I Didn’t Let My Parents to Stay in My Place, and Now the Entire Family Are Shaming Me

My friend Irene is a cheerful woman who is rarely in a bad mood. But yesterday she called me on the verge of a nervous breakdown and with a trembling voice asked to meet. It turned out that there was a fire in her parents’ house, and they wanted to move in with her, but she refused them. I’ll tell you why, in her own words.

The article contains images created using artificial intelligence.

There were 5 of us in the family: mom, dad, elder brother and sister, and me. I don’t know why, but my parents, especially my mom, always picked on me and often criticized my abilities and appearance.

They didn’t take me to clubs, saying I was clumsy, ignored my A and B grades, but if I got a C, I would invariably hear that I was lazy and useless. They enrolled my brother in football and my sister in dance. Both of them didn’t study well, but my parents would exuberantly celebrate any of their minor achievements.

It’s no surprise that I wanted to live independently early on. I specifically applied to university in another city: better living in a dorm than with them. I immediately found a job and dove headfirst into my first adult life.

At first, I only visited home occasionally, and then my classmates and I rented an apartment together. Communication with my parents dwindled to one call a month.

I graduated from the university with honors and was offered a job at a popular magazine in my hometown. Rent here was much more expensive, and I didn’t have anyone to share it with yet, so I had to move back home and listen to sarcastic remarks about the return of the prodigal daughter.

But I saved up for a down payment and took out a mortgage. My parents reacted in their usual manner: my dad congratulated me dryly, while my mom said that I wouldn’t be able to pay it anyway and would lose everything. And a week later, my brother bragged that our parents had bought him an apartment as a wedding gift.

I immersed myself in work completely. I got married, then my children were born. During this time, my brother got divorced and lived alone in the apartment that was given to him. My sister was doing well, and we had established a good relationship.

As for my parents... They didn’t come to my wedding because “a civil registry office ceremony is not a wedding.” They weren’t particularly interested in their grandchildren, their only ones, I must say. My mom visited once every 6 months, and my dad never did.

That’s how we lived. And then, late at night, I received a call from my mom; she was hysterical. It turned out there had been a fire. They weren’t hurt, and the fire was put out fairly quickly, but it was still impossible to live in the house now. She was yelling into the phone that she and Dad were coming to my place.

My half-asleep mind immediately responded, “No!” I said that I had no space and that they should go to my brother’s, as he lived alone. To which I was given the brilliant response, “We don’t want to bother him. Well, everything’s clear with you.”

Mom hung up, and soon my brother called. When he found out that I hadn’t let our parents stay with me, he got furious. He started lecturing me about life. He questioned where my compassion was. But when I asked why they couldn’t stay with him, he came up with an original excuse.

He said he was in the middle of an active personal life. And since I’m married with kids, I supposedly have no life to disrupt anymore. I was overwhelmed with hurt from all this audacity and anger. To avoid saying something I’d regret, I simply said I wouldn’t change my decision.

Neither my parents nor my brother have called me since, and they don’t answer my calls. However, some relatives I’ve never even heard of suddenly appeared, shaming me for supposedly sending my parents out onto the street. I’m at a loss for words about this whole situation.

Both my brother and I have 2-bedroom apartments, only I live in mine with my husband and 2 children, while he lives in his alone. I don’t regret my decision, I only regret that I didn’t talk honestly with them from the start.

Yes, the situation is ambiguous. Do you think Irene was right not to let her parents in, or should she have helped them anyway?

And here’s a story of a woman who inherited money from her grandfather — and how that moment changed her relationship with parents forever.