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Help, my is house is turning into a free in-law B&B!

1
Ever since we moved away from my husband’s (very large) family, and bought a house with a spare room, we have had an onslaught of ‘guests’ stay in our home, ranging from just the 1 night to a week!

Although I love my in-laws, I enjoy their company, and love them spending time with my husband (who misses them dearly) and children, I find the whole process extremely stressful and exhausting. And my husband refuses to agree! This might be the fact that they are his family…. And the fact he has no preparation to do (cleaning, changing beds, food

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shopping etc) and his life does not change in any way. In fact, he is never actually around very much, and leaves me to ‘entertain’. If I’m totally honest, I think he has got the right idea – stay out of the way! The problem is, it looks rude if we are both out of the way, and being off on maternity leave means it isn’t so easy to escape!

My guests are usually all happy to help themselves, and are no bother at all, but it is more the effect it has on us as a family.

Tiredness – not only do we end up staying up late, socialising with

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our guests, but we end up getting up early because you a) are awoken by flushing toilets, footsteps or the sound of the kettle downstairs, or b) don’t feel like you can really stay in bed dozing whilst everyone else is downstairs using your kitchen as a café!
Routine – Routine goes to pot including your cleaning, general house organisation/tidy up, food shopping, washing, cooking etc. Everything builds up so that when they leave, you have 3 times the amount of work to do which is extra exhausting.
Space – Space to sit in silence, check your
SelfishMother.com
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emails, speak on the phone to friends. Space to just have a 1:1 chat with your husband or children or even shout/argue when things get a little fraught. There is no escape, or if there is, you feel like you are being rude by leaving them to entertain themselves. We currently have an 8 month old who is still establishing his bedtime routine. Guests disrupt this, as baby has to stay in our room and everytime he starts to murmur I rush to soothe him to try and not wake the whole household. This gets him into bad habits and ruins all the good work we put
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in.
Money – Everytime we have guests to stay it costs us an absolute fortune. I tend to be organised and do a big supermarket shop, getting in all the treats, and things I know they like to have, or what they have for breakfast. We always either go out for dinner or get a take away one night to ‘take the pressure off’ as my husband calls it, which undoubtedly we end up paying for (as they are our guests).
Time – Your own time goes out of the window, and you are totally dedicated to them for that period. My poor friends and family get
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sidelined, and I disappear off the face of the earth! You lose any time to yourself, to re group, sit, or do what you want to do. This time was so precious to me when I first had my babies, but was totally invaded by visitors. I won’t ever get it back and although I loved people coming to meet our new brood, it was all too much with a newborn. I still get little digs from one set of grandparents that we put off coming for 3 days after baby no.1 was born. They thought it was perfectly fine to staying in our home on the day we brought baby home. I think
SelfishMother.com
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not!

I write this on the eve of our 4th weekend of in laws staying (including 1 full week) which my husband conveniently agreed to with no perception of how hard this might be for us all. I am utterly exhausted, and fed up of not having the house to ourselves, and having to spend our quality time together as a family, finding endless things to do to try and make their stay the best possible. All I want to do is have a quiet lie in with my family, make myself (and not the extended family) a cup of tea, and do exactly what I want to do. Unfortunately

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that’s not going to happen. Where ever we live, we will always have guests come to stay because our families live 3 1/2 hours away and I guess I should be grateful that people make the effort. Although some use it as their holiday, most do genuinely want to see us and spend time with us. I just wish they would consider spacing it out a bit more, and maybe not staying quite so long perhaps, because quite frankly, I feel like a free B&B, and a tourist guide and I’m not sure this is what I signed up for!
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- 29 Apr 17

Ever since we moved away from my husband’s (very large) family, and bought a house with a spare room, we have had an onslaught of ‘guests’ stay in our home, ranging from just the 1 night to a week!

Although I love my in-laws, I enjoy their company, and love them spending time with my husband (who misses them dearly) and children, I find the whole process extremely stressful and exhausting. And my husband refuses to agree! This might be the fact that they are his family…. And the fact he has no preparation to do (cleaning, changing beds, food shopping etc) and his life does not change in any way. In fact, he is never actually around very much, and leaves me to ‘entertain’. If I’m totally honest, I think he has got the right idea – stay out of the way! The problem is, it looks rude if we are both out of the way, and being off on maternity leave means it isn’t so easy to escape!

My guests are usually all happy to help themselves, and are no bother at all, but it is more the effect it has on us as a family.

  1. Tiredness – not only do we end up staying up late, socialising with our guests, but we end up getting up early because you a) are awoken by flushing toilets, footsteps or the sound of the kettle downstairs, or b) don’t feel like you can really stay in bed dozing whilst everyone else is downstairs using your kitchen as a café!
  2. Routine – Routine goes to pot including your cleaning, general house organisation/tidy up, food shopping, washing, cooking etc. Everything builds up so that when they leave, you have 3 times the amount of work to do which is extra exhausting.
  3. Space – Space to sit in silence, check your emails, speak on the phone to friends. Space to just have a 1:1 chat with your husband or children or even shout/argue when things get a little fraught. There is no escape, or if there is, you feel like you are being rude by leaving them to entertain themselves. We currently have an 8 month old who is still establishing his bedtime routine. Guests disrupt this, as baby has to stay in our room and everytime he starts to murmur I rush to soothe him to try and not wake the whole household. This gets him into bad habits and ruins all the good work we put in.
  4. Money – Everytime we have guests to stay it costs us an absolute fortune. I tend to be organised and do a big supermarket shop, getting in all the treats, and things I know they like to have, or what they have for breakfast. We always either go out for dinner or get a take away one night to ‘take the pressure off’ as my husband calls it, which undoubtedly we end up paying for (as they are our guests).
  5. Time – Your own time goes out of the window, and you are totally dedicated to them for that period. My poor friends and family get sidelined, and I disappear off the face of the earth! You lose any time to yourself, to re group, sit, or do what you want to do. This time was so precious to me when I first had my babies, but was totally invaded by visitors. I won’t ever get it back and although I loved people coming to meet our new brood, it was all too much with a newborn. I still get little digs from one set of grandparents that we put off coming for 3 days after baby no.1 was born. They thought it was perfectly fine to staying in our home on the day we brought baby home. I think not!

I write this on the eve of our 4th weekend of in laws staying (including 1 full week) which my husband conveniently agreed to with no perception of how hard this might be for us all. I am utterly exhausted, and fed up of not having the house to ourselves, and having to spend our quality time together as a family, finding endless things to do to try and make their stay the best possible. All I want to do is have a quiet lie in with my family, make myself (and not the extended family) a cup of tea, and do exactly what I want to do. Unfortunately that’s not going to happen. Where ever we live, we will always have guests come to stay because our families live 3 1/2 hours away and I guess I should be grateful that people make the effort. Although some use it as their holiday, most do genuinely want to see us and spend time with us. I just wish they would consider spacing it out a bit more, and maybe not staying quite so long perhaps, because quite frankly, I feel like a free B&B, and a tourist guide and I’m not sure this is what I signed up for!

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