Long story short when I bought my flat at 19 my parents co-signed the deed with me, and help me with the mortgage. They haven’t asked me for anything in exchange for this in almost 7 years, so when they asked me to let my sister Gabby stay with me for a while, I agreed.
Also living here are my 2 kids, and often my fiancé, and I’m a year into a PhD, while working in education alongside it. I juggle these commitments by running a tight ship. Kids are on a set schedule involving school, pre school, and currently summer club, I have work while they have activities, I spend time with the kids and do housework while they’re awake, and while they’re asleep I work on PhD.
Gabby is starting her Bachelors next month at the same university I am at. She has already been given some assignments, mostly reading. They wanted her to do a foundation year, which is an extra year to refresh her knowledge, because she’s been out of education for so long, but she refused, so now they’ve thrown her in at the deep end and she’s already freaking out.
I love Gabby, I really do, and I had a year off education myself when my oldest was born, so I’m not unsympathetic about taking a break and going back in scared and clueless, but she expects me to essentially tutor her. We are not doing the same subject, but there’s some tangential links between our subjects, so she expects me to be an expert on her thing, wanting help with her summer assignments, as well as teaching her how to write academically, which I’ve told her they’ll cover in class but she doesn’t believe me. Every time I sit down, she comes over an expects help, and when I tell her this is inconvenient for me, she gets upset. Helping Gabby has now resulted in me falling behind schedule for my PhD, which means I am going to have to either start staying up later when I’m only on about 5-6 hours sleep as it is, or forgo time with my kids. On top of all of this, Gabby is not a great houseguest, which adds housework for me, and we’re still not sure when she’s moving out.
I need Gabby to calm down, but that doesn’t look like it’s going to be possible, so I need at least to make sure Gabby affects me less than she does now, but my attempts to pull away have so far only made her need me more, and the thing is that she doesn’t actually need me, she’s stressing herself out and taking me away from the things that actually do need me, like my kids and PhD.
How do I get away from Gabby while I’m living with her? EDIT: Without kicking her out.
TL;DR: How do I get my older sister to chill out and leave me alone when she’s freaking out about her new university course that she thinks only I can help her with?
3 comments
>we’re still not sure when she’s moving out
So ask her when she’s moving out. Or tell her when she’s moving out.
It sounds like you have to kick her out. Tell her you can not help her with any school work. She wants to go to school, then she needs to grow up and teach herself . You have kids and lots of work already and she sounds completely useless . She has to either get out of your way and also start helping you out and the house, or move out.
Kicking her out is going nuclear a little too soon. I think you just need to start saying no. You can’t blame someone for being too much of an imposition when you keep agreeing to the imposition they foist on you.
Tactfully let her know that you don’t have the time or resources to be her personal tutor. If and when she can’t accept your “no” then it’s reasonable to have her leave