To want SD’s room to be multifunctional?

[SamphireSupper]

DP and I have decided to downsize as unfortunately he has medical issues which mean he can’t work full-time anymore. We have DS4 together, and SD13 who visits, at most, every other weekend. I work from home and am the breadwinner (relevant) and I currently work from the dining room.

The new house we have found is much smaller, still has three bedrooms, but no dining room. DS would have the box room. I’ve said I will need to have my desk in SD’s room. DP and SD don’t want this. AIBU?

£700 is a lot for child support. I'm not saying cut it to £100 but perhaps somewhere in the middle, especially if it means that you can stay where you are - this benefits all. Why is mum reliant on so much - does she work? It's not about putting her into poverty but she also has responsibility for providing for their child and unless you are talking about school fees, it doesn't cost £1400 a month to provide for a 12 year old. What about your own DC? You are the one working, but your child loses out while ex maintains the status quo. That doesn't seem right to me.

Well, you're going to have to stop the £700 and stay in your current house.
I don't doubt she relies on it, but your husband's circumstances have changed. She'll have to get more work or downsize herself.
It seems ludicrous that the payments to her mean that you have to downsize.

Sorry, what ? DSD is thirteen, she doesn’t get to dictate what she wants to the inconvenience of everyone else. OP and her DH are the adults, they make the decisions, and quite honestly, given OP’s update l would be reading DH the riot act. OP is subsidising his CMS for the benefit of DSD, so he doesn’t get a say in where she works from. Her four year old is there all the time - his room would be unusable for the time OP is working, while another room stands empty except for four days a month. It’s batshit. Step children should be welcomed into the home, but the extent to which MN thinks they should be prioritised over everything else is batshit.

Your husband isn’t working due to his medical condition and you are the breadwinner.

Your son needs to have the biggest room, you need the box room for your dedicated office. That leaves the remaining bedroom for you.

If your husband wants his daughter over every second weekend then she can sleep on the couch. If he doesn’t like this then he can leave.

You need to consider the stress on your only child - having to watch his father not contribute to the house and being a witness to his illness.

Further, why would your step daughter get a bigger room than your son?? You’re downsizing because your husband can’t support himself, your child or his daughter. That doesn’t mean you should have an empty bedroom 12 days out of every 14 days. She doesn’t get a bedroom- she should sleep on the couch.

I think you are being totally reasonable.
If they say 'no' then what is the alternative, working at a kitchen table is NOT reasonable. Particularly if you are the main earner, a man woukd NEVER put up with this.
Stand your ground or reduce child maintenance so you can stay in your current home.
Good luck op.

Also just talk to her! She’s 13, she can understand, the main reason kids want their own space is because they like the idea of some privacy and a safe space that is theirs. “Sally, the new house we are moving to is a bit smaller than this one. We’ve a nice room picked out for you when you come and stay with Dad, I’m going to put a desk in there to work from when you’re at Mum’s but I’ll make sure all my stuff is tidied away before you get here. I thought we could get you these drawers / chest / storage / shelves for your room, I promise they are private and I won’t go through any of your things when I’m in there. This basket is for your washing, if you could pop anything for dad and I to wash in there when you stay that would really help.”

I don’t think your DP can have it both ways - i.e. maintain paying the £700 AND SD gets her room of choice and decline your use of it as an office. It’s a choice they need to make and it’s one or the other if DP’s reduced earning capacity is the root cause of the need to move.
OP is being expected to make changes and compromise on everything - that isn’t equitable.
Going into the office would add commuting costs so is not a solution. OP - You take the space you need to work in and other plans will have to fit around it.

I was already in complete agreement with you before I even read this update.

Come on, I agree with some of these points but if a man refused to support his stepchild because his wife was ill he’d be absolutely slated on here.

Which is what was being suggested - the desk in her sons’ room, which would mean he couldn’t use it while OP was working. It amounts to the same thing. DSD does have a room in her dad’s house, but at thirteen she should be more than capable of understanding that there’s been a change of circumstances and she can’t expect her room to stand unused when she’s not there.

Have you considered that the anxiety can stem from/or be made worst by not understanding the full picture and worrying about what this means, especially with children. I'm a counsellor and I see this a lot. Parents often do this thing of shielding their children from the truth, when actually the facts are right in front of them, they just need adults to be honest and help them to make sense of it. She already knows that her dad pays child support, probably knows how much, she also knows that he isn't working now. She will understand that he has less money, yet her life with her mum doesn't change. Meanwhile she will see you move, not just move, but moving somewhere that is clearly too small. She has all of these facts, but no truth or honesty - of course she'll be anxious.

OP, when I went to university I moved away and rarely came home outside of university holidays. I asked to swap my room from upstairs to downstairs in order for it to be multifunctional. There was no point in a room sitting empty most of the time when it was somewhere the rest of the family could use when I wasn’t there. I think my parents went into my room and we put a sofa bed in the downstairs room (their old room) so it was used as my bedroom when I was home and an extra living room when I was away. We also had the computer in there so anyone working on it could do so away from the busyness of the rest of the house. We had 6 of us (including parents) in a 4 bed house.

