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)

Weirded out by this rule. Really odd

There’s an option to just pay the rent like everyone else in the caravan park

she isn’t saying she will just evict him

😂😂😂 oh dear God.

Yes any transactional relationship is prostitution.

Even having Sunday lunch with your Aunt.
🤣🤣🤣

She doesn't. She only wants to offer free accommodation to people who actually like the idea of having Sunday dinner together.

Nephew doesn't like the idea, so he can opt to leave, or opt to decline the "free" aspect and pay rent.

No one is being forced to do anything. There are multiple options.

I obviously think they're getting a good deal but I also think it's a creepy rule.

Besides Misery, is anyone else picturing the dinner scene from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre?

I just don't get how this benefits the op other than control...how is it a pleasant experience for her, knowing that her nephew doesn't really want to be there on a Sunday?

Thats what makes it feel like blackmail to me..."you must eat with me and others every week. If you don't, you can either pay x amount of rent or I'll evict you"
Pretty strange agreement to have with a family member. I'd rather they want and chose to come for dinner than feel they have to (or pay rent/move out)

Point 3 of the OP
"Aibu to refuse to let someone stay (or charge them market rent) if they don't attend dinner"
So yes, she actually wants to chuck them out if they dont attend her sunday lunch!

Absolute madness! Controlling and weird!

Either you are happy to have your family stay rent free or you are not. A gift with conditions - and in this case fucking weird, obsessive, insulting and controlling conditions - is not a gift.

I mean it’s a weird rule but if it’s your rule and you’ve made it clear, YANBU.

People likening it to prostitution is funny. But not surprising since some mumsnetters have admitted to hiding behind the sofa when people knock on the door (any bets as to why loneliness is increasing nowadays? 🙃)

Tbh I take it as more of a weekly opportunity to have a chat/pass any information across?
Perhaps too strict it being Sunday, could it perhaps be one evening a week mutually agreed each month?

Yes! 😂

Exactly!!

We’re always telling people on here they should have clear boundaries ave not be so wet. You have made yours spectacularly clear and for that I salute you. Brilliant!

It is entirely, glaringly coercive.

That you can't see that (and those who have been in coercive, abusive relationships do see it and very clearly) demonstrates that you have NO clue about coercive/controlling relationships and how they work whatsoever. Or you are coercive and controlling yourself. Very strange not to be able to see it for what it is.

He accepted the home with the dinner condition attached. If he could not afford to leave home without freebie housing and had no intention of honouring the commitment he made then he should have investigated a university closer to home or on line degree courses.

……if he isn't willing to be part of the family set up then he has to pay rent or move.

OP, do you really not see how coercive and controlling this is of your young nephew.
You are tying your nephew to your family with financial strings.
It’s the opposite of what most of us normally do as family, - that is we do our best to set them up to be free to become successfully independent, a benefit of which is that when they do come home to Sunday dinner we know it’s because they want to be there with us. That joy for a parent is second to none.
You are really missing out on that !

What exactly is the joy that you get by knowing he’s only there at your dinner table because you’ve made him a prisoner on a Sunday evening and because you will remove his life line accommodation if he doesn’t turn up. You make him act like a trained monkey in a circus by dangling your free accommodation offer. Is that the power that you enjoy ?
How demeaning is that to your nephew that you have made it so that he has no free will over what he does and where he eats on Sunday night.

Force feeding anybody your Free Social Sunday Dinner Experience in this way, by which you set so much store, will only turn them against you in the end if they don’t have freedom to choose to attend or not. They may be smiling at your table but how can you ever know if it’s a genuine smile. You are setting them up to act out of fear for losing out. That’s not good for any young person. It’s so very manipulative.

if you are kind, why not say, ‘Please feel free to come for lunch on Sunday as we love your company and would be so happy to have you with us, but no pressure if you can’t make it’
Why makes them pay their rent with their attendance.
What’s that all about really OP.

He’s a student !
They live in shared houses or halls
He gets a student loan, can work part time and can access grants and hardship funding if applicable

I have three doing this
Its not actually that difficult and no where near as hard as finding somewhere post student life

People's real life experiences of abusive, coercive relationships aren't "Netflix documentaries", love.

100% this. The nephew is allowed to have boundaries too and if he no longer wants to hold up his end of the agreement he can end it and renegotiate the terms or find alternative accomodation.

People do not have to change their boundaries because someone else does not approve of them. I suspect we'd see far fewer threads from people living in
co-dependent misery if people understood this.

So you were entrapped by a serial killer that forced you to have Sunday dinner?

"I've given you a nice home and a nice life. Now you be nice to me in return and do whatever I say you have to."

Ugh. Ugh.

No, sweetie. Other things.

Think that "joke" fell kind of flat, didn't it? Did it sound witty when you said it?

This load of psycho-babble gibberish bears no relation whatsoever to the arrangement the OP has offered her nephew.

He is not required to attend if he doesn't want to attend. He's not being forced to do anything.

He is free to pay rent for the caravan at market rates, or to move out.