Our guests are hinting that they are going to stay longer than wanted ! How to find the words?

[Duvetdaysaregood]

Guests invited until tomorrow. Been here since 23 rd with general idea to go between c mas and new year.

Heard one lot say to another , oh how long are you staying.? . they replied ..oh maybe till the new year. ..

I could not just holler .. what ..?? From a distance across kitchen.

So , said to them later , what did you say about stating longer .. ? They shrugged it off and changed the subject
I said i needed to know . Evasive .

I repeated that we needed to know for food etc and they just said oh well we could get food .

I have had this before and struggled .we live in a beautiful area of natural beauty where people go on holiday and they do relax .

anyone had this before ? If so , do I need to directly say please leave ..and if so how ! Without causing offence ?
They know
us well and I am struggling to ask them to go . If i say we have other guests due , ( a lie and dont want to lie ) I think they would just say oh no problem , we can all muck in , offer to sleep on camp bed if bo room .. I jusy want ghem to go .

It's an eye opener.
.I know a young man who seems to be into this, he's got a strange aura around him. ..

He's quite polite and does very well with his work but...there is this sort of restrained. Energy about him as though he's holding a lot back. ..

Very ripped as they say and into martial arts ..
How does one know if it's MMA?

The thing with this is that it might reassure the daughter, if she is now having doubts about him!

I don’t know, honestly. Every action OP might take is fraught with risk.
At the moment, my feelings tend towards spending a brief female-only visit away with DD and seeing how the land lies, in terms of her happiness etc, but making it clear that there can be no question at all of any of that WFH nonsense nor any further couple visits, since this last one wore out OPs store of welcomes for the time being.

But as for anything more, I believe that any 24-year old who has a good degree and a good job must take responsibility for her own life, and not permit it to be her parents’ problem. That the daughter is a quiet type, doesn’t like conflict etc etc, is neither here nor there. None of this problematic relationship is her mother’s issue, but it’s entirely her mother’s right to wish to be spared the company of the BF.

(I say ‘parents’. I hope DH has risen from his sick bed now and is being of some use to OP, who has had the most awful week and really needs support and constructive conversation about it all. He has 50% of the work to do in any plan they decide on now, and had better buckle up. For example, a visit by him to the couple’s bower of bliss to meet the BF and tell him that he is persona non grata!)

I feel I really need to understand the lobster boy phenomenon now🦀
Can anyone help with a link or something? 🙏

Militant.

No it isn't her mother's issue.
Her mother shouldn't be interfering anyway...except in the lightest most discreet way.

Inwoud be very cautious about running this underground and keeping him away.

His parents yes but not him. One has to be respectful that he is her choice.

Op said he treats her DD well.

The op is stuck. This man may well be tight, he may turn out not to be.
We don't know what happens when op visits them. He is on a good wage for his age.
On that wage I would expect him to treat them. On the other hand maybe he's saving like mad to buy himself and op DD a home.

However, unfortunately.... dysfunctional relationships are very much everyone problem.
Should ops DD have children with this man and they break up etc of course op will be sucked in.
We are not islands.

These things are a delicate balance.

Op needs to say she absolutely loved having his parents at Xmas but that it's made her realise she's too old to host that many people in one go again (tell her later in year).

If we had people here for a couple of nights I would be expecting to do the donkey work and for them to relax.Longer I would expect guests to chip in. .
For my own older children it would be my pleasure to spoil them and look after them.
And let them relax.... home should be an oasis...where they can retreat too. .

I wouldn't mind doing washing but I'd like to be able to say...do your own in a nice way.
I would want them to feel comfortable to help themselves.

For my own DD and partner i would expect to take them out for dinners or buy them Drinks hopefully as older financial secure people.
It would be nice but not expected to be offered back . As DC get older and established It would of course to be treated as well but not necessarily expected, it depends on finances.

The caveat here where people don't live around the corner but see each other occasionally.

I also wouldn't mind people enjoying our lovely home.... enjoying what we have worked for for a while. Obviously there are limits if someone is thinking of bedding in as their summer house. ..

But I'd like to think my own DC would be more than welcome.

At first I felt for you op but when I realised it was your own daughter I got mixed feelings. Don’t be THAT MIL. Your home should always be your daughter’s home, a place she and her partner can feel comfortable with so much so that they don’t think twice about opening the fridge and helping themselves to an ice cream. I can understand that having his parents there too might have been a bit too much but you can just invite them for Christmas lunch next time. They can rent an AIRBNB close by if they want to stay for a few days to be with their son for Christmas. You seem to be overanalysing everything your daughter’s partner does or doesn’t do. If your daughter is happy, that’s all that matters. What she should know is that she always has a home to return to but by asking her to leave you might have taken that sense of security away… I can’t even begin to imagine how she must be feeling right now… being made to leave what she considered as home with wet clothes in the bag… I hope she has a good friendship group as she’ll feel alienated from you unless you make amends fast!

I think you might have posted on the wrong thread?

This man and his parents have identified OP's daughter as a soft touch and are using her as leverage to dominate and extract benefits from her and her parents

Soothsayer, the benefits being a box of chocolates?

Ah well. Really don’t agree with you in this. Agree to differ!

One important point though: why should OP lie to DD about having absolutely loved having his awful parents to stay? This daughter sounds like she probably bends over backwards to reassure others that they are right in everything, and certainly the BF. Isn’t she extremely likely to repeat this to him in some routine act of propitiation, which would guarantee that next time they consider they have an open invitation to turn up again? Ruining another Christmas?

