Dear Pastor,

This is the first time I am writing to you. My fiancé and I agreed that we should write to you and have you help us to settle a problem we are having. We have been going together for three years. Both of us have good jobs and we would like to settle down and have children. I am thirty years old. My fiancé is thirty-two. Both of us have masters degrees.

We have paid down on a house together, but I am living with my grandmother. She raised me. I am very comfortable where I am and I do not want to leave my grandmother. I feel responsible for her. She wants to see me get married, but she does not want me to leave her house. I told her that she can come and live with us, but she does not agree. I told my fiancé that we can rent out our house and he could come and live with us. He wouldn't be a boy in my grandma's house. She calls him her son, but my fiancé is having a difficult time dealing with that.

We can save lots of money if we rented out our house. We wouldn't have to pay rent here. The only things we would pay are the utilities. Grandma has already told me that she is leaving this house for me. I don't know how long she has to live, but she is strong and we have a full-time helper.

What advice do you have to offer, pastor?

F.S

Dear F.S.,

Thank you for having confidence in me. May I say to your fiancé and yourself, stay with grandma and rent out the house that both of you have bought together. I am assuming that you have mortgage. The rent would help you to pay your mortgage and you would build wealth much faster together because you would be fortunate to be living in grandma's house and only contributing to the utility bills and to the upkeep of the house (I guess).

I have mostly discouraged young men from going to live at their wives', houses, especially if these houses were built on family land. However, in your case it is totally different. Grandma is advanced in age and she loves both of you and will not get involved in your married life, and the house would eventually go to you.

Therefore, I say to you, as soon as you are married, your husband should move in. Do not make changes in the house without grandma's permission. When I say changes, I mean do not build anything on to the house. Make sure grandma has absolute privacy and is well taken care of at all times.

Pastor