Dear Prudence,
My partner and I are both in our fifties. I was divorced and never had kids, while my partner was a single mom of three for most of her life. It has been an adjustment coming to live together and learning to navigate each other’s space. The one place I am not willing to compromise is the privacy of our bedroom. It is an adult space for adults, but her grandchildren have zero respect for that fact, and the situation is getting very uncomfortable.
They barge in without knocking, will climb into our clean sheets with their dirty shoes or dump their crumbs, and worse, demand to sleep with Grandma rather than stay in their own beds. We already put bunk beds in one room so all four grandchildren have a bed of their own when they visit (we have them most weekends). It is a constant clash with my partner because she will agree with me and turn around to allow her grandchildren in.
We both still work and I am tired of getting zero sleep on the weekends and going into the office a zombie. The youngest is 6 and the oldest is 11. They are all too old to act like this and frankly, it makes me extremely uncomfortable to have minor children coming into my bed at night. The last time, I told my partner to go and sleep in the unused bunk bed because her grandson hadn’t come that time. She did, but we had a fight later because she didn’t get any sleep as the bunk bed was uncomfortable. I said I had already made more than enough compromises with letting her kids dump their kids on us nearly every weekend. Having actual privacy and personal space in our bedroom is my line in the sand. We are still fighting about this. I don’t think I am being unreasonable about this. I love her, but I need my rest.