They were a bunch of young adults less than 23, i think it’s fine what the parents did. Make it simple, especially no rooms and with young children around. Nothing bizarre about it to me.
“I think it is a little much to hope that a young adult son would think ahead and ask.”
@conmama, do you think your son would feel comfortable bringing this up to you ahead of time - or is he afraid/hesitant to because he knows how you and your husband feel???
You are all so wise and thoughtful. I really was afraid to come with this, as I thought I’d get bashed. I say “old fashioned” because my stance was formulated from my now deceased parents. That was the way they thought, and it past down to me. Many of you are correct when you psycho-analyzed me…lol!
I do think a lot about why I feel about stuff, why I’m rigid in my views. It’s not religious, nor moral as was suggested. Heck, I was practically living with my now DH in college. I don’t care about the sex I’m sure they’ve been sneaking around before.
I do really think part of it is the respect in being asked. I don’t think comparing it to adult friends is the same. These were our children, brought up with our values, and how we did things. Different expectations.
You all really, truly have helped me in the process of lightening up, giving support, telling me it’s Okay to feel the way I do, also. But what keeps pushing me to change my stance is the relationship I had with my father and all his ridiculous rules. Some were so strict, I still think they were stupid.
I’m 60, if I’m lucky, maybe 25 years left. Do I want to be right, or do I want to have happy relationships with my kids. Sometimes you can’t have both. And this might be one of those times.
I have a relative who owns a cottage, if you call a house that sleeps 16 a cottage. My son is the oldest and he lived with his girlfriend now wife. When they visited, my relative asked if they would sleep in different rooms. They have a girls bunk room and a boys bunk room. It was a full house and it was easier to put them in the bunk rooms. My kids were fine with it. My relative felt uneasy about them sharing a room, as my son is the oldest and this was the best solution at that time.
Seriously 2 young people can manage to spend a weekend not sleeping in the same bed. Geez! The world is not going to fall apart.
Everyone is older now and her kids live with significant others. The relatives kids sleep in the same bedroom now. Everyone is older.
Although my relative took her kids on vacation over the Christmas holidays and did not invite the SO who lived with one of the kids. I would not have done that and my kids would not have gone if their SO wasn’t able to come but her rules, she was paying.
@conmama, the first time this happens is that hardest. After that it gets easier. Promise.
I would let my daughter stay with her boyfriend if they visited. They live together but she’s 30 and he’s 31. It’s about time she moved in with her SO. 30 feels different than when she was 23 and 26.
I think you can do what you feel comfortable with. But I will say this. You are not your parents and no one will judge you if you let them stay in the same room.
Over the years, as I’ve changed my stances on many things vs. the mores at the time of my upbringing, I’ve often thought to myself, “Is this “insert thing” really hurting anyone?” Usually the answer is big, fat NO and I come around to no longer giving a crap, thereby relaxing and having more fun. 
We have gone on trips with our kids and their significant others and we have always let them sleep together. I don’t have a problem with it. When my husband and I were dating (we have been married 35 years) my mom had a fit that we wanted to stay in the same room, until she got divorced. Eventually she ended up living with her husband before they got married.
We have had this decision to make as well…We all travelled to a wedding together, I got them a room for the two of them because she was stressed enough about the whole thing and I knew being around her partner would help. We all travelled to family for the holidays, they slept at separate houses because respect the grandparents who would have been sad about anything else. Both times, announced ahead of time.Neither time raised an issue with the couple, they rolled with it.
I think it’s partly how it’s presented. " I will be more comfortable, because of how I was raised, to have you sleep separately. That’s not a judgment on you, it’s just what will make me least anxious" is really different than " over my dead body, my house my rules for you and your immoral life"
You are allowed to feel uneasy, and that’s not passing judgement. If it would spoil your time, that’s a good enough reason for me. They won’t die from it. You might start out that way, feel equally silly about the separate rooms, and then change your mind. It’s not a terrible thing for our adult children to realize we have feelings that matter. And if you change your mind, it’s not terrible to show how that is done, too.
