Danette

Not just for now, not until we're more established, but forever.

About a year ago, we moved into a house right next to his parents on their land because financially it made sense at the time.

I was okay with it because I truly believed it was temporary.

I thought it was a stepping stone.

Now, he's saying, the older he gets, the more he realizes he never wants to leave.

And that even moving 10 minutes down the road is a hard no.

For more context, it's not just his parents here.

His entire family lives in the same area.

Parents, sister, grandparents, even his best friends.

On paper, it sounds like a dream.

And at first, I thought so too.

But actually living here has shown me a side of things I wasn't prepared for.

He is extremely enmeshed with his family.

He spends at least an hour with them every single day, and they call each other constantly.

And his mom still makes his lunches for work.

When I gently suggest that maybe he could start doing things like that himself or creating a bit more space, he gets incredibly defensive and makes me feel like I'm doing something wrong just for bringing it up.

I'm not trying to separate him from his family.

I don't want to do that at all.

I just want some boundaries.

I want to feel like we are our own unit.