To think my bedroom is out of bounds to visitors

[YoshimiBTPR]

My exPIL visit occasionally. I leave DC2 with them while I collect DC1. I have previously asked them not to play in my bedroom - to stick to downstairs or the DCs bedrooms.

This week FIL said he went in my bedroom and pulled my bed out looking for a toy DS2 thought was there. I was really annoyed. I had put all my private things in my room and closed the door - and there is a journal and paperwork by my bed. I was also embarrassed because it was messy. Underwear etc.

I genuinely don't think he sees it as an invasion of privacy like I feel it is.

I don't want to leave them here alone again but I don't want to overreact. I feel petty even describing it. Would you mind family going in your room? I didn't like it when I was living with ex and his family went in our bedroom then too. He never saw a problem.

I don't like visitors going in my bedroom but have learned to accept it and be prepared. Kids sometimes go in there and visitors end up following. I just put anything private in the wardrobe and lock that! Put a clean throw over the bed and make sure room is tidy.

It's not off-limits TBH, it's just another room in my house. Sometimes a friend will follow me in chatting while I get something or a visitor will want a tour of the house.

Locking the room seems a bit extreme, like you're hiding something! Can you lock the wardrobe/dressing table instead?

Kizzy i also have sex toys in a drawer and sexy underwear in agent provocateur boxes on a chest of drawers which are visible to anyone who walks in the room. Someone walking into a room doesn't necessarily mean someone opening drawers and boxes. My opinion if they do then they see a sex toy, then they get what they deserve!

My mum comes round and helps me with laundry once a week. She goes in all the rooms and drawers. The dc play hide and seek with their friends in every room and they particularly like taking people to jump on our bed because it's a superking.

No idea why designer handbags need to be hidden from people, unless you think they may steal them tho, and thats a different issue surely. i just leave mine strewn around the house!

"he said he didn't see the problem"

• I agree with a PP who says it's a power thing. He's refusing to be told by you where he can go in hour house.

No, you don't need to be less "slovenly". You need to be able to assert your boundaries -physically if necessary - with locks, as others say.

With the journal / therapy notes. I can see why this is very private and personal. By this logic of some things being too messy to "be allowed" - or if you don't want your sitting room to look like this, no room should look like this; by this logic, you aren't allowed anywhere to explore the feelings that are too messy for public, for acquaintances. that isn't true. these feelings exist, they have to, and you need the therapy and the notes that are part of it.

Same with every aspect of you, even your underwear. It all has the right to exist and you have the right to decide how much of it is private.

Does your therapy have anything to do with being mistreated by your ex? Just wondering whether he is a person who pushes boundaries and plays power too

I would be pissed off tho if when i said i didn't want someone to do something they ignored me and overrode my request with there's no harm etc. I don't go into others bedrooms or let my dc, as i know people have different feelings about privacy. I'd be furious if someone ignored and belittled my wishes.

Your fil went to get a toy that he was told was there. Sorry but he surely helping. Did i miss something. I never go into my pil bedroom and send dh in for the hairdryer but if got told something was in the bedroom by dc and owner of bedroom not there id go in for it as its helping dc.

If I were the FIL in that equation, babysitting in a house that was not mine, having just been asked not to play in a specific bedroom, I would take the request for what it is - a request to stay out, couched in slightly friendlier terms. Therefore, I would say to the DC,

"Sorry - that's Mommy and Daddy's bedroom, and it's not right for me to go in there without them here to say it's okay. You can ask them to help you find it when they get home."

Then redirect the child to another toy/activity. The toy he went in to retrieve is surely not the only toy the child possesses. Additionally, I would be modeling the kind of respect for another person's private area that is good for a child to learn about.

And maybe I'm okay with people in my bedroom. Maybe I have the biggest TV in my room, and when I have people over for movie nights I invite everyone to pile onto/into the bed with me. Maybe, due to logistics and people in the house, my bedroom is a de facto living room.

But the OP asked him not to go in there. She phrased it as "don't play in there" but her meaning was clear to all the reasonable, boundary respecting people on this thread. We knew what she meant. FIL (and too many commenters on this thread) are choosing to either wilfully misinterpret her request, or make her feel unreasonable for making the request in the first place, and that is not okay. Her house, her bedroom, her boundaries.

Just because your boundaries are different, does not negate the OP's right to make her own boundaries.

I would interpret 'play' as don't let the dc go in and mess it up. I wouldn't think that meant adults don't set foot in there and retrieve a toy.

I don't want to make you paranoid, but please check that there is no nanny camera installed in your room, and no keylogger, etc, on your laptop. The idea that a toy could have gone all the way under your bed to such an extent that the bed had to be pulled out is really odd.

You are mid divorce? Could your ex be looking for evidence of you shacking up with someone?

And I would 100% get a lock for your bedroom door.

Just wondering whether he is a person who pushes boundaries and plays power too

Yes I think so. The relationship did affect my reasoning/sense of autonomy, possibly in quite extreme ways not for a lazy Sunday morning - which have taken a year to unpick. But I think it's working, ive worked out my own feelings on it. Better still if I did it without MN i guess!

