My 37 yr old son, along with his 49 yr old wife and their 2 daughters aged 14 and 3, and their 2 dogs, a 75 lb Rottweiler and a 135 lb English Mastiff,moved in with us in April of 2008. They were going to only stay for 6 weeks, until they found their own place to rent. There have been MANY homes available within their price range however, they are still here after 10 months. They have given us some money at times, but not on a regular basis. The aount of money they have given us equates to about $150.00/month. They have also bought food once in a whle, but they eat a LOT more than my husband and I do. They are very messy people, my home looks like a pig pen since they have been there. They don't seem to care if the house is clean or not and frankly, I'm tired of being the maid.The 3 year old sleeps with her parents, and the 14 yr old has a bedroom in our dining roo, which is open to the living room. My son has a very good job which he has been at for 15 years. They don't seem to understand that our grocery bill has tripled, along with the utilities. My husband (not my kids father) makes a good living for the 2 of us, but we are going broke trying to pay the mortgage, keep up with the bills and trying to keep us all fed. We have tried to talk to these people and explain the situation, but can;t get any help on a regular basis. Every time I ask if they have found a place or if they have the money if they did find a place, they get very defensive, and really won't hare any information with us. My husband and I feel like we are being used and we have become VERY resentful of them being here. I love them all very much, but we WANT OUR HOME BACK! Does anyone have a suggestion on how we can tactfully get these folks out of our house?
They’re Baaack
With economic pressures mounting, more adult children are moving back home, putting a crimp in mom and dad's second honeymoon.
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Andrea Collier, a 51-year-old writer in Lansing, Mich., was elated when her kids finally moved out of the house. She'd loved raising them, she says, but she was more than ready to start focusing on her relationship with her husband again: "It was wonderful to really get a chance to get to know each other again as a couple—not a couple with kids, but a couple." They went out together more, bought grown-up furniture and recharged the romance that'd tapered off a little in the hubbub of childrearing. But that ended abruptly when both adult children, now 19 and 23, came home to save money on rent. Now Collier and her husband have stains on their velvet couch and can't schedule as many dates. "I'm so over it, I can't even stand it," she says.
Rather than feeling bereft without kids, many couples like the Colliers find themselves swept up in what's commonly known as a second honeymoon after their kids leave. There's even scientific backing for the notion that a marriage gets a lift when the kids leave. A University of California study published in November in the journal Psychological Science followed 123 middle-aged women for 18 years and found a strong correlation between empty-nest status and an increase in how much the women enjoyed spending time with their partners.
But for an increasing number of empty-nesters, the honeymoon's over. The "boomeranging" phenomenon—adult children moving back home after college or a few years of work—is likely to increase as the economy continues to struggle. These extended stays can jolt the marital relationships of couples that have settled into happy new kid-free patterns. "It's hard to put their needs on the back burner and have the kids be the first priority again," says Phyllis Goldberg, a psychotherapist and counselor in California. But by not losing focus on themselves, parents can ease the transition and keep their re-lit flame burning.
Almost half (48 percent) of June 2008 college graduates planned to move back home after graduation; 43 percent of 2007 graduates were still at home nine months after graduation, according to a survey by the employment Web site Monster.com's MonsterTRAK. Those numbers—and the number of working young adults who move home—will continue to increase as the economy worsens, says Rosemary Lichtman, coauthor with Goldberg of an upcoming book about baby boomers who have to take care of both their parents and their children.
Difficulties arise not just because spouses have less time to devote to each other with a grown child at home. There's also the matter of parental worry about their children's future, especially if they're not financially secure enough to live on their own. That kind of stress can dampen romance. "Forget almost anything spontaneous," says Samuel Gladding, chair of counseling at Wake Forest University and the author of "Family Therapy."
How can couples ease the tension? Be a little selfish, advises Lichtman: stay somewhat emotionally detached so it's easier to reclaim your lifestyle. Letting your kids ease back into their pre-college roles as dependents will make you active parents again, rather than partners.
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