To feel I can't cope with dsd coming to live with us. Beware - epic post attached!

[screamsprout]

Dsd will be 20 next month. She had a gap year which wan't an enormous success (did about 6 weeks work in the UK and 5 months travelling in SE Asia). She has just started university but it is not going well. She isn't going to lectures or studying and isn't settling into the social side of things either. She has already fallen behind and this week her cousin is going down to see her (she is over from Oz) so that will be another week where she doesn't work/catch up. This isn't sustainable and dh thinks she is likely to drop out before xmas.

She has fallen out with her mum and refuses to live there any more (the feeling is mutual, so this isn't going to change). About 4 years ago she did the same with dh and while their relationship is good, she has not stayed with us for quite a while now. In the mean time we have had ds who now has her old room. This has been fine with her until now.

She is going to need to come and stay with us during uni holidays but, it's also extremely likely she will need to come and live with us longer term if/when she drops out (which will happen the way things are going).

I am 25 weeks pregnant and ds is 3 (this week). Given that we currently live in a 2 bedroom flat, we now have to either a) move house asap or b) try to accommodate her here.

Despite the madness of embarking on a house move at 6m pregnant, we have put our flat on the market and I have spent many hours surfing/travelling to view houses/looking at finances etc. It would seem that it isn't going to be possible as we can't find anywhere big enough without moving much further away than I want to at the current time. We would have to leave the area and for my sake and ds's this is not a good time to do it.

So, in that case, she will need to live here. She is not easy to live with. Dh will be the first to say she has no regard for others. It's easy to say that she should take some responsibility, but the reality is that she doesn't. Dh will be at work 5 days a week and I will be at home with a toddler, a new born and a 20 year old in the middle of a life crisis that she won't be doing much about.

After a lot of soul searching I am at the stage where I really don't think I can take all of this on. A lot of people say "oh, we all manage" but I have a history of not quite managing and I am concerned about my welfare and that of my dcs. Dh thinks I am being selfish and unreasonable and that I am asking him to reject his daughter. I am not but we can't find a middle ground. At the moment, I can't see a way forward and am at my wits end.

Everyone in RL is telling me I can't take this on but dh is adamant I should.

Any advice would be welcome (and thank you for even reading this far!)

Another point of view from a university lecturer here. If she's doing a reading-heavy course (what, History or English or something?) and she dislikes reading to the extent of only having read ONE book during her gap year , then she should almost certainly change courses. If she's that reading-averse, she will almost certainly always struggle and dislike the course, and she will not, I suspect, attract a great deal of sympathy from her tutors.

I teach a humanities subject, and we do expect students to be able to get on with the reading in a fairly self-sufficient and at least moderately enthusiastic way. That's our bottom line, frankly. (should add that I teach at a university with reasonably well-qualified students - at other places, expectations are lower and more spoon-feeding does go on)

But at my institution, a student would have next to no chance of changing course this far into the first year. Some places might just consider it if she wanted to change from a popular course to an undersubscribed one. But really, it doesn't sound to me like she's up for a university education right now. And pursuing it might well be a waste of quite a lot of people's time and money. Better to wait till she's ready to get something out of it, IMO.

Sorry - I know that doesn't help with your immediate domestic problems. I guess in a roundabout way I'm trying to say that I wouldn't sweat the university issue, but focus on finding a way in which all of you can live with all this.

Lots of ppl drop out of uni. Either get her to Connexions for some careers advice or start searching the job ads as you don't need her under your feet in a small flat and she needs not to feel like a failure, but to met other young ppl (who she might flat share with), start earning her own money and do something that gives her her zest for life back again.

Hi, saw this thread the other day and wanted to add something. I've not been able to read all the posts but just to say I've been there. Dh's daughter lived with us for 18 months when she was 19 and it was very hard work. And we didn't even have any kids then! She seemed to expect us to entertain her constantly and didn't bother much to get her own life. She did manage to get a college qualification though which is a good thing. I honestly think a 20 year old is much better on their own.

I think I saw further back about having your dsd to stay for a weekend and see the practical difficulties of her being there. Lots of comments like "newborns are very noisy" and so on may help her to concentrate her mind. Plus I found when dh's daughter was around that it distracted him as they were always talking about her and her future etc. You want that time and space with your baby and to enjoy it without the distractions of another person. Sure she is family but she has a different set of needs and she needs to get them from outside the home.

Any questions just ask, this is a bit rushed just now. All the best and it sounds like you are doing a good job but don't neglect yourself and your own needs.