My dh's son moved in with us a little over five years ago. He lives in the little mother-in-law apartment downstairs, and is 40 years old.

The son is lazy, and a terrible slob. He got kicked out of his sister's house for living like a slob, and against my better judgment, but wanting to be "fair" because my dh would have done the same for my child, I agreed to let him move in until he got on his feet, under the stipulation that he paid for his share of the expenses, and that he had to keep the place clean.

Things went okay for the first few years, then over the past year or so, all of a sudden I'd smell something really foul coming from downstairs. I'd ask dh's son if he had left something out that went bad, etc., or I'd politely tell him that it smelled like his place needed cleaning. It was embarrassing when somebody would come to our house and a bad smell was coming from downstairs.

The straw that broke the camel's back was this winter. Dh's son didn't bother to clear his walkway after an ice storm, and he slipped and fell, shattering his ankle and breaking his leg in several places.

While he was in the hospital, we discovered why there was such a bad smell coming from down there. He had absolutely trashed the place. He was living in disgusting filth, filth like you'd see on the tv programs where they have to go in and clean up somebody's house.

The guy weighs over 450 pounds, so after work he'd just sit on the couch playing video games, and let all his trash, food containers, dirty clothes, etc. pile up around him instead of taking care of them.

After breaking his leg, he couldn't get out of bed, so my dh, his daughter, and his grandson spent several days down there, cleaning up the disgusting mess. We always respected his privacy and never went in his rooms, so we never knew what a pigsty he'd been living in before that.

This is the beginning of the fourth month that we've been waiting on the son hand and foot, taking care of all his needs, and there's no end in sight. If he had broken his leg by accident, I would have cheerfully served him, but knowing that it was due to his own laziness and negligence that he fell, it just makes me feel resentful.

To top it off, we found out a couple weeks ago that the son has no money left, so we're now going to have to buy groceries for him so he doesn't starve. He's wasted his money and didn't set anything aside for emergencies. Instead of washing his socks, he'd throw them away and just buy a new package every few days. We didn't know about this either.

My dh is retired, and we live on a fixed income. There's no room in our budget to be supporting another person in the house, especially one that didn't bother to plan, and had been so wasteful.

If he doesn't get back to work by the end of this month, he's going to lose his job because that's the end of the period that they said they could hold it open for him. If he loses his job, I have no idea what we'll do. We can't afford to pay for somebody in the house who isn't paying their share of the expenses.

Over the nearly 17 years we've been married, we've pretty much always had a member of the family living downstairs. For one reason or another, we've always been left holding the bag financially, ending up in a worse position ourselves.

I recently told my dh that we simply cannot afford to have anybody living in our downstairs, and that it was time for his son to get his own place too.

My dh and I have rarely fought since we've been married, but since his son broke his leg, and all that's gone on with that, we've been fighting so often that it's starting to take a toll on our marriage.

Dh coddles and enables his son like you wouldn't believe. His daughter has even told him that he does this, but either he can't see it, or he refuses to believe it. I certainly see it.

I want the son to move out asap. Dh wants him to stay.

Even though my anger would like to toss him out on his ear right now, reality says that he can't go anywhere until he gets back to work and saves money for an apartment of his own, which could be months and months yet. I don't know if I can take it that long.

I want our house back. It would be nice to live here, just the two of us,for a change.

I'd like to see the son gone by the end of this year, but my dh says that isn't possible. He says he doesn't even know if his son makes enough to be able to afford a place, and I said that's not OUR problem. If he needs to take a second job, he needs to. He needs to grow up and be a man and make his own way in life, and if it's hard, oh, well--the rest of us struggled too.

Dh asked if the son could stay here for another year. At first I said I didn't know if I could stand another year, then I said okay, but only if I didn't have to keep after him about cleaning the place, but then I had to say no, I really don't believe I can stand having him here for another year.

We're not able to agree on a deadline for the son to move out, and we're not able to talk about any of this calmly either.

Many days lately, I feel like moving out, but I shouldn't have to move out of my own home. I don't want dh's son to be the cause of our marriage breaking up either.

He needs to go.

Hi onehalf, I would give the man 3 months to move out or you should make plans to move out yourself. If you don't, your marriage will be destroyed. It is pretty clear that your husband has made this son a priority over your marriage and that is the problem. I would get the son out and then never agree to have another family member live with you unless you are both ENTHUSIASTIC about it.

