A
female
age
41-50,
anonymous
writes:I broke up with my partner and live alone. I am not lonely and am enjoying my freedom. I work a lot of week ends. Since I have been single I have had strong suggestions from close family and friends for them to come and stay, with diaries open and commitments suggested. I find this too much as if ever I visit them I book into a guest house and they have never offered to put me up. Its not because they are concerned, its because it's summer holidays and they have children or free time and I live in a tourist area.How can I get round this without causing offence?
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female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 May 2015): When I was considering moving closer to where my brother who lives in a popular tourist state he gave me some words of wisdom.
Get a very small condo or townhome. One bedroom and one bathroom because relatives and friends will want you to become their tourist guide and horn in on your living quarters. In that way you can tell them you have no space and for them to book in hotels or B&B's. Let them know you won't be their driver to get around town as you have other plans.
Honesty is the best. Be upfront and tell them. Set the boundaries up right away or they will walk all over you and expect you to bend over every time they want to visit.
A
female
reader, eyeswideopen  +, writes (7 May 2015):
 Oh Cindy, you loquacious Auntie you, lol
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A
female
reader, CindyCares  +, writes (7 May 2015):
 @EyesWideOpen. NC ? On the beach...? Yes, but , you know how I talk, EWO, I talk " difficult ", they would not understand me in NC... I need to stay at yours ! Pretty please ? Lol.
Sorry, OP, little inside joke.
OP, I feel your pain, I do. I can't keep an FB account because of that. I used to live smack in the middle of Manhattan, and at some point it seemed that I was related to all the 60 millions of Italians because they all wanted to come and visit cousin Cindy. Then , moved back to Italy in a famous touristic city... and we had incoming traffic from the other side of the pond.
Ar first , I was a total wuss in that; most of the times I let them come, because, yes it was exhausting and expensive to have guests over often; then again, for a new expat it is also sort of nice, it has its good sides. Then, like I said, generally I kept a low profile - no social media, very buttoned up about my whereabouts,vague about my plans. When my son got older , I blamed it all on him, poor son :). I said that he is not a very social person, needs lots of space and privacy ( sort of true ) . And also often he had college mates over for long hours , or days at a time, to study and I did not want to disturb their concentration
( true ).
But, in lack of a third person to blame, Honeypie's and EWO's method is excellent : honest and effective. SOME people is bound to take offence, OP, but some times, there's no way around it, you've got to choose between giving offense or defending your sanity .
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A
female
reader, eyeswideopen +, writes (7 May 2015):
I live at the beach in North Carolina and as soon as I moved here my popularity soared. Friends and relatives started coming out of the woodwork. I have had to really put my foot down with some of them. I did exactly what Honeypie suggested, I had a list of all sorts of hotels and motels in the area with all kinds of price ranges. I made a few plans with the visitors but didn't plan their entire itinerary. Some people will take a mile if you give them an inch.
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A
female
reader, Honeypie +, writes (7 May 2015):
 I would find some NICE (but affordable) B&B, hotels in the areas and pass along the details whenever they ask.
I'd politely "ignore" the HINTS, unless they request staying WITH you, then I would just be honest and tell them you don't have room or whatever.
I have had family (cousins), friends and friends of friends stay with me ( I had a 2 bedroom house) and honestly it was at times annoying, because you felt like you had to entertain them, make sure they had food and they had access to your house. Which was not something I was keen on. BUT ALL of them have done the same for me in return at one point or another.
I guess it comes down to WHY you don't want them stay with you. And then you just HAVE to be honest.
