DSS saying hasn’t got enough space in shared bedroom

[Tryingtoaccomodateeveryone]

I’m trying my best to make it work and he’s being really ungrateful.

Me and dp have 2 ds (6 and 8) and dss is 15. 2 bed house (one very large bedroom one smaller that fits a double bed and one chest of drawers). Ds were sharing with 2 single beds in there and when dss stayed which used to be EOW me and dp would have the sofa bed downstairs.

Dss has now moved in with us so I got Ds 6 and 8 a bunkbed, a single bed for dss, a desk for dss, a small cupboard and cleared half the wardrobe so he had space for clothes. Put up 3 shelves for his things and used ikea shelves with storage boxes to partition half the room. It looks really nice. He’s furious . He wants our room as needs ‘privacy and quiet to study’.

My dc only use the room from 8-830pm each night as in the day they play downstairs. I’ve tried really hard to make this work (it was very last min due to an issue with dp ex).

I think it’s ok ? We can’t partition fully as renting. We can’t afford a bigger house so this is the best option. He thinks we should share a room with Ds 6 and 8 as wants his own space.

YANBU op - your setup with the 3 boys sharing the big bedroom is perfectly sensible. He can want you to be richer all he likes but that doesn't make it happen. You have the house you can afford and if five people are sharing a 2 bedroom house it is ridiculous for any one person to have a solo bedroom. The fair share of bedrooms is 40% of a room so he is already having more than his fair share having half of the big bedroom. His complaints are as meaningless as if he was moaning that you aren't buying him a diamond-studded rolex. He cannot have the lifestyle of a richer person. That is life.

You can make the study room really nice even if it is tiny. Make it personal to him and it will be a cosy little retreat space. Then the partitioned bedroom area won’t feel so difficult. For previous generations it was normal for kids to all bunk in together, my three cousins shared a small room until almost teenagers and then my male cousin had a tiny space of his own made while the girls shared (house was very small). My friend grew up in a weeny bedroom off her grandparents bedroom (tiny cottage), which she shared with her sister using bunk beds . He is upset and throwing anger out but having the study space as his own seems the best compromise that works for everyone.

No, they rent

It’s interesting that the ‘punishing’ comments seem to come from people with low comprehension skills.

Good luck, OP. Sounds like your heart is in the right place and you’re being as understanding as possible, trying to find a solution to a tricky situation ✨

Please expand. I clearly don’t understand why offering a space to the teenager to have for studying and gaming is causing offence here

Because they rent.

@BlueSilverCats

Frequent enough to have a bed, yeah.

I would argue the child being there one day a year deserves a bed. I consider that, you know, basic parenting.

Is this a permanent thing or just until the situation with his mum is resolved
what size is the study?

I don't think OP should be sharing with younger children, but I fully get teenager not wanting to share.

I have no idea re solutions for the rooms, but I wanted to say that you sound lovely and please remember that whilst things may be unsettling now, you are going to be giving him a safe home and in the long term he will get used to this and life may not seem so bad. He will realise that you are only doing all of this to support him.

I think OP has done the best she could do under the circumstances.
There is a huge difference in sleeping on a sofa bed eow and permanently.

DSS probably assumed he'll get the other bedroom hence being stroppy. He'll get over it and having a large room divided into 2 with shelving isn't the end of the world. He has his own space, there is a study for quiet learning... the only thing that DSS can't do is playing online games until the small hours.

There is a difference in how things should be and how they actually are.

This man shouldn’t have gone on to have more children

He couldn’t afford them

You can spot the bitter ex wives projecting on here a mile off. He's not being treated like Harry Potter and forced to sleep under the stairs, there's real kids out there being mistreated and the OP sounds like they want to do right by him. Maybe you should all blame the mother because it can't have been easy for the dad to bond with a child he never knew about, couldn't have been easy for the other bloke to have to walk away either after thinking that the child was his but everyone is fixating on how bad the father is when the mother sounds like a right piece of work who's ruined at least 3 people's lives with her lies and now the OP and her husband are trying their best.

for the 15 year old to have chosen to live in this situation means that the alternative truly was shite

Poor boy

Sorry if it's been suggested but can you and your children have the largest room and he has the small double? Might be easier to partition if it's bigger?

I know it's hard but any chance of moving to a 3 bed?

There isn't a box room for them to get a bed in.

Any room in the loft?

No adult covers themselves in glory in this mangled blended family

Come off it.

Do you genuinely believe that everyone has the means, or space, to permanently keep a bedroom free for anyone who is there every other weekend?

I’ll admit, I do try and live by the “amount of beds needed +1” rule. But that isn’t always feasible, or affordable, and until recently it wasn’t needed here. He was there EOW and space was made available for him.

The issue is that space doesn’t meet the needs of him being there full time, before that isn’t what’s being discussed and at this point you’re all just aimlessly judging.

There are examples of this with videos online that you can find if you include 'Kallax Ikea hack' in the search - hack is important.

@trendingdiscussion this wasn't a blended family by choice though. The OP was pregnant when they found out about her step son. The father never walked away from anything because he didn't know he existed.

Bedroom? No. A Permanent Bed? 100% yes. I consider that basic right of a child.

The worst part is even though the room is small it is still big enough to fit to beds comfortably. However OP and their partner still decided to have another DC meaning that the poor stepchild misses out.

And? A child who is there so frequently deserved his own bed. Not someone else’s bed. He’s not a visitor. He lives there. He deserves his own space and to not be treated like an inconvenience.

What were they supposed to do? Live four people in one bedroom 26 days of the month so HRH could have his own room the other four? For a family struggling for space that would have been a total waste. Would he have preferred to be in with the younger children for those 4 days? It seems not.

Realistically, if he had been with them more of the time from a younger age, he would be used to sharing with his brothers. That is what the family can afford currently. He has got extra privilege as a courtesy to an occasional resident, now he is a full time resident that is not possible. Or perhaps it is, but I'd think they are setting up for disaster if they seriously plan to put one sibling in his own room with use of his own study and the other two siblings have to share with their parents.

If they can set the living space up for parents to use as a bedroom seems like the best option for now. Which would be similar to what they were doing before but on a more permanent basis.

OP, if your DH is no longer paying maintenance, might that help financially with saving towards a move?

Is it private rental?

where is this said?!