This ship has sailed.
They’re adults who are making their own life decisions. Nothing good will be accomplished by passing judgment on their behaviour and trying to still be the authority figure in your son’s life. It’s time to transition your relationship with him to the next stage.
Or I can refer you to the Scerenity Prayer:
Lord, give me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
The courage to change the things I can,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
Since you asked:
This isn’t a case of bf/gf who are dating. They are living together, which most likely reflects a far more serious relationship.
I personally would feel really weird telling 2 adults who are living together they must suddenly sleep apart because it makes ME uncomfortable. It does come off as a statement of disapproval of their living arrangements.
I would also be thinking about why this makes me uncomfortable. A lot of adults get creeped out by the thought of their kids being sexual beings, even though THEY are sexual beings. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and is a normal part of human development. If it’s a religious based value, nothing to say about that as those kinds of beliefs tend to be resistant to differing opinions.
All that said, you can play the “I own this house” card, you sure can. How that works out for you in the long run will be dependent on a lot of factors. May turn out to be no big deal, or there may be some repercussions that could make you regret insisting they toe the line to your values, which you say were inflicted on you by your father and that you never questioned. A lot of adults do begin to question their family values. It would be the odd duck who just accepted everything their parents told them and never consider if they have different thoughts on any given manner. Clearly YOUR son thought about these values you have about living together before marriage and soundly rejected them. It’s your choice to accept it or not since you have the upper hand in terms of being the home owner.
We went through this with our daughter. I believe how I just described, DH felt the exact opposite, not for any religious or moral values, simply that he was unwilling to accept our 28 year old adult daughter as a sexual partner to another man. It was not based on anything other than that-he just didn’t like it (I think he just couldn’t accept that she had chosen another male and Dad was now second in her priorities). DH certainly was no saint and had no reason to judge our D or her BF, but it didn’t stop him from doing it.
Eventually our D told us she respected our thoughts on the matter, but would in the future be staying at a hotel. She didn’t give an ultimatum, just said I respect you and your house, but I’m pushing 30 and will not be making my SO sleep on the couch. DH didn’t want that, so next time they visited, we told them they would be welcome to take D’s room. Honestly, even now that our D is married to this man, there is still a part of DH that is uncomfortable with it. IMO that reflects his own hangup.
Hope none of this offends-but you did ask the question! No matter how it goes, I hope you all have a wonderful time at your lake house. Ever since COVID, I’ve occasionally regretted selling our place.
That’s certainly true, but so is the opposite. As we found after the first visit where we offered D and her SO a room together, it didn’t kill us either and the world didn’t fall apart as a result of our D sleeping in the same arrangement as she did the other 364 days a year. It was okay.
There was a CC member years ago whom I’ve never forgotten. She did not allow her married daughter to sleep in the same room as her HUSBAND. Her reasoning was that she had an impressionable younger daughter living there (who apparently wasn’t traumatized by the fact that her parents shared a bed). She believed it was disrespectful to this poor young girl’s sensibilities to be presented with the reality that she might also one day be married and share a bed with her husband.
I do try to avoid being judgmental, to accept differences of opinion, etc, but that particular case was just a big head scratcher for me.
^Reminds me of the time my mom told us that their Baptist friends had gone out dancing. She was shocked. “Uh, Mom, they are married, right?”
I’m also going to assume that this couple didn’t move out of state, choose to live together and go on family vacations together without being in love. Those are a lot of steps to take to be together. Time will tell if they stay together forever, but for now, I would not want someone to think I am ashamed of them for loving.
Will you husband give on this issue? Or is he in the “firmly against it” camp?
When my D and her boyfriend were dating but not living together, when they visited I gave them separate rooms. If they wanted to be together obviously I wasn’t going to get involved or say anything–I’m not the hall monitor-- but I provided the default option of separateness. When they started living together, I figured it was pointless and gave them the same room. Now they are engaged so I don’t worry about it.
