Dear Prudence,
I raised my two girls in a small, cramped house. Both are adults, but my youngest still lives with me. I finally had enough money to modernize the house. I put in a master bathroom, extended the kitchen, and added an indoor washer and dryer. However, the space of the third bedroom had to be sacrificed. I put in a trundle bed in order to accommodate having a guest room and an office. Now my oldest is upset that when she and her boyfriend visit, they either use the trundle bed to have privacy or sleep on the pull-out couch where I wake them up early when I have to go to work. She accused me of treating the pair of them like “children” and started a fight where she said her sister should give up her room when they visit. My youngest yelled that her sister couldn’t kick her out of her room because she and her boyfriend needed to fuck.
The pair of them always known how to push each other’s buttons, but never as badly as this. My last conversation with my oldest went nowhere. She accused me of siding with her sister and making her feel unwanted. I told her if she needed to move home of course we would rearrange the room, but putting a full-size bedroom would basically take up all of the space. It doesn’t make sense when she is only visiting for a few days. She has stopped speaking to me and rarely answers my texts. I love my daughter, but I am completely exhausted by this. She was happy for me when the renovation started and it wasn’t until she started dating this guy that she has been critical and sharp towards me. What do I do here?
—No Room