What to do about adult DSS visiting over Christmas

[sunshinelover69]

Back story: I have one DD18 and DH has two sons 14 and 21. Eldest is in final year of uni and rarely visits (he spend a couple of nights here in the summer but decided to stay in uni town over the summer to work). He is due to visit over Christmas. The issue is we no longer have a spare room as I needed office space (WFH permanently and was previously working in a corner of our bedroom which was causing me issues with sleeping). We agreed that if his eldest wanted to visit we would put an airbed on youngest's floor and he could bunk in with him. All good in theory. But in practice only really works for the odd night - there's a big age difference and the boys will need their own space. I was under the assumption that eldest would maybe stay the odd night and DH would arrange other activities with him in order that he can still see him over the Christmas period (he has a bedroom at his mum's house about 5 miles away). But we've clearly had a bit of miscommunication as DH is under the impression that eldest will come for 6 nights over the Xmas period, ie the same nights that his youngest will be here. I feel like this is untenable with the sleeping arrangements and we're all going to be under each other's feet.

Who is right? Also for context my DD will be spending the whole of Christmas here - she's in her first year of uni and doesn't see her dad for a whole host of reasons which I won't go into but needless to say it's for her own mental wellbeing that she doesn't see him.

Different families work in different ways.

I would hate for my dc or my dsc to just rock up. I like time to prepare, clean, get food in etc.

I have just spent the weekend with my dparents and they are just the same. I wouldn't have turned up on their doorstep with no notice either.

@sunshinelover69 it wouldn't bother me but big but my grandpa would have been a wreck (and very much like you) as we did this to him frequently. I'm sure we aged him. However we turned it into a bit of a family joke, humour is your fiend here

It gets worse. His mum has driven to get him. I thought you were meant to isolate until you have a negative pcr test.

@sunshinelover69 oh you are actually because he could be positive and your supposed to reduce the spread.

But Covid is a contentious topic at best of time !

We know someone who went and got their adult child recently in the same circumstances. They knew there may be a problem if she tested positive due to mental health issues so chose to take the risk. I’d say keep out, it’s breaking the rules but you may not know all the circumstances. Hopefully he tests negative.

If his mum has gone to collect he can stay with her. Bloody selfish of the pair of them not to wait for a PCR test. Refuse to let him in until he's had a negative result. Then he sleeps in his brother's room, end of discussion. Stick to your guns OP

@Warmhandscoldheart

If his mum has gone to collect he can stay with her. Bloody selfish of the pair of them not to wait for a PCR test. Refuse to let him in until he's had a negative result. Then he sleeps in his brother's room, end of discussion. Stick to your guns OP

My thoughts exactly.

Poor lad at least his mum is looking out for him. I'd hate it if my exs family treated my daughters as inconveniences. Luckily they treat all their children equally.

You're just determined to be angry with him.

fwiw my teens "just rock up" - it's the way they are.

@Itsnotdeep

You're just determined to be angry with him.

fwiw my teens "just rock up" - it's the way they are.

My own teen knows to give me a heads up. It's basic manners.

@sunshinelover69 how would you feel if your dh developed your attitude to his ds to your adult dd?
Started saying she's an adult, why does she still need to live here? Why isn't she getting her own place? Yes I do see from pp it's 'your' house, but would this level of uncaring not make you think differently of him?

My own teen knows to give me a heads up. It's basic manners.

I don’t think it’s a case of manners. This is the house his father lives in so people are struggling to understand why he can’t treat it like his home. Kids just turn up. I don’t know anyone that would need formalities of having to say they’re coming home when it’s their children. If it’s a less close relative, then of course, but the kids of you or your husband, no.

And when he tests negative then what.

You don't like the DSC - you don't want him in your house and what ever they did you would find a reason to criticise.

He cans till come for Xmas though even if he tests positive because 10 days will be the 22nd !

Get the feeling said DSC is about to find out he has not got a room and his Dads house.