Maybe the DD needs a bit of cold air blown at her to wake her up, rather than reassuring her that everything is tickettyboo and absolutely delightful.
Has she always been shielded like this perhaps? Why this bother, when she clearly has capabilities and managed to land herself a good job etc?
Her parents deserve their own lives too.

Make amends?!? 🤬
Jesus. She’s she’s 24. Why does she require her parents’ home as her source of security?
It must be an age thing, because I think this is an outrageous scenario. If the partner, not to mention his trailing family, are clearly Yahoos and out for themselves, I think OP very definitely needs to be “that MIL”!
Rolling over for the dreadful behaviour of your daughter’s partner is ridiculous. She’s an adult, and should spare a thought for her parents.

To keep her on side and not turn it into an us and then scenario where ops DD never goes home again and it turns into the Montague and Capulets!

To get what she wants in an diplomatic way.

Why on earth would they turn up again when op has said...I'm too old to host so many people.

@LuckySantangelo35 ops daughter is an adult! OP’s home is not her home

I wasn't talking about OP or her DD! Try looking at the post I was quoting ffs!!!!!!

I think that the OP (and perhaps DH?) has weak boundaries and therefore so does her DD (sorry OP).

I think a two-pronged approach OP - in terms of the son, try and open the conversation obliquely with DD as in my last post.

At the same time, model good boundaries and direct communication in how you speak to her about the parents - be honest with her about how they behaved and the fact that while you wished to avoid a row at Christmas for your own wellbeing, it won't be happening again.

Above all, be frank about what you think of their toxically misogynist values. If you stay silent on this, you are telling her that they are ok and you will be doing her the most terrible disservice. She will see you being wishy washy about it and the message she will receive is "I must never say anything that could upset anyone; I must accept these attacks on my own and others' dignity and humanity, and smooth things over at all costs."

She is still young (and sounds as though she is young for her age, on top of this) - she may well have absorbed 'feminist values' through the culture but that is a very different thing to being able to enforce them in her own life, especially when it means putting herself at what will seem like (is, in fact) psychological risk by standing up to dominant personalities who (she probably knows unconsciously) will not hesitate to hurt her.

You can use the parents to talk to her obliquely about the son - and you really must do this for her.

You could start by messaging her to say that you feel awful having nudged her out but that you had found the parents very hard work indeed and that you would have snapped if it went on any longer. You hope she knows that in reality she can treat your place as her home and that she'll always have a place to retreat to when she needs it.

Superb. Extremely wise words 🙏🏼

I agree but I think it will be very difficult to have a relationship with the daughter without this 'lobster boy type person' inserting himself?

Really want to locate this lobster boy thread!
I strongly agree, and think it’s essential the daughter be left in no doubt about the parents’ home being open to her alone, and no more visits with the badly behaved BF. This distancing could be buffered pro tem with any coupled-up meetings taking place either at the daughter’s home, or some neutral location like a restaurant. (In another town, in case the BF suddenly needs a lie down after the meal, and takes over DH’s study for a week!)

This of course means hard words must be spoken, but this is a subject that should no longer have kindly people pussyfooting about, since characters like that weird family are very skilled in barging through wispy, wimpy screens of unspoken objection, so that they get deeply dug in to their objective and it’s a million times harder to get away from them.

My guess is the all communications between the daughter and her parents will be relayed to the daughter's boyfriend
he would not be in a relationship with her unless he felt he could control everything that she did and he is very keen to be in control of what happens with the parents

Yes, that’s certainly true (which is why OP ought not declare to DD that despite getting tired, she adored having those parents there, just to placate her daughter)

In these these circs, BF would soon hear that his girlfriend’s parental home isn’t available as a B&B at all, and if there needs to be another meet-up soon it’ll be either at the daughter’s place or a hotel. (It’s not lying to say to them (ie BF!) that OP and DH realised over Christmas that hosting is just not their scene.)
This could be reiterated every time it’s proposed that the BF comes to stay. By all means let the daughter continue to visit, on her own.

Earlier in the thread people were predicting that if certain economic privileges the daughter offers were revoked, the BF might fade away. This is surely is the desirable outcome, though parental machinations aren’t to be countenanced. Simply refusing to be exploited though is another matter.

" lobster boy type person"😂

Yes winter I agree also with your post. .

Military

It's precisely because I suspect conversations will be relayed that I think op should choose her word wise and not give him ammunition

Agree.

I see absolutely no value in blatantly lying about having enjoyed the visit.

The OP needs to model firm calm boundaries and that hosting his family again is completely off the table.

OP, it sounds as if your daughter watched you doing a lot of running around over that week too which was not great either.

That was an exhausting week you put down and it is perfectly reasonable and healthy to say it was too much and will not be repeated.

Any suggestion of him using your home as a WFH pod should be firmly batted away too, as not happening.

I would be making efforts to travel to visit her going forward.

It would be interesting to see what hospitality would be offered to you.

Also be wary of your home being requested for a visit in your absence.

A friend of mine only caught on to this in the nick of time some years ago, realising it wasn't just her daughter and boyfriend of 6 months coming, but several of his friends as well..........she was VERY put out about it, cancelled it, and shut the house up fully for her holiday.

Billy's in some circles it's common to share houses.....wash up, wash laundry etc...clean up ...

Daughter is 24. Far beyond the wake up point. She needs to choose whether to wake up or not. We are not talking about a child. We are talking about an adult who chose to inflict this horrible family on her family of origin. Wake up time.

in a sense OP would be talking to 'WBLB' (wannabe lobsterboy) via her daughter?