AIBU to refuse my boyfriend's brother staying over every weekend?

[gingerandpeppermint]

Im a 33 year female. My boyfriend is 31.
His brother is 28. My boyfriend and I have been together for almost 4 years.
We moved in together this year..

My boyfriend is easygoing, loyal, lovely, slow to anger, quiet yet passionate and I dont believe we've ever had a proper fight. We both hate conflict and generally deal with the issue there and then.

However.
He is extremely close with his family and lived with them all this time. They are nice enough and have been like a second family to me but they are strangely too close. Their daughter is 23, the brother 28 and obviously my boyfriend 31. The bro and sis still live with the parents. I love that theyre close but since moving in with him the bro and sis have been either staying over at least once a week in our spare room (separate times obviously).

The last 3 weekends his brother who drinks a TON until about 4am has called my boyfriend asking to sleep over in our spare room. He expects to then stay here hungover until around dinnertime the next day. I set the boundary right away with my bought stating I know his bros patterns as I used to stay with my boyfriend and his fam but he assured it would not be a regular thing.

I have extreme anxiety and a chronic stomach condition and last night I flared terribly. I was up most the night and when I finally got to sleep past 3am my boyfriend said "babe ive told John he can come round and stay as hes been at the bar".

I immediately told him no, that I was feeling like crap and didnt want to entertain whilst I was not only unwell but sleep deprived from the heatwave and other anxieties.
John was angry at my boyfriend and tried hard to twist his arm. Eventually my boyfriend got him to go home.

This morning I happened to look at my boyfriends phone when his mum messaged
"Your girlfriend needs to grow up and get over her stupid anxiety and illness. So many people have it worse than her and you have plenty of room!"
I was absolutely FUMING and nearly called her having it out with her but decided to let the air breathe.

Please, im begging. Am I being unreasonable? Are we both in the wrong?

I'm 40 and feel like i've seen it all at this point....so i'm going to be blunt imo whether he backs you or not... its "doomed".

You and your BF do not have compatible values for a happy and successful long term partnership... (very reasonably) he sounds like he will always want them in his life to some degree and they all sound close (how lovely) except their values fundamentally differ from yours (and its not that lovely its suffocating and opressive)

If you stay with this guy you WILL be marrying this family. Really dont kid yourself on this point.

And even if you endure this sort of thing it will be all this AND MORE for 40 years+
... Any child you have will be considered communal property and if you cant get with highly enmeshed program you will be labelled an "auslander" and "not real family"... relegated to the vassel that produce the GC and now irritatingly gatekeeps them.

Even if he backs you up when they overstep... it wont matter... you'll be the villain that "made him" and is "stealing him".
You cannot "win".

You have limited time to find a decent partner (if thats what you want).

Google sunk cost fallacy and ask yourself if you want to invest more into this relationship.

To be clear this isnt about him... its about whether his family are tolerable.

If it was a case of him staying because he had (eg) some odd Monday only work experience/business course, or he'd just broken up with a partner and it was short term, I'd say fair enough. But I'd still expect him to behave sensibly when there-and he doesn't.
So you're not at all unreasonable. And what did your partner say?

I hate to say this, and it doesn’t mean that you should break up, but a 31 year old man may as well be 25 and his brother may as well be 21. My point being is, don’t necessarily expect him to understand how you’re feeling, because he can’t. He will when he’s 35+ 😂

Having said that, you shouldn’t have to host his brother every weekend. Have you sat your boyfriend down and tried to explain why you feel this way? Do you have a friend, family etc you can compare to? Eg “Imagine if Amy came over every Saturday night and on Sunday we couldn’t just go out our own home and leave her crashed in bed. I had to make sure we got food in Amy would eat. Consider if Amy was eating meals with us if she’s staying all day. Not just be able to get on with our day without having to think about what Amy was doing”

If he starts to throw down the “it’s my house too” then get up early on a Sunday, go out and do your own thing. Don’t revolve your Sunday round his brother being there or not!

I don’t get why he has to stay at yours rather than his own house? Is it nearer to the pub? Or are mummy and daddy getting sick of being woken up at 4am every week when he stumbles home?

And your boyfriend replied with? Depending on what his said to his Mum depends on where you go from here. What he should be saying is this is my house with my girlfriend, she is my priority and we don't want him hanging out here every weekend.

Anything wishy washy and you need a serious conversation as to where his loyalties lie. His Mum is way out of line and she can fuck off. You were using your bathroom in your house. Her son can be drunk and hungover at home.

I’d be seeking to agree with DP that there will be no more guests for the foreseeable. His mum sounds like an absolute bitch but at least you know now.

The brother is calling your partner during the night to ask if he can stay? Your partner needs to tell him to stop asking. You can also say to him to tell his mum that it’s unusual that you don’t want a man who is drunk in your house in the loo when you need access to it. You have a partner problem for being so weak. And he doesn’t need to explain to his mum. He just puts his phone on silent and ignores the phone going forward… he

You are not being unreasonable. It’s your house, you have every right to say no. Your dp needs to stop answering his phone to his drunk brother. Can’t he phone the parents? Or he needs to see your side.

Seems like blood is thicker than water here.

Tread warily. If bf does not tell his brother himself that staying over whenever he's pissed is just not on, then you might have an enmeshed bf on your hands. If that's the case you will always come second to the family.

