What is worse?

See above...I clarified.

Totally blew the name yesterday...

Not Elizabethan Victorian but a Queen Anne Victorian.

Google that particular type and see the towers.

Which is worse?
My opinion: It's worse to offer anything out of a sense of obligation. It causes resentment. Caring for family, especially family, should be done from love.

is your wife asian

She will be going against centuries of tradition if you dont understand that filial piety thing of honoring your parents.

I know that for 'westerners' the concept is foreign but in many cases its done out of love not always obligation. You'll come to realise this as you get older.

Jesus asked John to look after his mother Mary in her old age, and also talked to Peter about this. Feeding sheep and lambs and looking after the least of these doesnt always mean children.

assisted living is really expensive but I figured the OP seemed like he was in a place to offer that because of his ' lifestyle'. I could be wrong though

How many parents express that they dont love their children and only look after them out of a sense of obligation.

Youd be surprised. Children know this and can also feel when they are being resented and treated as a burden.

so when tables are turned what is the Christian thing to do? Ask yourself. In an ideal world, parents would be richer than the children right?

Her parents (not Asian) are in financial straights because of a lifelong history of poor financial decisions and now disability from long Covid-19.
They are still currently financially supporting their youngest daughter who is grown. Paying her car payments, car insurance, health insurance, cell phone, and etc. (They cannot afford to do so)

The gist of it is that she is the only child that doesn't ask, never asked, or need help financially. She also has been left out of family lands...so we are buying our own. (They own several hundreds of acres of farm land that the families cousins are all building houses on.)

So....
It hasn't come to this yet....but I imagine it will soon enough.
It's definitely unfair and unjust. But there's not much else to do about it all.

The house sounds beautiful, the dilemma, not so much. You have received some wisdom in this thread, and it sounds like a struggle between your sensibilities and faith. (I know the two are not mutually exclusive.) I do not envy your position. 😔 Best of luck. I will pray for you all.

Gee John your new obligations,,, you are going to be busy

I'll pray for your parents.

No kidding...
One of my wife's Uncles is already planning on inviting himself over for dinner on a regular basis. (He really likes my cooking)
Meanwhile since it isn't an apartment my wife has plans on a smoker and a grill. She is currently dreaming of scratch kielbasa and breakfast links and snack sausages. Since she loves my charcuterie skills (nothing cured and or smoked is beyond my capabilities)
It's definitely going to be a massive change of lifestyle there.

youre going to have to adjust your 'lifestyle'

also, CAP (Christians against poverty) can usually help with cases like this, teaching peeps how to budget successfully. Look into it.

My wife has offered to help...and I have explained that while we are by no means wealthy we are OK financially. Even though I am pretty much out of work without any options.
We obviously know how to budget ourselves and use self discipline to keep debts at bay.

For example we had a tiny television for about 5 years after the large ones became rather inexpensive...we discovered that the 55 inch size were cheap because of a random advertisement I happened to see...and at first thought that they were selling an off brand that was junk. Because we didn't care about having fancy expensive electronics. Then I seen that they were all cheap...like stupidly cheap and we still didn't get one for another 5years. We talked about it...but neither of us cared enough to actually make the effort to go to the electronics store to get one. The effort to get one being the block in our path to spending the money....meh, too much trouble.

"My possessions are causing my suspicions but there's no proof" type thing here. Getting rid of junk is not exactly easy at times. But we did eventually get rid of our old TV. But getting the new one was just as much a hassle as getting rid of the old one and we don't want anymore purchases like that. We avoid them like the plague. (Especially now that we are moving) I like to fancy myself as not very industrious but my hobbies and work ethic rat me out quite often.

But....yeah....new environment causes lifestyle changes...but when you are itinerant by nature...it's nothing new.

OBVIOUS!!!! offering is CHEAP. PROVIDING isn't.

Well it is not that so much as the disappointment that they obviously know better but haven't been better.

Of course we have to provide...but it's the fact that they created the situation where we need to make the offer.

There may be an obligation to house your parents... That obligation does not include your B-I-L nor changing your life style to fit their wants. Set all the boundaries before hand .. Finances, personal space, daily obligations. We are not obliged to enable a lazy lifestyle. Allowing them in will be easy compared to having them leave.