My husband's parents have been gently, and lately not so gently, suggesting we move into their house permanently, framed mostly around them getting older and wanting family physically present, which is a completely understandable and reasonable desire on their part that I do genuinely sympathize with in the abstract sense of it.
The actual problem is that my relationship with my mother in law specifically has always been polite but genuinely strained underneath the surface, small disagreements over the years about parenting choices, household habits, and general boundaries that never quite escalated into anything openly dramatic, but that have left me feeling like living under the same roof permanently would likely make every single one of those existing small tensions significantly worse over time rather than better.
My husband is caught genuinely in the middle here, he understands my specific hesitation on some level, but he also feels a real sense of duty toward his own parents that I do not want to dismiss or minimize as somehow less valid than my own concerns about this particular arrangement going forward. We have discussed a few possible compromises, living nearby instead of directly together, or a trial period with a clear predetermined exit plan if things genuinely do not work out as hoped, but nothing has actually been decided yet between any of us.
What makes this specifically harder is that I cannot fully articulate my hesitation without it sounding like I am simply against caring for aging in laws in general, which is genuinely not the actual issue here at all for me personally, it is specifically about this particular dynamic with my mother in law and whether living together permanently would actually make things noticeably worse rather than better for everyone involved long term.
I know eventually some kind of decision will genuinely need to be made here, and I do not want to be the reason my husband feels torn between his parents and his own marriage indefinitely without any real resolution ever actually happening.
Has anyone navigated a similar situation, specifically not wanting to live with in laws while still genuinely caring about supporting them as they get older, and how did you eventually find a workable middle ground that both sides could actually live with?