Childhood bedroom off limits?

[TravelDad]

First time poster so pls be kind!

DF remarried last year after DM passed a few years ago. She is pleasant and there are no issues between us - I'm genuinely happy that DF has found love in his latter years. We have visited them (my childhood home, a 1h journey) a few times in recent months after his wife moved in. DD is now 2, very curious and likes exploring as you would expect.

Last visit DD started to venture upstairs and it became apparent that a 'closed door policy' had been imposed. As a child we didn't close doors and usually had the windows open a notch to keep the house well ventilated - something I have practiced in houses I have lived in since. I understand that their bedroom is private but it was apparent that DF's wife didn't want us going in the guest room, office or my childhood bedroom (which I gather is being used as an extra wardrobe). The "There's nothing worth seeing upstairs" was clearly a polite "No".

On my childhood bedroom, it's bugging me quite a bit. I spent the first 18 years of my life sleeping and playing in there, and have used it on visits since, including fairly recently. As a child I used to lay in bed looking at the (now very old fashioned) anaglypta ceiling and trace my eyes across the pattern (yes I suspect I'm slightly on the spectrum). It was my safe space. So it's hit me quite hard that it seems I'm no longer allowed in there (and cannot show DD my old room). It also feels a bit odd because when we visit the in-laws and other family, DD has free reign and goes everywhere (we try to keep her out of the hosts' bedrooms as a courtesy).

So what do you think:

YABU - it's DF and his wife's house and she is entitled to keep whichever rooms she wants private

YANBU - they are being inconsiderate by making the bedroom of my formative years off limits

FWIW I can see both sides. But not being allowed to go in with DD for 30 seconds and say "this was daddy's bedroom when he was little" feels a bit unreasonable.

Why do they need to stay overnight? For all you know they might live around the corner.

My mother, my adult kids, their father, my adult step kids, their mother, my partner and I are all within a 5km radius of each other. Nobody needs a spare room for family visits.

That’s a separate matter. I had no difficulty in teaching that different houses have different rules, but it doesn’t then come a surprise that they do not have the same depth of relationship with these friends and more distant relatives as they do with their GPs. Quite rightly. The child is absolutely going to notice if they are kept at arms length by their grandparents.

My kids love having sleepovers with their GP’s just for fun. 🤷🏻‍♀️ and occasionally for childcare purposes. But evidently not all children have such close relationships with their GPs as can be seen from this thread.

@ProfessionalPirate being able to go into a bedroom at a GPs doesn’t determine how close a relationship you have with GPs

How are they keeping the child at arm’s length just because they want a choice in who goes where in their house?

The OP’s attitude about what he thinks his child is entitled to do will be the thing that causes a rift.

Hes offended by the ‘closed door policy’ (aka someone choosing to keep some places private) and is trying to use the child as an excuse.

Also we know they don’t live round the corner, the OP has said they are an hours drive away. Which is obviously still close enough for a day visit, but quite far to be travelling late on an evening so wouldn’t be outrageous if in some circumstances it made sense to stay over.

So is it only GPs that let their GC do exactly what they want and go where they want that have a close family relationship.

How ridiculous.

Why would they be leaving late if they have a toddler?

It’s reading between the lines from the OP’s posts. He’s dropped plenty of signs that strongly suggest his DF is not a particularly involved GP. Which is obviously fine, plenty aren’t, just as long as he isn’t put out in a few years time when he realises his GC is much closer to the maternal GPs than him.

Why haven't you asked your father about this? Explain you feel unwelcome in your family home. The home 50% belonged to your father and 50% to to your mother. Time to push back on the boundary the new wife is setting before it becomes the norm. Just be nice about it.

If they’d all been out together to something near to the parents house and got a babysitter, If the parents were hosting an evening event/party, all heading off together early in the morning for something… we find ourselves in that sort of situation a few times a year. But you’re right, it’s not likely to trouble the OP as his relationship with his dad is clearly limited to sipping tea for an hour or two in the sitting room once a month.

I'm not blaming the woman, I'm blaming the man for putting the new wife above his own children. When I say he's "weak", I mean that as a criticism of him, not an excuse. Maybe lazy and selfish is better.

Mum dies. New wife in. Children out.

And it's OP's childhood home first, it only became the wife's home 5 minutes ago.

I don't know what kind of family you're from, but most people can indeed go around freely in their parents' house.

