To expect Sunday Dinner as the agreement?

[TipJarTroubadours]

Small details changed but the short of it is:

1. We allow people to stay in self contained accommodation for 'free'
2. The only 'cost' is attendance to Sunday dinner
3. Aibu to refuse to let someone stay (or charge them market rent) if they don't attend dinner

The long of it is

DH and I own a residential static caravan site. It has been in DH family a long time. It has great transport links to a major city.

We allow close family/friends to stay rent free whilst they attend uni in the city/start a new job. We have had 15 different people over the years, some for six months, the longest five years.

Currently house DS and nephew who are both at uni and DHs best friends daughter and her partner who has just started an apprenticeship. All four attend Sunday dinner, as have the 15 beforehand.

(For those that are interested, I cook the meal and then they take turns to make/buy a pudding and wash up (most goes in the dishwasher) I have had one with severe allergies who used to bring their own food, and one that was fussy so I used to make them beans on toast every Sunday. )

My sister's son has been living with us since September, I was very clear on the rules- it might seem odd but for a 10k saving a year I expect attendance at one meal a week.- they both knew about this.
Since starting he has attended one, preferring to go to the pub/gym/game on a Sunday. It has been raised with him and we have said if he doesn't attend then we will charge him rent (we have other uni students renting although they are all mature)

I have gone to my parents for half term and have just met my sister and told her the same. My parents and her think I am completely unreasonable to ask him to attend Sunday dinner, I think they are completely unreasonable to expect me to house him for free after agreeing to my rules ( there are costs involved for me, utilities etc plus not being able to rent it out)

I've said he has to attend tomorrow or I will bill them from now until Christmas and if it isn't paid will evict at Christmas.

Am I being unreasonable to expect my nephew to do what he agreed to in return for accommodation? (I don't think I am, even if expecting to attend dinner is unreasonable, he has agreed to the terms, he could have just rented halls)

I’ll do it OP and help with the washing up. How do I sign up?

You want to appear financially generous but you have an emotional hold over your tenants if they don’t provide you with weekly socialisation.
It’s transactional. With you holding an imbalance of power. You seem to enjoy wielding that power. Your power has a financial worth. It’s like blackmail. It’s coercive at best.
Once they get tempted in to the net of your ‘deal’ your tenants are no longer free to choose what they do with their time on a Sunday evening ….which for some is a difficult time anyway with a new week looming. Most people choose to get ready for the week on a Sunday evening. But your tenants feel trapped to perform this weekly ritual.
Those who do turn up may feel that way but are forced to keep quiet about your deal through financial fear. They must find it unsavoury at some point surely.

Don't fool yourself, that it’s a kind invitation. People should feel free to turn down an invitation. But you won’t let them.

If you wish to be generous why not charge a reduced rent and set them free of your terms.

It’s also very unsettling to me that you won’t reveal your motive in doing this.
It gives me the creeps. I would hate it if one of my dc were in the position you currently have your nephew trapped in. It’s like the start of a horror movie to me.

With your unreasonable set up, you are taking advantage of people who can’t afford a normal rent.

Or a classic example of people getting sidetracked by the details and not the aibu.

Am I being unreasonable to expect my nephew to do what he agreed to in return for accommodation?

If the idea was so objectionable,why did the nephew take the free accommodation?

But not everybody wants to socialise and certainly shouldn’t be forced to. I’d bloody hate this and I’d tell her where to go. It sounds like my worst nightmare.

Maybe he couldn't afford not to?

Have you given any thought OP as to why your nephew doesn’t want to eat your dinner? I asked but you haven’t said if people struggle to connect with you or if you are an easy fun person to be around. Has it occurred to you that you may be not great to be around?

He probably didn’t think you were this much of a lunatic.

‘Choose’ in choose to visit doing some very heavy lifting there.

I don’t think it would be more acceptable if it was religious, but it would maybe be an explanation. You must know that many of them aren’t there because they want to be, but because they have to be Right? How is that pleasurable?

Well like your sister and mother most of us think yes you are unreasonable, and I think you know it and that’s why you didn’t enable voting.

Sounds Amazing, when can we move in? Xx

Who’ll play the nephew in the film version of this do we think?

You said what I thought so eloquently. This is exactly it.

It's the kind of rule that's so far outside normal that people are likely to think you're not serious. What do you get out of having people sat round a table seething because you're making them do it? I'm genuinely curious. I can see why you'd be annoyed if they accepted an invitation and didn't turn up, but to be angry that they're not eating with you every week is really odd behaviour. You might actually get more enthusiasm for the dinner if you don't make it an obligation to be honest.

This.

Is it really being kind and generous if there are obligations attached?

I can just imagine your “guest” sat there, like the guy in the movie Misery - feigning happiness, interest and warmth, all the while desperately wondering how and when he can escape.

In my first reply I said that you were not being unreasonable because that was the agreement

however if you really don't understand why everyone is asking "but why have such an odd requirement"? then I really can't help you

It’s quite odd and Im wondering 1. Why you want this and 2. If they have good reason to not want to do this (sorry)

Are you worried op if he gets away with it, the others won’t come either as you know they don’t like it either?

how can you sit there with these people knowing you used free accommodation to blackmail them into coming. Is no part of you ashamed?

Enforced socialisation, my favourite thing. Said nobody ever

YANBU if that is what was agreed, however, the terms of the agreement are not only unreasonable but controlling, odd, and weirdly creepy.

HTH.

Everyone nattering on with bullshit like "transactional" and "imbalance of power" and all that nonsense: do none of you hold jobs? pay a mortage to a lender or rent to a landlord? attend classes? run a small business?

It's called "life." There is generally an imbalance of power in most relationships, unless one is independently wealth. As in, "she who pays the piper calls the tune." There is nothing immoral or sinister about expecting people to live up to the agreements they make, whether between boss/employee, landlord/tenant, business owner/client, parent/child, teacher/student, etc.

Often in life we have to do things we'd rather not do, like get up and go to work, pay the mortgage, obey our parents, accommodate clients.

Making that out to be a negative and excoriating the OP, who is actually being extremely generous, is so bonkers and immature. You really can tell who are the "takers" around here; the ones who are so outraged at the idea of any taker being held to standards or obligations. Everyone with assets is just supposed to "be kind" and let themselves be used as a wallet and a doormant.

Why does it have to specifically be that day, with what is, from what you’ve described, a large crowd? What if your nephew agreed to a meal once a week at whatever time he was most comfortable with? Surely then you’re still getting what you want without being controlling?

Or is this more about having everyone around together to rain their gratitude upon you? To show off just how many people you are charitable towards? Weekly?

Or else you'll evict him. Your own nephew.

Yes, i think you are. Massively.

It’s your house your rules but me being an introverted weirdo I can’t understand why you want people to be there in your house let alone having to cook for them all lol

Because he’s a student, because she is his aunt. He probably didn’t think he was meant to sign in his own blood that he would have to go to her dinners every single week. Maybe OP is not pleasant to be around. Maybe OP is a bad cook, maybe the whole atmosphere is awful.