My husband’s mom has been generally sickly the last few years but has gone downhill this last year. She’s a widow and it’s gotten to the point where it’s not good for her to live alone. However, I do not want her living with us.
We have had a volatile relationship since my husband and I started dating 6 years ago. She’s got 3 kids but my husband is her “golden child” and to her, I’ve never been anything more than the girl who stole him away, despite all my attempts to bond with her.
My husband and his two siblings got together last week to talk about her and came to the decision that they wanted to approach her about selling her house and getting some help. Well, when they did this she immediately said “I want to live with Aaron” (my husband, fake name of course for privacy).
Aaron loves his mom and has always had a hard time saying no to her so his response was he’d love to have her but just needed to talk to me first. I was against it the second he mentioned it to me. Physically she’s got some ailments but mentally she is still 100% there, so I know her living with us would just be her picking fights with me and trying to baby him and acting like I don’t exist. I don’t think I can handle years of someone undermining me.
She’s sick so if it were just Aaron and I, I would be more open to it but we have two kids and I don’t want them witnessing dysfunction and fighting. My husband and I work really hard on making sure we never argue in front of them and our home is a really stable environment, and the idea of that being disrupted gives me a lot of anxiety.
I explained all of this to Aaron and he was offended and upset at first but couldn’t deny that her and I would butt head and it wouldn’t be good for the kids. He ended up telling his siblings first and they’re both really mad at us.
One of them is a lot younger and not in the position to have her live with them and the other has a travelling job. She could talk to her job and remain local if she wanted to but she doesn’t want to make that adjustment. They just think we’re the “easiest” option even though we’re the only ones with kids.
Aaron just yesterday told my mother-in-law that it may not be the best idea to have her live with us and she completely lost it and called me selfish and a horrible wife. Now that entire side of the family is angry with us and my husband is under so much stress and is feeling a lot of guilt.
I’m starting to second guess myself because I don’t want him to secretly harbor resentment since this is more my decision than his.
What should I do?