Really upset with daughter

[bojo7]

Probably IABU but I am really seething over this. Background: I am very busy right now and daughter (late twenties) does not help with housework etc. despite not currently working. (I work full-time.)

I was reading a book last week and mentioned to her that it was really good and she could read it when I finished it. I had about 20 pages to go and was really looking forward to finishing it with a glass of wine after a long day. It was nowhere to be found and I realised she had probably taken it with her when she went away for a few days. She came back today and I was correct, but she has lost the book. I am so cross and told her she must buy me another. This is apparently silly and petty as she can easily tell me how it ends...

AIBU?

I'd definitely make her buy you a new book. I agree with the others that you have to be firmer with her though. But I also agree that your house needs to be calm until after the exam period. Maybe use the time to think up a strategy (and guess what her reactions will be so you can counter them) because she needs to be an adult now.

Tell her she needs to leave the house at 8am and find a job

That's exactly what I did with my 18 yr old when he was laid off and got a bit too used to hanging around the house. He had to be out when I did the school run and I didn't want to see him again until the evening. The longer it took him to find a job the earlier I would get him up.

He got another job quite quickly... Just to escape me I think.

Your daughter won't stop taking the piss until you stop letting her. Stop making life so comfortable.

i referred to my dm once as she well i never did that again

shes rude and u need to talk to your ex about it aswell all this money hes giving her isnt helping

It's not about the book really, is it?

Definitely show her some tough love. She is an adult and needs to be working. Agree that the making sure she is out of the house at 8am and not back to the evening could work. She then has all day to not slob and apply/look for jobs.

Your daughter doesn't call you mum because you are in effect a sevant to her.

Stop letting her walk all over you.

Just because she is your child you should not put up with behaviour that you would not put up with from anyone else.

She is an ADULT. Start treating her like one and give ultimatums, but more importantly FOLLOW THROUGH.

The first time will be difficult and you will feel guilty. But it will be easier the next t time. Remember it's for her own good.

If it helps, our DD lived with us whilst doing her degree course because she needed to keep her car for travelling to work placements and could not afford private rent.

She worked hard to be fair, but treated out home like a hotel with all laundry and other services thrown in. By the end I was struggling with all of it, although she never stole a book, mine are too boring it seems.

Since she has qualified and moved out it is like a doppelganger has taken over her body. She now rents a home with another working girl, also a graduate. They keep their home lovely and clean, DD does all her own laundry and posts pictures of healthy food she has cooked from scratch. You could not make it up.

See if you can encourage DD to face up to her own life as an independent adult. It might be hard, but she will thank you in the end.

the long term outcome was that the DD lived in that flatshare - which they paid for - for a few months.

they had "family counselling" where she admitted she wanted to do naff all. She then said she was desperate to come home and they said the only way that was acceptable was if she got work. There were a few false starts - she walked out of the first two jobs for no reason.

but they were strict about things. So literally the whole family had the wifi password but she didn't. They didn't give her any spending money and allocated her particular nights where she had to cook a meal. If she didn't, they just made enough food for them. She wasn't going to starve, there was food, she just needed to bloody cook it.

once when I was there, she tried to start an argument with her mum saying "I need money to get supplies from the chemist, you are EMBARRASSING ME in front of Rosa". Her mum kept calm and said "well we can all go to the chemist together and I'll pay". I felt like I was watching a toddler tantrum.

after she really understood that she was going to be treated like a child, she got a job and stuck to it, but then tried to pull out some shite about doing a second degree - which they quickly said no to.

AFAIK she's still living there but not being obnoxious. I can't be sure as I don't go anymore, it was horrible to see. Everyday my poor colleague was subjected to shouting. I have to spend a lot of time with my elderly mum so that's been my excuse for never going to colleague's house at weekends any more - but tbh I think she knows the real reason.

Slightly missing the point, but you can get books for free from the library !

I liked this I don’t know how you get DD to grow up, I really don’t. Yes, what most people have said (tell her to do her share/get a job etc or tell her to move out), but it’s just not that simple is it. Especially when your ExDH was generous with the house in the divorce so that the kids had a family home, you probably don’t feel like you can tell her to leave. You can, she’s almost 30, but I understand it’s difficult.
Because I think these things are easier said than done.

However, OP, you COULD be insisting there's dinner on the table when you get home and a freshly hoovered house. You could be discussing this with her NOW to start next week - you'll get the ingredients in when you do your weekly shop, and she starts doing the dinners from Tuesday.

I feel for your DS. If he's doing A'Levels then it's not fair that he's picking up her slack in terms of chores... SHE should be supporting HIM. That's how families are supposed to work.

I know someone who is 44 and still lives with his parents....shocking. He diesn't have a job and doesnt do much housework

Thanks Rosa. She sounds really terrible, and it doesn't seem like she has really changed. I can't really face up to thinking my situation is so bad, and I can and do just forget about it a lot. I could easily go for a day or two without actually seeing her. She is mostly in her room with the door firmly shut or out of the house.

Posters saying to make her get up at 8am, well just how do I do that? She is quite nocturnal in her habits anyway. She does do her own cooking and laundry and buys most of her own food. Well gives her Dad a shopping list if I'm honest. Other household stuff, she just uses of course.

Youngest DS is not doing any chores right now. I just want him to study and have a little down time. It was an older DS who was home in the summer who complained of the unfairness re. chores.

