A friend staying at our place for 2 weeks

stoneybrokethatsme

We have a rather wealthy but very tight-fisted friend with a tendency to 'help himself' to fridge/cupboard contents on visits. We dealt with it by allocating him a space in the fridge/freezer etc to store his own food, just as we gave him space in the house and bathroom to store his own items.

Both my husband and I have completely separate finances and fridge shelves etc so there was nothing awkward about this arrangement and it worked well. After 2 years of him helping himself to whatever he fancied, when he fancied with no thought or consideration given to the expense, he got into the habit of arriving with a bag of supermarket supplies decanted into the fridge/freezer etc on arrival and worked his way through these - an arrangement which worked perfectly for all of us.

Gloomendoom

stoneybrokethatsme wrote: »

Both my husband and I have completely separate finances and fridge shelves etc so there was nothing awkward about this arrangement and it worked well.

Call me nosey, but why do you and your husband have separate fridge shelves?

This_Year

LouLou wrote: »

That's the thing, he does have his own place, and is in his 40s, but prefers the city life. He's still not talking to me today either

Sorry to hear that he's a sulker. Not easy to deal with, in fact bloody immature and selfish. Don't be chasing after him, he sounds like he's doing it for the attention and making you fret as you've annoyed him by asking a perfectly reasonable request! Hope you get this resolved (if that's what you want)

LouLou

Thanks, ThisYear, that's how I feel too. He blames his Addison's for walking away from heightened situations (this really wasn't one, it was more a, I want you to hear my point of view, calm, sort of conversation).

But what I'm worrying about is that he uses it as a way not to face up to criticism. Or is he genuinely safeguarding his health?

He's still silent, so I'm starting to doubt my own feelings and think, Maybe I've done or said something really out of order. But that is how emotional abuse starts, isn't it. We'll see what happens.

paulineb_2

justme111 wrote: »

I see, tayforth , By any chance anyone can get upset with statement that Sun rises on east ? Phew , can do that then at least. accent from glasgo can be difficult to understand , specially for foreigner ? Whoops better keep my mouth shut , may offend Scottish , glaswegean , foreigners and surely will be told off. Yes its already happened a few times when you classed my posts as inappropriate and tell me (!) not to continue with them. You can do search or believe my.word , I am not going to do search for you, sorry.
I am bemused at how you can not see the statement about a nation using can word is far milder that your statement directed personally to me telling me what to do and whether my posts are right or not , its the epitome of rudness in my world and in many other's I am sure.

Im sure the Glasgow accent can be difficult to understand. Im not Glaswegian, although I was born there and I live about 15 miles from there. It doesnt offend me, Scottish people can speak quickly, but Ive travelled a fair bit and I can say no one has had much problem understanding me, Ive had people from London who understand me less than people from other countries.

Im quite politely spoken and I dont have the broadest accent, but to someone who isnt Scottish I probably sound like rab c nesbitt.

To be honest, many people can be blunt, but I think that sometimes when there are cultural differences people might sound a bit more abrupt than they mean to be, or even a bit more direct.

Some people are just tactless full stop, nothing to do with where they are from.

paulineb_2

LouLou wrote: »

Thanks, ThisYear, that's how I feel too. He blames his Addison's for walking away from heightened situations (this really wasn't one, it was more a, I want you to hear my point of view, calm, sort of conversation).

But what I'm worrying about is that he uses it as a way not to face up to criticism. Or is he genuinely safeguarding his health?

He's still silent, so I'm starting to doubt my own feelings and think, Maybe I've done or said something really out of order. But that is how emotional abuse starts, isn't it. We'll see what happens.

I can see both yours and your partners point of view to be honest. Im not sure I would like someone waltzing into my space and using my tumble dryer (if I had one), or calling a mobile from my landline. But on the flip side of that, when I was seeing someone last year and he travelled a long time to see me, I paid for the majority of things when he was here, as I saw it, he was my guest.

And I appreciate if you are in a fairly settled relationship you might not do that, but sometimes people dont mean to use things, they just think its ok and if he likes being with you, then perhaps some compromise would be ok, such as, if you are here for a week or two, then you pay me a few quid, enough to cover using the dryer, using the phone, your food, so you arent out of pocket

I wouldnt particularly want to be told off for something, but then I probably wouldnt assume I could do something without checking stuff either.

As for him not speaking just now, it doesnt necessarily need to be emotional abuse, perhaps he just doesnt want a row and wants the dust to settle before you talk about things

Ive been living on my own a long time so I absolutely understand where you are coming from re your home being your own space, but hopefully you can meet in the middle somewhere and sort things out.