If this was your biological child you probably wouldn’t have a problem telling her the room had to be used as your office too. When you have lots of people in a house that doesn’t have enough rooms for everyone to have their own individual space then rooms need to be multifunctional, especially when someone isn’t there full time.

Look at studybed.co.uk

This is a bed which coverts to a desk.

Sadly not cheap, but excellent.

It is entirely relevant because if he is doing less hours for childcare reasons then he won't always need to do that so his reduced working hours are then solely down to what he can manage with his health and so they need a property that they can afford on the assumption his health and finances won't get better. That means this probably isn't the right place for them if he can't compromise on OPs working location. She's clear she can't work at the kitchen table. She can't work in the sons box room while he's in it. She doesn't want to be in her room for 18 hours a day (and her dp may not like being kicked out of it all day 5 days a week and DP isn't happy with using SDs room. So it's simply the wrong house.

What's weird is how youre trying to make out like I think he's a deadbeat for being ill.

My point was thst it would be fair to change it to a single for more space.

For which room?

Of course the teenager doesn't get to dictate anything to the inconvenience of others! What I'm suggesting would have been better would be to lay out the simple facts of the situation and let the teenager come to the conclusion the OP wants her to.
They can still do damage limitation now if they get her on board with the facts and bring her into the decision making process. She's 13. She's not an idiot. They can say:

"So Sally, Dad's poorly and he can't work as much. We don't want this to affect your quality of life. So OP is going to make up the shortfall in your CMS payments to your mum. But because dad's not working as much, and we're carrying on paying your mum the same as when he was full time, we can't afford to live here anymore. So we're going to move somewhere smaller. There's going to be one room fewer. We'd rather stay here and you can continue to have your own room that isn't shared with OPs office. But that would mean we couldn't pay your mum as much money and your lifestyle would change at her house. Do you have a better idea than the one we've got?"

That would have made the SC feel wanted, valued, listened to, thought about, loved etc. The way the OP sounds like she's gone about it didn't do that. Same outcome in the end but everyone wouldn't have been happier.

As much as l think DSD needs to cooperate with the new circumstances, l think this is really harsh -and a tad bitter if you don’t mind me saying so. If giving DSD the bigger bedroom allows OP to work in there undisturbed for the majority of the time and allows DSD her privacy when she is there, then that’s the obvious solution.

I agree with this. It's impacting the whole family. She needs to know what's going on.

Could he increase his hours when DS is older? Looking after kids takes a lot out of you, even primary aged ones.that are fairly independent so when DC is older then DP might be able to get a wfh desk job like OP.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with what you are proposing. I might be inclined tk get one of those cupboard style desks and that you can shut your office away when she visits and that you can lock.

Is the large room big enough to split into two singles and have box room as your office.

This update makes a massive difference, @SamphireSupper .

I was already in favour of you working in bedroom 2 Mon-Fri, and SD sleeping there 2-4 nights a month, as being the best use of resources.

But hearing that as well as now being the main breadwinner for the family, you have also agreed to help support his ex to the tune of £600p/m, which, if you didn't pay her, would mean you could stay in your current house - wow, that's a massive compromise.
You are effectively taking resources away from your shared DC to give to his DD.

If you move to the new, smaller house, and you get to work in Bed 2 which will be where his DD sleeps when she's there, everyone will have made a compromise:
DS gets the box room even though he is there 100% of the time;
you get a comfortable and private work space which you have to clear out of one or 2 weekends a month;

SD gets to keep her double bed in her own room for the 14% of the month that she's there (ie doesn't have to share with DS, or sleep on the sofa);
DP gets to have less financial stress by moving to a smaller house and agrees to you working in Bed 2.

I really don't think he can argue against that, and he should be totally supportive when presenting this new arrangement to his DD.

You ARE coming across as trying to make him out to be a deadbeat because of ill health. OP was perfectly clear. He had to reduce his hours because of ill health. Because his hours were reduced anyway he took on more childcare to help out. He didn’t reduce his hours specifically to do child care - it’s because of his health.

My DC sleeps in a double bed (that i bought put in the room that i house her i) and i wouldn't even question putting her in a single we were moving to a smaller house. If the house doesn't fit the furniture, the furniture changes. It's not about step kids being pushed out, it's purely practical. I'm a stepchild, my dad sold our family home and bought a new house with a box room that had a single bed and storage and that's where I slept when i visited. It never felt like my home, hut you know what, I honestly didnt care, I was far too busy living my life and as an adult we are really close as a family, me, dad, stepmum, siblings. My view is shaped by my experience of being a stepchild. Maybe other step kids feel differently, but some of us honestly don't care. All I cared about was that dad had the most epic snack drawer and I could help myself and watch sky TV because I didn't have thst at mums.