Sleeping arrangements at Parents house... Thoughts

[LovesTimone]

We have some friends and their DD just came out to them as Bi last year... she is in college, now she is wanting to bring her girlfriend home for spring break...

So our friends said sure... and the normal rules apply...

Our friends are very supportive of all their children no matter what... So this has nothing to do with their choice in partners, just the rules of their home...
In the past when she or one of their other kids have brought boyfriends or girlfriends home for the holiday or school breaks, summer visit... they had a rule that the boyfriends or girlfriends needed to sleep in the guest rooms..

Their oldest son is gay, and when he and his husband (now) were dating he had to sleep in the guest room, once they were engaged while our friends said it was okay for them to sleep in the same room, they decide not to until after they were married would they sleep in the same room at our friends home...out of respect for my friends...

Now they have a dilemma.... Their DD is wanting ( really demanding) for her girlfriend to sleep in her room with her and she is putting up a fuss about it... ..
now their DD is threatening not to come home if she can't have her girlfriend stay in her room...

So our friends response to this was...., Yes we would love to have your girlfriend come home with you and for us to meet her, and we have the guest room all ready for her.

I am of the mind set these are their rules, their house, and she knows the rules, and they are the same rules for all the kids... so nothing different...

Thoughts on how they are handling it...

 

[Welsh_Dragon]

My children are 27 and 23 and I still don’t allow them to share a bedroom with partners whilst at home. Having said that, I do crash noisily up the stairs etc., and generally make them aware of where I am in the house. I opt to let them know that I am about and turn a blind eye. To be fair, they haven’t asked for many years.

 

[GoingSince1990]

Once your kids are college age or older and can get up to whatever they want outside the home, I don’t see any point in forcing them to sleep in different rooms inside your home. So I think it’s a silly rule, but having said that it’s her house so her rules.

 

[Wdwfan2016]

sleeping In separate rooms is just odd especially if they are adults. That alone would make me opt for a hotel although I’m the type of person who doesn’t want to share somebody’s house.

 

[StageTek]

It may be a silly rule. But I always respect the rules of the house.

I think we all have gone through this; as a young adult the responsibilities a being an adult is a pain in the you-know-what. Wanting the freedom of being an adult but not taking the responsibilities. Threatening not to come for a visit if you don't get your way is exactly that.

My parents had that rule. As a young adult I thought it was stupid. My dad was a wise man and set me straight - respect the rules of the house. It took a few years but now I see that insisting I get my way in my parents house was not the adult thing to do.

We are on the same page, LovesTimone. As are the others who replied before me. It sounds like your friends responded well. I hope their daughter isn't shaming them with some kind anti(fill-in-the-blank) guilt trip. That would be so hurtful. But I think we all know that young adults can be very hurtful.

I am of the mind set these are their rules, their house, and she knows the rules, and they are the same rules for all the kids... so nothing different...

Thoughts on how they are handling it...

I think the parents need to stick to their rules. It might be difficult. I don't know of any way to make this situation easy. Like all of us, the daughter needs to grow into acting like an adult and accepting the rules of her parents. And as we all remember, that is painful.

Oh the things I said and did to my parents...

 

[Olaf Myfrenzargay]

I don’t like Disney’s mask rules, as an example, However, in order to enjoy Disney property, I need to wear a mask.

 

[StitchesGr8Fan]

Since they are applying the rule uniformly and consistently, I see no problem with it.

 

[ElizabethG]

The best thing a parent can do is be consistent. The daughter is basically having a tantrum. Giving into that will never have a good result, regardless of the age of the child.

 

[quandrea]

They are all adults. I really wouldn’t make this an issue. If she were fourteen, different story, but as an adult child, I think she should be able to share a bed with her partner.

This ends up being more about the parents’ hang ups. They have an issue dealing with the motion their adult children have sex lives. It’s not a big deal.

 

[LovesTimone]

They are all adults. I really wouldn’t make this an issue. If she were fourteen, different story, but as an adult child, I think she should be able to share a bed with her partner.

This ends up being more about the parents’ hang ups. They have an issue dealing with the motion their adult children have sex lives. It’s not a big deal.

It's about the established house rules that they have set in place, they have 8 kids between them... and these are the rules that have been set place for years for all the them equally... and for me if I was meeting my partners parents for the first time, I would gladly stay in another room just out of respect for them, but I'm old school... I know that when I was dating a very long time ago, if I was going to stay over night at a boyfriends parents house, I expected to stay in a guest room... just out of respect for the parents, as well I would have felt weird sleeping with them under their parents roof...

