Not wanting people to stay with us mid-week

[NearlyMonday]

I have name changed for this.

AIBU to say ‘no’ to the increasing stream of relatives who want to stay with us mid-week? DP and I both work full time, and mid week guests are a pain. Its just that someone else is HERE, you can’t relax in the evening, you have to be in entertaining mode all the time, I can’t walk around in a t-shirt and knickers, and trying to be pleasant and chatty over cornflakes is hellish. Weekends are different and there’s no issue with having guests then. DP is very reluctant to say no to any of his relatives, who seem oblivious to the fact that we work. My relatives can be equally oblivious, but I just tell them to stick to weekends. But DP seems to think we always have to say yes to family.

It means changing the bedding before the visit and changing it again afterwards, providing clean towels and doing an extra lot of laundry too. It’s all extra work that adds more pressure to a busy week if you both work full time.

@NearlyMonday does your DP do the work involved with family visits or is most of it left for you? Does BIL help out with clearing up a meal or changing the bed after he’s stayed?

Just don't tell him 🤷 He doesn't care about your feelings when he says it's fine for them to come, why should you care about his feelings when you tell them no more weekday visits.

I would say, "Oh absolutely. You can take the kids so I can save on daycare that week!" Then I would give them a list of what dinners I wanted made each night they were there 🤣 Maybe they would stop inviting themselves 🤷

I think this is why I wouldn’t mind close relatives mid week (or DH close relatives). None of those things would be an issue if someone was just staying with us for a night for convenience (rather than visiting us specifically). If we were just grabbing toast we’d tell them and they would either do the same or make something themselves. We’d just chill together. No need for entertaining mode.

I think you need to change the way you handle it. You have tried talking to DP, if the family ask him to stay not you. So you need to go about life as if they aren’t there. Don’t have the room ready, don’t cook dinner. Just say sorry I don’t do guests during the week and take your toast to your bedroom and relax in your room. You have guests all the time, no one can fault you for that. Most people will realise they are being intrusive and won’t ask again.

But if you want to guarantee no more of his family imposing on you be angry. Don’t greet them, take your toast and slam the door. When DP comes and asks you what is wrong start a very loud argument about how you find midweek guests intrusive. They won’t come back.

Yes, the argument is with DP.
Insist that EVERY TIME anyone asks to stay you both answer ..

"I'm not sure, I will check whether that suits with our plans. I'll get back to you after I speak with wife/husband."

Never be so discourteous to one another as to not consult. Agree that one "no" means no and two "yeses" means yes. Decide each case on merit but don't agree to guests if you can't handle them; get family used to the fact that you consult each other and your calendars.
There might be special allowances ie: for a granny who looks after the kids often who sometimes stays unannnounced.
Examples of viable answers ..
Yes, we'd love to see you, that night suits.
No, sorry, can't possibly but Friday night might work.
We are really tired on work days, no, sorry.
It is a work night but as it is cancer treatment that will be fine.
No, sorry, we need a good few months off hosting.
Yes, we'd love to see you, the weekend will work best.
No, sorry, maybe sometime in November (6 months away) might be nice.

I would simply say to dp that you don’t believe you are compatible living together ( which is true) downtime and unwinding is essential for you to function at work, and it’s not possible with a house full of people. I wouldn’t compromise on mid week guests op. Unless he can compromise with weekends only then living arrangements will need to be revisited.

You are not a B&B op.

I think it’s generous to host as much as you do even at weekends, I would be on my knees. I really value space to decompress too, and it’s never possible with guests. Otherwise you are always ‘on’ and this leads to burn out.

Do you have dc?

Sorry if I've missed it, why can't BIL expense his accommodation if he has to be away for work?

He probably does, and pockets the cash.

The thought had occurred to me too...

I would feel like a mug putting up with his nonsense.

Unless the guests are bringing their own bedding, towels, food and drink and stay silent or out all evening and don’t stay for breakfast or dinner, there is a huge work load involved hosting overnight guests, assuming you don’t bother to tidy or clean for them. I just couldn’t do it. Especially if the guests are being paid for it!

I would have thought that his work would want receipts. It would be a dismissable offence where I work to make a false expense claim.

We've been together nearly 30 years, so I don't think we're incompatible, but seem to have reached an impasse on this one. I don't think its a splitting up issue, if that's what you are suggesting?

Our son is late 28s, and moved out quite a while ago.

I'm just waiting for the next request, which will no doubt come soon, and I'll see where we get to with "weekends only." I think I know who will be asking next, and would feel quite comfortable sending a message saying "weekends only". I'm so glad that other posters understand my need to de-compress on work evenings.

