To feel peeved house guests don't bring anything

I voted YABU because you've got a voice, and should tell her she can't come, (or make her do the cooking at least).

She's using you and you're letting her.

Is this real? I’d tell her straight I’m fed up of her taking advantage and not bother with the friendship any more. What are you afraid of? Guilt? I’d feel guilt that I’d inconvenienced me and my family for so long with a freeloader.

Just say no. I have a new hobby which takes up my weekends now.

Can you try things like 'froend so you fancy going to the shop and planning dinner, I'm exhausted' and when her child wakes up specifically tell the child to go and wake up mum. Ask friend to help tidy/wash up. If this doesn't work then you need to have a more awkward conversation.

Imagine having to explain in detail to an adult how to use your words. It’s pretty worrying tbh.

You’re being a doormat - and she’s taking advantage! If her child wakes up early, go and knock on her door loudly and tell her her child is awake. Don’t let her lie in and leave all the grief to you. If she doesn’t help with food prep, ask her: “Olivia, can you chop up these vegetable, please, while I brown the meat”. And don’t prepare different food for her child. It’s not your problem they’re a fussy eater. Don’t pander to them.

Also, limit the number of visits. If your friend says she’s planning to come to visit, say you’re not available. Don’t get into discussions about what you’re doing, just say you’re busy. If she then says she hasn’t seen you for X weeks, innocently suggest you can come and visit her. She’ll shut up then.

She sounds spoilt and immature. Don’t enable her.

I see so many threads on here about similar situations. USE YOUR WORDS.

So, you want to stop her visits, but you don’t want to upset her?

Right now, she’s already talking about when she’ll be visiting next & she’s not even left. Cheeky fucking mare!

Tell her you’ve a lot on & so you’ll discuss dates with Mr Achurchi & you’ll let her know in a while. Refuse to commit.

Get back to her in a 2-4 weeks & say you have decided between you to not have house guests for at least the next 6 months - do not budge on this.

You can keep extending the house guest ban as long as you like.

But, if you do decide to let her come back, you can tell her that over the six months, you realised how much you had been spending on your visitors & that going forwards, you will expect visitors to contribute to their stay & give her your expectations. Once again, do not budge on this.

If she’s any friend, she’ll accept this & cough up willingly. If she disappears from your life, you’ll know that she was never a real friend.

This is how you could handle it.

However, I think you really need to grow a spine & tell her to she’s taking the piss & the free weekends in London are now over.

Well done. Although once would have done it for me.

I would say it’s been good to see you but we won’t be having any more guests staying over.

You need to set boundaries. She's walking all over you.

YABU. Only you have the power to change this. Otherwise get used to it.

Fortunately she took my "don't contact me again" message and I've never heard from her 😁

You sound far too nice @Achurchi - you need to say that you can't host her again, if she brings up the "next visit."

Think about it this way - if you telling the truth would cause a breach in the friendship, what would you lose?

So you would rather keep feeling upset year after year than your friend feeling upset the once?

You are allowing yourself to be a doormat and she’s been given free reign to wipe her feet all over you.

Time for a firm but kind no.

I would just say ‘I think it’s actually finally our turn to come to you next! Let’s plan that before you come here again.’ If she talks about coming to you again at any point just be firm and keep turning it around to not making plans for that until you’ve been to her. If she suggests a weekend to come to yours say ‘actually as I said it’s surely our turn to come to you next, so why don’t we do that?’ and if suddenly that date doesn’t work anymore ‘oh that’s a shame, well let’s put that weekend on hold then and just let us know when does work for us to come to you this time. We can’t wait!’

Yabvu not to have said anything before now!! You have been a mug.

Time to set out your boundaries.

You're been a great host for 10 years but as others have said she is taking advantage of your generosity. I think I'd approach it with:

"It's been lovely to see you both again but DH and I have decided that with the cost of living situation being what it is, we won't be hosting for the foreseeable. It's simply working out far too expensive to feed ourselves and others; and there's the increase in energy bills too to consider."

Given what's gone before I feel it's unlikely she'll offer to pay her way but that's her choice and nothing for you to feel bad about.

Tell her. Let her be upset. Being upset won't kill her and would it really bother you if she didn't want to associate with you any more?

At the very least, the guests need to either bring their own food and cook it or eat the beans on toast lunch etc you are having that day.

good place to start!

In the nicest possible way OP you are being a complete mug.

There is a COL crisis and why the hell should you be buying and cooking meals for a blatant CF?

You need to make it clear she is not welcome. It will possibly end the “friendship“ (note I use that term extremely loosely in this instance) but you will be better off for it!

You are helping yourself and indeed you are helping your friend by saying no. If you see it as cruel (I don't), then it is being cruel to be kind. I doubt you are the only people that she freeloads from (you mention her mum), maybe it will start her to think about her behaviour.

If you lose them as friends, it's unfortunate, but you should not be walked all over.

Your thread title suggests the issue is your freeloading guest doesn't contribute but it's much worse than that isn't it. As others have said, this is not the behaviour of a friend.

The next time she invites herself decline politely, but do not apologise. As suggested, "that doesn't work for me" is great. If she asks why not, don't go into excuses or apologies, just say you don't have the energy or inclination to host for the foreseeable future.

She's not your friend.

You seem terrified of conflict and it is stopping you from putting healthy boundaries in place. Something to think about medium term and do some work on.

As for how to get through this weekend:

• start asking CF to help with things "CF, can you come and give me a hand in the kitchen / grab a tea towel / give that table a wipe for me would you / please can you strip your beds before you go"

• if CF is trying to put next visit in diary: "oh can we talk about that another time, we might have other guests / be going away / have other commitments / sorry I can't commit to anything at the moment, if you need to pin something down then why don't you find another place to stay? (Tinkly laugh)".

Then when CF contacts you later, just say, sorry that doesn't work for us.

Go on, you can do it!

If I confronted my friend about any of this, I know she'd be very upset and I'd end up feeling guilty

Yet your greedy, thoughtless friend doesn't feel guilty at all about shamelessly using you. Such is the world!

Why are you solely responsible for this woman's wellbeing? Doesn't she have any other friends? What are the positives of this relationship for you, what would be the downside of never seeing her again? (And no, feeling guilty doesn't count)

You are being played like a cheap pianola, stand up to this parasite.