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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

So frustrated about DD I could cry

334 replies

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 02:22

A bit of a rant here but also would appreciate advice. Me and my DD18 have come to mutual decision that she cannot live here anymore. She is a nightmare. Rude, mouthy, arsehole boyfriend who has no respect for my house. Spoilt and constantly mithering for money. She makes me depressed. My 7yo is terrified of the boyfriend because he is so vile.

I do not want to throw her out on the street. Isn’t interested in uni and left college the day she turned 18. She has 2 part-time jobs and makes around 900 a month give or take.

We are in an expensive area. She needs to remain local for her jobs, they are evening/night based and I want her to be able to get home quickly and also be near enough to call me for lifts home because sometimes she will be finishing at 1am. She does not want a houseshare or to have to share a bathroom. We looked at a bedsit with a bathroom share earlier this week and she was put off when she saw she’d have to share her bathroom with a middle aged man, and I don’t blame her. The cheapest place where she will have her own bathroom I’ve found is a converted office flat at £650pm. I’ve done a quick calculation of what I reckon all of her bills plus rent would be (I think I’ve accounted for everything including her car but she is still a learner so the insurance will skyrocket once she passes but I’ve not added the increase to the budget) and I think she’d need £1100 monthly.

I believe she’ll get some housing benefit but I don’t know how much. We’ve got a viewing at the flat on Monday but I don’t know if she stands a cat in hell’s chance of being approved. It is a special scheme where a deposit isn’t needed. I can afford maybe £200 a month to top her up but even that is pushing it. In a different part of our county she’d get a similar flat for 30% less per month but would have to quit her other 2 jobs, find a new more local one, be stuck with me for months on end when we’re already at each other’s throats. It’s so frustrating.

If she remains living here we will end up bloody killing each other but I also am trying my best to support her.

OP posts:

MilduraS · 23/07/2021 13:19

I last lived in a shared house when I was 27. I was earning more than your DD and it cost £550 all-in. I could buy new clothes, go out to dinner, go out to the pub, go on holiday and still have savings. The alternative was to rent a studio flat and leave myself with about £100 after bills and food- not really enough for regular nights out or a nice holiday. I think it's madness that she's even considering it.

lazylump72 · 23/07/2021 13:19

Do what you need to do OP and heres hoping you get some much needed peace soon, Sadly some young adults have to learn the hard way and thats when things start to change,they grow up and need us and this attitude passes and you get back to a better relationship. Hang on in there and when she falls,which she will you can be there to catch her, Good luck x

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:20

Ideally I’d let her stay until she’s passed her driving test and then she could get a flat in the cheaper areas and commute to her late jobs until she’s got a more stable job in the new area. But she is so vile at the moment that I want her gone now.

OP posts:

gettingolderbutcooler · 23/07/2021 13:25

@conecrosoooo

I do my best to keep him out of the house but sometimes he comes round when I’m out.

Recently it’s been I get home from the school run and he is there so I take my son out until he’s gone.

I did threaten to call the police once and he left but DD screamed at me the whole night.

Change the locks.

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:34

She hasn’t had any traumatic events in her life. Me and her dad split when she was 4 but it was all amicable, regular contact. She sees him often but he won’t help financially now she’s 18. Only practically, he lives nearby and drives her home from work sometimes when it’s late (we both do this, we’re both a couple of minutes away from her later workplace) and has offered to help move her furniture out.

She was horrendously bullied at high school and still now has no friends or social life. She had social anxiety in her high school years which she has grown out of and she happily works her hospitality jobs but it means that she unfortunately doesn’t have any friends or support system outside of me, her dad and the BF because she didn’t make those connections in the years where she ‘should’ have done, so to speak. I believe this is why she is so attached to the BF.

OP posts:

ShortBacknSides · 23/07/2021 13:38

Not defending her, but her 2 part time jobs are full-time hours. She’s a lot of things, most of them vile, but she isn’t work shy.

You are defending her by pandering to her @conecrosoooo. I lived in house shares from the age of 17 when I started university, until the time I bought my first house at the age of 33. My first house was tiny, and had no central heating or central hot water system and I did my full-time job plus a part-time job 2 nights a week to pay for it, and to renovate & upgrade it (at a time when interest rates were at around 13%).

