His Wife Wants Her Mom To Have A Garden In Their Backyard, But He Doesn’t Want To Give Up Any Control Over His Property Or Its Aesthetics

leeyiutung - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only
leeyiutung - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only

This man is currently married, and his mother-in-law absolutely loves gardening as a hobby. But she recently sold her large house and moved into an apartment, so she isn’t able to garden anymore.

He, on the other hand, lives in a house and also loves maintaining his lawn and landscaping his property.

“And there’s a triangular section in my backyard about 10 feet by 10 feet with the long side of the triangle in the corner that I turned into a garden with a stone border for my wife a couple of years ago,” he explained.

However, his wife just let the weeds grow out of control in her “garden,” and his sons used to love playing and digging in the dirt with their toy trucks. But his sons have since moved on from that phase, and he always wanted that triangular section to just be grass – not a garden.

So, he and his wife recently started working on their property more, and he thinks it’s really coming together. They had a patio installed to replace their rotten deck.

“And my wife got another 30-foot by 5-foot strip against the house for gardening and two more the same size in the front of the house,” he added.

But, to his surprise, his wife actually asked if he’d let her mom – his mother-in-law – take the corner garden to tend as her own. For context, this is the garden plot that he can see from his patio and back door.

While the sentiment might’ve been sweet, though, he shot his wife’s idea down.

“My answer was no, I don’t want to because I don’t want to cede autonomy over part of our property. Not to her mom or mine,” he reasoned.

leeyiutung – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only

“Once I say yes, that’s her plot of dirt until she passes away. It’s not very different from allowing someone to decorate part of your house for the rest of your life.”

Not to mention, his mother-in-law didn’t even ask his wife for this. It was just his wife’s idea.

However, he feels like he’s spent his entire life working to become independent from his parents and his in-laws. They’ve worked hard to afford their home and make it their own.

“So I want to have 100% control of my own property and its aesthetics,” he vented.

His wife, on the other hand, thinks he’s not being very nice and accused him of “robbing” his mother-in-law of happiness.

And now, he’s been left wondering if refusing to give his mother-in-law a garden in his backyard is really so crazy or not.

Can you understand why he doesn’t want to give away a portion of his property for an indefinite amount of time? What would you do in his shoes?

You can read the original post on Reddit here.

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Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing ... More about Katharina Buczek

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