Living with parents kind of puts the kibosh on dating?

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Actually I was quite serious about living conditions. Sarcasm not needed. Not all Baby Boomers had spoiled, luxury laden lifestyles. I lucked out accidentally landing in an interesting field of work. Pay was so low that even after five years I still qualified for subsidized daycare for my son. Work was unionized and over the years spent weeks on the picket line. Helped get extended maternity leave and paternity leave for the younger people.

After saying all of that, I would see no shame in sharing my home with my son. He’s married now and I do think it was good that he has lived on his own. But we’ve lived together before and could do it again.

So do I. I’m not going to bother with a wall of text of what Sly SHOULD do. I think Sly wants to do the right thing even as difficult as his situation is.

All I really can say is IF SLY WANTED to, he could conceivably just walk away, and if he ever meant to take that path, it would have been best if he’d done it a long time ago. You can’t blame someone for not wanting to hurt his family. And for someone who is severely disabled, there is only so much you can reasonably expect.

When my mom remarried, it was a freakin’ nightmare. When my dad died, I could just feel relief flowing all through the house. For a few months everything was better.

When my mom remarried, it was like my dad all over again, just without the yelling.

I make a point of staying away from home as much as possible. When we come to visit, he turns abusive towards mom. The problem for him is he always been the alpha male type. So he’s easily threatened when we come by. He would go absolutely apoplectic when I was in college and would bring a girl over, so we had to make sleeping arrangements with relatives. I used to think it was because he’s even more religiously hyper-conservative than I am. But I now know that’s not it. I’m also a take-charge kind of guy, too, and he gets uneasy when we invade his territory and steal the attention away from him. Cuz now mom wants to play with her REAL grandchildren (he has more grandchildren who NEVER visit anymore). And my best friend and I sleep in my childhood bed and he can’t say anything about it. He stays strapped to a CPAP in a recliner while we snuggle up in my room watching movies or something. Poetic justice, b*+¢#, and he knows it. So he goes all passive aggressive about it while we’re around and will disappear most of the day to avoid us.

Thing is, that’s just reality. We have a bit more control over our lives right now, which means we can plan, reevaluate, chart a new course. We’d rather have an exit strategy, which is already in progress. But REALISTICALLY if something catastrophic happened, we could just load everyone up in the van and leave. Stop where ever we run out of gas and start our lives over. We don’t go back home because it would terrorize stepfather who would terrorize mom, and miserable lives all around. We make our own rules and live our own lives. The step has no power over Best Friend and me.

If you find yourself stuck, YOU have to decide what everything is worth to you. A parent just CANNOT hinge his entire existence on one child. That’s wrong. People in every situation need a plan for the worst case scenario.

I know you honestly believe what you told us, Sly. And I can only assume that you’re most likely right. But a lot of times these bad situations and hopeless avenues are merely an illusion. You end up finding that people aren’t as disabled as they claim, or getting kicked out of one house doesn’t mean homelessness, but rather simply a move to another dwelling you qualify for.

Those are hard choices to make. Make no mistake, I think you are doing the very best you can and know how. Just know that you most likely CAN change, just walk on out, and things probably would end up ok. Either way, we’re not judging you. I think psychologically it’s easier to cope with a situation and stay optimistic if you realize what you’re doing is by choice. You’re doing the right thing, not doing what you have to because you’re stuck.

I am 100% dead serious about my father’s childhood home in Spences Bridge, British Columbia. I saw it several years ago on a family road trip when my dad decided to take the old highway just to go have a look at where he used to live. The house has since been demolished, along with most of the town - it no longer even has a gas station. Back when my father was a kid his uncle Don owned the Chevron station and wrecking yard there, but the town dwindled after the new highway was put through - just like Radiator Springs in Disney’s “Cars.” I was not being sarcastic in the least bit about the 2 room home he lived in as a young child, nor about everyone in the family moving into the back room in the winter to keep from freezing.

I currently rent from my parents and we share the whole house. It’s a very standard 3200sf suburban home on a very small lot & had an unfinished basement that my father finished himself quite nicely. They bought it brand new 11 years ago for an unheard of good deal at the time of $450k. It’s currently valued at somewhere between $1.1-1.2M. I grew up in a 2500sf home built in 1969 on a 9000sf lot about a 20min drive from here. I definitely had it a lot better and easier than my father (or mother - her and her siblings helped BUILD their home.) thanks to his hard work. (And more fortunate generational opportunities.) I only have first world problems, really.