In the midst of a divorce i think it's different to other times tho. I'm really open in general and i still wouldn't let pils or ex in my bedroom (or possibly house) in those circumstances.

There's nothing embarrassing in my bedroom but I never let anyone in there, especially PILs. My MIL is obsessed with going upstairs in my house, I don't know why!

My dd once took a selfie in my bedroom and one of her ' friends' mocked my wallpaper!

I was outraged.

You have no need to feel paranoid.

Paranoid? Hardly. Totally inappropriate. You are kind to even let them in let alone accept poking around your bedroom wtf

If you have asked someone not to go somewhere in your home then they should respect that. That's all there is to it. Now if you have asked them not to go into the bathroom and they need the loo that's obviously going to be tricky, but asking someone to stay out of bedroom is hardly a difficult wish to respect.

My bedroom is my (messy) sanctuary. It is my private, safe space. I hate, hate, hate the idea of anyone but my husband (obviously!) and my kids going in there. If I were to analyse why, it's probably a number of reasons...
....I was raised in a similar way
....I spent most of my childhood sharing a bedroom and loved it but like my 'own' spaced now
......I spent years living in student and shared housing, where my bedroom was literally my only personal space
.....I have a chronic illness and my bedroom has become a safe space where I can curl up and hide from the world
.....I am slovenly

Probably some other reasons too. But the reasons don't matter. It's how I feel. My ILs are not ex ones, they are current. They don't seem to believe in any personal or private space at all. So this has proved an issue before. My husband has gently explained a couple of times and they do respect my feelings now. If they were my ex-ILs, I'd be so upset if they went into my room, especially mid-divorce!! I would buy a lock.

Everyone is entitled to set their own boundaries and they should be respected. YANBU. Get that lock.

Why not stop them visiting & stop Ex coming into YOUR home.

When they ask why, tell them 'You don't respect my privacy'.

I'm generally not bothered by people going in my room because if people are staying I put journal type things away, they'd really need to go hunting to find them, but also because these days I only have people I like in my home. My EX PIL going into my bedroom would have seen me screaming like a banshee because they were nasty people who would have been up to no good (usually trying to find proof I was no good for their baby boy. They're a huge part of why he's an EX). So I don't think there's a 'right or wrong' way to feel about this. It's YOUR room, you can feel how you feel about it, it's not up to anyone else to say if you're right or wrong.

Get a lock. They won't know the door is locked unless they try to open it, and if they get the hump at being locked out, then just ask them why they thought they needed to go in there. They won't have a real reason and that will be the end of the debate.

Hadn't thought of the possibility of a hidden camera!

You're perfectly entitled to leave your underwear and journal out in your own room, nobody else should be in there!

Yeah get a lock

Its absolutely reasonable to expect him to stay the fuck out!

Even my DC aren't allowed to spend time in mine - they have their own rooms. If my FIL went in mine I'd probably kill him but he's a massive twat so I'd only be using it as an excuse

Yes maybe if i don't feel comfortable and if it's making me worried it means the visits are not a good idea. I had stopped for a while before. I will either reconsider visits or go for a lock.
Either way, I feel less worried as there are others who feel the same and that being bothered isn't a mental health issue. And like MrsKoala says different responses are probably partly about different circumstances.
Easy solutions. So thanks.

Does he have a key to your home Yoshi?

If so, I would change the external locks. And definitely get a lock on your bedroom door if you allow the visits to continue. TBH, being a bolshie bugger, I would put locks on every door except the kitchen, living room and lavatory.

But that's just me . . .

I wouldn't go with the lock. I would just never leave him unsupervised in my home. TBH you hold the power here, presumably the ex in laws want to see their grandchildren and of course, in an ideal world they should. However, by breaking your rules so blatantly, he's crossed a line.

So next time say that you will all go on the school run together and if he asks why you tell him. The fact that he didn't apologise is very telling that he's trying to assert some power over you. If he doesn't like it then there needs to be a rethink on the contact arrangements.

Your house, your rules.

The people saying that they'd be fine with it are unlikely to have been in the same situation as you. You're seperated, you only let the EX-PIL into the house for the benefit of your DC. If you didn't have DC, you would have no relationship with them.

When you're going through a separation you need some private space that you feel safe in. Everything else you do will be for the benefit of the DC. If you can't have your own bedroom as your safe place from your ex and the EX-PIL, you don't have anywhere - every other space has potential for someone else to intrude.

OP I completely get you. My bedroom was my sanctuary when I seperated. My DC were allowed in there but I can't I'll have felt deeply uncomfortable if my ex had gone in there - it was my space to keep how I liked.

Ideally your EX-PIL would not be coming to your house at all. But as you seem to be letting them for the benefit of your DC, then they need to respect your space and you have every right to put a lock on your door if they cannot.

I do hope that over time you can see that it is better for the DC to see their DF and DGP somewhere else, and you get your home back for you.