I (25F) live with two female flatmates who are my age in a different city than my parents. We each have our own room and attached washroom with the kitchen and living room being shared spaces. My parents are divorced and my dad (63M) lives alone. My mom and I moved out of my dads place when I was 10 and I haven’t lived with him since then except on visits for 2-3 weeks at a time at most.
My dad visited me a month ago while he was in transit to another city and spent two nights at my apartment and slept in my room – he kept to my room for the most part and minimised time in shared spaces like the living room.
My mom (63F) has always told me about how my dad lacks social etiquette when it comes to staying at other peoples homes, often overstaying his welcome, and I’ve seen this first hand myself as well with my dad spending nights overnight at his brother’s house etc. He doesn’t like to stay at hotels the reason for which I think is a mixture of stinginess, desire for company and also being very obtuse and inadept at understanding social etiquette and hints when it comes to welcoming himself to other peoples homes.
Since it was the first time my dad came over last month and he was also seeing my house for the first time, I thought it was fine. One of flatmate’s parents also stayed over for a week in the past.
However, my mom and maternal aunt think it’s inappropriate for my dad to stay overnight at my place given that I have two female flatmates. They think it would be better he booked a hotel. I’ve also seen that when some of my other friends parents or dad’s visit town (and they also have flatmates that they share a house with), those parents book a hotel stay and the kid can then go visit them there.
My dad now told me he’s in transit to another city once again and is stopping by my city for a few hours on Saturday night and will stay overnight and catch a flight the next morning.
It’s only one night but I’m feeling irritated and not too happy about this.
I’m really confused and need inputs on what is right and wrong here. I’m thinking of maybe having a conversation with him letting him know that when my other friends parents visit town, they stay at a hotel as opposed to the shared apartments their kids live in. I would really love if my dad did this of his own accord because I don’t want to anger him or hurt his feelings, since I think he doesn’t understand different perspectives like this which is why he exhibits bad social etiquette and inappropriate behaviour with other hosts sometimes. Please help me please.
TL;DR – I (25F) share an apartment with two other females and my dad wants to come spend a night again and I’m not sure if this is appropriate or not.
6 comments
I mean whether it’s appropriate or not the way he’s going about it is not and it seems you’d prefer if he didn’t stay the night at your place anyway.
It sounds like your dad does have poor social etiquette in inviting himself to spend the night. It might be best to be tactfully blunt so the message is clear. I would probably respond something along the lines of “sounds good, let me know which hotel you’re staying at and we can grab dinner nearby!”
>However, my mom and maternal aunt think it’s inappropriate for my dad to stay overnight at my place given that I have two female flatmates.
If you checked with your flatmates on the previous occasion and again this time and they said they didn’t have a problem with it (and your dad didn’t behave inappropriately towards them), is it really an issue? Everyone has different standards, it’s your home so you (and the people you share it with) should be deciding, it doesn’t really matter what your mum and sister think.
However, it is quite rude of your dad to *assume* that he can stay again, purely because he stayed the previous time, that’s just taking your hospitality for granted.
Op, your mother and dad are divorced, so she could be biased.
How do you feel? Ask your roommates for their honest opinion. I don’t think one day is a big deal but it is just my opinion. If you don’t feel comfortable, then you should tell him.
If you don’t mind and your roommates don’t mind, your mom and aunt can mind their fucking business.
It’s appropriate if you and your roommates are okay with it! There’s not some universal “parents shouldn’t stay with their kids when they visit.”
But if you would prefer he stay elsewhere, just let him know you and your roommates have decided to cut down on overnight guests so you can’t host him. Give him some suggestions for a couple of decent hotels he can stay at, suggest having dinner or breakfast together, and see how that goes.
It isn’t “inappropriate” just because you have female flatmates. It might be rude if the flatmates are against it (although presumably their parent also wouldn’t be allowed to stay over in that case), but there’s nothing intrinsically inappropriate about it. Nor does it seem that he acted improperly when visiting you? (Vs when he’s staying at his brother’s place for ex).
You seem to dislike him staying over personally, which is totally fine. But you’re fishing for a reason that doesn’t involve just telling him that you’d prefer he stay in a hotel – you want to make this about social norms of some sort.