To stipulate minimum number of nights at home for DD?

[teenmumstress24]

DD turned 18 a few months ago. Her 18th birthday coincided with her meeting a new boyfriend who she is inseparable from. She spends around 1-3 nights per fortnight at home, and that's only to sleep / occasionally grab food or a shower. She doesn't converse with anyone (unless to ask for lifts or to borrow cash), and she certainly doesn't do any housework. Since this time there have been numerous issues and arguments; mostly around the following themes:

• constant requests for lifts from me or partner (although this has declined since her boyfriend passed his driving test a few weeks ago as he's seemingly the taxi now)
• never doing any housework
• never being at home long enough to converse with anyone and all her interactions being requests for something
• letting me and her little sister down after agreeing to do something with us and then dropping us in favour of the boyfriend (little sister is only 3 so doesn't understand and gets very upset about her big sister not being there)
• more recently me and my partner (her step dad) we're both told to "fuck off" when we were unable to facilitate a lift whilst juggling bedtime and household tasks between us after work one evening (she later apologised for this; but it's left a very sour taste)
• boyfriend got involved in disagreement following the above incident, and whilst I was the on the phone to her during a heated discussion about that, I was apparently on loudspeaker as I could hear the boyfriend chirping up "just hang up on her" (to my daughter about me)

I'm at my wits end and I can't take anymore. I've contact the GP for some medication to take the edge off because I feel so low and as though I've basically lost my daughter. I've tried telling her miss her, I'm sad about it all, I want her to spend more time at home, etc. She still doesn't. All I get from her is, "it's normal for me to want to be at his house more often he's a new boyfriend". However, she makes time for her dad, her dad's side of the family, my sister (her aunt who's she close to), her friends, and her boyfriend. The only person she lets down and seems to not want to be around is me.

She pays no board (she's at college and works part time earning only about £70-100 a week so I've never taken any money off her). I pay for her phone contract. She doesn't contribute to the food shop here but does buy her own takeaways etc . Her only regular bill is a gym membership.

I've suggested to her since she appears to not live here anymore that she moves out and pays her boyfriends mum board? The response was "I don't want to move out". But 1-3 nights here a fortnight on average would suggest she pretty much has moved out. She has the largest room in the house and it's just wasted space, it's never occupied.

My AIBU is, would I be unreasonable to stipulate that if she wants to continue to live here that I put in place the following rules:

1- she actually occupies her room more regularly than 1-3 times a fortnight? So set a minimum number.
2- she pulls her weight with household tasks and until I see her doing so on a regular basis without any prompting or nagging, I will charge her board. I will stop charging board once she pulls her weight regularly.

Does this sound reasonable? My head is a total mess with it all, I'm struggling to disentangle the emotion from the practical side, so it may come across as garbled. I'm not a good place with it all tbh as I feel so lost and as though she just dislikes me for some reason 😔

Any help appreciated.

I was told that parenting is like paying out a rope. You start with your child bound tightly to you as they can’t fend for themselves. As they grow up you gradually pay the rope out so they reach adulthood being able to stand themselves.

That’s successful parenting, so it’s all normal

Shes moved out... from a legal standpoint spending 3 night out of 14 there means she does not live with you anymore.

Shes an adult, you cannot force her to come live at home and chat to you. You can feel 'sad' but flying the nest is EXACTLY what 18 year olds are suppose to do. Your relationship is changing because she is not your baby/child anymore she is an adult in an adult relationship.

You can say no to lifts (mumsnet favorite 'no is a full sentence', you are not a chauffeur) and if she is not paying rent you can tell her to move her stuff out by x date so you can have the room back but you can't clip her wings or control the behaviors of an adult.

Just move her to the smallest bedroom. Don’t discuss it with her, just do it and inform her where her bedroom now is when she asks, which she is bound to on discovering her stuffs not in there🤣. Then tell her you are only paying her phone if she cleans the bathroom and her room weekly (can’t imagine what more she actually needs to clean if she is in the house so infrequently). If she doesn’t you’ll have to use her phone money to pay a cleaner weekly for those two things. Up to her really what she does but carry through with any consequence. Definitely don’t do her laundry or anything, that’s for her. Don’t stress, this too shall pass - one day.

