Stepdaughter’s bedroom at Christmas

"Might not be in use"

It is SD's room. As such, it should be considered used at all times. Not an en suite room for your relatives. By putting your mom in there, you would be keeping SD out of her own home. You have multiple other options.

Of course it's unreasonable.

Do you think your husband enjoys you starting shit about his daughter and her having a place in his home every holiday?

You've said your oldest doesn't have much paternal involvement. Yet you're trying to lessen your SD's place in her father's life. You might want to think about that.

Have you never read a post on Mumsnet and thought that the situation described sounds familiar to a previous one and checked? I don't think that's weird or unusual.

Regardless, as many posters keep repeating, IT DOES NOT MATTER whether you or the OP or anyone else thinks that that it is ridiculous to leave the SD's bedroom empty. Her husband has made it very clear that the room is not to be used as a guest room. End of discussion.

The OP can think it's stupid all she wants, but it won't change, so why ruin Christmas for herself stressing over it when she can simply put the baby back in her bedroom instead.

Take it with a pinch of salt op. There are some very sad individuals on this thread who clearly have too much time on their hands and have gone through your old posts to try and dredge up more assumptions about your family. It’s incredibly weird.

You will also be instantly unreasonable in some people’s view purely for being a stepparent. Being a stepparent who is trying to assert boundaries is unthinkable.

Anyone with a shred of common sense will see how stupid it is to leave a good room empty while everyone else squeezes in together and makes do. If your dsd isn’t there you need to seriously question your husbands logic on this. If she is then I think you’ll have to go back to the drawing board.

This does seem to provide further context. Why did the OP want the SD to share with her daughter?

You’ve had a problem with the extension since your partner had it built. You know it isn’t there to be used a guest room, by your ‘own mother’ or not, and that trying to use it as one would cause conflict.

You resent that your stepdaughter didn’t want to share a bedroom with your daughter, and that her father made it so she didn’t have to. I suspect this was an attempt by you to make it happen.

The simplest solution is surely to just move the baby back in with the parents, since apparently this was the situation until fairly recently anyway. It's unlikely to cause sleep regression and surely people do this all the time when visiting relatives or going on holiday. Not a big deal.

In fact if OP decided to take the children to stay with her mother, where would they sleep? Dedicated bedrooms for all? Somehow I doubt it.

To be clear - you would want your mum to have her room even if SD was there for Christmas?

This for me is the bit that gets really cheeky. SD likely doesn't give a toss whether your mum is there so why should she be the one who is inconvenienced? It should be you or your DD

This seems to be the crux of the issue. The OP simply cannot accept that this bedroom is not spare or a guest room. It is her SD's bedroom and her husband/partner/boyfriend has paid handsomely to ensure that it is so. She either accepts it and lets it go or she moves on. From this thread and her previous one (I can't comment on the others as I haven't read them), it seems clear that despite her protests the OP has an issue with her SD and her husband's constant support of her. It won't change so she needs to accept that and learn to live with it.

So what are you going to do OP? Do you accept that the answer is no, your SD's bedroom is not available for use as a guest room?

It’s not “an en suite bedroom” - it is DSD’s room. This is the root of the issue.

You are viewing this from a very practical perspective so it makes sense that you think the en-suite bedroom should be given to your mum. However your husband is reading this in a very different way, one that’s likely to be entangled with emotions, fears around his role in his daughter’s life, about the bedroom representing belonging, permanence and so on. The problem is really that neither of you understand one another. I’d be curious about what preserving the room for his daughter’s sole use means to him. Your own daughter’s room is not preserved solely for her use … This is potentially a complex situation even though you are reading it differently.

The word "might" is doing some heavy lifting. If there's a chance your sd will be staying at some point that week then you should be encouraging that as best for her and your dh.

Maybe explore some comfy options for your older dd to share with her sisters

E.g. a chair bed https://www.habitat.co.uk/product/5644760

Or you can get very comfy fold away beds/mattresses.

If your DH insists on DSDs bedroom being sacrosanct, how about you and your DMum share your bedroom and your DH can sleep on the couch?

It is unknown if the bedroom will be empty and making plans as though it definitely will be is certainly sending a message to the SD isn't it?

Apparently it is not the OP's house and her husband has been very clear that his daughter's bedroom will not be used as a guest bedroom. He has spent 62k building an extension to ensure she has her own space. It doesn't matter how ridiculous the OP or anyone else thinks it is,.this is the reality. The SD's bedroom is not available even if if empty and the OP needs to make other plans.

I would never feel confident advising someone to end a relationship and break up a family on the basis of such limited information

I’m With Op on this one. If the bedroom is empty then it seems ridiculous to have to uproot everyone else when the room is there. If it’s also your house put your foot down, I wouldn’t let it go!

She doesn't want to, because she's trying to mark her territory. Unfortunately for her, she has no territory to mark, as the house belongs to her boyfriend, and her step daughter has more right to live there than she does.

I should say, OP, I understand why you're disappointed your DSD doesn't want to blend with your family. I'd be a bit sad about that too. But it is not wrong of her not to want to, and it's one of those things that will only get worse if you try to force it. I think you have a lot going for you and if you can focus on the things you can and should control, you'll feel a lot better.

So the house belongs to your partner and the room belongs to your SD. It doesn't matter how many agree with you here, the room isn't yours to monopolise and your partner has said no. Your mother lives less than an hour away, surely just pick her up and take her back later? Longer term, if you can't make it work with the SD, it would be better to seperate whilst your joint DC is young than your DC grow up watching you dislike thier sibling and build their adult view of you from that.

Yes I agree it’s hard to be able to fully judge without knowing all the facts and with more facts I would perhaps have a different view. However based on the facts available so far I don’t see it’s a great future for her like this, don’t see she would be happy or have the chance to build a life with someone in any meaningful way

of course your mum cant have a 14 year old girls room. Move the baby, its literally no big deal. Easy.

I can understand why some single parents never remarry for that reason but don’t see how if you’re your going to have a partnership and children with someone else, how first ring fencing a significant amount of your assets/income can work. There is going to be the risk of a significant disparity in the lifestyles you are providing for 1 child compared with another, obviously justified if e.g a disabled child but otherwise the resources should be shared just as most parents would with the dependant children of their own. I can understand some slight discrepancies, For example your eldest child has a horse she adores but you have another baby and you struggle to afford maintaining the horse but it is very precious to her so you make sacrifices as a family to continue to afford it. Thats very different to saying child 1 must maintain the exact standard of living, holidays, a fancy bedroom etc so wel’ll ring fence money/assets for that and child 2 and your partner who is bearing and caring for your children and your home has a lower standard of living on what’s left

This is weirdly stalkerish. You are far too invested.

Ah this is interesting. I did wonder whether they had got married in the interim.