YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE • YOUR SECRETS FIND A HOME • YOUR JOURNEY IS PRIVATE • YOUR WORDS ARE SAFE •
The BondMarriage

My husband wants our adult son to move out, and I keep finding reasons he cannot

Dear Delyara, Our son is twenty-eight and still living at home. He works, but rent in our city is high and he says he is saving. My husband believes we are enabling him. He wants us to set a firm date for moving out. Every time we agree on one, I find a reason to delay: interest rates, his car repair, a difficult month at work. My husband says the real reason is that I am afraid of the house becoming just the two of us. He is right, and I resent him for being right. Our marriage has spent thirty years wrapped around parenting. When our daughter moved out, the house changed. If our son leaves too, I am frightened there will be nothing left to discuss except ourselves. Last night, my husband said, “We have to find out if there is still an us under all this.” I immediately became defensive about our son’s finances because arguing about rent was easier than answering. Our boy is nearly thirty. I know he needs independence. I am secretly using his delayed adulthood as furniture holding up a marriage I am afraid to examine.

ANONYMOUS