Caregiving can be a beautiful act of love, but it’s not always meant to be permanent.

So, what would you do if you put your life on hold to care for an elderly family member, only to realize they’d bounced back and didn’t need full-time help anymore? Would you stay out of guilt from the extended family? Or would you return home and trust your plan for independence?

In today’s story, one couple faces this decision and wants to go back home. Here’s what’s going on.

AITA for moving back to our own home after Moving in with my Grandmother in Law

My wife’s grandmother is 85. And she has had a history of falls for at least 10 years. She hasn’t broken anything, because apparently her bone density scan is better than people in their 30s.

Anyway, she went into the hospital back in March 2025. We took her into the hospital as she was having a panic attack. She had really bad hospital delirium and was in for 8 days. Basically, she had low potassium.

Because of the delirium, one of the hospital doctors said he is confident she has dementia. But this doctor said other crazy things that did not add up.

Well, that made my wife’s aunt go into gear, saying we need to move into her place or she is going into a home. And my wife’s parents are not in the picture as they are deceased.

After her release from the hospital, Grandma has done pretty well at home.

We moved in with Grandma. Her mind seems pretty decent. She always had age-related memory loss. But every time I look up dementia, I just don’t see Grandma having it.

She did screw up about a month after she moved in to where she took her meds twice as she mixed up the day of the week. But since then, we locked up her meds and gave them to her AM and PM. And she hasn’t fallen.

Her last fall was November 2024. She is quite independent, and she did not need any of our help after the 1st two weeks. Her big thing was recovering physically when she was in the hospital for 8 days.

Now, they want to move back home.

My wife and I are in our early 40s, and we just want to move back to our home.

Right before grandma got taken to the hospital, I spent a lot of money on my dream home office renovation, which I worked on. And there are other things that we like better at our own home.

Our house is about 10 minutes away from hers. Our plan is to use a security company’s wellness solution that will alert if she falls or gets out of bed and then does not get back in bed.

Plus, we would go over to Grandma’s house twice daily for AM meds and then dinner + PM meds.

The aunt is controlling, and they’re worried she won’t let them go back home.

I just know her aunt is going to complain about it. She likes to control people, like trying to get grandma to rewrite her will so that the grandchildren don’t get anything, and it’s just the children.

Yes, she tried to do this multiple times after both of my in-laws died. And we have cut her out of our lives since then.

Oh, and this aunt lives around the corner from Grandma. But she blames her “medical conditions” for not wanting to take care of grandma.

And grandma appears to be good with us going back, as we had a talk. I constantly feel stressed as Grandma can have a good time. I can easily see her living until her 90s -100+

AITA?

Yikes! This is quite a situation.

Let’s see how the fine folks over at Reddit feel about it.

This person offers some great advice.

According to this person, they should make plans without telling the aunt.

For this reader, they need a solution, but leaving Grandma home alone is not it.

Here’s more advice.

They need to take it slow.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.