I just think for 4 or 5 nights it's really not that big of a deal, and she know the rules of her parents house and should respect them...

This is not a long term relationship, I think my friend said that at Christmas she was with her on again off again boyfriend, then they broke up and she has been seeing this young woman since mid-January, ... as well as talking to the on again off again boyfriend...so not in a committed relationship...

 

[quandrea]

It's about the established house rules that they have set in place, they have 8 kids between them... and these are the rules that have been set place for years for all the them equally... and for me if I was meeting my partners parents for the first time, I would gladly stay in another room just out of respect for them, but I'm old school... I know that when I was dating a very long time ago, if I was going to stay over night at a boyfriends parents house, I expected to stay in a guest room... just out of respect for the parents, as well I would have felt weird sleeping with them under their parents roof...

I just think for 4 or 5 nights it's really not that big of a deal, and she know the rules of her parents house and should respect them...

This is not a long term relationship, I think my friend said that at Christmas she was with her on again off again boyfriend, then they broke up and she has been seeing this young woman since mid-January, ... as well as talking to the on again off again boyfriend...so not in a committed relationship...

I’d be getting a hotel room then. This young person’s sex life is none of the parents’ business. The whole thing is silly really—they are two consenting adults who sleep together. They can take separate bedrooms for four or five nights and pretend they don’t sleep together, but why? It’s very contrived and more than a little uptight.

The child should just get a hotel room. Mom and dad are not at a point where they can accept their child is an adult with adult relationships.

 

[Chuck S]

Since the other siblings, gay and straight, followed the rules, at least until engagement/marriage, then they ALL should follow the rules without a quarrel. Treating all the same is perfectly fair. I see no problem. And the other siblings should reinforce this to their sister. Or the sister could get a hotel room.

 

[MinnowMinori]

Agreed on the idea that it's a silly rule for adults, but it's ultimately *their* house. If it were that way with my parents still, I'd also put the pressure on them to change it, so I'm not going to sit here and say she's in the wrong for putting up a fuss... just the same that the parents are in their right to keep the rule and face the consequence not seeing their daughter. Nobody's the intentional bad guy here.

The issue isn't if anybody is at fault; it's if an asinine rule has just aged out because they're all adults at this point. Keeping a rule in place just because your other kids had to deal with it isn't a great reason to keep it going. The other kids can benefit from not having to deal with it in the future. Giving up the rule seems like less of an ask than the couple giving up sleeping comfortably together when that's a great comfort to LGBTQ+ couples (with a higher chance of family anxiety/baggage, especially) and the overall benefit is greater. The parents get the daughter's visit, AND the couple sleeps comfortably vs. keeping an aged rule fair and your daughter staying elsewhere to be with her S.O. or the couple facing that discomfort but spending time with family.

Choice seems obvious to me -- greatest happiness principle. Why take away the comfort of at least being able to sleep together when we're no longer hormonal teenagers?

Plus, let's be honest; if the rule is in place because of "that reason", I'm sure I'm not alone in admitting that my parent's house is the last place I'd want to even think about doing "that".

 

[redrosesix]

I think the rules should be the same as they were for the son...once engaged, the rule changed. I think it's fair -- their daughter has the option of not staying there, or not taking her girlfriend.

 

[Suz333]

I’m team parents here. It’s their house, and they’re not treating their daughter any differently than the other children.

Many years ago my mom joked about applying a “you have to be married to share the room” rule to me that she said she had told my college-aged niece. Since I was in my late 30’s and unable at the time to get married, the joke fell rather flat.

Yes, college aged kids are adults, but parents have 18 years of being responsible for them and not that much time thinking of them as independent. They get to set the rules in their home and they’re applying them fairly. It’s up to the daughter to act like an adult and accept the rules or pay for alternate accommodations. Declining to visit is also an option, but in this scenario as portrayed sounds more like whiny blackmail than reasoned decision.

 

[Figment of Speech]

If they want to cling to that rule, that's their prerogative, and the daughter should follow it. But...

It's about the established house rules that they have set in place, they have 8 kids between them... and these are the rules that have been set place for years for all the them equally...