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A
female
reader, anonymous, writes (7 May 2015): Your family are being extremely inconsiderate and this need to be nipped in the bud as soon as possible or it will run on and on. For some reason, families seem to feel entitled to do this particularly if there is no MAN in the house and if there is just a woman alone, or a woman with her children. They tend to think she will be a softer touch if alone.I had a similar situation with my mother and two sisters.I live in London and they all live in small towns in the city.They would each tell me that they were coming to stay with me - not ask, TELL - especially my mother. My mother and elder sister were the worst. My mother would stay sometimes three weeks at a time, offering no money to help pay for food and not suggesting ANYTHING to do, just waiting to be shown around the city and made dinners every night and taken out. When this used to happen I was a single mum, exhausted pretty much all the time from working full time, usually getting home around 7pm in the evenings after getting up at 6am. My mother had never worked and certainly didn't understand how hard it is to work in a city like London and bring up a kid alone, but she didn't care, she just wanted her free holiday.They would NEVER offer to do the same for me. The unspoken deal was that because I lived in a great city it was my duty to provide them with a free holiday, even though my daughter and I lived in a small flat. And the idea (never discussed) was that because where they lived was basically boring then I shouldn't stay with them and they shouldn't have to make any effort. When I did go and visit them they made absolutely no effort whatsoever to make me feel welcome, just expecting me to sit around with my daughter whilst they carried on as normal. The disparity between what they expected of me and what they gave in return was absolutely shocking.Trying to say to them that they should ask rather than tell me they were coming was like talking to a cat. They simply didn't get it, and reacted extremely immaturely to me trying to assert myself in any normal way.In the end I once said to my Mum that I was busy when she wanted to come and stay - I genuinely was, I was applying for a masters degree and needed every spare minute to research for and submit my application. She later brought this up in the most childish and sarcastic way possible in an argument, using it as a put down, like a spoiled child would.The thing that made this even worse is that my mother was totally overwhelming to be with and my daughter agrees with this. She would talk in a loud, penetrating voice non-stop all day every day from morning to night and was totally insensitive to those around her and dirty and chaotic to be with. She ran on this manic energy that was absolutely overwhelming and so invasive. I bent over backwards trying to please her and my sisters, but it was all just taken for granted.My elder sister has suffered mental illness since her adolescent years and would turn up sometimes with my mother - she seemed to think that because my mother was staying with me in our tiny flat, then it was a good idea for her to come along aswell. This was absolute hell. Other times she would turn up unannounced, in a terrible state and forcing me to put my whole life on hold, emotionally blackmailing me by saying things like if I didn't want her there I should call the police and they would take her away.One time she arrived and she literally followed me, three feet behind me, for the entirety of her stay, even walking down the streets like this, after I'd been at work all day and with my daughter to look after. My younger sister would also come and stay and expect a whole holiday with outings to be arranged for her but when I would go and visit my mother near to where she lived, she wouldn't even bother to drive over to see me or my daughter. She never once bought my daughter a birthday or Christmas present and neither did my elder sister. In our family when we were young children it had been customary for the older members to give a small amount of money to the children after a visit, just as a kind gesture - the last straw came for me when my mother arrived with my Dad's elderly cousin and they stayed a weekend, again expecting me to arrange food and outings and then they left, neither of them giving even a tiny gift to my daughter who was about nine years old at the time. Somehow this really got to me because my Mum and Dad's cousin both knew the custom in our family and my daughter had been ignored all weekend.I really feel my Mother and sisters felt they could act this way because my father had died and there was a lack of anyone making any rules and also I had separated from my partner and because there was not a man in the house they felt they could simply use me as a free holiday provider. It made me realise how they had walked all over me all my life, never once asking me what I would like or if I minded anything and that they were basically totally unreasonable and selfish people. I finally had enough. The next time that my sister announced she was coming to see me I said "it's polite and normal to ask a host if they would like to be visited or to wait to be invited, not to keep telling me you are coming" And I kept repeating similar messages to my Mum and both sisters. It as incredibly difficult for me to assert myself and they then decided that I was a very "difficult" woman and selfish!! They reacted very, very badly as if it was their right to just turn up whenever they liked. In the end this caused a family fall out, I was demonized after that, and I no longer speak with either sister, my mother is now dead but I know never forgave me.What I would suggest is don't leave it like I did to make ground rules. Assert them straight away. Make sure that your family knows that they are basically using you for a free holiday. If you actually WANT to see them at some time then I suggest YOU suggest the date and length of their visit and say you simply are busy at other times. Send this message out to ALL family members at the same time, so that those who want to stay with you realise amongst themselves that they were each thinking of turning up to stay with you one after another and how unfair this is for you and instead come up with alternatives. Suggest that they discuss with one another how they want to arrange their "HOLIDAY" with you and keep referring to it as a "HOLIDAY". This will make it easier at other times for you to suggest they take their HOLIDAY somewhere other than at your place. The sooner you take the rules and decisions into your own hands the better - it's not at all easy but, if they react badly like my family did, then quite frankly they don't deserve to stay with you and are only using you for a free ride.
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