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What kind of people should you take in to live with you, especially if you have growing children in the house?

A person grounded in bad vices is a “NO” (for the sake of your children, even if you can handle him/her, considering the fact that you won’t always be home to monitor what’s going on)

I’m not saying you should take in a perfect person or a saint. Please find below a few very important factors for taking a person into your home.

First off, it’s important that your proposed live-in demonstrates teachability a healthy level of deference/respect to you and your spouse. Does this person you’re considering respect your wife especially? I’ve seen too many cases of wives “suffering” because the “live-in” person feels it was the husband that took him/her in and the husband is the one paying the bills. When your spouse is treated as less than your partner by a live-in guest & you handle it with levity, you’re about to have a bitter spouse & an unhappy marriage. The result is not pleasant.

Secondly, be a team with your spouse. In marriage, two have become one. Anyone else is a 3rd party. You need to do everything possible to ensure that you are on the same page in everything. As much as possible, be ready to share anything that has to do with you and the live-in guest (doubts, concerns, good things, etc) with your spouse. This helps you keep the bond between you as a couple, even with the presence of a 3rd party.

Thirdly, have ground rules in your home. This is so critical! It gives you peace of mind and good grounds to vex for your live-in should clear rules be flouted. Where there is no law, there is no sin. The person planning to live with you needs to have a disposition of being willing to live by the rules of your home. When you have basic rules in place that even your biological children are expected to live by, expectations are well managed and there’s order in the home. I’ll share some examples of rules in my next article.

Stay tuned for Part 4……

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#aboutliveins

Looking at things at face value, once you have an extra room in your house and a steady stream of income, you are qualified to take people in to live in your home for a time in their lives when they need that help. But it’s deeper than extra room and regular income.

Few months into a marriage, some people begin to get calls from their parents or parents-in-law to take in siblings so they can assist them; afterall, they paid their dues as parents to house and take care of them when they were still single. Some parents ask nicely and don’t use the blackmail method; because in some of these cases, the sibling involved needs to move to the city where you are with your family because there are a lot more opportunities for him/her to get a job and start a life. So it’s really a call to help someone “start a life”. I wish I could shoot this kind of scenario down and move on to more important things. But it’s not that simple, as the dynamics involve people with emotions and long term relationships are at stake.

What do you do when you are placed “under pressure” to take in someone especially family as stated in the scenario above? Let me mention that the person under pressure can be the husband or wife depending on their background family setting.

In cases when parents make this kind or demand or request, it usually won’t come as a shock; but the pressure can be managed. If you haven’t discussed it before, sit down and agree as a couple when you want to take a person in and what this decision is likely to cost you……..financially, emotionally, etc. Then decide to guard your privacy, reinforce your union no matter what’s happening around you (this one is a symposium topic!) This means that until you both agree to take someone in, don’t go ahead with it. Don’t.

When you eventually decide to take someone in, own the decision. Tell yourself there’s no one you will blame if along the line you have cause to regret taking the person in. It’s your home, your choice, your decision; and no matter how it turns out, you’ll be the better for it, aka lessons learnt.

What determines the kind of people you should take into your home? Are the kinds of people different if the kids are young or when they are much older?

Part 3 coming shortly……

#marriageaplatform
#liveins

“Taking people in to live with you is a thankless job”

This statement summarizes most of what I will be sharing on this topic. By the way, I got this statement from a mother of mine who once shared some of her challenges with people she took in with me.

If you are yet to take people in to live with you, please erase the thought that you’re about to “save the world” when you start from your mind. Even though what you’re doing by taking people in is that you’re solving a “survival need” of shelter, the truth is that, after sometime, the novelty of the “big deal” you have done will begin to wear off. Some live-ins handle things way better than others, but the truth is that, people relax and “feel at home” after staying with you for some time. Would you not do the same too?

Let me help you drive it home a bit. The best way to handle those who live with you is to ensure that your expectations are not too high as regards how they reciprocate your gesture of love while they are with you. See them like you see your biological children. Inspite of the fact that we pay lots of money to feed them, pay their school fees, house them, they still do loads of things that make us want to just beat them up many times!

Over the course of the past 16 years plus of being married, several people have lived with us (few older than us, some contemporaries, several younger), and I’ll be borrowing some learnings from these incidents to share with you on this series. We started having people stay with us from a couple of months after marriage by the way……

Just a parting thought on today’s point. The same way you won’t expect your children to live daily like you’ve been doing them a huge favor all these years, don’t expect those who live with you to do the same. Sounds extreme, but it is what it is. When you truly take people in, you will be rewarded; mostly not by them, not the way you expect it to pay you, and not at the instant you expect it to make sense.

If you believe you should take people in, just do it; and remember that it’s a thankless job. Do it in obedience to God. That single way of thinking frees you from taking offence many times; it has helped me. That's me though; what has been your experience taking people in to live with you?

Watch out for Part 2……