Dear Prudence,
My family and I have just decided to relocate from a large West Coast city to a less expensive but lovely college town a couple hundred miles inland. My mother-in-law lives with us, and for reasons I can’t explain, our relationship has always been fraught. For some reason, she insists on taking things I say wrongly and seeing my compliments (for doing something nice for her grandchildren, or going on a birding adventure, for instance) as “solicitous”—her word. We’ve lived together for three years, and she doesn’t want to do it anymore. So since we are selling our house in a high cost city and moving to a low cost one, I bought her a house four blocks away from where we’ll live. It’s a lovely, newly renovated old home. She declined—she plans to rent a duplex further away (she has virtually no financial security, either, so paying rent will be more onerous for her). I thought it would be a way of showing my care and love and hope. But her refusal is a slap in the face to me and my child, and I don’t know how I can even go on trying with her. I want to cut off all contact. My otherwise lovely spouse just thinks that my kindness is wrongheaded and defends her mom’s position. It changes how I feel both about the move and, frankly, being in this family at all. Can you talk me off the ledge?
— Generous to a Fault