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Potential is nothing. Right now, a grieving elderly woman needs a home. That is more important than partying with the stepkids.

The grandmother has a home. She is not homeless, just lonely and grieving. The man also has a home that he has already shared a significant portion of, and you expect him to give up more? It is far from guaranteed that the MIL would benefit from losing her own space and being thrust into an environment with 2 children and a resentful SIL, yet it is almost certain that the man's mental well-being would be adversely affected. If you believe potential is nothing, then how can you claim the potential of the MIL being slightly happier is paramount in this situation? She will be grieving wherever she is.

The guy inherited the house from his parents. It's literally his house. There's a reverse situation in my family in that my wife inherited an apartment from her parents and I treat it very much as HER house. The one we're jointly paying our mortgage on is OUR house, 1970s or 2021.

@King Joffrey Your wife has a separate apartment. This man's wife and children live in the home with him. If he's not prepared to treat it as their home, too, then perhaps the wife should buy her own house and move herself and the kids into it. I would not and could not live in a house I wasn't allowed to treat as my own. I'd simply leave so I could have my own space if that's the way it's going to be. Marriage is a partnership, not an itemized transaction.

People rent and manage to treat properties as their home. Being comfortable enough to treat a property as a home has no bearing on ownership. Like renters don't assume ownership, neither should a romantic partner. Partnerships work both ways, and if the wife is unable to respect that it is his home too, particularly as he retains ultimate ownership, then she should either be willing to buy half of the equity or as you said, get her own home in which she will not have to accommodate his wishes.

If someone and their kids lived in my house rent free in my house for 4 years then expected to have equal (or majority) ownership by virtue of having physically being there, I would be questioning why I let them in to begin with. It's like saying someone who rents a house for 4 years is entitled to keep it (and renters are paying), or squatters that have been there long enough assume ownership. Why is it ok for one side to treat it like the 1970s but not the other? It's 2021, if they want equal ownership, then the wife should be willing to buy out half the equity in the house, and then might have a case. Perhaps the wife would be best off going to live with her mother.

"Whack off, drink beer, hide from household duties, & play video games." Those are a LOT of assumptions about a man you've never met. Those are all just stereotypes about man caves. Would you be saying the same thing if he was an artist with a craft room, or would you admire his creativity & dedication to art? Would you be this aggressive if the genders were reversed & the wife was the one with the basement space? I feel like you're replacing logic with bias. In addition, the MIL does not "need" a home; she already has one. She's lonely & wants more company, which can be done without completely taking over a space this man worked hard on to make his own. Why are his feelings less important than hers?

It’s not half her house. It’s HIS HOUSE. He inherited it from HIS parents. He let her and her kids live in HIS HOUSE. People change and get divorced. He needs to protect what’s HIS!

Absolutely not. That kind of thinking is just so bad. They're either partners in life, or they're not. This is an either/or proposition. If he isn't in the 'us/our' camp, time to get the hell out.

@Tara Then she should just go ahead and move out and buy her own house, no? Such an arrangement disadvantages the wife greatly, and such inequality in a marriage does not make a good partnership.

Well duh…. But she can’t….. that’s why she and her kids are living in HIS HOUSE.

Nope, it was his BEFORE they got married, so it's not marital property. And MIL needs to get grief counseling, and move in to a senior community close by. The needs of this couple & the two children are more important. My grandmother moved in with us & it created a lot of problems for my family, especially as her health declined. All of us, including grandma, would have been much happier if she had gone to a retirement/assisted living community instead.