The place where I am from is currently in a huge and devastating housing crisis, which left my boyfriend (26m) and I (26f) who were moving back home after a few years away in a dire situation. We moved in as roommates with my sister, who had a larger apartment, as a temporary fix until we found longer term housing. A temporary stay turned into a longer stay and we’ve been here for over a year and won’t be in our own place for at least 6 more months. And just to clarify, my boyfriend and I are each paying rent separately making up 2/3 parts of the full rent price.
I’m struggling a lot with conflict in the household- I am a very quiet person who is very averse to conflict and on the spectrum and having a lot of difficulty navigating the social situations of these conflicts.
When my sister is upset at my boyfriend leaving hair all over the sink, she texts me about it and tells me to address it with him. When my sister goes days without doing her dishes, I’m the one who needs to figure out how to address it because my boyfriend feels uncomfortable doing so. I’m always the middle of all communication and it puts a huge load on me. I work away from home and my boyfriend and my sister both work from home, so they are often home all day while I’m at work.
Recently, things have been getting bad with my sister not following through with cleaning obligations and leaving messes all over, so my boyfriend gets extremely agitated and feels like he can’t address it with her and seems to take it out on me via text when I’m at work (again, because he works from home). Even today, I got a message from my boyfriend while I was at work telling me that my sister needs to do her dishes more. I try to communicate with her about these things, but I get worried that if I am too insistent than she may not want us to live with her, and we don’t have any other options at the time. I understand why my boyfriend is nervous to communicate with my sister, because she’s quick to temper and he doesn’t want to ruin their relationship. It’s just complicated when it falls on me.
I’m not exactly sure what I’m asking for specifically, but I think I need some kind of guidance in how to handle these situations. We have a house to move into in a few months, at least 5-6, but we just need to get through this time for now.
TLDR: having issues with being in tbe middle of household communication between two parties
4 comments
If the housing situation is that dire then you and your boyfriend should be washing your sister’s dishes out of gratitude for a place to stay. Work on getting your own place, do not work on correcting your sister’s housekeeping unless she is literally leaving her messes in your room.
Can you can explain to each of them that “You two are roommates and need to learn to communicate with each other. Please.”
Stop making this your problem. Tell your sister to talk to him, and tell him to talk to her. You are all roommates, so they should talk about it between themselves.
Have a house meeting to calmly discuss everything. Organise it to be at an agreed upon date/time when nothing else is going to get in the way, and basically label it as a judgement-free time where all of you will get a say and work together to make things liveable for all of you.
Printing off some sheets on basic conflict resolution/mediation skills might help out, stuff like using “I feel…” statements etc. and also using a “talking stick” (or something soft and small) as if it’s circle time at primary school can be a big help as a visual cue for who has the floor right now, and to make space for those who don’t normally get to speak up.
The goal should be for all three of you to collaborate on a solution, be it a clearly defined chore chart with tick boxes, buying some cheap plastic/rubber hair catchers for the drains (really, your BF should be cleaning out his own hair after shaving/showering as common courtesy), setting a time/day “deadline” that dishes and messes in common areas should be cleared away by. For instance, maybe Person A bakes as a hobby and frequently leaves messes on the kitchen table, but Person B works from home and has to take Zoom meetings there twice weekly and is being disrupted bc there is flour everywhere. A & B should use the meeting to communicate their individual needs/preferences/schedule. Then, they can come to an agreement that maybe A doesn’t bake the days before/of B’s meetings. Or A admits that they often forget to clean up after baking, and didn’t realise B even had meetings because they never told them! So A agrees to make sure to clean up each time, and takes personal responsibility to set their own reminders (posters, self-written sticky note, chore chart, habit tracking app, scheduling app, timer, etc etc).
You should also take this time to explain your own limitations and needs to both of them. Again, in neutral, non-judgemental language (so many resources out there to give you solid examples of wording). Make it clear it isn’t an attack on anybody, but it’s just some incompatibilities rubbing up against each other. Raise the suggestion/request that everybody (even if you aren’t at fault for something, it can help to keep these meetings running smoothly if some participants are very sensitive or quick to temper) communicate directly with the person they have an issue with. Since your BF is as much a tenant as you are, there’s no reason to be going through you aside from them both just outsourcing conflict unfairly (but maybe don’t word it like that lol).
Setting a scheduled weekly/fortnightly/monthly house meeting can really help with that too. Then there is guaranteed space for any grievances to be aired and worked out, so it isn’t left up in the air if things will ever resolve, which can add to frustrations. And if something is more urgent in the meantime, hopefully if they both know how much of a negative effect it has on you to triangulate through you, they will do their best to speak to each other civilly.