This might not be a popular opinion. Now that they are independently living ‘adults’, the power scale has shifted, for lack of a better term, and you need to play the long game.
I would be focusing on the comfort of the GF. They are most likely aware of your feelings, don’t make this about you. I would be trying to ensure that she will have a great vacation experience, so she wants to spend free time with you. If they end up married, and having your grand kids, you want to be the easy-going non-judgmental mother in law. You only have boys, this gf could end up controlling your access to both DS and their kids. Heck, if he senses your disapproval, he may not want to come himself.
I think it is hard making the shift from a parent/authority role to relating as adults, when high school and early college relationships go the distance into adulthood and/or marriage. I haven’t done a good job of this with my DS and I have some work to do with his GF.
I also see how low a priority spending time with my mom is for my brother and his family, driven by SIL’s not caring for her. None of us want to be that MIL.
+1 here ^^^ Don’t want to win the battle but lose the “war.”
My son and his GF live together. That’s great. They are adults and that is their decision. No judgement here.
But, my son was also brought up to respect others in their homes. As children, if a friends home had a different rule than we had, they were taught to respect the rules of the home they were in. Same goes for this issue. It has nothing to do with the fact they are living together they just know to respect our home. They were here this past weekend. They were respectful of us. She slept in the bedroom and my son slept on the couch.
No big deal to them and they can live for a few nights not in the same bed. And I respect them in their home. It works for us and they aren’t so childish as to threaten to never visit us again. They love coming here.
^ Well, you obviously are judging them when you have a rule like that. And you are demanding respect in your home, but not showing respect to them as guests.
What I wouldn’t do is stay quiet about it and then have it ruin your vacation. Ask your son what he pictures. You invited them, but you could call him and ask if he expects to share the guest room with gf or if he’s okay with giving her the room and he’ll be in the loft with his brother.
As someone said above, in my family there were just so many of us that no one (couple or not) expected to get their own room. Just people everywhere.
My mother was raised by an aunt. Her aunt was 75 but living in sin with her ‘boyfriend’ because their pensions and SS would be all screwed up if they married. So when they came to visit, the 85 y.o. boyfriend had to share a room with my brother and her aunt got my brother’s single. My mother’s house, her rules.
@sorghum Im glad you think you know me so well!!!
I didn’t ”demand” Respect from them in my home. I raised them to respect others. They didn’t ask nor did they assume. They just respected our home.
And to say I didn’t respect them as guests is quite presumptive I know if you asked them they would tell you that we 100% respected there visit. We all had a great time and they are already planning their next visit. There’s mutual respect in our home and in their home.
I feel bad that so many of you are fearful of losing your relationship with your children over this. Makes me realize just how strong my relationship with my children is.
I’m kind of a child-rearing anarchist, so take this for what it’s worth.
Our sons are 27 (married to college gf) and 30 (newly single after living with gf for six years).
We never really went with a “my house, my rules” philosophy in the first place. When the kids left for school and moved out on their own it evolved to “this house is still one of your homes.” Since we’re fortunate to allow for it space-wise, their rooms are still “theirs” and the logistics of their visits are easy about who stays where – that’s their call. It would be their call even if we were cramped, just harder to find room for everyone.
First time DIL came to visit, younger son (then 19ish) said, briefly, “Hope you meant it when you said I could invite someone to stay. I have a girlfriend and she’s coming. No need to make up a separate room.” His tone was sheepish about spilling it all at once and definitely friendly rather than defensive. Clarity from the get-go. Very comfortable.
When older son and SO came here, I only brought it up before first visit as a quick confirmation (“One bed, your room, right? Or do either of you want anything different?”). Again, early clarity, negative stress.
@conmama I am daily figuring out where my parents’ authoritarian voices belong in my life. Good luck to you wrestling with that.