And more importantly, I would start using this program. It really does work and you could have avoided this terrible situation if you had.

Not just to live with you, you have to be enthusiastic before he does anything at all with his adult children, even if it is just answering the phone.

We are lucky in that we only have one set of steps to deal with as my DH has no children. We negotiate and agree everything in advance. My children know and totally respect the rule we have about this. When my middle child had surgery on her knee last year, I went over to CA to take care of her but our negotiation meant that I only stayed a week. When she asked me for more time, I had to refuse even though she lived in a fifth floor walk up and could not yet manage the stairs.

My children had many years of seeing a dysfunctional marriage and the absolute requirement for me to put him first has really helped them to see what a functional marriage looks like. The result is that they adore him.

Your stepson's mental health will improve once you put the boundaries in place. He will respect you when he sees his father respect you and will realize that his father is not going to solve his problems for him, he has to do this himself.

Thank you for the replies.

My dh sees me as being "unreasonable", no matter what I say.

I told him once that I thought he put his son before me, and he said no, and how could I even think that? I know he wouldn't do it intentionally, but that's what's happened.

I guess what I'd like to know is, how far do I have to keep bending over in this situation? I know he has a broken leg, but if he lived on his own now, he certainly would be having to figure out how to do for himself.

My sister had a double knee replacement, and she was up and around, caring for herself, in a very short time.

How long does it take somebody to actually be able to fend for themselves once their leg begins to heal anyway?

If dh's son is able to use a wheelchair to go into his job for a few hours next week, why can't he wheel around a little downstairs and at least dump his own pee and poop, etc.?

I'm not saying jump up and be Superman, but come on, how long does his father have to clean up after him and prepare EVERY meal and snack for him?

I suggested putting a little cooler or dorm refrigerator near the son's bed so that he could just pull out a few things for a meal or two for himself, but, nope, that won't work.

I'm just fed up, and don't know how many more days I can stand having him downstairs, and our marriage isn't going to survive many more fights like we've been having.

Yes, I've already made it clear that there will be NO MORE family members moving in with us. If somebody needs a place to stay for a night or two, they can stay here upstairs with us, but they will NOT be allowed to move in. (I know I'll feel awful if I have to turn somebody away, but losing my marriage is not worth it.)

This is another one of the things that grates on me so much. I feel that it was beyond disrespectful what dh's son did to our home.

And even now, when he should KNOW how angry and disgusted I was over the mess he made, he STILL has to be told to get it cleaned up.

He usually asks his nephew to come over and clean for him, which is fine.

I told him that it needs to be cleaned at least once EVERY week, but after a few weeks, he always starts letting it slide again, until I get angry and blow up, and start arguing with dh about it.

That's the one thing I'm not prepared to do: I refuse to be the "bad guy" that has to stay on HIS case just so that MY house doesn't stink because of him.

Dh will seldom say anything to his son of a negative nature; I don't know why. He leaves it up to me.

Dh is very mellow and laid back, and there's not a whole lot that bothers him or upsets him.

Dh always tells me that he's going to be "riding him" to make sure things are in order down there, but if they aren't, he isn't going to say much because he never has.

I used to like dh's son, but right now, I'm so angry, I can't stand him, and don't want anything else to do with him.

I don't want to do anything more for the son--no more laundry, no cooking, no washing his dishes--but then I feel like I'm a bad servant for feeling that way.

At one time, I thought that if anything happened to my dh, I'd probably let his son continue living here. How things change! No way would I consider that now.

What do you think about MelodyLane's advice to you? This is what Dr. Harley would advise you to do, as well.

Three months would be great for me. I told my dh that my timeline preference would be to have his son out of here by December 31 of this year.

That's when he started telling me how impossible it would be because he son "wouldn't even be walking without a walker yet", and he "needs time to get back to work full time so he can start saving money".

Nobody in his family will let him move in. His mother lives out of state and hasn't even helped him since he's been laid up--except to send him over two jars of peanut butter. (Yeah, that was impressive.)

His sister, who lives just one mile away from us, absolutely won't let him in again. Her slobby brother cost her her marriage.

This is the one thing that lights my dh up, whenever I make a comment that this will be the second marriage his son has broken up because of his nasty living habits. It's the only time I've ever heard him tell me to "shut up" since we've been married.

So even though all of us except my dh think three months is a good amount of time, reality is that he might not even be on his feet yet by then, and he surely won't have enough money saved for a place.

I know that's not MY problem, but are we supposed to just toss him out in the street?

