Bedroom dilemma

[soniiaa]

Me and DP are moving in together and we don’t know how to sort out the bedrooms. It’s a 4 bed house.

I have -
DS11 (is with me 90% of the time)
DD18 (is at uni but stays with me 100% of the holidays)

DP has -
DS16 (with him every weekend and every school holiday)
DS19 (with him ad hoc - maybe once or twice a week)

DP would ideally like his kids to have their own rooms, but then so would I. Maybe this is unreasonable with DD being at uni? Would really appreciate peoples thoughts!

But then they're reserving a room for someone who is almost never there

The obvious solution is that they don't live together or blend families.

Where does DS19 usually live? Is he in FTE or does he work? Obviously he doesn't live with your DP full-time and as he's an adult now, I'm struggling to find out why he needs a room? I was renting my own place at that age, so find it a bit odd that he needs his "own room" in at least two different households!

Agree with others, I wouldn't get married next year, or buy a house with him. Blended families don't always work out and you're already facing this issue with you both disagreeing with own room entitlement!!

Your youngest is only 11, I really wouldn't bring a man and step brothers into his life, it's not fair on him.

And totally not part of the post, but it's really shitty that his DS16 gets no quality time with his mum, she gets all the weekday drudgery and he gets to be Disney Dad every weekend and school holiday.

Yes but the point of the original post is the OP wants to live together.
As has been pointed out upthread, the stepsons are full siblings , similar age and not usually there at the same time.

Because occasionally sharing a room with your brother is no big deal.

'Pay the price' stop being such a drama llama. It's occasionally sharing a room.

I would be holding off the marriage or wait until I could afford a 5 bedroom house. ALL the children are as important as each other.

Yes, definitely not part of the post. You have NO idea why this is the arrangement. Fir all you know his mum may not be part of the equation & he might be at boarding school - nose out.

I was house sharing at 17 ((normal in the country I lived in at that time) but not usual now in the UK when they have to stay in education longer. Most 19 year olds live at home (uni/home)

OP is entitled to move forward with her life, get married, live with her husband. Perfectly fine, you don't have to stop living when you get divorced. Plenty of children do just fine with step parents.

how about you give the op a rest & give her Ex husband a bash instead...

@soniiaa what reception rooms do you have downstairs?

No one said they weren't important🙄🙄🙄

just that occasionally sharing a room, with a sibling, isn't a big deal.

Exactly what most have said & it's really not a big deal is it.

Could you set up an insulated garden room for oldest son to hang out in? I know someone who did this and it was a game changer.

Oh don't be daft. They can't afford to. Brothers occasionally sharing a room isn't the end of life as we know it.

@ChickpeaCauliflowerSalad I wasn't bashing the OP at all.

I really don’t think it’s fair to any of your kids to move in together if they can’t continue to have their own space as they currently do.
However it sounds like you’re determined. So I would give all but his eldest their own room (given that he’s there least frequently for any prolonged period of time) with the understanding that he can use your daughter’s room when she’s away at uni, providing he respects her things. When she’s home then his two sons will have to share.

Exactly! Your priority is your children. It's not obligatory to live with bf. Surely you can still see each other/spend the night with each other.

Agree - especially about your 11-year old.

So you’re going from two 3 bed houses to one 4 bed? And can’t afford a 5 bed? Is this because of a money crunch? Or is it just that 5 beds are so rare they fetch a premium?

It seems fairly obvious it needs to be your DP’s boys who are sharing if there is no chance of a 5 bed. What is he proposing?

Your DD obviously can’t share with any of the others. DS is there more of the time than any of them, so would seem obvious he should have his own room, but potentially could share if he gets on really well with one of the other boys. However, I would have thought the two brothers would prefer to share with each other than with a stepbrother who’s so much younger than either of them? I understand DP not wanting his kids to share if they’ve had their own rooms until now, but what does your he think the solution should be?

Alternatively you could look for somewhere you can split a bedroom in two, convert the loft, put an annex in the garden or decide you need to wait until you don’t need 5 beds.

Do DP’s sons share a room now where they live? If so, I don’t see that it should be any great hardship for them to continue doing so.

If not, then I would get a 5 bed which you say you can’t afford, or just not move in together until kids are a bit older and off living on their own.

Wait so - You have an 11 year old and you’re intending buying a house with and marrying a man (with his own children) whom you’ve have never lived with?

Obviously this sort of thing works out for some people, but it’s pretty high risk for your son.

If you both rented out your current homes, could you afford to rent a 5 bed? Then you’d both be keeping some security while testing the waters better.

But the answer to how long you can delay things for should always be - as long as you need to for the sake of your children.

