My husband died and I don’t want to keep living with his parents
12:51 JST, May 5, 2022
Dear Troubleshooter:
I’m a woman in my 40s. My husband died from an illness last year, and I am now living with my daughter and his parents.
I’ve been living with my in-laws for about 10 years, and my mother-in-law bothers me with her cruel words and actions.
She verbally abuses me with her shouting when she doesn’t like or is dissatisfied with something I do, and she has no problem lying to me. No matter how busy I am, she never cooperates with me — not one bit.
Furthermore, my in-laws, even though they have their own room, leave their things in the living room and just stay there, which means I can’t invite my parents or friends to the house.
It has come to the point where I want to leave the house and sever my relationship with them. But my husband built the house and I would like to leave it to my only daughter.
I put up with living with them because I thought the time would come when it would be just the three of us living together.
But my husband died and the unbearable pain and burden of living with them are weighing me down.
On the one hand, they are my husband’s parents and I think I should take care of them in the future. But on the other, I don’t want to be involved with them because of the years of horrible experiences.
Is it selfish that I don’t want to live with them?
J, Fukuoka Prefecture
Dear Ms. J:
I understand the feeling that as your in-laws are not related by blood, you no longer want to be involved with them. Some people completely disassociate themselves from their spouses’ relatives by submitting a “notification of termination of marital relations” after their spouse dies. It is sometimes called a “post-death divorce.”
If they had taken good care of you, it would be another story. But since it seems your memories of them are generally negative, no one would considerate it selfish if you terminated your relationship with them.
The problem is the house.
You said your husband built it. Who is the nominal owner of the house? If you and your daughter inherit it, which is what commonly happens, your in-laws would be the ones leaving.
If you feel sorry for them, though, you could let them live there for free or rent it to them cheaply, then give it to your daughter in the future.
But if you have issues with them about the house, you should consider using free legal consultations or mediation with the family court.
Never be at the mercy of your in-laws.
I imagine you must be very tired from the sadness of losing your husband. However, you’re still in your 40s, just halfway through your life. I hope you will continue to live life in your own way.
Masahiro Yamada,university professor
"Features" POPULAR ARTICLE
-
Cherry Blossoms Draw Crowd to Tokyo’s Ueno Park; Viewing Season Kicks Off to Slow Start
-
Furano Increasingly Becoming the Cool Place to Be for Foreign Skiers; International Visitors Drawn to Powder Snow
-
Famous Weeping Cherry Tree in Full Blossom in Fukushima Pref. Town
-
Ehime: Dogo Onsen Honkan to Raise Bathing Fees in Effort to Preserve Treasure of Matsuyama
-
Tokyo Cherry Trees Declared to Be in Bloom; Someiyoshino Sakura Blossom 15 Days Later than Last Year
JN ACCESS RANKING
- Japan Lags in Efforts to Gain Value from Human Resources; Govt Working to Increase Usage
- Bank of Japan Governor: Mortgages Not Expected to Rise Significantly After End to Negative Interest Rate Policy
- M6.0 Earthquake Hits Japan’s Tohoku Region; Fukushima, Iwate, Miyagi Prefectures Observe 4 on Japanese Scale With No Risk of Tsunami
- Cherry Blossoms Draw Crowd to Tokyo’s Ueno Park; Viewing Season Kicks Off to Slow Start
- Shohei Ohtani’s Former Interpreter Ippei Mizuhara Appears in School Textbook; Publisher Considers Replacing Content