My dh and I took the "His Needs Her Needs" class at our church before we got married, but it never occurred to me at the time of his son needing a place to stay that Dr. Harley's methods should have come into play.

It went so well at first that I really thought we'd be a case of multi-generation home sharing. Boy, was I wrong.

A 40 yr old man can figure out a way to support himself in 3 months. I would not give him one more day than that. He can go rent a room somewhere. It is truly scandalous how much his father has enabled him.

A 40 yr old man is fully capable of taking care of himself. If your stepson is tossed into the street it will only be because he CHOSE that option. He is free to choose that.

People with avoidant personalities love to pass the problem along. You have enabled him to do this. Dr Harley has lots to say about this type of dishonesty.


That is the good part.


and that is the bad part.

He is being dishonest, telling you what you want to hear. He has no intention of actually following through because he has never needed to.


That is the inevitable result of resentment. The fighting too. Eventually this will destroy your marriage if you let it.

Your problem is that you have both allowed bad habits to continue for many years and they have become entrenched. Your DH probably has no idea how dangerous this has become. Somehow you need to make him understand that his whole marriage is on life support and that you both need to take drastic measures.

Stop fighting and start talking. You need to change this fast.

We're at an impasse then, because there's no way my dh would FORCE his son to leave.

I agree that the enabling has been unbelievable. His son may be 40, but he's naive about life in many ways. He is not a stupid man, but when it comes to daily life and how to manage it, I'm always flabbergasted at what he doesn't know. I don't know what happened because dh's daughter is a fully-functioning, very independent woman.

The son is the baby, and I guess "baby" has been the operative word, at least in dh's mind.

By the way, I just went and refreshed myself about the Policy of Joint Agreement, which I vaguely remembered from years ago, but I'm newly clear on it now.

Here's a quote from one of the articles that really fit what was going on with me the day I said I'd let dh's son move in with us, even though I had strong misgivings about it:

"In the state of Intimacy, our Giver would agree to almost anything if it would make our spouse happy. But it would not be an enthusiastic agreement -- it would be a self-sacrificing, suffering-servant kind of agreement."

I was so worried about being "fair", since we'd had members of MY family live with us before. I didn't think it would be "fair" of me to let relatives of mine stay with us if I wasn't willing to do the same for dh.

I don't even know why this whole situation with dh's son has made me so angry. I don't know whether it's the disrespect he showed when he messed up the property, the laziness that caused him to have the accident (which, in turn, has caused us ten times the work), or the fact that he wasted all his money, never planned in the slightest for an emergency, and now depends on us to feed him when we struggle financially as it is.

I see this as a very immature, irresponsible man. I also can't stand that he can't come out from behind the video games for even five minutes when you're trying to talk to him.

There will be even more fun here next month, when dh's daughter loses her license, and he'll be expected to haul her back and forth to work, and wherever she needs to go.

I'm not too thrilled with her at the moment either because she has been no help to her father in taking care of his son, even though she lives around the corner. In one way, I know it's not her responsibility, but in another way, family usually helps one another in unusual situations, but not her. All she cares about is riding her motorcycle--and she heads out for weekend bike trips, expecting that her father will drive her son to his job, and also go to her house and take care of her dogs while she's out having fun.

Whenever I suggest that they seem to take advantage of my dh's kindness, he gets upset and tells me it "doesn't bother him", which it probably doesn't, but it sure bothers me.

I was incredibly stupid to assume that just because dh's kids were already adults when we got married that they wouldn't cause problems between us.

I don't know how to even start this Policy of Joint Agreement thing because we are no longer able to discuss any of the situation about his son calmly.

One half, did you read my post? Are you going to follow the advice? If your husband will not agree, then he will be making it crystal clear that he has chosen his son over his marriage and you should separate. You can't have a marriage where your needs come last, after his son.

Yes, I did read your post. I just don't agree that it should be me that has to move out of my own home.

I couldn't even try to discuss anything else with my dh because his way of handling disagreements is to either run out to his shop, or go to bed early. He went to bed at 6pm tonight.

But, you are the only person you can control. Do you have another suggestion on how you would separate?

I don't have any intention of separating, and why on earth would that even be the first solution to the problem?

I was only asking if there was any way that dh and I could come to an agreement on a deadline for having his son move out because I thought the end of the year was reasonable, and my dh feels that it needs to be a whole year.

