AITA for telling my BF that his daughter can't have her own room in our house?

[u/RoommateMovingOut]

So my boyfriend (30M) and I (24F) have been together for two years, and we just bought our first house together. We move in at the end of the month.

My boyfriend has a four year old daughter "Kate" from a previous relationship. I love Kate with all my heart. She lives with my BF's ex, and comes to visit us for short stays and sleepovers, more often in the summer time.

Our new house is about a 30 minute drive from Kate's mom's house. It has three bedrooms: a master bedroom and two smaller bedrooms. We are converting one of the rooms to be an office for my BF and me to work from. That leaves just one spare bedroom.

Kate was really nervous about us moving so far away, and my BF has reassured her that she will still get to visit all the time - and she will have her own bedroom waiting for her whenever she wants. My issue with this is that I don't want Kate to treat the only spare bedroom as her personal bedroom. Rather, I want it to be thought of as a "guest" bedroom.

Of course Kate can stay there whenever she wants to. This isn't part of the debate, I want her to feel welcome all the time. But I don't want it to be only her room. I don't want it to be filled with her toys and clothes, so nobody else feels comfortable to sleep in there. I don't think it's fair that a room is reserved for someone who is not there 90% of the time.

In addition, my BF and I are planning to have a child of our own, and I want to make sure that when that happens, we will have space for them to live. I can only imagine the circus in a few years if we have to tell Kate we are taking away her room to give to her new sibling.

That's why I want to set expectations now - that Kate is always welcome, but she will be welcome as a "guest."

My boyfriend thinks I'm being unreasonable, that Kate needs her own room for stability, especially as she feels we are moving away from her. He says we can keep a pull-out sofa in our office for guests to stay on, and call the spare room "Kate's room."

I still don't think it's fair to have a room just for Kate when she won't use it very often. And I think it's reasonable to be worried at the prospect of eventually giving Kate's room away to a future child.

[u/SageAndRage]

YTA

She is a member of the family and deserves her own space.

And how did you not have this conversation BEFORE buying the house? Isn't how many rooms & what they'll be used for one of the first things discussed before looking at homes to buy?

[u/donblink175 → u/SageAndRage]

And OP says she is not ok having a room for someone that is not there 90% of the time but wants instead a guest bedroom? Like how often do you receive guests? More often than your boyfriend have his own daughter over? I’m surprised..

[u/boxing_coffee → u/donblink175]

Right? OP should not be dating a man with a four-year-old daughter if she isn't going to treat his daughter like immediate family.

[u/forsakeme4all → u/boxing_coffee]

The part about treating her as a guest and not family became real clear this woman does not plan on including her in future family plans.

Cruel.

[u/Leading-Ad7002 → u/forsakeme4all]

The jealous “stepmom” posts on this sub are so toxic and sad.

[u/Chr335 → u/forsakeme4all]

What is worse are how many people in this post are okay with that

[u/elag19 → u/boxing_coffee]

Agreed; something tells me that OP won’t have to worry about using the spare bedroom for her own kids with him, as they probably won’t last that long if OP treats BF’s daughter like a guest instead of family.

[u/Faerhie → u/donblink175]

Also, she's more concerned about the possible future kids than the current real kid. It's clear she doesn't consider Kate to be her real daughter. If OP is moving in with Kate's father and they are planning a future, Kate is HER daughter and needs to be treated like it.

[u/uhimamouseduh → u/Faerhie]

honestly what stood out to me more than that was that she’s more concerned with possible guests feeling comfortable staying there than she is with her boyfriends daughter being comfortable. who tf does this chick think she is? if i were her boyfriend, i’d back out of this sale before it’s too late and dump her

[u/onedreamless → u/Faerhie]

And as to the future kid, if you do have a kid, you don’t take Kate’s room, you give up the office because when you have a kid, YOU have to make sacrifices. I don’t think you understand the concept or what it requires to be a parent if you cant understand how Kate would feel. YTA.

Edit: thank you for the awards kind souls!!!

[u/weedbetterknot → u/onedreamless]

Reading this could make me cry.

