honestly it was a lot less stressful! But then I got pregnant with our second together, and felt that I could not raise two young children all on my own and work full time and pay for everything myself, so I moved to his country.
I love our kids so much, and will do anything for them. I want to be there for them 100 percent of the time, even if it means putting up with never having personal space—so divorce is off the table. We have been to marriage counseling before. But now, whenever I tell my husband that we need marriage counseling, he just says “Why? Everything is just fine.” I don’t feel like it’s fine though!
—Frustrated With Forever House Guests