I was not laughing at your situation but smiling to myself remembering when I was a much younger person without kids. A woman at work was having a very similar problem with her daughter. She knew she wouldn’t be home for days so got an interior decorator in to go for broke. Moved the daughter’s room to the smallest bedroom/spare room and turned what was her bedroom into THE DOGS ROOM. They had one dog. As in, had the bedroom walls painted with doggy/bone motifs, had dog posters mounted on the walls, had a lovely wooden name plate with dogs name put on bedroom door (think ‘Sacha’s room’ with paw prints each side). I remember seeing the photos, as was in days before mobile phones. We all pissed ourselves laughing looking at the photos. Kudos to her, it was real commitment🤣.

Yes, I can tell. And you're projecting that onto my situation.

My youngest arrived when my eldest was 15, she's been a fully involved member of the family since that time and has never displayed any of this behaviour in the past 3 years. It's literally the past few months we've had this, since meeting this lad. I'd understand the potential link between never wanting to be at home and her little sister arriving if it was closer in time to her sister being born. Bit coincidental though that she's been seemingly happy and fine up until a few months ago and her repeated absences from the home coincide exactly with the new boyfriend and not her little sister arriving.

It's not necessarily the new boyfriend. It could be your reaction to the new boyfriend. You being negative about it will push her further to him. 18 year olds want to make their own mistakes, not be told what they can and can't do. It's a difficult age, but she is an adult.

A few observations from me. She didn’t tell you to fuck off because you refused a lift unless she is a really shitty person. I am going to assume she isn’t. There are far more complex issues going on between you and her. For whatever reason she is unwilling or unable to open up to you right now.

When you list the things she “knows” you have taken issue with, these are assumptions. I doubt that is what she thinking but you need to allow her to express why she is behaving this way.

At 18 she is still a teen with teen thinking and behaviours. She is also on the cusp of becoming an adult with increasing autonomy. She is going to make bad decisions and she is going to handle relationships badly. She has a lot of relationships to manage and handle. She has a family life with you, a separate family life with her father, a romantic relationship with her boyfriend and I assume lots of other friends too.

You have given her unconditional love and she still sees her interactions with you as unconditional. Tbh, a lot of people her age see relationships as unconditional and without consequences. She will only just be finding out the world is indeed transactional and her actions do indeed have consequences. That people won’t just forgive her or offer her endless opportunities at redemption.

If you are having stress and anxiety then see your GP for help. However I do think you would benefit from learning how to manage your response to her increasing independence and autonomy. Because you won’t be able to stop it and you can’t use your control over her housing as a lever to make her behave.

I wouldn’t get her to change rooms right now. The timing isn’t right. Her boyfriend could dump her next week. It could be misconstrued as a punishment.

TLDR. She is still a teen pushing at boundaries and making mistakes. As the parent and the adult you need to allow her autonomy but continue to guide her to the realisation that her behaviour and decisions have consequences. She won’t get there overnight or because you set stricter rules.

Funny you mention my sister - I spoke to her over the weekend actually as I knew she was spending the night with my DD. She saw both sides and said she would talk to her. I'm yet to speak to her again to see whether that was helpful or not. But yes, my sister is very pragmatic and very much a voice of reason, she's good in situations like this. She might be best places to meditate and help (if she's willing!)

Is yhe boyfriend welcome to stay at your house? If he isn't then that could be a reason why she's hardly at home any more. She's wrapped up in a new relationship so it's probably normal that she wants to spend time with him. It's good that's she's still seeing other family members too and agree it sounds like your her 'safe person'. I wouldn't worry to much about this right now and I would try getting to know the boyfriend.

This sounds like a normal teenager to me, I think if it were me, I'd try to chat to her about the things that matter, making arrangements and then ditching you and being a little more mindful of picking up after herself etc, maybe introduce her to doing her own washing? That sort of thing. If you lay down rules, particularly threatening her with chucking her out, it will just end badly for you both. Teenagers are selfish, it is usually just a phase, albeit a long phase. I know now, that I was a fucking nightmare as a teenager, as a mum myself now, I would murder my DC if they were like me as a teen.

What happens if she breaks up with her boyfriend. She is only 18 ? She should be able to trust she has her bedroom/home .
She is just behaving like lots do at that age.
If she still spends time with other family members then why do you think she doesn't with you?
Has anything happened in recent years that would make her not want to ?
Eventually the teens years pass and most become closer to parents again or atleast more respectful. But if you push her away then you may just alienate her .

