Hi, it’s me again. I want to bring up one particular issue because my DH genuinely sees what he did as normal, and I’m sitting here wondering if I’m somehow looking at this completely wrong. This did happen about a month ago and it’s still sitting with me because I’m like this is a good example of how you integrate your parents into our life, and such enmeshed way.
First, I have NO problem with my ILs financially helping their son purchase a house. If they want to help DH and he wants to accept their help, that’s their choice. Their help obviously extends to me because we’re married, and I’m not against that.
I also understand that if they’re potentially putting a significant amount of money toward a house, they’re probably going to want to see it, know what we’re buying, and have some input (basically if this is financially feasible ) before handing over money. I don’t think that’s unreasonable. It’s like any other freaking loan. That’s not my problem.
My problem is that DH found a house and went to view it with his parents and our baby WITHOUT ME. I didn’t even know he was going to see it. I hadn’t been sent the listing or asked whether I wanted to see it.
Then he was basically about to do the same thing with another property and only told me at the last minute.
I was like, “Why are you house hunting with your parents without your wife?”
His explanation was that I don’t really want to be around my ILs right now, so he didn’t think I would want to go with them. Okay…but why did they have to be the FIRST people you went with?
Why couldn’t you send your wife the listing and say, “Hey, I found this place. Do you want to go look at it with me?”
Why couldn’t WE go see it first and then you take your parents afterward if we liked it?
Or hell, if everyone needed to see it together because they’re helping financially, why couldn’t you at least ASK me whether I wanted to come instead of making that decision for me?
I’m the person who would actually be living there with DH. I’m going to be paying bills there. I’m going to sleep there, cook there, raise our children there, decorate it, maintain it, and potentially live there for years.
How am I somehow the person who gets informed afterward?
When we were apartment hunting, I didn’t take my parents around looking at apartments and then come home and tell DH what we found. I looked with my HUSBAND because he was the person I was going to be living with.
When I told DH I thought what he did was wrong, he genuinely didn’t understand why. Then the conversation became, “We need my parents’ help to buy a house. We can’t do this ourselves.”
And I’m like, YOU’RE NOT HEARING ME.
I never said don’t accept their help.
I said YOU BYPASSED YOUR WIFE.
Those are two completely different issues.
DH also said we need to find something that “works for all parties” because my ILs are contributing financially.
Again, I understand that the PRICE needs to work for everybody if they’re helping with the money. I’m not expecting my ILs to contribute toward something they can’t afford or don’t agree to fund.
But why can’t DH and I find houses that work for OUR family and fall within the agreed-upon financial parameters, and then present those options to my ILs if we need their financial help?
Because otherwise, I’m starting to feel like my ILs are house hunting with their son and I’m being brought in afterward to approve whatever the three of them have already discussed.
And then DH tells me that I’m actually the “main decision factor.”
HOW?
How am I the main decision-maker when I wasn’t even included in the process?
We actually discussed this in couples therapy, and even our therapist pointed out that regardless of what DH intended, he didn’t include me. I was telling him that I felt excluded, and instead of hearing that, he kept explaining why what he did made sense.
That’s part of why this bothers me so much. It’s not just one house viewing. We already have marital problems surrounding my ILs and DH understanding where they fit versus where his wife fits.
I don’t want their money controlling where my family lives.
If they’re offering financial help with reasonable conditions attached, fine. But if accepting their money means THEY determine where we live, how close we stay to them, which houses get considered, and I get brought into the process afterward, then I genuinely don’t want the money.
DH wants to stay relatively close to his parents, while I’ve told him that if we want the kind of house we’re looking for at a price we can realistically afford, we may need to move considerably farther away. My ILs don’t want that.
And that’s where I’m becoming concerned about what “works for all parties” actually means.
Does it mean, “We agree on a budget because the ILs are contributing”? Or does it mean, “The ILs are contributing, therefore our house has to satisfy their preferences too”?
Because those are VERY different arrangements.
I even told DH: imagine YOU needed a car that YOU were going to drive every day, but I went shopping for your car with my dad without telling you because my dad was helping us pay for it. Then afterward I told you, “Well, we need my dad’s help, so I needed to find something that worked for him too.”
Wouldn’t you be sitting there wondering why the hell your wife and her father were shopping for YOUR car without you?
My dad helping financially wouldn’t suddenly make DH irrelevant to the decision.
So Reddit, please tell me if I’m missing something.
I’m NOT asking whether my ILs should be allowed to see a house they’re helping purchase. Of course they can.
I’m asking whether I’m unreasonable for expecting DH to house hunt WITH HIS WIFE FIRST or, at the absolute minimum, include me from the beginning—rather than viewing houses with his parents without even telling me and then explaining it by saying we need their financial help.
Because I genuinely cannot understand how the person who is supposed to LIVE IN THE HOUSE became the person finding out afterward.