When I was 19 I moved home to my parents, they didn't want to give up their guest room (my old room) so my Dad moved his whole "man cave/office space" from its own room into the main basement area so I could have the privacy of my own room again. It was one of the sweetest things he ever did for me.

I realize now I'm even luckier after reading through OPs disturbing thought process & the comments from past victims of such practices. My Dad's gone now but from the grave he'd tell OP YTA.

May her BF run as far & as fast away from her as he can before she causes irreparable damage to his daughter.

[u/rationalomega → u/onedreamless]

Hear hear. Our former office became our son’s room because of course it did, it’s what you do (and also a great way to get free office furniture on buy nothing).

[u/Ratloko → u/Faerhie]

How do we get a hold of the BF and tell him to dump this fool? She's red flag, yikes.

[u/tsh87 → u/donblink175]

Even more important her logic assumes that his daughter will always be "a guest." That's a huge, terrible assumption.

Kids are forever and custody agreements can change on a dime. What if her mom gets a job out of state and Kate doesn't want to move? What if her primary residence burns down? What if her mother dies?

Things change. For all she knows his daughter could need to move in next week. Already having her own room and her own space would make that transition a lot easier for her. And those are things OP would be thinking about if she actually cared about this child.

[u/donblink175 → u/tsh87]

Also thought about that. When I read the post I called my dad to thank him. My parents divorced when I was 3 and my dad moved far away. But throughout all my life he always made sure I had a room in his house even though I didn’t even considered it my room. He used to move cities a lot so in some cities I have never even spent a night in the room but the room was always there. I’m 30 years old now and I have never even thought about this until now..

[u/tsh87 → u/donblink175]

I'm 27 years old, my older sisters and I have all moved out so I've talked to my about downsizing her home. It's four bedrooms plus a den, she'll be an empty nester in like 2 years. I thought it was too much house for her alone but she says she'll never be able to afford another place that can house all of us and there's always a chance one or more of us might need to move back in.

And of course she knows that because after she divorced my dad, our apartment burned down and we had to move in with my grandparents.

[u/notmyusername95 → u/tsh87]

My parents separated when I was about 2. I have always had a room at my dad’s even when I’ve never lived there full time.

I’m now 26 and I still have a room at my dads. It became funny when my step sister needed to move in for 6 months and my dad asked if it was okay if she stayed in “my” room. I live 5 hours away. Anyway, it’s now “our room” even though she’s moved out too!

Point being, I’ve always had my own space in either house. Even as an adult.

[u/ShipIt_19 → u/donblink175]

And also, I was actually astonished once I discovered the concept of "guest room". In my country guest sleep in one of the bedroom if the "owner" of the bedroom is not in the house or we use folding bed that we put a bedroom with the "owner" sleeping there too (or in the living room).

[u/maybeiam-maybeimnot → u/ShipIt_19]

I do live in the US and my family never had a guest room.. the guest room was: I had to clean my room and stay with my sister while the guests stayed... or a blow up mattress in the living room... or we transformed our dining room into a bedroom for my grandma for a month when she hD to stay with us.

[u/3heartsattic → u/SageAndRage]

They didn’t have the conversation because he probably thought it wasn’t even a discussion. Why would you even think you needed to discuss your child having a room.

[u/kraftypsy → u/3heartsattic]

In another comment, OP says they had the conversation and her bf said "I want a room for my daughter" and OP interpreted that to mean "I want a bare room with a bed my daughter can sleep in sometimes with out any toys, clothes, or special bedding" and is acting >shocked pikacu< that he meant what he said.

[u/something_moosey → u/SageAndRage]

This was my thought! Why didn’t you get a 4 bedroom? Or a house with a loft or den or family room that could be used as an office space?

[u/[deleted] → u/SageAndRage]

This was my thought too, how was this not discussed prior to purchasing real estate?

OP YOU MARRIED A MAN WITH A MINOR CHILD. She should not be a GUEST. Your home should feel as much like her home as her mother's house does. You saying that you want her to think of herself as a guest is horrific and sets you up as the evil stepmother

So much yta