Helping an aging family member can get complicated when the expectations keep changing.

So, what would you do if you moved back in with your aging parent to help them out financially, but after they become ill and cannot work, they keep trying to put extra bills on you unexpectedly?

Would you just pay them? Or would you start rethinking the entire situation?

In the following story, one daughter finds herself in this exact predicament with her mom and doesn’t know what to do.

Here’s her story.

AITAH for 2nd guessing paying my mom’s bills?

In 2017, my mom bought a home for my husband, our children, and me to live in. In our culture, combined households are very common. Eventually we (myself, husband and kids) ended up moving into a new home bc my mom had other people living with her, and there wasn’t enough room.

Around 5 years later, she begs us to come back, since she’s now there alone and can’t afford everything (she pays for my adult brother’s college), then wants to retire and give us the house so she can relocate to somewhere warmer.

We come back and pay her rent (HALF of the mortgage amount and the WiFi), and around 6 months later, she falls ill and cannot work anymore.

Now, she’s trying to give them more bills.

This forces my husband to change career paths so he can pay all of her bills. She outlined what we need to pay for (mortgage, PECO, WiFi, trash, oil, water filtration system), and we plan accordingly. We also have our own separate bills (car payments, company insurance, health insurance, groceries, insurance for us and our 4 kids).

We increased our bills by $3,700 because we had to take on her bills so quickly. The plan was to inherit the home/bills, but not so abruptly or soon.

Now that she’s been out of work for around a year, she comes to me saying, “I want to retire. But I have more bills for you.”

She doesn’t know how they can do it.

This blindsided my husband and me because she did not mention this before when we had to budget everything out when she first fell ill.

The new bills include upgrades she made to the home and is financing. New doors/windows, bathroom remodel, and a new roof. Adding those bills would add an additional 1k+ to what we’re already paying.

I don’t know HOW we can do this or if it makes sense for us to pay it.. right now at least. I feel bad for even questioning this. But we’re already being pulled so thin with everything being thrown onto us.

AITA?

Wow! That sounds like an extremely stressful situation.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think will be their best option.

This person thinks they need to talk.

Good point.

Here’s someone who’s just confused.

For this person, it’s all about being careful.

What a mess.

She and her mother, brother, and husband all need to sit down and figure this out.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.