To build on some of the points @MinnowMinori made above, in the time it takes to see eight kids grow into adulthood, social norms are likely to change. Applying the same rule to eight adult children may not be as equal as it sounds, and to be honest, being able to apply flexibility according to circumstances is a good parenting skill, not a bad one, especially when we're talking about grownups. Consistency is important for children in the learning stages. Adults, on the other hand, are able to understand the details of situations and it's okay not to try to fit every peg into the same hole.

That said, I'm not saying this is necessarily the situation in which to completely scrap the traditional house rules (I do have thoughts about that, but I'll hit on them farther down). I'm simply saying here that revisiting rules every so often can be a good parenting decision, particularly at a time when the main thing the kids are still learning from them is, well, how to eventually become a good parent, if that's their future path.

Their oldest son is gay, and when he and his husband (now) were dating he had to sleep in the guest room, once they were engaged while our friends said it was okay for them to sleep in the same room

So it sounds from this as though the parents consider engagement to be the threshold between guest room and sleeping together, right? This, to me, is enough of a reason to reconsider the rule, because it raises a few issues.

What if one of the kids (of any orientation) never intends to marry? Do they never get to sleep in the same room as their partner under their parents' roof, no matter how long they've been together? Or if someone divorces, will the same rule apply to their future partners? Even if they're in their 40s or 50s? What if the girlfriend or boyfriend they're staying in the house with is someone they normally cohabit with? Or if they're unmarried but have kids with that partner? What, exactly, makes engagement the magical threshold?

Even though your friends are accepting of their LGBTQ+ children's relationships, they're nonetheless using a very traditional indication of "commitment" or "seriousness" in a relationship. They don't sound at all homophobic, but they do sound like they're taking their cues from heterocentric norms. Engagement-marriage-kids is a timeline that a lot of LGBTQ+ people follow these days, now that same-sex marriage is open to us, but it's never been considered an inevitability in LGBTQ+ communities, and it's increasingly less so among straight folks these days, too. Your friends feel it's fair to apply their rule to all their children equally, but unless all their children have equivalent life partner goals, then doing so is not actually equally fair.

So for me, this here is the important detail where this specific daughter is concerned:

This is not a long term relationship, [snip] she has been seeing this young woman since mid-January

This is the reason — if any — they don't need to stay in the same room. Not because they're not engaged, and definitely, definitely not because seven siblings before her didn't get to do it. It's because if your friends' engagement threshold is based on whether the relationship is considered "committed" or not, then it's safe to say this one isn't.

This situation gives the parents an opportunity to revisit the rule, not to get rid of it entirely for this specific daughter, but to consider whether there's some measure they can use that is more realistic, more modern, more flexible, and less heterocentric than engagement. Like, a relationship of at least a year (or three, or five)? A certain age, like 21 (or 24, or 27)? Or full-time cohabitation? Or some realistic combination of these?

And then they can discuss with their daughter the reasons behind why and how they came to that rule, to make it clear that it's not arbitrary or based on an "I'm the parent, and this is how you must respect me" commandment (which certainly gets some people to follow a rule, but how often does it get anyone to feel respect for it?). They can discuss as a family how the principle they're trying to instill is part of this rule, so that it's truly a life lesson for a young adult beginning to have mature relationships, rather than a requirement that their daughter is surely not going to see the relevance of without that kind of conversation.

 

[kathy884]

It's their house, so they can do whatever they are comfortable with. I don't like it though that it's a power play thing with daughter threatening not to come home unless .... I think a relationship goes both ways: parents treating daughter with respect and daughter treating parents with respect.

If I were a close friend and they asked me my opinion, I would say to put themselves in their daughters shoes and say that for me (we just love our son so much and enjoy spending time with him so much and want him and his boyfriend / friends to feel welcome in our house to the extent that we are comfortable and that we'd even budge a little on the comfortable part to have our son feel welcome and accepted (and for us that includes staying overnight in same room/bed with boyfriend in our house). Their daughter might have some additional baggage too and think her parent's rules are related to her being gay (and maybe feel the rules are her parent's not accepting that, even if that's not the case). Her parents might want to consider that and maybe be a little more flexible if they are comfortable with that. That's what I'd say to them if they asked me.