Pull he covers off her, pour cold water on her tell her she's gets her arse out of bed and out the house and doesn't come back until 5pm. She's to look for a job or the next time she leaves the house you'll have the locks changed and she won't get back in.

You're in a tough situation, bojo. There is not a lot you can do except to give your DD an ultimatum to get a job and move out that you stick to firmly but I understand you don't want to do that until your youngest is through his exams.

Would it work to tell her to have a job by August and then move out? That's about 3 months notice, which is fair. She has lots of friends by the sounds of it so if she gets a job, she can set up a flatshare with them and start paying her own way in life. The longer you let this go on, the harder it will be to end it and the more infantilised and ungrateful your DD will become.

I speak from experience because I am the youngest of 4, like your DS, and my parents ruined our family and their own lives by letting my eldest brother move in after he failed to complete his PhD. He has been hocking in the family nest ever since and - yes, wait for it - he turned FIFTY a few days ago. I only noticed it on the calendar and though to myself, holy hell, that's 25 years now he's been at home. He has never worked in all that time outside of part-time teaching here and there. He is such a drain on my parents' lives. They should be enjoying their old age but he is still there, like an overgrown child. As you say of your DD, he is not rude to them as such, but just ignores them and barely engages. It's like they are living parallel lives in the same house. It's horrible visiting them.

Anyway, I would just say that you need to nip it in the bud. Good luck. Set yourself and the whole family a deadline to get your DD to move out and stand on her own two feet and then stick to it.

ah, so she is doing her own cooking and laundry? That's a way better start than my colleague had with her daughter.

there is hope - as I said in my post, AFAIK she's working and not being obnoxious. So things like the lack of consideration re the book - that's something colleague's daughter might have done but they are past that now.

what does she actually say if you say "please move out and get a job"? Does she have any sense of wanting to grow up? If she's out a lot, then it's also sounding better than colleague's DD who seemed to just want to hang out in a nice house, do zero chores, and shout at her family

I think I will insist on another book.

Oh well, that’ll show her. 🙄. Honestly OP, she’s a grown bloody woman who’s taking the serious piss out of you. You need to be insisting on more than a book.

FIFTY!!! Oh God, perhaps I will try the cold water in the mornings...

Lazy, and sponging. She will never learn if you enable her.

cold water doesn't seem like an adult approach tbh...

but yes, re 50, my sister went to a school reunion and found a couple of men from her school year doing that. I've no idea if they help round the house though; at 50 they could easily be helping care for elderly parents. Also, a friend recently lost her mum; her brother didn't live with the mum, but it turned out the mum did all his banking and life admin for him - mid 40s.

my doctor mentioned something attached to counselling. Apparently, in my area, you get assessed first for what type of counselling you need. The GP gave the specific example:

"some people turn up saying they need divorce or bereavement counselling, but actually it's not the situation that's caused them distress, it's that they've never run a household or a budget. We see this particularly often with adult children who lose a parent". I was interested that came up as the first example.

Seriously. If the cold water works, try it. Anything has to be better than a potential future like my parents with a 50-year old at home. He also does his own laundry and cooking but never did general chores, like your DD. He treats my parents' house as a kind of B&B situation.

One extreme option might be to sell your 4-bed house (once your youngest is in college) and move to a 2-bed or even smaller place so there is just no room for your DD or any other adult kids to come home.

You offered her a nice thing, she heard ‘borrow my book’, she probably thought you had finished it. Why turn a nice thing into a row.

Oh don’t be so bloody obtuse. Have you not read the thread? IT IS NOT ABOUT THE BOOK.

You have to be cruel to be kind. There’s not too much incentive for her to move unless you really get on each other’s nerves by which time the damage could be deep. I’d be telling her to pay rent and if she needs to get a ‘menial’ job to pay for it then it’ll do her good to know how to earn money. You’re doing her no favours by treating her as a teenager, and she’s clearly reverting to the role of teenager. You don’t have to spend her rent money but save it as a deposit for a house or car once she’s on the ladder. She’s being lazy right now. Don’t let her be.

InionEile

being nosey so feel free to ignore me....if your brother doesn't work, where does he get any spending money from?

Would it work to tell her to have a job by August and then move out? That's about 3 months notice, which is fair.

I agree that setting a firm deadline is a good idea, as most people are deadline-oriented - without them, we just bumble along!

If you think three months is too short, perhaps six months. When discussing this with her, I'd also keep mentioning her age (I'm assuming she's 28/29) and that she'll be 30 soon!

I know that sounds unkind, but she needs to accept that she's not really a "young adult" anymore and she needs to take control of her life.

Rosa, she avoids me as much as possible. She tries not to open her door and will say she is asleep. When she is out of her room and I try she will say "you've already said all this - I'm working on it" re jobs. Chores, she is always going out or feeling unwell, and can be "unwell" until the moment she leaves for a night out. When I say, anytime in the next few days will do, she just doesn't do it. I came across the phrase "grey rock" on mumsnet and it is just what she does. I think she honestly feels that her living in the house is not really costing me anything. I have pointed out that I would be eligible for a Council Tax discount of 25% of £300 every month if she did not live with me.

Inion, your story really scares me. I do feel a bit trapped, and am probably in denial. I may try the August deadline. I might taking her out for lunch to change the dynamic, but I don't think she would come.