To tell new lad this is my room

[Ionlydrinkondaysendinginy]

I know this is ridiculous but its really pissing me off Iv just started seeing someone new and he's been staying over and everything has been going great except I like to sleep with a fan on, the landing light on and the TV or something on my phone for background noise. he hates the fan and tv/phone being on he wants complete darkness and silence and wants to sleep with the window open. Aibu to tell him it's my room so it's tough 💩 how he likes to sleep.

What as in never, even years ago, not even once . Hardly any.

You might find this thread interesting, OP

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4816924-how-much-alcohol-do-you-drink-weekly

I have never been arrested and have no friends that have ever been arrested.

I think I know them 11 people and I'm the 12th 🤣

What is funny about that?

I thought I'd lighten the mood. Everyone seems stressed

This is like talking to a particularly pig-headed teenager.

No, it isn't normal to be arrested or to take drugs or to be drunk in charge of a toddler. It isn't normal to smell weed outside your front door (I live in a city, and I sometimes smell it when I'm in town, but it's not a regular thing). It isn't normal to cheat on your partner because you're "not getting enough" at home.
None of this is normal.

I went without sex for a couple of years when I was getting divorced. My children were very upset by what happened to them, and they needed me to be completely rock-like and focussed solely on them. Which I was, because that is more important than me fancying a shag (a shag would have been nice, but that was absolutely not the right time for it).

Just because it's not normal in your world it is in mine whether that is the area I live or the people I'm surrounded by im not sure. But this is why there is no such thing as normal. I like mumsnet as I like to hear people's views who don't live in my world but I just think the majority of people on here are just too far apart from how others live.

But you have consistently said we are wrong (people using condoms, not having sex for periods of time without their partners cheating on them, not drinking in the company of their children etc.). So why is our world wrong and yours is right? Can you not see you are contradicting yourself?

Everyone’s normal is their normal. All posters have tried to say is that your normal is not healthy, both for you and your children and there is another way to live. But all you have done is say we are lying, naive or deluded. This is why people sound frustrated at you

OP, the majority of people on here aren't too far apart from how others live. There are extremes on MN, as there are in real life - there are people who have had upbringings so appalling that they can't see that their own behaviour is harmful, and there are people who have never had a single problem and whose lives have been filled with love and laughter and money. But they are precisely that: extremes.

The vast majority of people on MN are the same as the vast majority of people in real life: however we've grown up, we live by the same 'rules' on the whole. We don't shag unknown men without using a condom; we don't get drunk while we're supervising our toddlers; we don't take drugs; we don't get arrested and we don't know people who have been; we don't bring strange men back home when our primary school children are asleep. This is all a very low bar, and pretty much everyone manages to cross it.

If you ignore everyone else, please listen to Fitzwilliamdarcy.

I will if you listen to @Theskyoutsideisblue

Oh OP. It isn't a case of tit for tat and "I'll listen to her if you listen to someone else".

I have in fact said some similar things to theskyoutsideisblue, in that I - and loads of other people on here - have acknowledged that your traumatic childhood is at the root of all your problems. We know this is the case. Nobody is saying otherwise.

But Fitzwilliamdarcy is writing from the point of view of your daughter's situation. Your daughter is the one who matters here. Your daughter (the one with whom you have unsupervised contact) is the reason that so many of us are upset and frustrated by this thread.

You are an adult woman and tbh, nobody would be this bothered if you didn't have children. Adults who are free agents can shag and drink and drug themselves to death and that's their own silly choice. But it's the fact that you have children that makes it all so appalling. If I knew who you were in real life, I would be contacting social services based on what you have told us, because at present you are not able to keep your child safe.

Well iv managed to keep her safe for 10 years and I'm way better now then I have been in the past and ss are well aware of that

@Ionlydrinkondaysendinginy

When you started this thread, you were allowing unknown men to sleep in the same house as her.

This morning, you were proposing to force her onto the Pill "because all kids have sex".

You are an alcoholic, trying to give up alcohol safely, who is continuing in a relationship with a man who drinks. You have a history of drug abuse, and this same man takes drugs. In your home.

You have not kept her safe.

You are doing a lot better than you used to.
I'm sure that's true.

You're trying to do your best in difficult circumstances.

