Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To hate DSD sticking stuff to her walls

188 replies

Eriani · 28/05/2025 17:44

DSD is 20, she’s just finishing her second year of uni. She’s living with us and isn’t from the UK (neither is DH). I’ve really struggled to bond with her, she talks to DH in her native language and puts little effort into joining the family as a whole. DH has made it clear I shouldn’t force her.

DSD has a pretty small room, though not a box room, it’s outdated and we told her we’d redecorate it for her. She said she likes that the paint is a little faded and the wall paper is “old fashioned”, we’ve offered new furniture, to carpet it (just floor boards right now, band sanded and varnished). She keeps saying it’s fine as it is, but we did get her a rug and a taller bookshelf.

She has taken up a habit of sticking stuff to the walls, a poster she got from a tourist shop for free that’s a bit tatty, a random vintage tennis racket etc. That’s fine though. My actual issue is one wall is so random, I know it’s not my room, but she has sticky notes with random quotes from books, pages from books ripped out, a letter from her boyfriend etc. Tbh it’s an eyesore and very random and all tapped up with cello tape.

DH thinks it’s fine, she hasn’t asked us to redecorate and it’s how she wants it. I’m almost never in there so it doesn’t impact me, but I do go in and hoover and change her bedding occasionally (she does her own most of the time but sometimes to be nice I do it). Also my kids have recently had their rooms redone so I would never let them do this, I also think it’s quite childish for someone in their 20s.

AIBU to hate this and suggest she finds another way to display this stuff? Or should I just let her do as she wishes?

OP posts:
crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:25

@Eriani so is this the first time she has lived with dad for some time?

DontTouchRoach · 28/05/2025 20:24

Diarygirlqueen · 28/05/2025 20:18

Leave the poor girl alone. This post makes me sad 😔

Same. It’s as if the OP wants to mould an adult woman into a different person to make her fit in with a family that isn’t even hers. It would be bad enough if she was 10 but it’s even worse to be like that towards a 20-year-old woman.

Eriani · 28/05/2025 20:23

crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:23

@Eriani where did she live before going to uni?

Italy - Naples, why do you ask?

OP posts:
crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:23

@Eriani where did she live before going to uni?

chaosmaker · 28/05/2025 20:21

@Eriani Just stay out of her room. It's not going to be for long.

Diarygirlqueen · 28/05/2025 20:18

Leave the poor girl alone. This post makes me sad 😔

EmeraldShamrock000 · 28/05/2025 20:18

Oh, give over.
You can decorate the room when she moves out.
Not worth stressing.

DontTouchRoach · 28/05/2025 20:16

ThatDenimExpert · 28/05/2025 20:01

The step daughter can also speak in English and in their home they should all be speaking English. The father shouldn’t be condoning this

Edited

Why the fuck should a French woman speak English to her French father, at home, just because her father married an English woman who can’t be arsed to learn French? It’s really not the stepdaughter’s problem.

GloriousBlue · 28/05/2025 20:15

Poor girl, why on Earth would you even consider saying anything

Eriani · 28/05/2025 20:14

crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:09

@Eriani how long have you been with DH? Maybe you could use this opportunity to expand your knowledge of French language. Your DSD can speak 3 languages, why don’t you try and speak a second one.

I assume she has always spoken to DH in French. Does her mum speak another language?

Yes her mum is Italian so Italian with mum and all her personal stuff, DH is Swiss so French with him and she learnt German in school too. Then English at uni/with her British friends. I don’t deny her intelligence but I think speaking 3 languages fluently and a 4th colloquially is pretty rare, so we can’t be expected to keep up. I actually speak German fluently (lived in Berlin for a year) so it’s not that I can’t speak other languages, I’ve just never quite picked up French!

OP posts:
fiveIsNewOne · 28/05/2025 20:13

YABU about the walls. It's not like she asked you to redecorate the room and now is thrashing the new wallpapers, she kept the room as it was, so it can be redecorated to neutral standard at any moment later. Sounds fair enough.

At the same time, the language isn't great, I suppose it would be better if she switched between French with her father and English when everyone is together. It would be better if the standard for switching came from your partner than from you (at least when communicating the expectation to her)

DontTouchRoach · 28/05/2025 20:13

She’s 20 years old and her room sounds exactly like the room of any other 20-year-old uni student. Random crap on the walls, angsty quotes etc. Leave her and her room alone, ffs. You’re being intrusive and weird. She isn’t a child, you aren’t her mother and you shouldn’t be trying to control her.

It is entirely reasonable that she prefers to talk to her own father in their first language.

nomas · 28/05/2025 20:11

Have you told your DH that you have no issues with him and dd speaking French when they’re having a tête-à-tête but when you are en famille (like at the dinner table) she should speak in English?

