AIBU to not want SIL to bring her new boyfriend to my house

[Harrassedorhaunted9]

I don't want my SIL to bring her new boyfriend to my house. I don't mind being invited to meet him elsewhere or to be introduced incidentally as part of another family gathering but I just don't want another bloke being introduced into my home just Like that. AIBU?

There is history...My SIL is a bit of a man-eater. She has had a string of boyfriends, most last between one and two years, move in with her and then she gets fed up with them and moves them on. The next boyfriend is always very quick on the scene and the cycle begins again. I have witnessed this cycle six times with a few much shorter flings in between.

Anyway, she has recently acquired a new boyfriend having evicted her partner of 3 years from the house they bought together.

We had accepted the previous bloke into the family, he came on family holidays and he stayed at several family members houses, attended family events etc. We let our guard down with him because of the commitment she made in buying a house with him and living with him for longer than usual. She also has a child so I asume she gives a fair bit of thought about living with these guys.

Anyway, They split up 2 months ago and SIL now wants to bring over her new boyfriend to our house.
I don't want her to for the following reasons:

My children are old enough now to clock her changing partners and I do not want them to think this is a normal or an acceptable way to treat people (the recently dumped bloke was heartbroken)

I don't know this new bloke from Adam and am not into the habit of allowing strange men into my house in a position of trust to mingle with my kids

I feel some kind of loyalty and respect to the dumped ex. After all we did accept him into our family, the kids loved him, we invested in him. Now he is disappeared out of our lives and it just doesn't feel right that SIL thinks she can trot a stranger into the same space.

So, I am just judging her or do i have the right to maintain some boundaries this time around in my own home?

Like I said at the start I don't feel any awkwardness if she were to invite us to meet hi elsewhere.

Oh these cries of "Won't somebody think of the children" - they can be irritating enough but when used purely as an excuse for a person who is clearly pissed off at her SIL it becomes even more ridiculous.

This has nothing to do with the children. If it did, OP would have listed the specific threats she felt her children faced. Instead almost the entire post was all about how she had welcomed him, liked he, trusted him, blah blah blah.

Surely, if as an adult, OP is so blind and naive to the fact that people come and go out of your life she would welcome the opportunity to have her children learn this in a way that they can feel safe and be comforted if indeed they are actually upset about it in any way. I'm guessing OPs parents wrongly shielded her from this kind of thing.

All sorts of people come and go. Heck, our girl had 3 teachers in her first year of school. Should I have complained bitterly and refused to send her just in case it happened again? She dealt with it absolutely fine.

This does not send "a bad message" to the children, it sends a good one. Some people come and go, some stay forever and it is entirely wrong to stand arms length and guarded until you feel certain they will stay.

I also wonder, if this guy was so close to the family, so loved and caring and wonderful, why must you stop seeing him just because your SIL isn't in a relationship with him? Why not pick up the phone and invite him over or meet for dinner with the children. Uncles and aunts of mine who were divorced from the family were still welcome in our home and years on, I still keep in touch with them and consider them to be relatives.

Do you really think your SIL has that much influence over your kids that they will be affected by seeing her move in and out of relationships? Surely they will take their main view of relationships from the one they see all the time - you and your H?

I had an Uncle who was married four times with countless girlfriends in between, all of whom came to our house at some point or other. I assure you I don't now flit from relationship to relationship as a consequence of this!

You are way overthinking it.

I think people are being deliberately obtuse here. ( the term maneater wasn't helpful, although it does remind me of Hall and Oates). No one would want their child having a string of uncles and I imagine the sister is the one introducing them as uncle. The children are upset at losing their uncle. Sister and partner aren't just coming for coffee, but staying overnight, so it's a bit difficult to introduce him as just a friend and the kids will see how quickly their uncle has been replaced and see this as an acceptable way to have relationships. I think it's too soon for introductions involving the kids, unless it is just a coffee out somewhere.

You sound stuck up and judgemental. She is an adult and what she does in her life has no real bearing on yours. If your concerned about your DC surely they see your'e 'wonderful' relationship with your DH. I wonder if you're deflecting problems from you're own marriage. Its somewhat odd how over infested you are in SILs love life. You run the risk of alienating your DHs full family by personally attacking SILs choices and they will definitely see this as an attack on their DD. My DB has had several partners but it's his bloody choice and he's 37.

I agree that children are a lot more flexible than we give them credit for, and the less uptight you are about something the less they will be bothered by it.

Growing up I had family members who had had multiple partners, even family members who had multiple children by multiple partners. It was just how it was.

As an adult I might do a bit of an eye roll at the fact that we didn't know all of X's husbands or that I wasn't sure which of her children were fathered by which man, but as a child we didn't really care. Especially if family members aren't that close.

