Dd wants to come home - dh doesn't want her to

[worriedmum64]

DD is aged 25. Lived away from home during her university years, stayed with us for around a year when COVID was at its peak and lived in a flatshare for the last 2 and a half years or so.

She has just been given notice that her rent is going up by about 15%. None of her or her flatmates can afford it, so they all have to look for a new place to live. They are going to be looking separately due to different requirements. DD arrived at ours yesterday very stressed and saying that she was going to have to move back in with us. That London rents have priced her out of the market (they are very expensive and she is a band 5 NHS employee so not on a huge amount of money). She has a plan which we have talked about before, she wants to buy a flat with her boyfriend, we would put some money towards it, but they still need to continue saving.

Dd thinks that if she came home for what would likely be a year she could save the money she needs. Her boyfriend is also currently living at home.

DH has gone bonkers saying she can never live with us again, it is too stressful. That she needs to find a flatshare with strangers and if it is too expensive we will pay her money towards the rent. This makes no sense financially and DD really doesn't want to live with people that she doesn't know. She will also not be able to save for a flat. But more importantly I am so disappointed that DD has asked us for help and we are going to say no. I do not want her to come home particularly in an ideal situation but I think that we need to help her as she has asked.

DH is refusing to back down, he is adamant that she can not return to live with us. He hasn't told her this yet - we are meeting her on Saturday to discuss. When I was in my 20s I knew that my mum and dad weren't there for me in any way and it hurt me. I don't want my DD to be in the same position - to have asked for help and told to go away. I am surprised at my DH's stance on this, he is normally reasonable and kind, and adores DD.

It would be stressful having DD live with us - she can be difficult and we bicker, the house is small (DD would have her own bedroom but everything else would be shared). I think that we should set some ground rules out and swallow it for a year. DH doesn't.

The situation is really upsetting me. I think that it will break DD's heart too, and that our relationship with her might never recover.

Is there anything that I can do?

Standing on your own two feet basically equates to never ever getting on the housing ladder now.

I cannot even fathom my parents saying I couldn't stay if I needed too. On the face of it seems heartless but every family / situation is different.

Personally I think she’s too old and needs to stand on her own two feet.

im 33 and was told unless it was a complete emergency I wasn’t allowed to move back home. Went to live in London at 18

I would imagine from your posts that DH cannot countenance living with DD as he already has a lot to deal with due to poor health and a lot of pain...most underestimate how much that takes out of a person, as we cannot imaging living with constant pain.
Considering her appalling treatment of you on top. l agree with him, l would not be letting her live at home...,..I have a DD who is about to leave for Uni next September and she is always welcome at home, but she is always polite to us and her brother, does her laundry, cleans up, puts her headphones on to listen to music and home is peaceful, (plus we have enough space) if she treated us badly l would not feel the same.
Also at 25 most of us had to take personal responsibility for our finances however difficult.

Don’t say no immediately. Talk round the pros and cons. Then try to persuade her subtly that it isn’t going to work for x,y,z reasons.

Hmm, I feel that you are playing down how difficult your daughter is to live with, based on your husbands reaction.

She's 25 and an adult, you and your husband are under no obligation to house her, so I don't think your DH is being unreasonable. We can't all just run home to mum & dad when the shit hits the fan, we need to sort it out.

That's quite the drip feed. Get everyone onside by making your husband to seem unreasonable, then casually mention that she was a nightmare to live with, and husband has a life limiting illness.

I can't imagine what my DD would have to do, to make me not want to have her in my house. It would have to be pretty fucking serious.

What did she do?

Newsflash....

She isn't a child..

Lots of teenagers are a nightmare to live with and grow out of it. You can’t hold it against them forever!

Give it a trial run - 6 weeks and reassess. Set out exactly what your expectations are.

In this particular case, it's incredibly telling that OP didn't mention it immediately

I'm not comparing myself to someone with a life limiting illness.

A thing that bugs me though...I had a spinal injury and some things are much harder for me to do now. It's bizarre to me how loved ones need reminding of that! When I have got annoyed and said "how many times do you need reminding" I've had replies of "sorry, forgot, you look normal, you seem to cope really well".

I have to live with the after effects every day. If I was married, I would be flabbergasted for a husband to consider it an afterthought.

I wonder if the DH illness has faded into the background and been forgotten about, and that's something I think is really sad.

And incredibly frustrating and upsetting if your wife and adult DD have put it in that box of "oh yeah, dad has x condition" and don't recognise how hard it makes life on a daily basis.

As I say, a depressing thread on many levels. If a woman posted and said her DH didn't factor in her life limiting illness, imagine the replies.

She doesn't need to move back home though.
She can rent a flat share she just doesn't want to. Her parents will give her money, she just doesn't want to.
She can move out with her bf. She just doesn't want to.
She can move out of London, she just doesn't want to.
This isn't an emergency.

It's interesting on MN there are often threads complaining about entitled children and this generation wanting things handed to them.

Reading some of these responses it's no surprise.

I love my ds but no when he's an adult, he can't live with me forever as long as he works and pays rent. He can get his own place. Part of parenting is raising kids who can be independent.

Living in a flat share won't hurt her. Living at home will hurt her Dad.

She's been offered money for rent, money towards a deposit, and people are saying that's not good enough? No wonder people are entitled.

But she was also a nightmare to live with at 21 or 22, OP says.

OP said in her opening post "she can be difficult and we bicker" - not awful by any means.

Also to those who say this will cause a huge rift, well my parent, never gifted me anything, never funded anything, l was independent from 18 as was my brother....we and our friends just expected to be broke when starting out..... for years, my brother spent a DECADE working in excess of 65 hours a week (two Jobs whilst paying rent) to be able to buy a cheap property in a rural area. I did similar...
Yet we have had a wonderful relationship with our parents and still do....
They just instilled the very old fashioned value of standing on our own feet as young adults, we in return recognised they needed to save for their retirement, not to fund us. We managed eventually as did our peers.
Expectations of parents seem very high these days. !

In this particular case, it's incredibly telling that OP didn't mention it immediately

I don’t think so. Anyone with half a brain could imagine the kind of teen behaviour that OP was referring to hence DH’s concern.

But that was then and she’s now 25 and working for the NHS and no longer in the relationship that resulted in police involvement.

She is 25 and this is not an emergency situation; she has a partner; she is a difficult person to live with in your own admission.
I can understand your husband. There is no need for her to come and live with you, and it would cause stress and discomfort.
Why doesn’t she find a room share with a partner and save that way?

Newsflash: she’s THEIR child

I feel you come from a very privileged background! Many young people have been priced out of the market place in terms of purchasing and now even rents are becoming obscene.

Besides I rely on having given my children the desire to want to carve out their own lives and destinies to motivate them into wanting to move out.

The OP in this situation is talking about a situation out of the control of their daughter. I've never had as many issues with one of my children as OP has, but if a child needed to come home then I would find a way to accomodate, albeit as others have indicated with an awful lot of written rules that have been signed to and with consequences.

No; she said things had improved.

I'm not making up anything

If he doesn't want her there, then no amount of compromise is going to change that.

Definitely no boyfriend staying over, otherwise she might try to move the boyfriend in by stealth.

Make a list of ground rules if you do decide to let her stay, print it out, and make her sign it.

I mean, it's incredibly telling the OP didn't mention the life limiting illness in the first post. I think I was very clear about that actually!

Why can't she move in with her boyfriend?

I imagine they have improved, especially since she no longer lives with them.
Op has no actual clue if her DD is easy to live with now.
The fact she still says she's quite difficult doesn't inspire much confidence considering.