My mom wouldn’t be able to get another house. She has two strikes with housing, and will 100% her another if we ever move out of those house. Garage door got damaged years ago so guarantee the landlord will complain to housing. Besides that the carpet from the 1970s is bad, but I’m sure they’ll say we ruined it.

As for me the problem is the same where do I stay while waiting 2+ years to get on housing? Given. I can’t save more then 2,000 dollars by law how will I pay to move stuff, store stuff or pay for first month and last months rent? I’d have to rent a uhual truck too and hire help to move my stuff since I don’t have any friends. And all that for what? To try to impress girls who’ll just be like but you do t have a real job or a car pass you’re a loser

None of my seniors here care to reply to the assertion that I've worked the vast majority of my adult life without any chance of affordable rent.

Guys just shouldn't get caught up in these asinine unwritten standards.

That advice is time period and/or location specific and doesn’t apply to everyone, everywhere. Literally almost everyone here has roommates these days - it’s the reality we live in with some of the lowest wages & the highest prices in the country.

I have heard that heterosexual dating in Vancouver has become somewhat of a “do you own your home?” thing with a lot of gold digging women seeking real estate millionaires - but that’s only going to apply to the snooty high society types; not regular working class people, and especially not young people.

So much this.

Isn’t Scandinavia communist? She can’t really complain about people in capatilist nations struggling.

Scandinavia is “Democratic Socialist.” To call them “Communist” would be a gross exaggeration.

Communism died a long time ago here.

Interestingly enough, the regimes which fought each other for the possession of Finland are both likely to be described as "communist" by present-day Americans, and to a lesser extent, by anyone not from Scandinavia

I thought I moved away to find affordable housing. But right now Connecticut ranks #2, right behind NJ, in the number of Millennials living with their parents. I was lucky enough to find a very cheap single bedroom apartment to live in while I saved up for a mortgage.

^^ You made smart moves.

I do know it’s very difficult for people just getting out of college/university to get jobs.

It’s even harder for those who only finished high school.

People should really get into health care. Jobs will always be numerous, and the interview process is easier. And it takes less time to be hired.

Here's a little story from my own work experience. I call it "The Parable of the Mental Health Case Worker."

So I had a bipolar client who was easily 40 and still living at home with mom. This was agreed by everyone, including mom, to not be a desirable situation. The animosity between mom and son was substantial. Client did have a government provided, subsistence income, enough to afford low-income housing but not market rate housing. I consulted with my agency. "You can't get him into subsidized housing directly, there's a two year wait and they take the homeless first. . . . his mom will have to kick him out, making him homeless."

I discussed this with mom and son and asked them to let me know. Mom picked a date quite soon (later that week, maybe) by which time he had to be gone and was not welcome to come back. I contacted the American Red Cross, who put him up in a rather nice hotel for one month, on the proviso that he do nothing disorderly or destructive during his stay (I explained this to him, and he followed the guidelines). After that month, he did have a few nights in a homeless men's shelter, which was easier to take knowing that strings were being pulled behind the scenes. We succeeded in getting him into a subsidized apartment, small, clean but quite livable, on the basis of his being homeless, mentally ill, with no other place to go, and likely to be harmed by being without a place. Using the agency's van, I helped him move his minimal furniture (a twin bed, a dresser, and a few boxes) from his mom's house to the apartment.

What is the moral of the story?

Get yourself a social worker who knows the ropes. (I didn't know the ropes, but consulted with those that did.) Giving up too easily means you get nothing. Taking no for an answer means you get nothing. I would NOT advise you to try to force the issue without the help of an agency or social worker, which could get you arrested or evicted without any back up plan.

A similar situation happened for my daughter. In our county, the Section 8 housing program was not even accepting applications for the waiting list. She was working with a social worker on various issues. One day she was told a few spaces would be opening up for people to get on that waiting list, although this was not being advertised or mentioned on the affordable housing website. She put in her name, filled out the paperwork, was approved, and got herself a Section 8 voucher, with which she secured a very decent (not opulent) one bedroom apartment. She was thrilled! Her own place, with no roommates! Too good to be true.

Within a year she was ready to move out. No gripes about the Section 8 apartment, but she was ready to move in with her current boyfriend; they've been together ever since.

This is not really a story about dating, it's a story about working with the system to get appropriate income supports, including housing. But my point is that independence may not be as far away as you think. Aspies are generally overly literal. "The waiting list is two years long and is not even open for new names," so Aspies give up hope. I encourage you to be a little more persistent.

... and never give up.

Well done, Bea. Good on you!