There's so much attitude on this thread I don't understand. Time & again on here people are advised to not live together until dc are 18/gone to uni/left home - the point being that adult dc no longer live at home the majority of the time. People are advised to put the dc first until these time points & THEN start prioritising themselves and their relationship.
Yet on this thread a woman who is trying to put herself first with respect to a 21 year old sdc is getting flamed for making the sort of stand that is often advised on here.
If people are to live apart until dc are old & if they are then supposed to bend over backwards to accommodate dc who are only around sporadically where does it all end? Are people just supposed to never put their relationship first, keep massive houses to accommodate adult dc & to then spend their days adjusting to the ad hoc visiting routines of older dc?
If you're a couple with 4 adult dc are you supposed to live in a 5 bed house until the end of your days just so everyone has a bedroom the few times a year they visit?
My eldest (24) hasn't had a bed at his dads since he was 18. His dad needed his room for his younger dc & yes, also has a home office. Eldest wasn't one bit put out & either bunked in with his brother or came back to mine where he still had a room as I was the rp - not my exh. He totally got that WE were paying rent for him to have a room in a house with his mates at uni & that as someone who no longer lived at home full time he didn't get to pull rank on bedrooms.
I just don't understand this thread & why the op's annoyance at her dh & dss is considered so awful.

Is your DD at University, OP? Do you consider her to have moved out and that she is just visiting over the holidays? Do you consider her presence to create an overcrowding problem?

@Magda72

There's so much attitude on this thread I don't understand. Time & again on here people are advised to not live together until dc are 18/gone to uni/left home - the point being that adult dc no longer live at home the majority of the time. People are advised to put the dc first until these time points & THEN start prioritising themselves and their relationship. Yet on this thread a woman who is trying to put herself first with respect to a 21 year old sdc is getting flamed for making the sort of stand that is often advised on here. If people are to live apart until dc are old & if they are then supposed to bend over backwards to accommodate dc who are only around sporadically where does it all end? Are people just supposed to never put their relationship first, keep massive houses to accommodate adult dc & to then spend their days adjusting to the ad hoc visiting routines of older dc? If you're a couple with 4 adult dc are you supposed to live in a 5 bed house until the end of your days just so everyone has a bedroom the few times a year they visit? My eldest (24) hasn't had a bed at his dads since he was 18. His dad needed his room for his younger dc & yes, also has a home office. Eldest wasn't one bit put out & either bunked in with his brother or came back to mine where he still had a room as I was the rp - not my exh. He totally got that WE were paying rent for him to have a room in a house with his mates at uni & that as someone who no longer lived at home full time he didn't get to pull rank on bedrooms. I just don't understand this thread & why the op's annoyance at her dh & dss is considered so awful.

I don't think anyone has ever been advised to put themselves or their relationship first to the extent that they would try to prevent a uni aged child staying in the house for 6 days over Christmas.

@Magda72

There's so much attitude on this thread I don't understand. Time & again on here people are advised to not live together until dc are 18/gone to uni/left home - the point being that adult dc no longer live at home the majority of the time. People are advised to put the dc first until these time points & THEN start prioritising themselves and their relationship. Yet on this thread a woman who is trying to put herself first with respect to a 21 year old sdc is getting flamed for making the sort of stand that is often advised on here. If people are to live apart until dc are old & if they are then supposed to bend over backwards to accommodate dc who are only around sporadically where does it all end? Are people just supposed to never put their relationship first, keep massive houses to accommodate adult dc & to then spend their days adjusting to the ad hoc visiting routines of older dc? If you're a couple with 4 adult dc are you supposed to live in a 5 bed house until the end of your days just so everyone has a bedroom the few times a year they visit? My eldest (24) hasn't had a bed at his dads since he was 18. His dad needed his room for his younger dc & yes, also has a home office. Eldest wasn't one bit put out & either bunked in with his brother or came back to mine where he still had a room as I was the rp - not my exh. He totally got that WE were paying rent for him to have a room in a house with his mates at uni & that as someone who no longer lived at home full time he didn't get to pull rank on bedrooms. I just don't understand this thread & why the op's annoyance at her dh & dss is considered so awful.

If I'm following this thread correctly, OP controls three of four bedrooms: hers, her DD's and the now-office. And thinks it will be "chaos" if her stepson stays in his father's home for six days at Christmas.

