Childhood bedroom off limits?

OP grew up in that house. It's the family home. If you marry a man and move into his home, surely you accept it's not just your house?

Only an evil, selfish woman would do this. She's probably hoping OP never steps foot in the house again, that would be extremely convenient for the new wife.

He’s not the SM’s son though so that isn’t relevant

His wife lives with him all the time. His son has his own home. Why should the people who live in the house, full time not have things as they like? If that means using a bedroom as a closet/wardrobe /dressing room for the convenience of a full time resident why shouldn't they? If they decide that they don't want anyone else to enter that room, why can't they? It's their home that they actually live in and they make whatever arrangements suit them best. It's not a museum.

It would not be "someone"!!! It would be my child, who has grown up in said house!

That’s fine and I’m sure you would be happy for someone to come into your house and tell you what an acceptable level of privacy is.

Personally I like to decide what happens in my home

All from a single suggestion that he and his toddler don’t poke around in her personal items. He’s using emotive language as if they are being cruel to his kid.

Also does anyone know what ‘I suspect I'm slightly on the spectrum’ means? Because it sounds like people who say ‘well most people are on the spectrum’.

I'm not blaming the woman, I'm blaming the man for putting the new wife above his own children. When I say he's "weak", I mean that as a criticism of him, not an excuse. Maybe lazy and selfish is better.

Mum dies. New wife in. Children out.

And it's OP's childhood home first, it only became the wife's home 5 minutes ago.

I don't know what kind of family you're from, but most people can indeed go around freely in their parents' house.

If they’d all been out together to something near to the parents house and got a babysitter, If the parents were hosting an evening event/party, all heading off together early in the morning for something… we find ourselves in that sort of situation a few times a year. But you’re right, it’s not likely to trouble the OP as his relationship with his dad is clearly limited to sipping tea for an hour or two in the sitting room once a month.

Why haven't you asked your father about this? Explain you feel unwelcome in your family home. The home 50% belonged to your father and 50% to to your mother. Time to push back on the boundary the new wife is setting before it becomes the norm. Just be nice about it.

It’s reading between the lines from the OP’s posts. He’s dropped plenty of signs that strongly suggest his DF is not a particularly involved GP. Which is obviously fine, plenty aren’t, just as long as he isn’t put out in a few years time when he realises his GC is much closer to the maternal GPs than him.

Why would they be leaving late if they have a toddler?

So is it only GPs that let their GC do exactly what they want and go where they want that have a close family relationship.

How ridiculous.

Also we know they don’t live round the corner, the OP has said they are an hours drive away. Which is obviously still close enough for a day visit, but quite far to be travelling late on an evening so wouldn’t be outrageous if in some circumstances it made sense to stay over.

How are they keeping the child at arm’s length just because they want a choice in who goes where in their house?

The OP’s attitude about what he thinks his child is entitled to do will be the thing that causes a rift.

Hes offended by the ‘closed door policy’ (aka someone choosing to keep some places private) and is trying to use the child as an excuse.

@ProfessionalPirate being able to go into a bedroom at a GPs doesn’t determine how close a relationship you have with GPs

My kids love having sleepovers with their GP’s just for fun. 🤷🏻‍♀️ and occasionally for childcare purposes. But evidently not all children have such close relationships with their GPs as can be seen from this thread.

That’s a separate matter. I had no difficulty in teaching that different houses have different rules, but it doesn’t then come a surprise that they do not have the same depth of relationship with these friends and more distant relatives as they do with their GPs. Quite rightly. The child is absolutely going to notice if they are kept at arms length by their grandparents.

Why do they need to stay overnight? For all you know they might live around the corner.

My mother, my adult kids, their father, my adult step kids, their mother, my partner and I are all within a 5km radius of each other. Nobody needs a spare room for family visits.

No-one would be poking through her stuff. OP just wants to show his child his old bedroom.

Having said that, he's not actually asked or taken it any further than accepting a 'there's nothing of interest up there'.

Or he’s 1, in agreement with her, or 2, happy to compromise on such a minor thing for his wife in what is now their shared, marital, house. Either way, he’s a grown ass man that could have opposed the change if he wanted to.

The narrative that men are weak and that a manipulative woman is always to blame is really quite tedious.

Why is everyone acting lit she’s the wicked SM for not wanting people poking through her stuff?

And that's a very fundamental difference between men and women when it comes to this. Statistics show how fast men re-marry after being widowed, whereas women usually don't as they have strong social and family networks. Men just rely on the woman in their life to do that for them.

I'm at an age where a lot of my friends/people my age, we are starting to lose our parents and this scenario is being played out over and over. It's really sad.

That's really depressing. Though I imagine that you're right.

I've chosen not to look for another partner since my DH died, but there's no way that I'd let anyone move in with me who didn't accept that my family is my family, and that my home will always be theirs, too. Even if they don't live there any more.

Or in fact taught that different houses have different rules. They are hardly putting the child in a cage - just stopping her going into private areas of the house. The child is only going to care if the OP makes a big deal of it.

You are not family anymore, you're guests.

It's unfortunately what happens when men re-marry. His wife is more important than his children, she rules the roost, and he's too weak to say anything.

Pretty much every widowed man I've ever known.