I can't take the advice I'd normally dish out on here. Can anyone suggest any alternatives please?

[unintendedadult]

I have a close family member who I think/feel is taking advantage of our hospitality.

Me and DP are not sociable at all (I'm using I/we because neither of us have a clue), very self sufficient and like it that way, it works for our family.

Family member still getting over divorce a few years go, but coping a bit better than previously, perhaps in transition to the next phase in their life.

But since Christmas they've stayed over 30 odd times without being invited, sometimes Friday to Monday, sometimes days in the week.

They ask, but in a way not easy to refuse without taking offence eg 'If it's alright with you I'll stop until Monday because of blah reason.'

It's absolutely not possible to tell them straight without it significantly and negatively impacting on our relationship with them, which I don't want. It's easy enough to advise that on here and I would normally do it if the situation arose, but it's totally different when you have the possibility of hurting somebody more than they can take.

I don't think it's possible for them to not know they're being rude, and if they do but are still staying I'm struggling to work out how to feel about it.

It could be that they're lonely and we are giving something they need at the min, which we're glad about if that's the case.

But it feels more that we're being manipulated in a way, ie doing something we really don't want to do which is making us feel uncomfortable and trapped in our own home, but unable to speak out.

As the time's gone on I'm finding it increasingly difficult to keep how I feel bottled up and to keep showing the relaxed face I've got stapled on and stop what I really feel leaking out.

Just how much is the 'norm' to give of yourself and your life before you say something and risk the relationship?

We care about the effects saying something to indicate we just want to be on our own would have on this person, but when I look into the future having not said something I feel so frustrated at the thought of them stopping over all the time thinking we don't mind.

I really need some outside perspective on this please.

Totally agree with Alfalfamum and Earlybird. I honestly don't think you and/or your DP sitting and fuming will be doing anyone any good. Try and get something sorted out for the future, as what's happening now is just not sustainable.

OP, their life is not your problem, seriously. You have to understand that.

You need to take this person aside and say that you love them, you value them, but staying with you 30 times in less than 2m is unreasonable and that you have a life of your own.

ASK them what you can do to help them be more self reliant. If they are unhappy where they are, encourage them to move.

We can all see that this person is taking advantage of their position in the family to force themselves on other people's lives. If someone you consider to be outspoken to the point of twattishness can only rid themselves of this overnighter by refusing to speak to them, and sit there in stony silence, then it speaks volumes at how insistent this person is to be where they are not wanted. THREE times? It'd only take the ONCE for the rest of us!

The only other advice I can give you is for YOU and DP to move. Move house. And keep your new address a secret from this person.

If you have children I would consider booking them in to babysit whilst you go out! Like early bird says inviting them over when it suits you more puts you in control - be blunt and say "we need a week off from visitors but you'd be welcome to come stay on x for the night if you're happy to babysit"

good suggestion from early bird - sit them down and say 'is there more we can do to help you in the coming months'

But I think you need to accept that you will have to actually take action here - it's not working for you and there is a line between helping others and driving yourself mad.

What about saying 'Would it be okay if you didnt stay at weekends any more - we are all feeling tired from work/ need some family space'.

In life you do sometimes have to risk upsetting people, but if you are kind and open and perhaps say that its just weekends you want back for now, while you help them settle back at home, they will understand.

So what it comes down to is that if I want the situation to change I have to indicate how I feel to them at some point.

And if I don't feel able to communicate it, then I have to keep going along as we are, perhaps putting a time scale on how long we're prepared to not say anything?

But then I think about next weekend, when I used to really look forward to Fri/Sat where me and DP would have a few drinks and chat/not chat (which we do when visitor is here, but it's not the same) bit of bedroom action (which is out the window as well)

I just want to stay in bed to make the time go faster at the min, the sinking feeling I get when they invite themselves is awful.

Gah!

What is the reason this person has not made arrangements for an alternative place to live, if they are so desperately unhappy with their current situation?

I think you need to be blunt and say "this weekend we are planning some couple time so I'm sorry we're not having any visitors or guests at all"

You are perfectly entitled to do this!

