If you have been placed into a position where you have to depend on your parents once again like you did when you were a teen, then there are a few rules you will have to understand. The first one is be of service to them as if they were your new employers. Fill the void.
Deep down in the back of their mind, they feel as if you are making them look bad as if they didn’t raise you correctly because you are back at home. Everyone says it’s the economy stupid but deep down there is an unverbalized sense of failure on both sides of the kitchen table. They have a peer group too and those peers talk and gossip.
Believe me they don’t want to be the subject of pity or gossip and your being there is making that occur. Parents won’t or can’t verbalize this properly but you have to figure it out and fast. Give them reasons to brag on you every day. (They’re up at 4 a.m., they clean my house, they buy food and cook low sodium and diabetic meals and run interference between mom and cousin so-n-so!) Yeah, it’s like that sometimes. Fill the void and be useful!
Please understand that you and your parents have gotten older. Take a look at them one time when they don’t know you are looking (you might get yelled at if they catch you) and realize they are at least 18 to 40 years older than you are now, however you are still 12 or 15 or 20 something in the minds of your parents, if you came home after college or left home late.
They think they know you but you’ve been gone from their in-house life for years. It is a different relationship when you live in the house and get to notice every little thing about a person as opposed to visits to the house. A house once quiet is now noisey–especially if you came back home with a spouse and children. They have gotten used to the single life again and you are imposing on that life. Reliving the olden days lasts about two days. On day three you are considered a house guest. On week three it is like you live at home again and the fighting and bickering have already begun.
It is worse if they shelled out a ton of money for your education. It is much, much worse. Parents are offended you are there but grown children (ha!) have to understand that you are imposing on them, whatever your circumstance. They think in their minds to themselves they have been called back out of retirement to become an on-duty parent again. It could not be farther from the truth but it is what they think.
A border pays rent and if you are not paying them any rent, then you are a child in their eyes and they deep down feel as if they have failed you as a parent and will bring up old lessens they’ve attempted to teach you and old bits of advise they tried to lay on you. They will even bring up how you did not take said advice. (I told you not to marry him or her or take that job it was too far away or you should have married him or her but you did not.) Be advised this will happen but it does not have to make worse an already uncomfortable experience.
One good point, you have a place to stay. Even if you give your parents a stipend for rent or child care, it is the thought that counts. That act alone shows that you are still being an adult eventhough you live with your parents again. If they refuse to take it which is most likely, do not spend it but set it aside for household expenses. More water and electricity will be consumed because more people are living in the house and usually adult children have electronic gadgets to charge and use.
Another tip is to let them fuss and win all arguments even if you have to turn three shades of purple to do so. Understand what they say and look at them, acknowledge it and don’t reply back unless you are being constructive. But try not to reply back. Let the slient void speak for itself. They will say less and less and eventually understand that you are an adult who is trying hard not to feel like a failure (even though you are not) because you’ve obviously fallen off because you live there with them and not in your own place.
Another good tip is to clean everything you can. Some people don’t like others cleaning their home as it is their turf and find it insulting some how. Around week three, start moping the bathroom floors when they aren’t being used early in the moring like 4 a.m. when you should be up anyway preparing for the day. Clean the sink, tub shower and the grime around the faucet. Someone will notice and possibly treat you like an adult or at least show some mercy to you that day because of your situation. Don’t look for it though. You may become disappointed!
Most older parents are into tough love so they think they are helping you when they are mean, critical, demanding or uncooperative. However make sure you are not abusing their generousity. Pretend that is your house. Clean it, repair it, help your parents (as far as they will let you) because they are old now and above all, work your recovery plan.The fact of it is that if you want your own place you are going to have to take work available including day labor jobs if you want to keep your family intact.
In the case of getting along with your in-laws, all of the above applies and you should definately treat your in-laws as if they are your parents because they are in effect. However, in doing that, you and your spouse brother and sister so congetal relations will be completed in the sneakiest manner possible if you can still get any.
The best route is to politely go off with your spouse and talk about your situation each week for at least 15 minutes. Plan to have these meetings and remember to be polite. If you get a bit of affection, then all the more better because if will ease frayed nerves. If you find that you cannot talk to your spouse about your current situation with out fear of violence (emotional or otherwise), then you married the wrong person and you know it.
Take this time to think about that and make the appropriate moves. It may become easier to get your comeuppance apart from each other — not divorced or legally separated but apart. Maybe your spouse will go live with his or her parents, if possible. this space will help an intact relationship because you will miss the other or will break an already fractured couple. Be prepared emotionally for yourself and your children.
Another point is parenting while living at home. Your authority will be usurped because you are not the authority in someone elses’ home. The bright side is that your children will have an up close and personal look at their grandparents and possibly their great-grand parents. You will have to utilize your own (hopefully already established) value structure to explain your new existance to your children. Hopefully the children will not have to change schools but make sure they attend class everyday as it will be a stabilizing, structured force in their lives. Let them know their first priority is to be and remain a student and your first priority is to parent.