I can't believe this antiquated "you're not uncle unless you marry"

Both my siblings are in long term relationships. My BIL isn't married because the law has only just recently allowed him to be, he is in a civil partnership though. They are all Auntie and Uncle. Our girl uses the term and has done since she could talk, I actually thought it was less confusing for her. She would be no less upset if "John" left than she would if "uncle John" left. Using these terms also lets the partners know we consider them to be family. It is welcoming.

I think it is ok for kids to learn that you don't have to marry/stay with your first girlfriend forever.

DS has (much) older half siblings and to be fair, has seen them have many girlfriends. I don't think that's teaching DS to 'treat people badly' as you suggest. When they've split up, I've told DS that they weren't getting on great and that she wasn't 'the one'. That's ok. That's life. I don't want DS to marry his first girlfriend because that's what you do or to avoid upsetting people. He can have a whole series of girlfriends if that's what he wants, entirely up to him.

I suspect you are probably more upset because you liked the previous guy and got close to him so you feel loyalty to him. That doesn't mean she should've stayed with him though if she was unhappy.

Yanbu

'All the people jumping on the OP are missing the bit where she says they will be staying in her house for the weekend, not just stopping by for a brief visit. I wouldn't like it either and actually I think you do have to careful with who you are exposibg your kids to. Him staying in their home says to the dc that he is a trustworthy adult - the OP doesn't know that yet because he is still a stranger to her.

I think introductions should happen over time and be gradual, not full on jumping straight in to the family. He is sil's choice, not the OPs snd sil shouldn't expect everyone to be totally accommodating to the point of having him stay over at this point.' I agree with this.

I take the view that DH and I do enough "modelling" of a happy, stable long term marriage for our DC

With friends and family members, they can do whatever the hell they want with their own sex lives, without regard to my DC. I want my DC to know it's perfectly normal to have sexual relationships - the number of relationships isn't important, but the ground rules of no violence, treating each other kindly etc are important. I want my DC to know it is perfectly reasonable to end a relationship on your terms and no one else's. I actually think this is really important.

Surely with little DC, a sexual partner is introduced as a "friend" and when DC are older they are just a "boyfriend/girlfriend"

You still haven't told us how your DH feels about you treating his sister like some kind of social embarrassment.

And as for your kids op, I strongly suspect that the only person who gives a toss about any of this is you

Though I don't like your manner of saying so, I do 'get' where you are coming from. People who are serially monogamous can seem hurtful and careless. I doubt very much that your SIL goes into these things intending to 'trade in' after 2/3 years, and I doubt that she sees this as a pattern as you do. I have a dear friend who, in the 13yrs I have been with DP, has been married twice and is now engaged again. She is a wonderful, warm and loving person and her respective partners have all been very nice. I would miss out if I cut her out or didn't make efforts to enjoy spending time with her partners and I see no need for you to push this with your SIL. It is easy to just say 'oh not yet SIL, I am not quite up for hosting a stranger at the mo but next time etc etc'. Your kids will take it in their stride I am sure

She was with the last guy 3 years. It's hardly a revolving door!

Pretending that other people all live the same way you do, will not help your children understand the world. Knowledge of others lives, thoughts, beliefs is a good thing.

The weekend stay was not mentioned in the first post so yes I did miss it. I wouldnt be comfortable with that either but more because I wouldnt like having a stranger in my house than because of the kids or man eating reasons. I do wonder how the kids are so attached to the string of uncles, the last one who was around for 3 years so from when the eldest child was 6/7 and the others were younger....I'd be surprised if they even remember anyone before him let alone the string of men she's had. Plus they live so far away it has to be w/e visits so presumably it's not like they're round every week. Unless you're going to refuse to introduce the kids to any new man until he's been in her life a safe period of time 4/5/10years? you can't avoid them seeing her multiple partners so the whole I don't want them to see her man eating thing just looks like an excuse to judge her.

Of course if you'd asked aibu not to want sil new bf I've never met staying the w/e I think this post would have been very different.... yanbu

All the judgement of her situation and saying it's to protect the children.... yabu.

YANBU - yes it may be judgemental but I think you are allowed to be, its ok to have different views/values on relationships than your SIL and set your house rules accordingly if it makes you uncomfortable.

My brother does this only more frequently and my mum keeps her distance at first now when he has a new partner because, as a friendly person, she got genuinely attatched to these ladies who my brother then proceeded to treat horribly and leave. It was upsetting for her as she cares for them and he expects everyone to immediatly embrace every new partner as 'the one' within days of meeting them himself.

Personally I dont care how many partners he has but I do feel awful the way he treats some of them. Its up to you when you want to meet the new partner, whats the bloody rush anyway?

