My Son And Dil Invited Me To Move In After I Sold My House For $785k. I Overheard Them Coaching Each Other On How To Drain My Bank Account. Am I Wrong For Leaving Without Saying A Word?
“That money is from the life your father and I built; it’s my security, my future, my choices.”
“So you’re just going to hoard it while we struggle?”
David asked.
And there it was: the entitlement Jennifer had planted, now growing in my own son.
“I’m going to live my life,”
I said quietly.
“I found an apartment. I’m moving in next week. I’ll help with the grandkids when you need me, but I won’t be living with you.”
“And David, I won’t be investing in any business ventures,”
I added.
“I won’t be contributing to your household expenses beyond reasonable grandparent gifts for birthdays and holidays.”
“Mom, you’re being selfish,”
David said.
“No, son. I’m being smart. There’s a difference,”
I replied.
Chapter 8: Emerging from the Fog
I stood up.
“I love you,”
I said.
“I always will, but I won’t let you or anyone make me feel guilty for having financial security. Your father worked too hard for that. I worked too hard for that.”
“Jennifer’s not going to like this,”
David said.
“I suspect she won’t,”
I replied.
“But David, that’s between you and her. You need to decide what kind of man you want to be: the kind who schemes with his wife to manipulate his elderly mother, or the kind who respects her right to live her own life with her own money.”
I left him sitting there. It hurt; it hurt so much I cried in my car for 20 minutes.
But I didn’t change my mind. Moving into my new apartment felt like emerging from a fog.
My neighbors were wonderful people my own age who’d all made similar transitions. We had coffee mornings and book clubs.
I joined the gym, started swimming three times a week. I took a painting class and discovered I wasn’t half bad.
Margaret and I planned a trip to Italy for the spring.
“Bucket list time,”
She declared.
“We’re too old to wait for someday.”
Chapter 9: The Son’s Redemption
David called 2 weeks after our coffee meeting.
“Mom, can we talk?”
He asked.
We met at the same cafe, this time he came alone.
“I’ve been thinking about what you said,”
He began.
“And you’re right, all of it. Jennifer and I, we got into this debt by living beyond our means.”
“We bought the bigger house, the newer cars, put the kids in private school when public would have been fine,”
David continued.
“We did this to ourselves.”
“David—”
I started.
“Let me finish,”
He said.
“I went along with Jennifer’s plan because it was easier than admitting we screwed up, easier than cutting our expenses, selling the cars, moving the kids to public school.”
“I convinced myself you owed me that money because I’m your son, because Dad left it to you and you’d leave it to me eventually anyway,”
David admitted.
“But Mom, that was wrong. That money isn’t mine; it’s yours. Your security, your choices, like you said.”
He wiped his eyes.
“I’m ashamed, and I’m sorry,”
He said.
“Really, truly sorry. Not because the plan didn’t work, but because we had a plan at all. Because I looked at my mother and saw a target instead of a person.”
I reached across the table and took his hand.
“What are you going to do?”
I asked.
“We’re selling the house, downsizing,”
David replied.
“The kids are moving to public school next year. We’re trading in Jennifer’s SUV for something reasonable. We’re fixing this ourselves, the way we should have from the beginning.”
“How’s Jennifer taking it?”
I asked.
He laughed bitterly.
“About as well as you’d expect,”
He replied.
