My daughterinlaw is pushing to sell my flat to fund her sons house: I wont spend my last years under a bridge.
My heart tears between anguish and fear. My daughterinlaw wants to strip me of the home I have cherished all my life so that my son can realize his dream. Their plan for a spacious family nest feels like a verdict, and Ian aging woman alone dread ending up roofless. This tale is about filial love, betrayal, and the struggle to keep ones own corner of life in a world that grows ever stranger.
My name is Élodie Lefebvre, and I live in a small town in southern Provence. Ten years ago my son Julien married Amélie. Since then they have been crammed with their daughter into a modest tworoom apartment. Seven years ago Julien bought a plot and began to build a house. The first year nothing happened. In the second year they erected a fence and poured the foundations, then work stopped again because of money. Julien saved patiently for materials, never losing hope. Over the years they raised the first floor, but they still dream of a twostorey home where I could also be welcomed. My son is a family man, and I have always been proud of his devotion.
They have already sacrificed a great deal for this construction. Amélie persuaded Julien to sell their threeroom flat, move into a smaller place, and invest the difference in the house. Now they live in cramped quarters, yet they refuse to give up. Whenever they visit me, every conversation circles around their future home: windows, insulation, electricity My health worries and anxieties seem to mean nothing to them. I stay silent, listen, while a deep dread grows inside me. For a long time I have sensed that Amélie and Julien intend to sell my threeroom flat to finish the work.
One day Julien told me, Mum, well all live together in that big house you, us, our little one. I dared to ask, So I have to sell my flat? They nodded, speaking enthusiastically about the joy of sharing a roof. But when I saw the cold look in Amélies eyes, I understood something: I could never live under her authority. She does not hide her dislike, and I am tired of pretending everything is fine. Her icy glances, her sharp wordsthis is not what I want at my age.
I want to help my son. It breaks me to watch him struggle on that site, a project that could still take ten more years. Yet I asked the question that gnaws at me: And where will I go? Move into their tiny apartment? Into that unfinished house, without comfort? Amélie answered immediately: Youll be fine in the country! We own a small holiday cottagea old building without heating, livable only in summer. I enjoy the warm days there, but winter? Heating with wood, washing in a basin, stepping out into the ice to use the toilet? My rheumatism and frail health would not survive.
People in the country manage like that, Amélie declared. Yes, they survive, but not under such conditions! I refuse to turn my twilight years into a struggle for survival. Yet the money is lacking for the construction, and I feel my daughterinlaw driving me toward the abyss. Recently I overheard her on the phone with her mother: We have to move her into the neighbors house and sell her flat, she whispered. My blood ran cold. The neighbor, Louis Morel, is a solitary old man like me. We sometimes share tea, chat about life, and I bring him pastries. But living under his roof? That is her schemedispose of me while taking my home.
I knew Amélie didnt want to share a house with me, but this betrayal goes further. I dont trust their promise of a happy, shared roof. Her words are lies meant to force me to sell. I love Julien, and his distress pains me, yet I cannot sacrifice my own home. It is all I have left. Without it I would be like a discarded piece of furniture, abandoned. And if their building drags on for years, leaving me homelessor relegated to that freezing cottage where winter would be a sentence?
Each night I lie awake, consumed by thoughts. Helping my son feels like my duty, but ending up without shelter is an unbearable price. Amélie sees me only as an obstacle, and her plot with the neighbor was a knife to the heart. I fear losing not just my house but also my son if I refuse. Still, the terror of ending up under a bridge, stripped of my last refuge, feels even stronger. I do not know which path will let me stay true to both my child and myself. My soul cries out in pain, and I pray the heavens give me the strength to choose wisely.
My Daughter-in-Law Is Pressuring Me to Sell My Flat to Fund Her Son’s House: I Refuse to End My Days Living on the Streets.
