Stepdaughter’s bedroom at Christmas

[Balletbabe]

My 14 year old stepdaughter has an en-suite bedroom at our house which she uses maybe two or three nights a month.. This room is sacrosanct and DH won’t entertain conversations about it.

Essentially she will not allow my mother to use it over Christmas even if she isn’t here.

My sister is with her in-laws.

We either put my daughter in with our youngest two, or bring baby back in with us. Either of these solutions would potentially lead to sleep regression for both the younger kids. Or we travel for just under an hour to my mother’s, taking kids away from their presents and she will then feel the need to host us.

We still have no idea if stepdaughter is even going to be here.

All DH will say is he wouldn’t want anyone in his room either and he is willing to collect her after presents and she could get Uber back.

I'm not vilifying her in the slightest - I'm saying if she wants her mother to stay for three days, she should expect one of own three children to give up their rooms - rather than the only child who isn't actually related to the visitor in question.

No She did not live here before me but still got the best room at her father’s insistence. We now have an extension to accommodate youngest ones.

Ha - yeah. You have a husband problem. She's daddy's little princess.

Then OP's children can muck in for their granny, can't they?

She’s explained why this isn’t possible, unless you think it’s normal for an elderly lady to sleep in a toddler bed. And why make the children who are actually present move about when there’s an empty room! Utter madness.

all 3 of my DC would give up a bed for their grandmother. Your DH is wrong to allow her room to sit empty.

Anyone here to defend OP's eldest DD having to have a smaller room and no en suite while OP's H has insisted his daughter gets the best room despite barely staying in it? Seems ridiculous to me.

It's a fair payoff, is it not? You get the nicer room, en suite included... sometimes you might be expected to let a guest use it.

@Balletbabe Stepdaughter’s mother’s family are not Christian culturally and are atheist/agnostic. Christmas is not resonant to them as it is to me. Stepdaughter however does have a belief.

This makes you sound utterly pathetic.

But the rooms aren't all equal. The children live in theirs 100 percent of the time. The stepdaughter a few days a month, and might not even be on the premises during 24-27 December. Yet the husband expects the room to sit empty like some sort of shrine, as though his daughter is elevated above the others.

She needs to be taught some resiliance and some consideration for others, ASAP.

She. Is. Not. Her. Grandmother.

The same-age actual grandchild is welcome to give her bed up though.

It must be hard for her to see your daughter living full time with her dad. There's resentment in you, you need to let it go or it'll build up and ruin any relationship you have with her.
People saying the room is empty, the sd hasn't decided not to go to her dad's yet, I wouldn't like my daughter giving up her room for a person she's not related to.

You can't take her room off her now and she has the backing of her dad, which I'm happy about, its great to see a dad stand by his previous family. Accept it and come up with other solutions, dont let it ruin Xmas.

I think it's natural enough that she's a bit territorial about having a permanent space in the house where other children live with her father full time.

And fourteen is an age when children are learning to separate themselves from family authority, so they tend to value privacy more than most at that stage. The idea of a seventy year old staying in my bedroom with my things around her, able to look through them and judge, would have bothered me at that age. This is your relative, not hers.

If your younger children are sensitive to sleep regression I suspect Christmas will do a number on them anyway. I would say your husband is right in his position. You would do well to use one of the other solutions outlined here.

Why is this even relevant? What do generics have to do with giving up an empty room for a couple of nights?

It’s not a shrine, it’s her room! The one space in the house she should be able to have some say over!

And her dad probably wishes she stayed a lot more but the girl’s relationship with her step-mother is already pretty fraught and that no doubt contributes to the degree to which she feels comfortable there. Making her feel even less like a proper member of the family seems unlikely to do much to improve the relationship either.

I didn't say she should sleep in a toddler bed but one of her own children is 13 - with a perfectly normal sized bed for granny to sleep in, while she either kips on the floor or shares with her sisters for a few nights.

It’s not just genetics, it’s relationships. The step daughter does not really know or have a bond with the grandmother in question whereas the other daughter does.

Because it's only the step-daughter who is being criticised, name-called and picked on for not giving up her room - that's why it's relevant.

It doesn't bloody matter.

It's her bedroom and she doesn't want to give it up for her step-mums' mother, and why should she? She didn't ask for three additional siblings, or to only see her dad 2-3 days a month. That's on the adults.

The children who live in their rooms full-time and who are biologically related to the visitor should be the ones giving up their bedrooms. It's all in the nuance and so many people are wilfully ignoring that.

So what??? This has fuck-all to do with "bonds" and everything to do with making efficient use of space at Christmas. The idea that a room should sit empty because the teen will somehow be harmed by her father's MIL using her "personal space" for 2-3 nights is absolutely fucking batshit.

The husband sounds ... less than ideal ... too.

Nobody is saying she will be "harmed" by it.

They're saying it's grossly unfair to force the only non-biological relative out of their space when all the biological grandchildren get to stay put.

But she's not going to be IN the space!!!

Giving as she might still stay i would leave dsd bedroom

The only answer here is your mum kips in with you and your H (who seems like the main problem here) sleeps on an airbed somewhere

Actually that’s not confirmed. She may be. But certainly this haggling over the use of her room probably makes her feel less inclined to go.

Anyone saying this isn’t about relationships clearly doesn’t understand the challenges of blending families. It is ALL about putting the relationships first.

But the OP has stated that she doesn't even know that the sd will be there or not? Why are you saying the room will sit empty?
OP, what would you expect to happen if your sd does go to her dad's for Xmas? Would you still expect her to give up her room?