To hate DSD sticking stuff to her walls

[Eriani]

DSD is 20, she’s just finishing her second year of uni. She’s living with us and isn’t from the UK (neither is DH). I’ve really struggled to bond with her, she talks to DH in her native language and puts little effort into joining the family as a whole. DH has made it clear I shouldn’t force her.

DSD has a pretty small room, though not a box room, it’s outdated and we told her we’d redecorate it for her. She said she likes that the paint is a little faded and the wall paper is “old fashioned”, we’ve offered new furniture, to carpet it (just floor boards right now, band sanded and varnished). She keeps saying it’s fine as it is, but we did get her a rug and a taller bookshelf.

She has taken up a habit of sticking stuff to the walls, a poster she got from a tourist shop for free that’s a bit tatty, a random vintage tennis racket etc. That’s fine though. My actual issue is one wall is so random, I know it’s not my room, but she has sticky notes with random quotes from books, pages from books ripped out, a letter from her boyfriend etc. Tbh it’s an eyesore and very random and all tapped up with cello tape.

DH thinks it’s fine, she hasn’t asked us to redecorate and it’s how she wants it. I’m almost never in there so it doesn’t impact me, but I do go in and hoover and change her bedding occasionally (she does her own most of the time but sometimes to be nice I do it). Also my kids have recently had their rooms redone so I would never let them do this, I also think it’s quite childish for someone in their 20s.

AIBU to hate this and suggest she finds another way to display this stuff? Or should I just let her do as she wishes?

Have you told your DH that you have no issues with him and dd speaking French when they’re having a tête-à-tête but when you are en famille (like at the dinner table) she should speak in English?

Have you ever tried love bombing her with a shopping trip just you and her? Or a trip to the cinema to see a French film with subtitles and a visit to a lovely French restaurant afterwards?

If you’ve tried the above and if DH also refuses to speak to her about it, all you can do is just be polite but stop making the effort. You may find that when you withdraw, she will want to get closer to you.

She’s 20 years old and her room sounds exactly like the room of any other 20-year-old uni student. Random crap on the walls, angsty quotes etc. Leave her and her room alone, ffs. You’re being intrusive and weird. She isn’t a child, you aren’t her mother and you shouldn’t be trying to control her.

It is entirely reasonable that she prefers to talk to her own father in their first language.

YABU about the walls. It's not like she asked you to redecorate the room and now is thrashing the new wallpapers, she kept the room as it was, so it can be redecorated to neutral standard at any moment later. Sounds fair enough.

At the same time, the language isn't great, I suppose it would be better if she switched between French with her father and English when everyone is together. It would be better if the standard for switching came from your partner than from you (at least when communicating the expectation to her)

Yes her mum is Italian so Italian with mum and all her personal stuff, DH is Swiss so French with him and she learnt German in school too. Then English at uni/with her British friends. I don’t deny her intelligence but I think speaking 3 languages fluently and a 4th colloquially is pretty rare, so we can’t be expected to keep up. I actually speak German fluently (lived in Berlin for a year) so it’s not that I can’t speak other languages, I’ve just never quite picked up French!

Poor girl, why on Earth would you even consider saying anything

Why the fuck should a French woman speak English to her French father, at home, just because her father married an English woman who can’t be arsed to learn French? It’s really not the stepdaughter’s problem.

Oh, give over.
You can decorate the room when she moves out.
Not worth stressing.

Leave the poor girl alone. This post makes me sad 😔

@Eriani Just stay out of her room. It's not going to be for long.

@Eriani where did she live before going to uni?

Italy - Naples, why do you ask?

Same. It’s as if the OP wants to mould an adult woman into a different person to make her fit in with a family that isn’t even hers. It would be bad enough if she was 10 but it’s even worse to be like that towards a 20-year-old woman.

@Eriani so is this the first time she has lived with dad for some time?

Yes, she used to spend summers with DH but she has never lived with him since she was a baby really.

@Eriani with that in mind can’t you see why she would want to chat with him in French?

YABU. It’s not satanic scriptures, the room is old and tired so I assume you don’t care about the ‘damage’ the tape is causing etc. Just because something isn’t your style, doesn’t mean it needs to be labelled childish, some people are just ‘artsy’ and this just reminded me of scrapbooking of sorts, just on a wall. Like PPs have said, leave her be, close the door, mind your own.

Just don't go in there. It sounds like you're being a bit controlling in that you want it redecorated then nothing put up on the walls, when sticking posters on old wallpaper you want to replace anyway is surely no issue.

Leave her to it.

Oh come on OP, Naples is a very chaotic artsy city! A lit student from Naples having a scrapbook wall is not at all surprising, she’s probably trying to feel more homely!!

If she likes sticking stuff on walls, isn't it good she didn't want to redecorate?

This is the biggest non-issue in the whole history of non-issues..!
And you don't even have to see it- just get her to do her own hoovering,sorted.
She sounds very low maintenance

Wow. Why on earth are you so opposed to your DSD decorating her room as she wishes? It sounds like the rooms of many uni students. And it doesn't affect you in the slightest.

You said you wouldn't allow your own children to do the same (put stuff on the walls of their rooms). Presumably they are much younger. If they are also in their 20s, I would think you were being both precious and controlling. As long as the walls aren't being damaged, what's the problem?

As for the language issue, it would probably feel uncomfortable and wrong to your DSD to suddenly begin speaking English to her dad. When you establish a relationship with someone in one language (especially a parent or someone else you are close to), it is difficult and inhibiting to switch to another language.

It's virtually impossible to translate quotes / poems from other languages. You can translate the basic words but lose so much in meaning.

Sometimes I read posts on mumsnet and think… who has such a problem free life that they have to create ones out of absolutely fuck all… congratulations op, you’re one.

Your poor husband and his daughter.

I would feel honoured she was prepared to move in with her father his new family for her Uni stretch despite your judgemental attitude.

Your thread title uses the word Hate and you ask if you are being unreasonable to Hate her sticking things to old wallpaper. Your husband has told you to back off but you seem to want to break his newly rekindled relationship with his daughter.

What a waste of the opportunity to gradually bring her into the wider family and introducing ‘your’ children to more languages and culture; are the children only yours not your husband’s too?.