Living with in-laws can be challenging, but it’s even harder when you’re the primary caregiver for someone who is elderly and seriously ill.

What if, after years of unhappiness, you finally had the chance to walk away, but doing so meant leaving the person who depends on you behind? Would you stick it out and continue caring for them? Or would you put your happiness first?

In the following story, one woman faces this very decision and is unsure what to do.

Here’s what’s going on.

AITA to potentially abandon my elderly ill MIL?

Two years ago, my 76-year-old MIL moved in with my husband and me after Hub’s stepdad passed away.

Hubs has always done and gone whatever he wants when he wants and is very much a high-functioning alcoholic.

I gave up years ago and checked out mentally, knowing financially I couldn’t leave, and knowing what I married now, I live with it.

MIL has lots of health problems.

Fast forward to his mom moving in.

Several times, she has been hospitalized, resulting in her needing almost total care upon returning home, which I do around my full-time work schedule.

She keeps rebounding but can’t have too much more fight in her.

COPD, Emphysema, still smokes like a chimney.

She may finally have a way out of her situation.

Anyway. Recently, my own stepmom passed away about a year after my dad, her husband.

It seems there could be a significant inheritance, and I want to use this to finally leave a situation that has kept me in misery for almost 10 years.

She is hesitant to leave because of her MIL.

Should I wait until MIL inevitably passes?

He will not take care of her like I do, and some days, he doesn’t even see her because he doesn’t like “going in her room.”

He doesn’t grasp how frail she is and has actually suggested she is “playing” up her symptoms for attention.

He is and always has been a narcissist, but that’s a story for a different day.

AITA?

Yikes! That’s a tough situation, and it seems her husband makes everything worse.

Let’s see what advice the fine folks over at Reddit have to offer.

As this person points out, she needs to contact a divorce attorney.

This person offers some great insight.

Exactly! She deserves to be happy.

Here’s someone else who recommends speaking with an attorney.

According to this person, she needs to protect her inheritance.

It’s time for her to live her life.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.