So, yes you are enabling her, by pandering to her sense of entitlement - "can't share a bathroom"? - never heard such a load of spoilt sulky teenager behaviour pandered to as if it's serious.

And then to think that she can get government benefits for her lifestyle choices? That other people, sharing houses and bathrooms, should have to pay for her to live in the way she thinks she's entitled to???

Obviously the BF is an issue: that is what you need to sort out, and perhaps if you asked for help about that you might have got more sympathetic responses to your OP.

ShortBacknSides · 23/07/2021 13:44

dare I say living with others will help redefine some boundaries as I imagine any new flat mates would take zero tolerance to her boyfriends antics, any selfish behaviour or late payment of bills or costs

Absolutely @DillonPanthersTexas I know that adapting to living with others who were not my family, and had to be treated with respect and friendliness, however I felt about them, was one of the main ways I matured.

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:47

I get that, but if at the moment she’s refusing to share a bathroom, what am I meant to do? I can’t force her to realise it, she needs to learn.

I need to protect my 7 year old and so have to get her out. I’m certainly not going to help her get her cushy flat and subsidise her for all eternity.

I’d try and help her get in there, and then withdraw financial support after a couple of months. She already knows this is my plan. If it all falls apart after I withdraw support then she has no choice but to get a shared flat.

Us arguing to no end about how she needs to accept a shared flat will just mean further months of a bad living environment for DS. I’m not throwing her out on her arse though, she has no friends. Other than me and her dad all she has is the BF who she can’t stay with anyway as he lives with mum and siblings.

OP posts:

NeverDropYourMooncup · 23/07/2021 13:50

@Saltyslug

In regards to the bf, just politely ask him not to make drug deals in your house.

Your DD is looking to rebel against you so best be neutral when talking about him. If anything help her reflect by asking her opinion occasionally

Are you serious? Really serious?

'It's OK that you're a drug dealer and all, but would you mind awfully pretending you aren't when you're on my sofa, please? If it's not too much bother, that is. Wouldn't want to inconvenience you when you're busy arranging for the next County Lines transport, but it's a little distracting when I'm trying to do the washing up'.

bloodyhell19 · 23/07/2021 13:51

@conecrosoooo

She hasn't had any traumatic events in life but she was horrendously bullied? Both of those things can't be true. Bullying is traumatising.

I have to say OP, I know you sound at your wits end but with your recent updates, I'm getting a very different picture of your daughter. Left college for an apprenticeship that fell through and has had life upended with just her parents and scum BF for support? She might be a walking fucking nightmare at the moment but there sounds like there's reasons for her to be like that.

You left quite a bit out of the story previously.

Theunamedcat · 23/07/2021 13:53

Why can't she go live with her dad

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:54

@bloodyhell19.

I meant no trauma as in familial abuse etc. That’s why it’s all so upsetting because she isn’t downright evil and was looking forward to her apprenticeship and it all fell apart but at the moment she is so, so horrible. And the BF is a constant obnoxious presence, even when he isn’t physically here. I am on antidepressants for it all.

She wants to move out just as much as I want her to go. It’s all a massive fucking nightmare.

OP posts:

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:55

I also don’t think she’ll go and get pregnant, that’s her worst nightmare.

OP posts:

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 13:59

I do think she is angry, definitely.

She’s angry about her high school experience and having no social life or friends. She’s angry that her apprenticeship fell through after she left college. She’s angry that I’m at odds with her only connection outside of the family, her boyfriend.

But if people were to see what it’s like to live with her they’d see how I can’t cope. That’s why I’m trying to support her in moving out rather than just changing the locks.

OP posts:

ShortBacknSides · 23/07/2021 14:03

That’s why it’s all so upsetting because she isn’t downright evil and was looking forward to her apprenticeship and it all fell apart but at the moment she is so, so horrible. And the BF is a constant obnoxious presence, even when he isn’t physically here. I am on antidepressants for it all.

You know, a lot of people - daughters and mothers - manage to get through far, far worse without all this drama. You need to get some help for yourself, and your parenting strategies.

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 14:10

@ShortBacknSides.

She’s an adult ffs. I won’t apologise for prioritising my youngest who is a child.