I apologise in advance for shouting, but you need to shake yourself somehow...

YOU HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING!

OTHERWISE THIS PERSON WILL KEEP COMING BACK, EVENTUALLY THEY MAY NOT LEAVE!

One of these days, perhaps you'll flip, and you will leave, or DP.. have you considered that?

This situation is untenable. Perhaps the stony silence relative tried to drop hints, tried to talk to this person, have you considered that either? Do you know if they didn't?

This visitor is a plague on your house, get rid.

I'd just say it outright - in a nice, but very clear way. Then again I'm not British and people tell me I'm very blunt.

If it were me, I'd just say "[relative], we enjoy your company and we care about you. However, as adults, we need a degree of time and space to ourselves, so I'm really sorry but we can't have you over this often. You are not unwelcome and please don't feel like you can't come over or call if you want, but we need some time to ourselves. I hope you can understand that, and I'm sorry if I have upset you, but I thought you'd rather know than have me not say anything."

You can't go on like this. Doesn't mean you have to cut this perosn off entirely! Someone earlier in the thread suggest maybe you could look with/for this person at why she feels the need to come stay so often. I think that's a good idea, as long as you can work it in such a way that they don't feel like you're just doing it to 'get rid' of them.

I eally like Naoko's speech :)

I had to stay with people quite a lot for a time. It's just as hard to keep checking whether it's okay as to tell guests to get lost! British reticence has a lot to answer for ...

What you proposed is perfect assertiveness, Naoko. It's forthright, kind, and doesn't burn any bridges.

Oh, this sounds awful.

And this really struck me:

The person who sat in stony silence when this person stayed over at theirs prides themselves on straight talking (or general twatishness to be straight talking). It was our visitor who told us it'd happened three times.

Your visitor understood that they were not welcome, because the person on whom they were imposing sat in stony silence (which isn't straight talking, incidentally. "I can't have you staying over" is straight talking), and yet it happened three times?

Naoko is right, you'll have to say it straight out. This person is either wilfully obtuse, or has SN such that they can't read social situations. Either way, if they're imposing to this extent, they have proven themselves oblivious to normal hints.

What I've understood, over the years, is that people who fail to get hints are used to being told things straight out and unlikely to take offence as readily as someone more sensitive. Either they already know that they're imposing, and are relying on your politeness, in which case once you say "no" straight out, they'll accept it because on some level they were expecting that eventually. Or they are genuinely oblivious, and always have been, in which case they have probably always relied on people being blunt in order to understand what's expected of them. Does that make sense? The short version is: obtuse people invite bluntness, and are usually used to it.

The exception is the narcisistic types who ride all over people and are quick to take offence, but that's not social obtuseness, that's more actively manipulative. I'm assuming you don't have one of those.

Good luck. You have to nip this in the bud. They are being dreadfully, horrendously rude in relying on you so heavily.

If the person is so very sensitive that being gently encouraged to spend less time camping on a relative's sofa might send them into a total spin, I hope they are having some kind of support or therapy for their emotional issues. It sounds like they must have had a breakdown or something, for a divorce which you say was a few years ago to be still affecting them. Obviously you don't want to abandon someone who is that fragile, but at the same time, you cannot be held solely responsible for their mental health. You're not qualified and, as everyone here keeps pointing out, you have your own life (and, as you say your home is so very important to you as a sanctuary, possibly your own issues - which sound rather like mine! I get quite homicidal if my own space is persistently invaded.)

What I'm trying to say is that if not being able to drop round to your place whenever they feel like it may send them into a black hole of depression, they need a lot more help than even the kindest relatives can provide. If they aren't already getting it, they need to, and fast.

I think your parasitic relative needs a kick up the twinkle, TBH. THis person has encouraged you to believe that s/he is a fwagile ickle flower who will drop dead if spoken to harshly or even politely told that you and your DP need a bit of space - yet being frozen out by another relative (who must have disliked having to do that three times before it worked) hasn't caused the parasite to explode. THis person is not half as vulnerable as s/he wants you to think - the person is selfish and thick-skinned and thinks that his/her feelings are more important than yours/ Some people use their 'vulnerability' as a weapon to get their own way and that's what's happening here.