Our son has always been so considerate and flexible, and unlike their daughter I think would have abided by whatever house rules were (putting relationship with us and consideration for our feelings above what he wanted to do). He's just that kind of person. When he was in high school (He knew he wasn't that interested in girls sexually - just didn't feel right, but hadn't come out yet (He told me he didn't realize he was gay till a little later and I had no idea till he told us)), we had a rule that if a girl stayed over she needed to stay in a guest bedroom. And probably since he was gay even though he didn't realize it, he probably liked that rule lol.

Our son's 25 and we really like his boyfriend and are very cool with them sharing the same room in our house any time. They had only been dating two months the first time his boyfriend stayed over at our place.

My 84 year old dad (DS's grandfather is cool with their sharing a room at Easter too). DH and I plus DS and his boyfriend are all making the drive to visit my dad for a four day weekend. For my dad and his mentioning to me that he would setup the second guest bedroom for them and is fine with their sleeping together, I think it helped a lot that I talk to my dad daily on the phone and that he has been very curious about my son and his boyfriend (and as I talk about them regularly he has gotten more comfortable with the gay relationship and now really wants to meet the boyfriend). It tickles me too how excited DS is to have his grandfather meet his boyfriend.

I figure my son is an adult, and that I was even married when I was 24 (a year younger than he is now). I personally don't like the rule to have to be engaged to sleep together in a parent's home because the last thing in the world I would want to do is encourage someone to get engaged before they are really ready for that. These days too, some people are together forever without getting married (personal choice and I accept that). And sometimes getting engaged is not just much how committed the relationship, but where they are financially, how settled down they are, if someone is still in school, etc. And there might be additional factors for a gay couple too that might not be there for a heterosexual couple. Just some things to consider.

 

[FCDub]

I would let your friends make their own rules and not worry about them.

 

[Luxurious_Lumiere]

I personally think the parents' rule is absolutely silly to apply to two adults. I don't know why people have such bizarre hang-ups around this type of thing. Sure, you can make your child pretend they don't sleep in the same bed as their significant other every other day of their lives...but why? And I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly don't want to be engaging in sex with my parents in the next room. But I would absolutely want to sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend.

All that being said: if the daughter knows that her parents are strict about this room sharing thing and will not put up with it, it's time for her to get her own hotel room for herself and the girlfriend.

I do think its important to note @LovesTimone that you don't know how committed or not she is to this relationship, unless she has explicitly told you. Just because a relationship is new, or if the daughter is communicating with an ex, does not mean this relationship with her girlfriend isn't important. She is obviously committed enough to want to bring her along for vacation and introduce her to the family. Unless she has told you this is just a fun fling, I would caution against treating her relationship as uncommitted or unimportant.

 

[LovesTimone]

I personally think the parents' rule is absolutely silly to apply to two adults. I don't know why people have such bizarre hang-ups around this type of thing. Sure, you can make your child pretend they don't sleep in the same bed as their significant other every other day of their lives...but why? And I don't know about anyone else, but I certainly don't want to be engaging in sex with my parents in the next room. But I would absolutely want to sleep in the same bed as my boyfriend.

All that being said: if the daughter knows that her parents are strict about this room sharing thing and will not put up with it, it's time for her to get her own hotel room for herself and the girlfriend.

I do think its important to note @LovesTimone that you don't know how committed or not she is to this relationship, unless she has explicitly told you. Just because a relationship is new, or if the daughter is communicating with an ex, does not mean this relationship with her girlfriend isn't important. She is obviously committed enough to want to bring her along for vacation and introduce her to the family. Unless she has told you this is just a fun fling, I would caution against treating her relationship as uncommitted or unimportant.

I agree, I'm not judging or doubting her commitment to her girl friend at all... My friend her mom, said that they have only been going out a short time, so not long term relationship.. I think what is throwing them off is at Christmas when she came home she brought her boyfriend( on again off again for 3 or 4 years) and he slept in the guest room, and not a word about him sleeping with her in her room. Now with her wanting the girlfriend to sleep in the same room when she is aware of the rules and never had a issue till now.

Plus our friends still have younger kids at home, twins, one took their GED and is in trade school, and the other dual enrolled in high school and college courses... so the rule stands...

I talked to my friend last night and as of last night their daughter did not know who she was bringing home, next week. Apparently the on again off again boy friend is back in the picture, as well as the girlfriend... My friend said she was absolutely distraught, confused and a complete wreck crying and upset... she told her daughter maybe she needed to think about just coming home alone and take a break and kinda figure out what she wanted, and where her head was at... They love and support her, in whatever she decides... they are like that with all the kids...