@sunshinelover69

Sorry to revive this but am so flippin irritated and need to vent! Just found out by accident that SS was planning on traveling up today and staying with us this coming week with zero prior warning. The only reason we found out is because his housemate has just tested positive for Covid so now he can't travel until he's had a negative PCR. This is what I mean about nailing jelly to a wall - is it really too much to ask to know in advance when he's planning on coming rather than him just rocking up?!

It's his father's home.

@KosherDill for me it's the difference in how dd is treated and how dss is treated, they are both adults but treated differently. As a parent of children with a sm I would be upset by that. I also feel if dss can't visit for 6 days at Christmas (only three days at a time) would he ever be welcome to stop. I agree a room doesn't need saving for him but surely a sofa bed in office or air bed or second bed in other dss room is reasonable. Why can't both dss share a room. Children of separated parents need to feel included and yes he's an adult but he's still only young and hasn't permanently moved out he's at uni. To me op comes across as trying to deliberately exclude him.

I don't think anyone has ever been advised to put themselves or their relationship first to the extent that they would try to prevent a uni aged child staying in the house for 6 days over Christmas.
@asha456 nowhere did I see that op was trying to prevent him coming but rather she is frustrated with the ongoing casual & unclear arrangements which imply that she'll just adjust her own & household arrangements to suit the fact that her dh (who willingly agreed to the home office) won't actually firm up plans with his ds & sort out the sleeping arrangements.
@KosherDill it's op & dh's house & if he is in agreement with her then she's entitled to use as many rooms as she wants!
My exh & his dw have 'ownership' of 3 of their 5 bedrooms. Until this year my dd (16) had the 4th bedroom & my ds (19) had the 5th bedroom (24 yr old had no bedroom). My 19 year old is now at uni & his room has been converted to a spare room for exdh's elderly parents when they visit. My ds can still use it but it is no longer 'his' bedroom. As with my 24 year old he is not put out as he still has a room with me, his rp.
Op's assertion that sds still has a room with his dm is a valid one. All family set ups are different & my exh now needs space for his home office, younger dc & elderly parents. I don't have those other commitments so I can afford to have space for my 24 year old but if I couldn't my 24 year old would get that.
However by MN's logic my exh should therefore buy an 8 bedroomed house so that everyone has a room forever & no one feels put out!!!!

I think it's abundantly clear that OP doesn't want the boy to stay over at all. The agreement with father and sons was that he would be able to stay an air bed in the other son's bedroom. But OP started the thread because she didn't want this to happen at all.

@asha456 that's YOUR interpretation of things. I have adult dc & I understand the difficulties that brings (as I've explained upthread) regarding ad hoc arrangements, the chaos & how difficult that can be for some people (because we are all different), so my interpretation of what op is saying is very different to yours.
I can very well imagine my dc's dm holding her head in her hands if either of my boys turned up ad hoc as it would absolutely upset her routine as a sahdm to two small children & I wouldn't judge her for it in the slightest. In fact I've always cautioned my boys to give their dad plenty of advanced notice if they're going to his for precisely that reason; that turning up whenever they feel like it is not fair because there's a whole other aspect of family life/routine that goes on when they're not there.
It's very different for my 16 yr old dd as she's still part of that daily life & routine - the boys aren't.

Well I went back to the OP to check I wasn't misremembering or being unfair:

We agreed that if his eldest wanted to visit we would put an airbed on youngest's floor and he could bunk in with him. All good in theory. But in practice only really works for the odd night - there's a big age difference and the boys will need their own space. I was under the assumption that eldest would maybe stay the odd night

She only wants to allow him to stay for "the odd night" and says clearly that 6 days is too long for him to stay.

DH is under the impression that eldest will come for 6 nights over the Xmas period, ie the same nights that his youngest will be here. I feel like this is untenable with the sleeping arrangements and we're all going to be under each other's feet.

It's not primarily about changing arrangements. In her view 6 days is too long and she doesn't want it to happen at all.

The original question was thoroughly debated some days ago and OP has reposted due to the unexpected home visit.

OP I think your DH is CEV so certainly his DS should not be going anywhere near him until he has a negative PCR and a few negative lateral flow tests after that as well.