And if you cant, well you cant and at least you tried.

LouLou

Perhaps "told off" (about using things such as the tumble drier, landline-mobile calls) isn't really the best way of putting it, it would just be a comment, I'm not a shouty, angry person and try to treat people with understanding.

With his upping and walking, unfortunately, he's done it a few times now. He walked out of my sister's house a few months back after she said "Don't say things about my boyfriend". He was criticising something minor her partner had done, and kept going on about it.

The way I saw it, boyf was being rude. It was his first time meeting my sister's partner, and the second time he'd met my sister (my sis loved him when they first met)!

My sister was trying to get him to change the subject, but he upped and offed (in an area he had no idea about) out the house. To me, it looked like provoking me to chase him, and I didn't think I should, so I stayed on.

Sis was astonished as she definitely wasn't baiting him and she was a bit worried about him getting lost. Not long after I got a deluge of texts, some rather morose ones, more or less saying I should come to get him. Eventually I got up and left, but I felt quite annoyed about the whole thing.

He's decided now he doesn't like the my sister's partner, insists we don't know what went on in the kitchen (they were chatting in there for ages) and that night was calling my sister a "c***" which made me feel terrible, she doesn't deserve that. My sister when she goes stratospheric really is something, and she wasn't. Totally out of order and even though he calmed down, he insists she should apologise.

No doubt there's something that triggers this OTT response (he does worry about an Addisonian Crisis) but situations like that could easily be smoothed over, but to outsiders just sounds like carte blanche to do as he pleases, with no responsibility for it.

It's not an excuse, but at that point he was recovering from a mouth cancer operation and he implies that Addison's sufferers have a tougher time regulating their health after surgery (he had a few cans of lager, and I assume, was on antibiotics for his mouth, and on extra steroids). Also, post-op, he just walked out the hospital, about 100 miles away, said they weren't looking after him properly, and phoned me unexpectedly, expecting me to put him up where I live!! Bear in mind we had only been seeing each other about two months by that point.

To be honest, I wonder if he's just "using" me for the convenience of living in the city and paying for most things: but he does spend most of his time with me (his choice) and says he enjoys being around me. For the most part, I do too. I just wonder why he jumped in so quickly.

Obviously MSErs can't answer that without a crystal ball..it takes time to work out what's really happening in a relationship.

justme111

duchy wrote: »

Oh dear - Of course British people are never rude are they.
Getting quite uncomfortable about the underlying racism from a couple of posters in this thread. People are people - some of the rudest and most ignorant people I've met are British - and some of the most polite are from European countries other than Britain ......and a general mix of both between-nothing to do with race at

Where have I said British are never rude - after all I guess tayforth who called me troll and another forumite who made an effort to google the typo I made and try to make fun of it are British.
You are uncomfortable with what you see as a rasism , I am uncomfortable with what I see as a lie, each to their own.
Indeed people are people , we all have red blood and the same basic instincts. There are certain cultural , historical , sociological differences though which is useful to keep in mind when discussing people of a particular etnic origin.
For example as a common trait of british I would have mentioned reluctance to call a spade a spade . .

justme111

Lou Lou , I am afraid it sounds as if you were to cater and compensate for his issues . Major health issues. Plus apart from those some psychological ones. What does he bring to the table ? Apart from company as that one cuts both way.
Sorry if it sounds offensive but mouth cancer and some lager after don't sound as someone who is well placed in this world

LouLou

justme111 wrote: »

Lou Lou , I am afraid it sounds as if you were to cater and compensate for his issues . Major health issues. Plus apart from those some psychological ones. What does he bring to the table ? Apart from company as that one cuts both way.
Sorry if it sounds offensive but mouth cancer and some lager after don't sound as someone who is well placed in this world

The drinking lager at my sister's was maybe a week after his mouth cancer op, but he did pick up a few cans, to my astonishment, after he got off the bus from the hospital to my city, a three-hour journey (after walking out of the hospital; he said the nurses weren't monitoring or caring for his Addisons and Diabetes properly. If I recall right the op was the night before. I have read evidence of Addison's sufferers having problems with the NHS re aftercare; additional Diabetes complicates things further). He said he was so super-stressed he needed something and was very wobbly when he got to the bus station.

He's not a heavy drinker, honestly, but sigh, yes, it does feel as though I've got to go along with his wishes or he throws a strop. Most of the time we're together we're drinking nothing more than caffeine!

I don't understand Addison's at all, so working out whether it's convenient for him to walk, or is it to manipulate me, or it is a genuine fear from him about a Crisis..it's really hard to tell.

This sounds similar to what he has: http://addisons-diabetes.gkznet.com/