Some of your choices haven't been the best for the girls, though.
Please try to stop taking drugs, at least. I know you think weed is nothing.
It isn't.

And your views on sex are archaic. Nobody NEEDS to have sex and plenty of people survive without it.

Your aspirations about your older daughter are worrying - according to you she'll be forced to go on the pill. When, exactly? At what age do you think this would be appropriate?

I’ve read @Theskyoutsideisblue.

I agree with them that understanding trauma is key. Which I do. I have C-PTSD from CSA and being raised by alcoholic, abusive, neglectful people whose addiction and own trauma made them utterly unfit to parent. I have trust issues, am single and no longer have either parent in my life I’ve been alone since my mid-30s.

That’s why I speak from your daughter’s perspective, because I was her.

It is possible to overcome and break a cycle. I do not drink, I do not have casual sex, I have set boundaries for myself and I work hard every day to enforce them. My fundamental understanding of the universe as a bad, scary, untrustworthy place is always there but I’m working on techniques to overcome that and challenge my negative thought patterns. I have learned to notice when I’m applying black and white thinking.

I’ve learned to accept that other people had childhoods that I can never understand and that set them up for normal lives, and that they don’t even know it. I’ve learned to be compassionate about the fact that I haven’t found anyone to settle down with. I’ve also stopped seeking solace in transitory and harmful relationships.

All of that takes work. You’ve started, which is good. But as I said a few pages ago, you have children. That means that even those with trauma are going to be hard on you, because some of us don’t see ourselves reflected in you, but in your young daughters.

It doesn’t help you to be told “they’re there, you’re traumatised, they just don’t get it cos their lives are perfect”. There isn’t a binary here between people who will coddle you (Properly Traumatised) and people who won’t (Just Don’t Get It).

People coddled my parents. Guess what happened - they’re nearly 70 now and still doing the exact same shit.

I save my coddling for the children.

This is like talking to a particularly pig-headed teenager.

No, it isn't.

It's like somebody who has had a lifetime of severe trauma. Who uses humour as a way to cope.

I think @Ionlydrinkondaysendinginy has probably survived because of a whole lot of coping mechanisms that the average MNetter maybe can't understand.

Humour is one of them. Dismissing some frightening or depressing behaviours in others as "just normal and how things are" is another, rationalising things as simply being that way - like all men cheating, having to have sex on tap to keep them interested.

It is less devastating to believe that this is the way the world truly is, this is the reality for everyone and other are just in denial - than to believe instead that for most people the world is NOT like this, and you yourself just got an incredibly raw deal and a shit hand.

And I mean in a way, it is partly true. There is a serious amount of serious misogynistic dysfunction in a society that is brutal towards women, and a lot of us just have a buffer in the form of some sort of combination of good health and money and reliable family who show up for you.

If you ever lose enough of that buffer, or come close to it, you see how fucked up a lot of things are.

I hope cutting down the booze goes well @Ionlydrinkondaysendinginy and that you go on to thrive with your girls.

Thankyou I really mean that ❤

What makes you think that we're not the norm?

This. OP, you are a disgrace. My best friend is on her 4th course of IVF desperate to be a mother and you are joking about being arrested and drinking vodka/smoking weed with your latest shag piece.

You need to feel some level of shame. If you are any kind of mother (and I fear you are merely one by name not nature) you should be appalled by the "home" supervised or not, you pretend to give your daughters.

Frankly, you need a court-ordered jail term to detox and realise the horrendous pond-scum world you are showing your daughters as their home life.

Bit harsh

Op I have been reading and I really feel for you and your kids.

I hope this thread is helping you to realise that a lot of other women do live in a world where people getting arrested is a very rare and quite shocking thing. Where men routinely wear condoms unless they are in a committed long term relationship (and in my case I’ve always insisted we both get sti tests before stopping condoms). Where drugs may be smelt occasionally in public places but otherwise don’t feature in every day life. Where women wait months and months before introducing a partner to their children. Where affairs/cheating are an unusual and shocking event.

I know none of these things are normal for you now but I really wish you all the best to get to a place where that is your normal.

❤❤

If the OP has BPD, I think this sort of denial around parenting is normal. I know a similar sort of person who has exposed her children to all sorts of dangerous people and situations, but flat out refuses to believe she's causing them any harm.