People have convinced themselves that kids don't want to be with unhappy parents, but that turned out to be a lie adults told themselves to make themselves feel better. Unless one of the parents is actively and clearly abusive (hitting, screaming, smashing things up regularly sort of thing) kids absolutely DO prefer their parents to stay together. That doesn't mean it's best for them, or their parents should definitely stay together - but it's true nonetheless.

I get why people leave unhappy marriages, but actually it turns out that staying together "For the sake of the kids" was pretty valid, in the eyes of the children.

The other problem is that blended families are, for the most part, really disruptive ot hicldren. They almost never work, kids are nearly always unhappy, the Brady Bunch wasPeople have convinced themselves that kids don't want to be with unhappy parents, but that turned out to be a lie adults told themselves to make themselves feel better. Unless one of the parents is actively and clearly abusive (hitting, screaming, smashing things and regularly up sort of thing) kids absolutely DO prefer their parents to stay together. That doesn't mean it's best for them, or their parents should definitely stay together - but it's true nonetheless.

Next best scenario for kids is ALWAYS that their parent stays single, or at least keeps their boyfriend/girlfriend away from the family home for the most part.

I mean, I get why people leave unhappy marriages, but actually it turns out that staying together "For the sake of the kids" was pretty valid, in the eyes of the children.

The other problem is that blended families are, for the most part, really disruptive to kids. They almost never work, kids are nearly always unhappy, the Brady Bunch was a lie.

And for those who don't want to believe this (like the OP and every other person who sacrified their kids' happiness for having a boyfriend)

Higher rates of emotional distress – Nationally representative data link step‑family membership with greater incidences of emotional distress, suicidal thoughts, violence, early sexual activity, and substance use among adolescents
pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ articles/PMC4495965/

Feelings of hostility and disloyalty – Qualitative interviews with step‑parents and their children repeatedly describe children feeling hostile toward a new spouse and experiencing long‑lasting resentment, which undermines family stability www.psychologytoday. com/us/basics/family-dynamics/blended-family

Increased risk of divorce – Divorce rates rise sharply for second and subsequent marriages (≈ 60 % for second marriages, ≈ 73 % for third) and children’s resistance to a new partner is frequently cited as a contributing factor in these breakdowns www.psychologytoday. com/us/basics/family-dynamics/blended-family

Peer reviewed studies keep telling us that blended families make children unhappy and more likely to experience adverse outcomes - but parents with new partners never want to hear that and then wonder why everything goes tits up after a couple of years.

I think it's inevitable that a lot of marriages will break down these days. I don't think moving your new beau and his offspring in is inevitable, at all. I think plan B should be a stable home for your kids and worry about moving in with someone when they've finished school, not before.

I'll get screamed at for that, of course.

Sorry, accidentally copy pasted some of this twice, as I had to log back in

If they afford to do that then they could afford a 5 bed!

You seem to be avoiding the elephant in the room: maybe the two people who have decided on this blending and living together should be the ones to make the sacrifice?

4-bedroom house with 4 children/young adult offspring who still want/need their own space and an individual base to call their own... easy: each child gets their own bedroom, just as before.

You two get a sofa bed in the living room, co-opt a dining room, convert a loft or get a garden room built. Then, if there are rooms that are frequently unused, you borrow them when the particular child whose room it is isn't there, for you to sleep in - but they are never actually your own rooms and are given straight back when the rightful occupant needs them again.

You can rethink things as and when one of them chooses to move out permanently, but absolutely not before.

Exactly the same principle as parents who actively choose to give their child a horrific name: if YOU like a bad name or YOU prefer a too-small house so that you can live together, either change your own name or 'make do' with whatever room is left for yourself.

Or did it never occur to you that the ones pushing for this should make the sacrifice that goes hand in hand with their own choice that only suits themselves?

Her room wouldn't be a spare room though, it would be her room with all her things in it and available any time she might want to come back - weekends, reading week, if she becomes ill, needs a MH break, misses home, local friend's birthday weekend, all sorts of reasons.

But by not having a room it shuts down any possibility of coming back whenever she wants.
She needs to know she has the option to come home whenever she wants.

When my dd went to university her room was still her room. We used it for the occasional overnight visitor, sometimes a sewing room, second television room, but it was ALWAYS available for her whenever she wanted it, and I'd take out anything that didn't normally belong in there.

Batshit when his eldest is only there occasionally.at the sand time as his youngest.

And augurs really badly for how entitled, pushy and uncaring of her kids he will be. I mean, that's the usual with boyfriends being moved into the family home (or girlfriends). I always feel so so sorry for these kids. When I split from my ex I dated from time to time but never even thought about bringing a man and his kids into their home - I saw how that had played out with several friends. One moved out for Uni and another got a job interstate, and that freed me up to move in with my then boyfriend (now husband).

At minimum, genuinely caring mothers/fathers wait till their kids have completely finished high school before they disrupt their lives like this. Lot of selfish people in the world, though.