All from a single suggestion that he and his toddler don’t poke around in her personal items. He’s using emotive language as if they are being cruel to his kid.

Also does anyone know what ‘I suspect I'm slightly on the spectrum’ means? Because it sounds like people who say ‘well most people are on the spectrum’.

That’s fine and I’m sure you would be happy for someone to come into your house and tell you what an acceptable level of privacy is.

Personally I like to decide what happens in my home

It would not be "someone"!!! It would be my child, who has grown up in said house!

His wife lives with him all the time. His son has his own home. Why should the people who live in the house, full time not have things as they like? If that means using a bedroom as a closet/wardrobe /dressing room for the convenience of a full time resident why shouldn't they? If they decide that they don't want anyone else to enter that room, why can't they? It's their home that they actually live in and they make whatever arrangements suit them best. It's not a museum.

He’s not the SM’s son though so that isn’t relevant

OP grew up in that house. It's the family home. If you marry a man and move into his home, surely you accept it's not just your house?

Only an evil, selfish woman would do this. She's probably hoping OP never steps foot in the house again, that would be extremely convenient for the new wife.

She's married and she lives there. It most certainly is her home.

She's not evil and selfish for not wanting OP's 2 year old wandering around "exploring" an unchildproofed house and going through her clothes and going into a home office. It's wasteful to leave doors open on cold weather, it lets the heat out. OP saying that her kid not being able to go wherever she wants will affect kid's bond with grandparent is ridiculous. It's unsafe to let a 2 year old wander in an unchildproofed home.

Most people I know keep their doors closed. They've been yelled at by parents for ages, the time honoured "I'm not paying to heat the outside, or the hall, shut the damn door" for leaving doors open. If OP wants to waste costly energy, they can leave their own home opened up. They don't get to dictate how their dad and his wife keep their home. Unwelcoming my ass. She's saving your dad money.

And letting a little kid in a dressing room filled with old clothes or a home office is asking for a big mess.

I think OP for some reason is over romanticizing showing their kid their old room that the kid's just going to see as a room with a bunch of clothes in it. And it provides a way to be nasty about how their dad's wife is oh so different from their wife's family and the good old days when their dad could afford to heat the hall and the outdoors.

I think OP comes off passive aggressive as hell here.

I wasn’t under the impression that it was a compliment.

If it’s the case that there is always a woman ultimately pulling the strings of a man, it must have been OP’s mother that made him weakly agree to family having free rein. It rather seems like weakness only becomes something to accuse a man of, and insult him about, when he hasn’t made a decision you approve of.

That it was OP’s childhood home is irrelevant. OP is an adult that lives in his own home with his own family. He does not own, lives in, or have rights to his childhood home.

I thankfully come from a family that recognizes that not all spaces are required to be communal ones. I can’t say that I find family having free rein to be an appealing concept.

Why do you say that she shouldn't use the old bedroom for storing clothes? It can't just be a shrine to the OP's childhhod.

You seem to be having real trouble conceptualising a life that isn't exactly like the one you're in, and every single response you've posted has been a not-so-thinly-veiled gloat about what a great mother and grandmother you think you are.

If you move into someone's home to live with them as a couple, you can either boot them out of half of their wardrobe space, or leave them to it and put your clothes away in an unused spare room.

I would have thought the latter was far more considerate to your partner who is actually living in the home 100% of the time. But the OP and other oddbods on here clearly think OP's dad should have lost half his wardrobe space just so OP can admire the ceiling on the occasional visit. Absolutely bizarre.

Not ‘just’ her house, no as it belongs to both of them. Presumably OP’s father is perfectly capable of objecting to the situation if he disagrees.

He grew up there with his parents, but dynamics change when people remarry. I’m sure it’s upsetting but fixating on how important it is for his child to see the room is misguided.

‘Evil and selfish’ ? she is using a room in her home and closing the door and doesn’t want people in there..

I find that really difficult to understand.

It's really important to me that my grandchildren see my home as a place where they 'belong'. There are lots of simple pleasures in being at Grandma's house, for them. Their favourite routines. Items in my house, like the stool they stand on to help me in the kitchen, are features of my home that have an importance to them somehow. They are excited to come here because it all means something to them. They belong.

And yes, one day, my little DGD gathered some flower petals from my garden, put them in a jar and without my knowledge, placed them on my bedside table 'so when you go to bed it will look pretty'.
That's one of my sweetest memories.