It was my understanding you already asked your husband and he indicated he wouldn't ask him to leave. Why on earth are you asking US if you can come to an agreement with your husband? Wouldn't you need to ask HIM? WE can't answer that question for you.

So there is your answer..

Here is what you told us in your first post. Is this not correct?

Marriages that don't use the POJA are usually unhappy. If your H refuses to negotiate on this issue and is more concerned with taking care of his son than taking care of you, his wife, you have little recourse.

You can stay and put up with his choice to care for your step-son. Over time, though, this life style will cause your love bank to drop.

You can try and legally kick out the step-son without your H's consent, but then you're not following the POJA either. And your H will resent you and probably prevent you from evicting your unwanted freeloading tenant.

Or you can ask your H to give your step-son three months notice to leave. If he refuses, the solution that will probably be the most doable and the one most likely to bring you some peace is to leave the house yourself and separate.

Separation is risky, but it can often serve as a wake-up call to a negligent/uncooperative spouse.

Have you tried other solutions to getting your step-son out of the house? Have any of them been successful? Are you happy living this way? You have told your H how unhappy you are with this situation and he has indicated to you that his son means more to him.

There are homeless shelters, welfare, food stamps. A social worker could perhaps be of some help. But unless your H gets on board and pushes this along, you will be at a stalemate. That's why a separation is a helpful step in your plan.

Thank you for this reply.

My love bank is already on empty over this whole matter.

No, I haven't tried getting dh's son out of here before. I haven't been happy that he's here for the last year or so, ever since he stopped sticking to his word about keeping his place clean so that the smell became an annoyance, embarrassment, and anger point for me. I'd tell dh that I couldn't stand the smell, and wasn't going to put up with it, but it would always blow over and things would go back to normal.

I never thought getting the son out of here would be an option until my sister told me that it was NOT our responsibility to keep providing a home for him, even though he'd been here for five years.

I figured the situation was just something I'd have to put up with for as long as we were married, just because that's how things had worked out.

I was made to feel that I was being overly critical, picky, and unreasonable about wanting the son out of here because of the smell he caused, and his slobby lifestyle. Because it didn't bother dh, I guess it was not supposed to bother me either.

Thanks for explaining the part about a possible separation. I see what you're saying.

I can put up with a lot of stuff if I have to, even though I don't like it, but when it comes to us having to even partially support a 40 year old man who should have put some money aside for emergencies instead of being so wasteful, that's the last straw, because that's when it starts affecting OUR financial situation.

There again, dh just tells me that "everybody makes mistakes". Yes, we all make mistakes, but when we're 40 years old, living in daddy's basement, we SHOULD have had at least a few hundred dollars in the bank that would have carried us through a period of being laid up.

I guess I wasn't specific enough in what I wrote.

Yes, it is true that my dh would PREFER that his son got to continue living with us, but he's able to see that it would be better for our marriage if his son moved into his own place--well, maybe not so much better for our marriage, but at least better for our own financial situation. We just can't continue having people downstairs who, for one reason or another, always seem to depend upon us for money at some point.

My sister tells me it's because family's basements tend to attract losers who aren't trying hard enough to make it on their own. (My alcoholic brother lived with us for five years before dh's son moved in.)

So while dh and I thought we were helping people, we usually just ended up being taken advantage of, and that's no help to anybody.

No, my dh and I have NOT been able to come to a full agreement about his son moving out.

I haven't wanted him here since he started causing my house to stink, but I tried to keep my mouth shut, except when I couldn't stand it anymore, and I especially want him out of here now that he's causing us financial difficulty.

I thought giving him a deadline of December 31st, which is nearly six months, should be ample time for him to make other arrangements, but dh says anything less than a year is completely unrealistic.

Maybe, as you say, I shouldn't have asked here, but I can't stand the constant arguing over this that dh and I seem to do lately, and thought somebody here might have a suggestion about how to handle the situation.

Actually you are in exactly the right place to get help. You will get better help here than anywhere on the planet. MB says compromise is toxic; it leads to resentment and the demand for compromises in return. You have discovered this for yourself. The compromise over stepson has caused a living nightmare for you and for him.

What we are telling you here is that, if your husband is unable or unwilling to POJA this with you, separation is the only other option you have. It might bring him to his senses and it might not. But I guarantee that it will resolve things for you either way.

Separately, I would advise you to get a tenant into your basement. You are absolutely right in that available accommodation attracts losers. It does more than that, it enables them unless the term is very brief.