I disagree that this is a minor issue.
I think you need couples counselling to work out how this incompatibility has happened, how it’s eroding your well being and why your do refuses to acknowledge the impact on you.

To level with you, as someone married for many decades, if my dh started this I would assume the relationship was stale and he was trying to use visitors as a way to deflect the boredom/decay/monotony.

Needing other people is a sure sign of this in my experience.

Contented relationships shouldn’t be this hard.

PLEASE will someone explain the huge workload involved in putting a family member up for the night?

Firstly it depends on how many visitors and how many nights. Bedding, towels, meals etc. But the biggest issue is not physical workload - its the 'invasion of privacy/loss of chance to relax' etc that thankfully a lot of previous posters seem to understand.

@CurlewKate . I guess it depends on whether you have a 'visitor-ready' house, maybe?

My house is definitely not set to visitor-ready as default. So putting up guests requires quite a lot of work.

Cleaning, shopping, bed sheets, towel, clean bathroom, tidy up, extra cooking, stripping beds, making breakfast, washing bedding and used towels plus keeping said guests entertained.

You either live in a palace with maids or have no friends. It’s an enormous amount of work.

Yes, say no. We get the same. I feel like I run a bloody hotel. We have the nicest/biggest house in the family and due to family drama, not everyone is welcome to stay with MIL due to her partner forbidding it (that's another story). So when people want to visit each other, they want to do it at our house. Or they just want a trip away and we are a good base as we live in a desirable area where people often come on holiday.

They have largely gotten that midweek is never gonna work. But it's like the second the school holidays start rolling around, bam, there they are with a request to come stay for the week! I largely say no, as (a) I have holiday childcare that goes longer than the school day, so school holidays are often the time when I can really get work done, and (b) if I'm not working, I want a bloody day off, to relax, spend time with my dc, not entertaining anyone. Even worse, MIL has a dog now, so not only do I get her, I get the bloody dog as well, whining away in the kitchen at all hours, because she can't leave it home with her partner (because there's no guarantee he'd care for it).

Just say no. I'm becoming quite strict about anyone visiting after the past year as it's been relentless. I told dh if he wants to see his family, he can visit them (except for MIL, as we aren't allowed to visit her) and he can take dc with him. Or he can arrange for me to be on a few nights away and he can do all the cleaning, cooking, entertaining so I can relax.

I hate this as well, it doesn’t happen very often so I haven’t said anything, but its always the in laws. They just sort of text saying we are coming on this day and leaving on this day and we don’t have a good enough reason to say no 🙈. I hate it because I’m trying to work from home and they make a lot of noise, they disrupt the school run - they always want to take my DD to school which is fine but they both always have to go and seem to make a meal of just getting out the door - it’s a right palaver! And yes to you can’t just relax in the evening. Like I say it doesn’t happen very often, but if it started to happen more often then I’d probably have to have a conversation with DH!

And when they visit, like others, they NEVER say ‘oh let’s visit on xxxx weekend so we can spend some time with the kids’ it’s always because they have some other engagement up north, seeing other friends, and ‘can we just stay at yours’ it does make me feel like we run a glorified b and b and they never want to visit us just for us!

I get it as I probably would not enjoy that too much either as a regular thing. But it's his home/space too so you both have to work out an acceptable and reasonable system that works for each of you.

You could start saying stupid stuff though til they get the message. Someone asks to stay -great we are hosting the local swingers night at ours the more the merrier, can we stay tonight -yes but pick up some extra toilet paper as I have the shits, can I stay this week great I will set up the tent, how about tonight -yes we are trying to conceive and an audience helps.

"Cleaning, shopping, bed sheets, towel, clean bathroom, tidy up, extra cooking, stripping beds, making breakfast, washing bedding and used towels plus keeping said guests entertained.

You either live in a palace with maids or have no friends. It’s an enormous amount of work."

For a friend/brother staying overnight? If the house is clean enough for us it's clean enough for him. Yes, you have to make up a bed. Presumably you're going to have dinner anyway so cooking an extra portion is no work. Neither is washing up another place setting. Nor is putting an extra set of bedlinen and a towel in the washing machine. Entertaining? "Hey, we're watching Masterchef with a glass of wine- you're welcome to join us".What else does anyone do on a weeknight?

Sounds like it's you that lives in a palace-maybe drop your standards a bit!

Oh, and making breakfast? If you're doing more than making sure there's enough bread for him to make his own toast then you're a bit daft, to be honest!

If you don't want people to stay that's up to you. But don't pretend it's because of the "huge amount of work"