Sooner or later they are going to have to face up to their life. It would probably be in their best interests that you raise this somehow with them, fairly soon, before their dependency on you and your home makes it even harder for them to cope in their own.

Completely agree with SGB.
Rather than running round like a blue arsed fly trying to work out what makes your unwanted guest tick, and how to subtly offload them elsewhere, why don't you spend some of that time thinking about YOU, and why you are clearly (thus far) unable to gently but firmly assert yourself and your boundaries? This is the real issue here, in my opinion. The other person is just highlighting your own inability in that area. I mean, most of the other people on this thread would NOT have the issue you have with this person, so it's fair to say the issue is actually with you and not in fact, with them. Why can't you say no to them? Have a think about that.
Good luck :)

CM: I think the OP is being lumbered with this whiner because she's a nice person. Selfish people have a good radar for who is the most easy to push around.
To be fair to OP's relative, it may be grief/depression that is making him/her so selfish - a previously nice, kind, lovable person can turn into a self-obsessed whining monster after becoming depressed - but it is for the person's own good for the OP to get a bit tough with him/her. If she's nice s/he will be mortified when s/he is better, but right now the person may need some ADs and some counselling.

Just realised that my namechange is now the MN abbreviation for 'cervical mucus' :(
As you were.

Nah, I think we agree SGB, though I also think not all nice people are giving out that radar to others who might wish to use them, however subconsciously. Whatever it is that differentiates the OP from nice but firm people and nice pushovers is what she needs to address.

This thread reminds me of another a while back, about a woman whose younger sister was using her outrageously, mainly financially. She felt powerless to act because she felt guilty for what happened in the past around a bereavement that affected the younger sister terribly, and so felt now that the sister was entitled to behave that way to her. This is compelling but not very logical or helpful, ultimately.
OP you mentioned above about this person not normally taking advantage in this way in the past, and you seeing it as a sign that they really need help now if they're doing this, perhaps help that is long overdue. Did you feel you should have helped them out before and so feel guilty and this is why you can't bring yourself to tell them (lovingly) to piss off for a bit now?

Thanks for the kick up the arse LMHF

The weird thing about this situation is that I am a person who if a family member treats me like shit, I think that I wouldn't put up with it from friends I choose to spend time with, so I don't accept it from someone just because we happen to be related.

Thus, I don't have any contact with sitting in stony silence person.

You're right tortoise, I think our visitor has been 'directed' for most of their life, and not being married any more has sent them into free fall to a place they have to discover who they are. (you described my mother to a tee with the narcissism! How'd you do dat?? ).

The visitor normally is the opposite of a parasite, to the point of isolating themselves from everything, even though that made them feel worse.

It was a kind of 'I don't deserve to do anything I enjoy, because to do that I''d 'look' as though I'm feeling better about the situation, and I'm not'.

So to ask for something from us, makes me reluctant to give them the normal brush off I'm very good at doing (I'm not that nice a person actually), usually to protect myself from these kind of shitty dilemmas.

I offered and offered support to this person CM and they refused to accept any. I don't normally 'take care' of family members, but I feel some strange patience with this person, perhaps their vulnerability? But I might think more on what you've said about how I was with them previously.

You're all very perceptive But then I knew you would be.

I can see why, if they've finally taken up an offer of support, it must seem quite gratifying and make you hesitant to then withdraw it.

OP If you're not (yet?) prepared to make your own boundaries clear, could you instead concentrate on more proactively helping this relative find their own feet again?

Maybe a conversation that starts -- I know you've been having a rough time and I'm glad you've found some comfort staying with us. But I'm worried about you. Spending half your nights on someone else's sofa can't be good for you, and certainly makes me worried about what your life as a whole is like. Have you thought about counseling/moving/joining a club/other thing that might actually be useful?

