My Brother-in-Law Gets Free Child Care From His Parents. Why Don’t We?

My partner’s parents have been financially dependent on him and his brother for 10 years. They are unable to work. Still, they have provided free child care for my brother-in-law’s two children for the past five years. Meanwhile, my partner has been paying half of his parents’ living expenses. I’ve stayed out of these arrangements; my partner and I keep our finances separate. But now that we have a baby of our own — and his parents live too far away to provide child care — I am resentful that my partner has been effectively subsidizing his brother’s child care rather than saving money for ours. I think his brother is taking advantage of us. My partner is very sensitive about this; he doesn’t think grandparents should be compensated for child care. How can I approach this subject without creating tension?

SISTER-IN-LAW

I would drop the issue. You are looking at it too narrowly. Your partner and his brother are probably paying their parents’ living expenses out of gratitude, or maybe a sense of duty, after a lifetime of love and support from them. Your desire for a ledger adjustment based solely on child care — an accounting that your partner doesn’t want, for money that isn’t yours — seems off base to me.

You are absolutely entitled to your feelings, of course. But isn’t the point of separate finances with your partner to insulate you and him from objections like this? As long as he pays his agreed share of joint expenses, he has done his part. And you haven’t said that money is tight.

In my experience, parents often provide different kinds of support to their children. My parents helped me pay for expensive schools, for instance, while they helped my brother buy a home. Other than this child care issue, we have no window on your partner’s family, and I see no upside in pressing your case. (On a related note: If you had offered to pay my mother to take care of her beloved grandchildren, she would have laughed in your face.)

Hopefully the Relaxation Lingers as Long as the Scent?

My husband loves to have massages at home. He’s done it for years — long before I moved in. The problem: His massage therapist wears a heavy scent that bothers me and lingers in the house. When we asked her about it, she said, “I don’t wear perfume.” But something she uses has a strong scent. (It’s not massage oil.) More troubling, though, is my husband’s lack of concern. He has a less sensitive nose than I do and just keeps saying it’s “so weird” that the smell bothers me. Can you help?