@TiptoeThroughTheToadstools
Thanks, that's the thing isn't it, with hindsight we can think god my behaviour was awful back then. But when you're the parent in it, it's fucking horrible. I said to my partner I feel like I've failed somehow? As a mum, to be the only person who she's seemingly rejected, I must have surely fucked up massively somewhere along the way. And I carry that guilt more because it was just me and her for the first 9 years of her life, so I feel very responsible for all of this 😔

Yes. Try to have a conversation with her about the "joys" of being an adult. It means contributing to the household, talking about problems and not expecting lifts when she can wake up earlier and get public transport. It specially means not being verbally abused in your own home.

If she tells you to fuck off, tell her to move out permanently with the boyfriend. She's barely in your home anyway except using it because it's convenient.

I won't be easy OP. As mothers, we all we want the best for our kids but the last thing you want is a young adult abusing you in your own home because she thinks the world revolves around her.

So at 15 nearly 16 my DD2 basically moved in with BF. She had to spend 50% of nights at home the other 50% she spent with him. If school work suffered the rules would change. That was my base line. I communicated with his mum and she was ok with it. She did stay with the Dad too but less and that was mostly weekends. He was allowed to stay with us too but did much less than at his parents.

At 18 they moved in together.

So my rules are I don't do anyone over the age of 11s washing or cleaning. When they are at home they and BFs are part of the family and are expected to contribute their time to
everything family. So helping prepare meals and snack, washing up etc. We all eat together. If there are games being played everyone joins in.

If you have people to stay you change your sheets and clean your room and the bathroom BEFORE they come and make sure your BF doesn't leave a disgusting mess. These are the kinds of rules you make.

If she tells you to fuck off, tell her to move out permanently with the boyfriend. She's barely in your home anyway except using it because it's convenient.

Why on earth would you suggest she moves in with her boyfriend of 8 weeks? Of course she’s seeing a lot of him, they’re in the very intense honeymoon phase, moving in is a completely different thing. The relationship will settle down or end in time. Her family home should be convenient, or do we only house our kids for as long as they meet our needs?

Yes, exactly and how exactly does that look for a couple of 18 year olds, hardly a cheap option these days! I doubt the boyfriends parents want a permanent new resident, what do they think OP? Is he at College or is he older,?

Honestly if I'd have known the turmoil of this stage of parenting before having my second child, I wouldn't have wanted to do it all again. As awful as that sounds. The mere thought of potentially going through this again in 15 years time😩

@Goldenbear
I've never met him or the parents, he lives just with his mum apparently, just the two of them. He works as an apprentice of some type. DD tells me his mum is "lovely" and that she's always welcomed. But otherwise, I don't know.

Oh and he's the same age as Dd, both 18

I would tread very carefully around this and would be wary of boyfriend and the dynamics of it all. You don't want to push her away. She can show you much more respect for sure but you can work on that....if she's doing A levels then she is still really a child. And surely the focus should be on these A levels and doing well. As many people have said this is all normal teenage pushing of boundaries - some kids do this at different ages. Don't take any of this soo personally. You are the adult here and try to see this from her perspective..

Oh right so a bit more difficult in some ways as focusing on different educational objectives and the Mum doesn't have the worry of motivation for A level exams.

You didn’t know that teen years were tricky, really?

This is a massive overdramatisation.

@Mirabai
I'd heard that teen years were tricky. But living it is a completely different thing. You can't know how something is going to feel until you are in it, can you,

I'm ignoring the accusations of being dramatic. That's just something people say to minimise and dismiss a persons entirely valid emotions.

Why have you not met him yet ?

You're getting it the worst because your her mum, it's because she's closest to you. It's shit, but there it is. My relationship with my mum growing up wasn't amazing, but we have been very close since about my mid 20s. I think you should let her make her own mistakes, but be there to pick up the pieces if it goes wrong. Choose your battles, if you can make it a chat and not an argument that goes a long way to getting through. I don't think anyone is prepared for the teenage years, it's a really wild time in both yours and your DCs life. You haven't failed at all, we all just have to muddle through as best we can

It’s also something people say when someone is being dramatic.