The trouble, I think, we this strategy is that I can't really see it working in time for you. And it's possible your relative isn't going to find the strength to make things better for herself until all the avenues to hideaway from the problems are taken away. But it's an approach you can try if you really aren't prepared to just tell her that her current schedule is damaging for you.

The posts here have really helped me out over the last week.

Our visitor stayed over on Friday night, but went home Saturday lunchtime, so DH and I were able to have a just me and him evening after the DC eventually went to sleep

The guest went over to a town close by to get some furniture from a shop that sells nice second hand stuff.

I got a text from them with a piccy of a table saying 'do you like your new table?'

The one we have at the min really is the pits, but I've seen one I like and just need to scrape together the cash for it.

I asked them if they were joking about the table being for us, to which they replied they weren't, and when the shop delivered it to them, they'd drop it off to us

I thought of the posts I'd had on here and decided I should grow a pair and texted back that I didn't want to seem ungrateful at the kind offer, but as it's a farmhouse table and our kitchen isn't remotely farmhousey it wouldn't really go.

Did they take that as a no thanks? Did they fuck?

They just text back saying 'Well take a look at it when I bring it round and it'll do as a stop gap until you can get the one you want'

After I'd replied that because we'd had to mend and make do for so many years we wanted to choose our own furniture instead of other peoples taste, I didn't hear anything for a while, so asked if they were offended at us turning them down, which they said they weren't (although I got the feeling they were) and they've been OK since.

I'm having trouble getting my head round why TF someone would go ahead and buy a pretty big piece of furniture for someone else when they haven't asked the other person whether they want it, or whether they liked it! (it is a hideous table, to us)

If they thought they were being kind helping us out, what made them think they didn't need to ask if we would like a/the table when they texted the picture??

Who would just go ahead and buy the table and just text us they've made arrangements to bring it round?

In effect they've started trying to make changes to our house as if we have no say in it.

Not only does it suggest a lack of something when it comes to considering how other people feel, but it made me even more worried that if I did choose to bring up the subject of them stopping over all the time, they'd actually argue the point that they are going to stop whatever we think.

I apologise for such a long post, but I'm hoping that if I write it down I can try and leave it here and stop fuming about the total lack of consideration.

I'm trying not to, but things that remind me of the person around the house are starting to make me think negative stuff about them.

I know it's my fault for not being clearer about boundaries, but the gaps are getting shorter between the feelings of dread I have at the thought of my safe place being intruded on

(sorry again for it being long)

It's good that you're finding a place to vent here, but you really need to tell the person in question all of this, otherwise they will have no idea how you feel. It's pointless to get all riled up because they're not respecting a boundary you haven't enforced or mentioned in the first place.
Personally, I can see why they did it - you're letting them treat it like their house, so they are going ahead and doing just that. You need to take action! Good luck :)

Namechanged-I was TorturedBonsai...

I wouldn't feel comfortable accepting this 'gift'. This is one of those circumstances that recalls the phrase 'gifts are tricky'. The gift giving thing is a trigger for me...sorry to go on. It has been taken to an extreme in my circumstances, so my conclusions may be a few chapters ahead of the dynamic you are experiencing.

I think the guest senses that time is up and is trying to manipulate you. Rather down the path of 'How can you deny me after I gave this beautiful gift-you are undeserving and ungrateful'. This mechanism is to turn those undeserving and ungrateful realities away from him/her and on to you. Gives that person the perception of a rather superior footing, no? This is supposed to supercede all you have done and diminishes all of that into an intangible mist...dismissed into irrelevance. The focus is now on the gift and the 'generous' giver.

If the above is ringing a bell for you, even a little, I believe another element of what is going on is that the one in question is treating you as though you don't exist. It is called "Teddy Bear Love"...the feelings all go one way. Your feelings don't count, just like an inanimate toy-kicked under the bed and forgot. But genuinely loved and played with at the other's convenience.

You have helped this person because you care and you are nice. You did not do it to score a new table or any other gift/payment. You do however need to be respected. Presuming to choose such a big item for you, and cramming it down your throat, is not respectful.