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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Lifestyle

My friends' 30-year-old son is leeching off them and preventing them from retiring

‘He treats their house like a hotel.’
‘He treats their house like a hotel.’ Photograph: Getty Images

I’m friends with a couple aged 60 whose 30-year-old son lives at home running a “business” that brings in no profit. My friends repeatedly lend money to him (otherwise he’d be bankrupt) but, when they ask about getting the money back, he is furiously angry at them. They want to sell their home and retire but can’t while he treats them and their house like a hotel. His sense of entitlement is incredible: after three years of failure, he believes this “business” will be a success, and that he should be fully accommodated until then. He has got people on his side by crying and painting his parents as monsters for asking him to give up his dream of a “proper” job. What can be done when he refuses to see that he’s leeching off his parents and tormenting them when they try to reason with him?

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