Have you ever tried love bombing her with a shopping trip just you and her? Or a trip to the cinema to see a French film with subtitles and a visit to a lovely French restaurant afterwards?

If you’ve tried the above and if DH also refuses to speak to her about it, all you can do is just be polite but stop making the effort. You may find that when you withdraw, she will want to get closer to you.

CapitalAtRisk · 28/05/2025 20:10

OP this is all about you, not her. You resent her. Own it.

ThisLoftyPeachCat · 28/05/2025 20:09

ThatDenimExpert · 28/05/2025 20:01

The step daughter can also speak in English and in their home they should all be speaking English. The father shouldn’t be condoning this

Edited

No she should not. Do you speak multiple languages? Your home language is for home, she'll never feel comfortable speaking a second language all the time and it's tiring and unfair. W

crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:09

@Eriani how long have you been with DH? Maybe you could use this opportunity to expand your knowledge of French language. Your DSD can speak 3 languages, why don’t you try and speak a second one.

I assume she has always spoken to DH in French. Does her mum speak another language?

crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:06

It’s probably her only chance to speak her own language @ThatDenimExpert Doesn’t sound like OP would be interested in what DSD had to say anyway. DH Coukd always lead the way with what language is spoken

Eriani · 28/05/2025 20:04

I’ve mentioned the language thing to DH, he doesn’t think it’s fair to dictate what language she speaks in at home, she’s trilingual, she and DH always speak French, her phone/personal reading etc. is in another language and she studies in English.
He says it’s very stressful to have to suddenly speak your 2nd or 3rd language all the time so if speaking French is her preference that’s what she will do.

I speak a little French so we can small talk, but nothing else.

OP posts:
crumblingschools · 28/05/2025 20:03

@Tangerinenets it needs redecorating and the wallpaper is already coming off. I think it sounds fab, I just had boring posters on my wall at that age.

It’s her space. As long as she isn’t leaving plates etc in her room. Leave it be. She tidies it and changes her bedding, so all is fine.

You sound very controlling @Eriani

I bet you are a person who has to decorate the Christmas tree just so and not let the DC put all their tat in random places on it.

Are there spaces for your DC to put pictures etc up in their rooms, to express their individuality?

ThatDenimExpert · 28/05/2025 20:01

ThisLoftyPeachCat · 28/05/2025 19:58

She is not excluding her anymore than the OP is excluding her by speaking in English.

Just because the OP's not clever enough to be bilingual doesn't mean dsd can never shut off so the OP can feel included in a conversation she's not a part of. Op is welcome to improve her language skills!

The step daughter can also speak in English and in their home they should all be speaking English. The father shouldn’t be condoning this

ThisLoftyPeachCat · 28/05/2025 19:59

Tangerinenets · 28/05/2025 19:56

Yanbu. It’s my pet hate as it pulls the paint off.

What paint. It's tatty wallpaper that the OP didn't bother to sort before she moved in, if she actually cared about it.

ThisLoftyPeachCat · 28/05/2025 19:58

ThatDenimExpert · 28/05/2025 19:33

She is excluding you and making you feel uncomfortable in your own house. She wouldn’t like it if you were having conversations around her that she couldn’t understand

She is not excluding her anymore than the OP is excluding her by speaking in English.

Just because the OP's not clever enough to be bilingual doesn't mean dsd can never shut off so the OP can feel included in a conversation she's not a part of. Op is welcome to improve her language skills!

Crunchymum · 28/05/2025 19:58

Eriani · 28/05/2025 18:37

Ofcourse I’ve read and translated them, to be honest I find it quite depressing, things like
“Just keep going, no feeling is final” “Very early in my life, it was too late” “live to the point of tears” (these are the only 3 that I translated and have actually remembered). I’ve asked about them and why they are significant, she just says they are and that’s that.

I love (and always have loved) a depressing quote.

Her walls sound lovely and you absolutely must not criticise her decorative choice or insist she changes anything.

Your DC speak her native language? How does she get on with them? It does sound like she could integrate a little more but I'm assuming she's new in the family home and she may be taking her time to feel comfortable?

She hasn't lived with you all before and she's probably feeling a bit isolated. Let her do her thing, continue to be warm and welcoming and absolutely do not moan about her walls.

CapitalAtRisk · 28/05/2025 19:57

Tangerinenets · 28/05/2025 19:56

Yanbu. It’s my pet hate as it pulls the paint off.

Oh noes! The paint! So much more important than SD being settled and comfortable to the point where she can express herself by sticking stuff up!

Tangerinenets · 28/05/2025 19:56

Yanbu. It’s my pet hate as it pulls the paint off.