The whole point is that I don't want to teach the children that it is ok and normal to be moving in and out of relationships! And definitely not at this rate!

Oh my God!!!! It IS perfectly normal! Which bit of that are you refusing to understand? She was with the last man for three whole years, hardly a revolving door of one night stands. Okay so she's met someone again very quickly and it may or may not fizzle out equally quickly, but that is how real life relationships are. We don't all have a crystal ball when we start dating someone about how long it's going to last. And not all of us
end up for life with the man we met at 18.

The ex was here in the April sch hol for goodness sake!! I don't want them to treat other people that way or think it's to be treated that way.

What way is that then? Are you going to teach your children that they should be obliged and guilted into staying in relationships that aren't working for them just so they don't upset everybody else?

If you are uncomfortable with her staying over in your home with a guy who has only been a fixture for a few weeks then just tell her you'd rather he didn't stay over just yet because it's awkward to explain to the children, but don't ban in him from social occasions altogether, that's just priggish and spiteful.

combine I have an uncle like that. I feel for your mum. Between him and my mum (dated over 20 men before I left home), I has some serious trust issues concerning men until my mid twenties! No lie, I was awful to men. Thought they'd just leave anyway so treated them like dirt whenever they tried to be nice to me, and never gave them a chance to get close.

What do you mean by 'treat people that way'? Unless there's something I'm missing there's no suggestion she's treated anybody badly, just that a relationship ended.

And relationships do end, three years is a lot of time to invest in finding out it isn't right.

If three years isn't a long term r'ship in your book what is? I'd only been with my husband three years when I married him, should I have waited? :D

Tell your SIL how you feel. Personally I would want to know so I could be aware of how I was being judged and what I was really dealing with in my relationship with you.

Thats awful Jay - its easy to say 'whats your problem, they're not your partner, family come first, just don't get attatched' - when as a kind human being its in my mums nature to befriend and be nice.
Its embarassing when my brother behaves appallingly to them I dont think he should stay in any relationship he doesn't want to but just don't expect the rest of us to be so invested each time.

Yes, like your mum I'd always feel it was good to show respect and treat every girlfriend od my Uncle's, or bf of my mum, like a new member of the family- the way they wanted me to. In the case of my mum, she tried to have decent relationships but has poor judgment imo so the relationships were always short lived. I used to feel awful for her, I guess I still do as she only wants to be loved, but it's hard to watch someone you love being constantly let down. I guess we (my siblings and I) were also let down because with every man came the promise of happiness foe my mum. Even to this day, she's dating men that my brother and I don't bother getting to know as they'll be gone soon. As a consequence, I will be very cautious about my children meeting new partners of hers.

Hi everyone,
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The whole point is that I don't want to teach the children that it is ok and normal to be moving in and out of relationships! And definitely not at this rate! The ex was here in the April sch hol for goodness sake!! I don't want them to treat other people that way or think it's to be treated that way

But it is OK to move in and out of relationships! You may be happily married and settled, but your SIL obviously isn't. She isn't married to any of them, she isn't cheating.

In the last 10 years, I have had 3 relationships - my marriage which ended when exH left, then after a couple of years I lived with DP1 for 4 years, and am now living with and marrying DP2. How dreadful. Sometimes people make mistakes, and it's best to sort out the mistakes rather than continue, just because that's what society expects. Sometimes relationships don't end up how you thought they would. My DCs understand that when a relationship turns sour, and it can't be saved despite your best efforts, sometimes it's best to exit.

I'll give it a bit more time before getting our family involved in this latest relationship. One to 3yr relationships are definitely not long-term in my world.

I think you live in a parallel utopia to that which I inhabit.

sorry three years she was with her last partner and shes a maneater?

let your guard down sorry i dont understand that-i dont get why youre so judgmental about a new bloke shes seeing

it is your house yes but i think youre judging her too harshly

my sister was married to someone for 5 years i never liked him-she met someone else and hes lovely

i dont judge peopel by others behaviour

She was with the last guy for three years. Your young kids were attached to him and saw him relatively frequently. Their relationship is two months old.

Number of previous partners is largely irrelevant though it does demonstrate a pattern and the possibility that this chap could be short lived and your children could be upset by it.

I'd discourage it too for a while.

You appear to be more upset over the breakup with the ex than either the ex or your SIL. All this talk of "letting our guard down" and such. You weren't in the relationship, you shouldn't need closure.

YABU. If you don't want them to stay with you for the weekend, fine, but the additional drama about her love life and calling her a maneater is ridiculous. As others have said, I'm curious what your DH has to say about this. I find it hard to believe he doesn't have any opinion at all.