How would you feel if you were dating someone whose kids lacked a sense of obvious boundaries? To what extent would you go to ensure that they have at least some respect for boundaries when they're around you?
One woman took to Reddit after catching some flak from her boyfriend for not allowing his kids to come into her bedroom whenever they're over at her house. Now, she's asking for the opinions of other users to figure out if she's in the wrong.
The woman gives readers the background information.
The woman has been dating her boyfriend for three years, but she only recently met his three kids about six months ago. "They are 13(male), 12(female) and 8(male). The 2 younger ones have ADHD as well and are off the walls 24/7."
She says the kids lack boundaries.
"Great kids but all of them lack boundaries and it's obviously a parental issue more so than their issue," the woman said. She goes on to explain how they started doing weekend sleepovers at her house once a month, and they haven't gone well. "For no other reason outside of the fact that I literally have zero space to decompress because the kids follow you everywhere you go. They have no clue how to entertain themselves. Given that they are literal children, I don't blame them."
She doesn't want the kids in her bedroom.
With their lack of respect for her space, the woman doesn't like having the kids in her room. She's tried to set the boundary before, but they always tended to overstep it. "I don't like anyone in my bedroom. That's my private space. But there have been multiple times when I have been in the bedroom and one or all of the kids will come in and just take over my bed completely. Laying down with their tablets. Or if I'm watching TV in there, more often than not they will come in and take over my TV or just talk 24/7 so I can't focus on anything other than them and their questions."
The kids follow them everywhere.
She went on to explain that the kids usually follow them everywhere. In the kitchen. Outside. Wherever they go. And it's not the like woman hasn't explained this boundary for her bedroom to her boyfriend. She has. Yet it still seems to happen all the time that the kids end up in her room, overstimulating her with their tablets up to full volume and jumping all over the place.
The woman ends up having a bad day and needs space.
"Yesterday I had a terrible day (family stuff). My BF had his kids over and I was just needing space away from their chaos. I said I was going to my bedroom to get time alone."
The kids still invaded her space.
"BF comes in maybe 20 minutes later to check on me and not even 2 minutes following that, his kids are in my room and on my bed. The youngest doing flips and moving the bed from the wall. I told them to get out 6 times before they actually listened," she explained. "My BF said they just want to be around us and I said I don't care. My bedroom is off limits from this point forward. He said he doesn't think he can do that because he enjoys having his kids near him and doesn't want to shut them out and asked me to reconsider or 'make a schedule' of when they could be in my room with us. I refuse."
Her boyfriend thinks she needs to let up some.
"He says I'm being unreasonable and that by being with a single parent, I need to learn compromise." She then went on to add in an edit explaining that she's 30 and he's 32. She doesn't have any other problem with his kids besides them being in her bedroom. And it's her bedroom. The boyfriend has a house of his own, which apparently has more space. But they've been doing the sleepovers because they're considering moving in together.
Reddit users weighed in with their opinions.
"NTA but you have a boyfriend problem, not a kid problem," someone commented. "Your boyfriend isn’t respecting your boundaries and you aren’t enforcing them. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to be able to request your bedroom be a kid free zone for several hours. At the very least the kids should be required to knock and ask for permission before entering, that’s just common courtesy and they’re old enough to understand. Unless your boyfriend is willing to work with you I think you may have a difficult decision to make."
Most users see her boyfriend as the problem.
"I was going to go with E S H, but the more I think about it, the more it sounds like a boyfriend problem," one Redditor wrote.
"Noooooooo. NTA," another user weighed in. "The kids have ADHD but your boyfriend's parenting is the problem. He's letting them walk all over you instead of disciplining them. Even kids with ADHD have to learn manners and consideration. They can do it, it just needs more effort than usual, as well as patience, gentleness, and consistency. You may have to let certain things go that they can't manage, but he's not enforcing even a basic standard of behavior. Instead of parenting his children, he's letting them run riot in your home and telling YOU to accept it."
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