I honestly can’t fucking win. This isn’t me criticising any posters but the situation. Kick her out and I’m evil and leaving her for an abusive boyfriend to swoop in and get her addicted to drugs, let her stay and I’m a pathetic pushover who will get social services involved because of my 7 year old. I get panic attacks about the whole situation.

The bullying was horrible, she was suicidal at one point. I was there for her. She mentally ended up doing a lot better in college and things were starting to come together for her but then the apprenticeship falling through did leave her quite bitter. She dusted herself off and got 2 other jobs but she is angry about her life. She seems to hate me.

Saying other people have had far worse and been fine is not helpful. Whataboutism like that never helps anything. We’re in the situation we are in and it’s ruining my life.

OP posts:

Notaroadrunner · 23/07/2021 14:11

Pack her things and send her to her dads. Let him take some form of responsibility now, seeing as he has dropped the financial support. I honestly wouldn't be giving her or him a choice - I'd be telling him he needs to step up and telling her you are well and truly done! Whether it's near her work or not is their problem to solve. She can get another job if it's too far to commute.

Notaroadrunner · 23/07/2021 14:12

And change the locks as soon as she's out the door.

Marmitemarinaded · 23/07/2021 14:12

In you scenario
My priority would be my son. It would have to be. He is utterly dependent on me. And I simply would not have him in remotely in the vicinity or any possibility of it - of her boyfriend

Motnight · 23/07/2021 14:13

Op the more info you give the more that I think that your dd could very easily be in abusive relationship with her boyfriend.

I get that she is hell to live with, and that you need to protect your son. But if she is in an abusive relationship you are making it so much easier for her life to get so much worse if you enable her to leave home.

21Bee · 23/07/2021 14:13

OP, even if she does get £400 a month housing benefit on top of her £900 wages she won’t pass referencing for a £650 a month flat. If she’s successful she’ll need a guarantor who will be liable for the rent when she doesn’t pay. I know of some referencing companies also don’t take benefits into the calculation as they aren’t guaranteed.

Noterook · 23/07/2021 14:20

[quote conecrosoooo]@ShortBacknSides.

She’s an adult ffs. I won’t apologise for prioritising my youngest who is a child.

Saying other people have had far worse and been fine is not helpful. Whataboutism like that never helps anything. We’re in the situation we are in and it’s ruining my life.[/quote]
She doesn't hate you, she is struggling and you're probably the only safe person she has in her life, as in the one who she feels will love her whatever. It doesn't seem you have done much in the middle, rather than she stays and I let her get away with whatever or I push her out onto the streets, what about something in between? Unless she has been like this for years, it suggests something else is going on, I wouldn't say 18 was emotionally an adult personally, even if in the eyes of the law it is. Without resolving underlying issues I honestly don't think you'll be free from it even if she moves out, and I don't think it will be just a case that your son is then fine; similar happened with my sibling and I was traumatised by it.

You say she was bullied to the point of being suicidal, that's often not a pre cursor to healthy relationships, her self esteem is probably in pieces and actually being passive and not telling her boyfriend to fuck off probably suggests to her you're not bothered. Imo you need some support, be it from a crisis team or whatever.

MydogWillow · 23/07/2021 14:25

OP, she needs you to cope.

Low self esteem. No friends. New BF pays attention. Turns out to be scum. Some kind of intimidation/abuse going on. The only person she can turn to is you. You're not coping. Right now she needs you to cope. She's screaming at you as she needs you to step up. She needs you to stand up to her vile BF because she can't. She needs you to be her protective parent like you have always been.

CoralFish · 23/07/2021 14:27

OP, you sound like you are stuck between a rock and a hard place. If you can afford to top her up temporarily, and she can afford a flat she is okay with, then do it. It will ease the transition to a shared house, which she may eventually have to move into. Go on a benefits calculator and work out what she will be entitled to. If the flat is a no-go, see if you can find other shared houses for her to look at, preferably sharing with women. Look at other options like sites that match groups of housemates, and adverts on spareroom. You sound like you are doing the best you can in a tough situation.

Original poster

conecrosoooo · 23/07/2021 14:29

The comment about “I’ve only been raped once” in the context of house/flat sharing with men really upset me. I don’t see why that was necessary to say.

OP posts:

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