Relation using our home as a commuting crash pad.

Grumpypoo

duchy wrote: »

I'm wondering if part of this is that she is "trapped" as the single adult daughter expected to care for her aging parents as a duty and there is an expectation that she should be a carer and the only way to survive financially -as well as to maintain her career is this punishing (on all of you) routine ?

On a more practical basis- sort out the spare room -put a TV in there as well as a bed so it is clear she is expected to use it as a living room as well as sleep in there.

I think you are right about the adult carer role bit. It is quite sad. see the post above re the spare room.

Grumpypoo

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Yes I was confused by this as well and I notice the Op has not answered this question.

After we get home, make dinner and put the little one to bed it is normally around 9.30. If we are watching a show it is normally between 10-11pm. The first time we watched it with her it was so awkward my husband and I have both decided not to have it on when she is around. As we know what time she is coming (around 10 -10.30)we don't want to watch half an episode so just did not bother putting it on. Some of the times she has been home all day and I feel emotionally drained having someone else in the house that I go to bed around 10.

Grumpypoo

seven-day-weekend wrote: »

Grumpypoo wrote: »

I still don't understand why you cannot do as you wish in your own home. So what if the stepmother does get to know and complain? It's none of her business. Just ignore her.

As for your 'visitor', you are going to have to be brave and tell her what you expect from her, whatever that may be.

that was meant to say tattoo - not ratio! autocorrect. lol

lazer

Grumpypoo wrote: »

As I said, I did not have a student grant or loan. Hindsight is great. I was 17 and decided to do law degree at a reasonable university and got a 2.1 in the end. I thought I would earn loadsa money and pay everyone back; I am a manager at a call centre. I realised afterwards a large percentage will never get a training contract to practice as a solicitor as hundreds and hundreds of graduates are churned out, more than ever would be able to get a law job. My parents paid my tuition and everything else I had to cover myself. I was working as a waitress part time earning around £4/hr at the time and working twenty hours a week. This gave me £100 a week to live on. I had to pay for a bus pass, about £20, photocopier & printer cards at uni, £5 - food, textbooks, clothes entertainment. To rent a room of my own would have been at least £50 per week. I would not have been able to work more hours to cover that and also pass my course.

I had a student loan when i was at Uni, and that was it, but I rented my own rooms.

Student loand was something like £3,700 for the year, so £71 a week, and i survived and came out of it without Debt.

I had a saturday job paying £20 and worked all summer too, and theat paid of any debt i built up during the year.

Looking back I don't know how, but managed to have money for going out drinking too!

I think you owe your cousin big time for the support she gave you, but i also know what is it like to have someone "intruding", and it's not eay but you have to grin and bear it.

Perhaps be nice to her, help her sort her life out as she doesn't sound as if she has much time or money for fun.

hazyjo

I would not be setting up a room for her as that makes it kind of permanent. It might inconvenience you having her in the lounge, but I'd rather that so she feels she's in the way a bit. Once you put her in a room, there'll be no getting rid...

Jx

Brighton_belle

Grumpypoo, don't think you need to justify decisions you took at 17 - you were only 17 and your parents had left you alone in this country. Other's hindsight is a wonderful thing, but you did the best you could within the family you had been brought up in. You older relative made her choices to have you too.
I can assure you that at 17, I would have been clutching at any port in a storm too, especially one that I was probably expected to take by family.
It is very hard to get my head round a middle aged woman just turning up with a bag and practically moving in with no conversation about it. However,I do understand there is a cultural expectation element in this situation.
What I have no idea/any experience of is where is the line between cultural norms and thoughtless behaviour.

Grumpypoo

lazer wrote: »

I had a student loan when i was at Uni, and that was it, but I rented my own rooms.

Student loand was something like £3,700 for the year, so £71 a week, and i survived and came out of it without Debt.

I had a saturday job paying £20 and worked all summer too, and theat paid of any debt i built up during the year.

Looking back I don't know how, but managed to have money for going out drinking too!

I think you owe your cousin big time for the support she gave you, but i also know what is it like to have someone "intruding", and it's not eay but you have to grin and bear it.

Perhaps be nice to her, help her sort her life out as she doesn't sound as if she has much time or money for fun.

I agree that I owe my mums cousin a lifelong debt. As I said I got no student loan. I would be very interested to see how you split £71 between rent, clothes, food, transport, books and entertainment. Over summer I took unpaid internship s which again with hindsight were a waste of time.

dktreesea

Grumpypoo wrote: »

Because the train journey is two hours each way, and then factor in bus times and waiting times and it is easily six hours in transit.

That's probably describing the work travelling times of half of the people in Kent who work in London.

dktreesea

Just my experience, but people who grow up in large extended families often don't like living alone. It's hard, coming home to an empty house, when you are used to living with other people. I would hate the minutiae of my day to day private life being reported back to the wider family, but your cousin sounds lonely.

She probably doesn't want to leave her dad, but in a way her sibling who is now over the other side of the world got it right; she's away from having to meet her family obligations.

Doesn't she have one of her own brothers or sisters she could crash with when she needs a place to stay? There is such a thing, you know, as being too accommodating. Even in the Chinese culture.

lazer

Grumpypoo wrote: »

I agree that I owe my mums cousin a lifelong debt. As I said I got no student loan. I would be very interested to see how you split £71 between rent, clothes, food, transport, books and entertainment. Over summer I took unpaid internship s which again with hindsight were a waste of time.

From memory, the first year i was in catered halls (but only dinner) - and the rent was probably around £55 a week, transport was zero - walking distance to uni, so £16 left which i suppose paid for the rest of the food and books and my mobile phone.
As i said i also worked saturdays and got £20 and that was my entertainment money for the week.
Clothes - didn't buy many, and what i did buy was either second hand or from primark.
Books - same, looked for second hand, our uni had a second hand book shop, and i sold my first year books in second year, sold my second year books in third year etc.

Second year - lived in a dive of a house with 7 others rent was £155 a month, plus bills.

Third year - bit nicer of a house, but still not great, was £175 a month, plus bills

Somehow I also managed to afford a holiday to Gran Canaria is 3rd year.

I had great aunts who gave me £100 for Christmas and for my birthday - this provided a bit extra entertianment/holiday money.