19 year old in long distance relationship

[cherrypie314159]

My 19 year old sister has lived with me since she was 14. She finished college in June this year, and it was in January that she started seeing a boy who was at the college as an international student. Whilst he was living in the UK with his host family, he would come and sleep over at our house around once a week roughly, from March to June. When college finished in June, he went back to his home country.

My sister has been out to visit him 3 times since June, for 7-10 days each time. She has now asked me if he can come stay with us in January. I have reservations, but settled on agreeing to one week.

I am a VERY quiet and introverted person and don't like sharing my space with people I don't know well. In fact, I wouldn't even typically invite my close friends or family to sleep over unless there was no other option. I allowed the weekly sleep overs before as they would mostly be doing their own thing anyway, and I guess I thought it would fizzle out once he went home so put up with it as a 'short term' thing.

I also now suspect that the relationship is not a healthy one. She's told me about various arguments they've had which I've told her I find worrying, and he seems to try controlling her, not wanting her to go out with friends or wear certain clothes for example. Not that he's successful, but there are frequent attempts/issues that she tells me about which I don't like the sound of.

So, she's just given me some spiel about flights and claimed it's impossible for him to come for 7 days, it would have to be 10 days due to limited flights. I said no, 7 days is what I agreed, I'll go to 8 days max but that's it. She asked why and I told her the exact things I've said above. She left the room crying saying she'll just tell him not to bother coming. As she was walking out I said that I'm pretty sure flights could be arranged for a 7/8 day stay, but she insisted it was impossible.

I have often struggled to 'say no' to her - she had a rough childhood (hence moving in with me at 14) and I know I've been too soft on her before to try and compensate, but now I can't tell if I'm being unreasonable about this or not?!

Bump

Tricky. I want to say 'stick to your guns' but understand that you don't want to risk narrowing the windows of communication.

It's a pain, but could you look at the flights and show her it is possible?

Does your sister work? How would they be filling that time?

I would rather have him at mine in a safe environment where I could observe interactions than them go off to a hotel to make it up to 10 days.

7 days or 10 days is still both gracious of you though. I’d expect appreciation rather than arguments!

Who has paid for her international visits?

He can pay for a hotel for the other few nights if it truly must be 10 days surely?

I’m not sure there is that much difference between 7/8 or 10 days surely. I understand your reservations about him and the situation but I would agree to it as a one off.

I've been looking at flights this morning and will be showing her that it is indeed possible and see what she says.

She does work. She's planning on using annual leave around her new shift pattern for most of his visit. Yes I thought she'd appreciate 7 days too, I think I've been so much of a 'yes' person with her she's gotten used to that.

She's paid for all her own visits. She works and has low living expenses.

The trouble is that I'm not convinced it will be a one off and I have to have a 'line' somewhere
:( I do appreciate what you're saying though and will give it some thought if she really does have a better explanation about the flights after I've spoken to her again.

There’s two separate issues.

The first is that she’s in an apparently controlling relationship.

The second is that you don’t like guests, yet you live with an adult who’s in a long distance relationship which can only survive with long visits.

The second issue, I think you just have to put up with long visits and find somewhere else to be when it bothers you: she isn’t a guest, she’s an adult, this is her home, and she should be able to have her boyfriend stay for a couple of weeks without it being a huge drama.

The first issue is much more concerning especially if he’s lying about flight times. I don’t have children that age so don’t know the best way to parent a woman out of a controlling relationship. But I suspect that arguing about 8 days vs 10 days is not the way to go.

Perhaps it depends how bad the guy is? If he’s awful I’d be tempted to say you won’t have him round because you think he’s a controlling bully and won’t facilitate that. If he isn’t awful, just annoying, then the best thing to do may be to let her have him stay every few months and hope it fizzles out.

You had this chap over once a week for three months

did you see controlling behaviour then?

No. I saw a relationship growing in intensity with them spending more and more time together - even if not always for sleepovers they would be together most evenings and weekends by the end of the three months. I think it's the distance that has caused jealousy as he can't be there with her.

I tend to agree with Feysriana. Luckily I've never had a close relative in an abusive relationships either but you do risk pushing her away over arguments over how many days he stays.

Does she still see her friends or has she stopped to keep the peace?