Our three-room apartment is privatized for four people – me, my husband, my son, and my daughter. It so happens that we now live in a very large, but very unfriendly family. The daughter was the first to get married, and the young couple temporarily moved in with us. My son didn’t like it and conflicts started, first with my sister and then with me for letting a stranger live in our apartment. My husband kept his neutrality.
Three years later my son got married, and to spite us he brought his daughter-in-law into the apartment. She had a studio of her own, but they rented it out. And from that day all hell broke loose. If before we did not share household chores with my daughter, my daughter-in-law made her own adjustments. She only washes her own dishes and cleans her own room. My daughter and I agreed that whoever cooks does all the dishes.
It got to the point where my daughter-in-law threw a cup in the trash that her granddaughter (she is 6) put in the sink. Her daughter reprimanded her and she said that if she couldn’t raise her daughter right, she should have washed the cup herself. The daughter said that she was nobody here and that she was at home. At the scream my son ran out and pushed my sister. Her husband and I stood up for her.
Her son used to be like that. He could vacuum and go to the store, and he had a normal relationship with his sister. Now he’s the first to pick a fight over who has to take out the garbage. I just don’t recognize him, it’s like he’s been replaced. In the kitchen there are two refrigerators, two tables, we take turns eating so we don’t have to meet.
My husband suggests we sell the apartment and split the money. We can invest our part in the equipment of a dacha house, so we can live there all year round, and let them decide for themselves how and where to live. But I feel sorry for my daughter. The son can go to his wife’s apartment, and they don’t have children yet. And the daughter will have to rent an apartment. Her husband likes to drink, so buying his own place is out of the question. She can’t afford it by herself, and how can we help?
It’s a vicious circle.
