Hello. I have not been able to find a post similar to my situation regarding in-laws, and would love some perspective.

Hello! I (36/f) and my husband (39/m) live with his in-laws, who are in their sixties. Long story short, my husband and I had been dating for about a year when he started looking for a home. He started out intending to buy either an apartment or a house for himself, but he ended up buying a house with his parents (they chipped in a nominal amount and now contribute to the utility bills). My husband was proud to upgrade their living situation. We ended up engaged about a year after. Unfortunately, I wasn't brought along for the ride (a miss). Fast forward 2 years, we ended up getting married, and I finally moved in (in my culture, we don't move in with our spouses until after marriage - another miss).

Now that we've been living under the house for nearly 2 years (and after the honeymoon period), I am at my breaking point. While his parents are absolutely good people who actively give us space, I find my patience slipping away with small things like finding sugar on our kitchen counter, bread crumbs on our coffee table, all our main common spaces have my MIL's decorations or pictures, my in-laws wear shoes in the home, etc. Eventually, my MIL would handle it, but I find myself getting worked up about it. When it comes to his parents, despite their kindness, I find it hard to assert myself. Assigning rules would eventually make our living situation feel like we're all roommates, and I don't want to make it awkward. I tried to bring up the seemingly minor issues, and my husband supports me, but my in-laws slip back into their old habits.

Our living situation is also impacting my relationship with my husband. Our home is a single-family home. We share the same floor for sleeping, and our second-floor bathroom is in the middle of our bedrooms, so even using the restroom can be uncomfortable at times. We are no longer intimate and now find ourselves booking random hotels to achieve some privacy. When we fight, our fights drag out because we can't argue while they are home.

Finally, what I genuinely feel is that I no longer can fulfill some dream (that I did not consciously realize until now) is that one day, I would create my own home with my husband, with our own rules, our own privacy, not being bothered by little things like having to give his mother rides to the train station or clean up after his dad's crumbs. I also worry that having his parents around, we fall back into being children in the house. For example, it bothers me that my husband still asks his parents for help when I think we can figure it out on our own or learn from our own mistakes. I also fear that bringing children into this situation would make things worse. For example, my FIL doesn't respect my husband's wish to stop feeding our dog human food since she's overweight; I can see him giving our children sugar because he "feels bad."

I go to therapy. I try to get out of the house. I contribute to the mortgage. I've been reading a lot of posts and articles about couples who have had to move in with their in-laws for a period of time or have had to move only one parent in due to a health issue. I've toyed with moving into a multifamily home, but it's not economically feasible right now. I don't think the solution is to ask them to leave, but I am feeling like there is no path forward and that this is my life for the next 30+ years.

Any advice? Thank you. :)