Why is brother crashing at yours anyway? Is he embarrassed to go his mother's because he is drunk, or is your house nearer to the pubs/clubs that he frequents?

Not that it matters. You must continue to stand up for yourself and refuse to have the brother stay over like that. BF will either agree and back you up, or relent and go with his brother's wishes. If he doesn't stand up for you I'm afraid I would leave. That dynamic will not improve.

I'm sorry OP but the proximity is weird, and i don't see how it can change. They shouldn't have been allowed to stay as frequently as they have all very incestuous and co dependant. They obviously have there way of doing things and this sortof behaviour/lack of boundaries has been normalised and facilitated by your BF and his family. I'd consider what your future looks like. Your post reminds me of the dynamic between my hubby and his mum and brother...it's extremely difficult to manage. Your BFs mum sounds unreasonable and hard work too. i'd think very carefully about where things will lead.

That’s a very specifically bitchy message from his mum.

Why does pissed brother need to sleep at your house-it’s not like he’s spend the evening with you and is too pissed to get home. Where has he been until 3am?Why doesn’t he sleep in his own bed.

I suggest your boyfriend ignores him next time-who texts asking to come round and sleep that time of night?!

What did your boyfriend reply. Yikes, that message would make me incredibly sad.

I agree with a lot of posters here, the family are too enmeshed. I would explain to your boyfriend that your home is just that yours. It is not an extension of their family home and it is certainly not his brothers doss house to lie around drunk and hungover.

If he can't put boundaries in place, I would be ending it.

You are incompatible. Let him go. Find someone with firmer boundaries who priorities you over his family.

What was his reply. That will tell you all you need to know.

If you want to stay on good terms with the family I wouldn’t reply or get involved. Sit down with your partner and explain the boundaries e.g they can stay over while visiting us only if agreed by both of us and no more crash pad for drunk siblings. I would not like that either and would have expected him gone as soon as he woke up! He needs to have a chat with his mum about the new boundaries because the weekends are precious for spending time together as a couple as you’re both working all week. So to have drunk siblings crash every weekend is taking the piss.

Hard no from me. Part of the problem is his mum and brother letting him act like this. It’s your house, not a doss house for his brother. Your boyfriend also needs to have words with his mum about how rude she was about you

He did prioritise OP over his family. He told his brother to leave.

We had a very similar situation here -DHs cousin lived with his mother out of town.(On a bus route but a longer journey and buses stopped earlier than the city buses) We were in town so cousin took to getting very pissed up and either phoning from the pub to say he'd missed the bus or just turning up at our door expecting to stay. He would then sleep in until lunchtime and expect to go drinking with dh or play computer games and drink all afternoon. He didn't like me because I interfered with the drinking and challenged his conspiracy theories (admittedly I was not tactful about either..). After the third or fourth of these I told DH that it wasn't acceptable and that I didn't mind an occasional sleepover when it was prompted by us but I was not prepared for him to be there whenever he fancied and certainly not every weekend. DH bless him agreed, had a long and difficult conversation with his cousin who stropped off. Didn't see us at all for a while but has now grown up, gets on with me (it took a while - I reckon he was in his late forties before it happened) and doesn't take the piss. Thankfully his mother didn't get involved! Your only hope is for your bf to put his foot down on his own account and mean it.

YDNBU. You say he’s loyal, but to whom? On this occasion it was you, but only when pushed. The fact that he even answered his brother’s message at 3 am and agreed to him coming over when you were in such a state suggests you’re not his first priority, OP.

‘Easygoing’ can mean laidback and accommodating, which is great. But it can also mean weak and always looking for the path of least resistance in order to avoid having to deal with problems. Your partner has been conditioned to put his family first and never question their right to do as they please, and by the sound of his mum’s horrible text it won’t be long before they gang up against you if you try to assert boundaries.

His actions going forward will quickly tell you whether he’s more worried about upsetting them, or you. And if it’s them, you may as well cut your losses now, unless you want to spend the rest of your life in low level warfare and antagonism with people who will always see you as an interloper and view everything you say and do, no matter how reasonable, as hostile to ‘the family’.

Dump him and move on. You can do better.

What is your boyfriend saying and doing?

Has he recognised the problem?

If he tries to normalise their behaviour and if he doesn’t recognise how very enmeshed and entitled his family’s behaviour has been then forget about his family, you have a boyfriend problem.

DH’s family can be highly problematic. He knows that and deals with the issues as they arise. He is not responsible for their actions, he is responsible for how he deals with their actions.

This relationship won’t last, you can’t have a nightmare entitled family as in laws AND a weak pathetic partner that doesn’t stand up for you.

Kill it dead right now as it won’t change. Don’t marry or breed into this family.

From the information we have, he hasn't prioritised OP at all. He's said yes to everyone else over and over and then let OP take the blame when he's finally said no.

I'd take his mother's message very seriously, OP. She sees your home as hers and her family's, you're a guest in it and you don't deserve any say in what goes on.

That level of anger of this is absurd, you're well within your rights to say no to people demanding to use your home like this. Perhaps more worrying is that she didn't say any of this to you, she said it to him. She's showing you how she'll handle it when you try to assert any boundaries. She'll go straight to your DP bad mouthing you and trying to manipulate him, and from what you've said so far he sounds too weak to handle it. You're going to be at war with his mother and siblings unless you're happy to he a door mat.