Title: I’m dreading the prospect of a summer houseguest, but I feel like I can’t say no.

Source: Captain Awkward

I am not the original poster

Original Post: Apr 24, 2014

Dear Captain,

I have a dilemma. I’ve been having a terrible year in 2014 (and 2013 was pretty shit also!) My husband and I have been having a rocky year in our marriage, I have just started an antidepressant to deal with my ongoing and dangerous depression, we have a $25,000 fee to pay to our condo I still don’t know how we’ll finance, and I have been balancing full-time work and full-time school schedule for nine months. Basically, I’m tired to the bone physically and emotionally.

My husband, Jack, and I are currently in the process of going through some counseling and things on that front seem positive and hopeful. The problem is, he recently asked me if his brother can come stay with us from June to August to work in our town. Jack’s brother, Bill*, along with the rest of his family members, live in a faraway province with little economic action. We live in a booming economy with many jobs, especially in Bill’s area of interest.

I had not been planning to take any courses over the summer and was looking forward to some rare downtime and the chance to recover and feel like myself again. With an air mattress in the basement serving as a “spare room” and only one shower, living area and kitchen, it’s inevitable that Bill would end up encroaching on our space. Although he’s in college now he’s still a teenager, so I’m also concerned about his cleaning ability or lack thereof. Plus, frankly, I just don’t want to deal with a houseguest for the whole summer!

Jack misses his family a great deal. This would be a great chance for him to catch up with his brother and bond, to say nothing of the opportunity for Bill to build work experience in his field. I can’t help but feel like the bad guy if I say no, but I’m already mourning my lost, private summer full of reconnecting with Jack and having plenty of alone time. Should I kibosh the trip and live with the guilt? Say yes and quietly resent every moment? PLEASE SEND HELP.

Yours, Houseguest versus Hag

Note: You can read the reply at the link above.

Update #1: Jan 5, 2017 (~3 years later)

Thank you Captain! LW #564 here. You advised me to have my husband manage some of the tasks and stress associated with a houseguest and looming financial burden. Well, the houseguest did not arrive after all (not due to me, he just decided not to come out). But there’s more good news – reading that list made me realize, on a level where I KIND OF suspected but now REALLY KNEW, that my husband was never going to support me on that level. His favourite thing to do was find fault with me, unless I was being The Cool Wife Who Never Complains (and sometimes even then!) He expected me to achieve his dreams for him at the expense of mine, which would have included figuring out how to move him to a more exotic country while also making sure he never felt the pain of a $25K condo bill.

I ditched him that August, and 2+ years on I’ve never been happier and more self-confident. I have a loving partner who raises me up. I have my own business. I’ve achieved so many of my dreams and proved to myself I wasn’t holding him back from his dreams like he thought – he was holding ME back.

So thank you for everything you do here. This site has been a big part of my healing since I left and built myself up again – and was definitely part of me seeing the problem for what it was in the first place.

Update #2: Jan 5, 2017 (same day ~12 hours later)

I wrote the letter about dreading a summer houseguest (and left an update in the 6th birthday post, but I thought I’d write a better one here.) [OP linked original post]

Feeling like I couldn’t say no turned out to be a recurring theme in my marriage, and though I was very good at rationalizing it, the root cause was actually that my husband expected me to make his life happen for him. Whatever that meant to him at the moment.

For example, he wanted to live as an expat in another country, but he blew off work all the time and spent all his money. Hard to travel without money, right? But the reason we couldn’t go was because of my job and my schoolwork, obviously.

He wanted to be travel guide and have fun all day for a living, but he never found anything local to get experience or settled on a definite where/when to work toward. But the reason this wasn’t going to happen for him is because he was stuck here making money to pay for our house which I wanted. (Spoiler alert: it wasn’t just me!)

He wanted to have sex with other people behind my back because I “never wanted to do it”, but always had an excuse whenever I wanted to be intimate.

He wanted a better job, but he wouldn’t spend time working his way up or go to school to improve his skills. When I went to school (while working full-time) he made all kinds of pouty faces about how long it would take and how it was stopping us from leaving the country.

Can you imagine why I didn’t want to chuck in my life to move to New Zealand so my husband could be a tour guide and I could (??? What I would do was never discussed.)

When Captain suggested I let him take the lead on the $25K condo fee, so I could get a break, I knew instinctively I could not trust him to do that, to take care of me in a meaningful way. He could bring me tea, but only if he could use it as evidence of His Saintly Goodness later. His idea of financial decisions was getting $4,000 into payday loan debt without telling me and then coming to me to pay it off.

Btw, I said no to the payday loans and told him to figure it out, and that was the beginning of the end. He bummed it off an uncle and aunt who thought I was the devil for not saving him from his foolish choices. Then he spent the summer in the basement, getting high and watching TV, while I was the loneliest I have ever been.

And so, I left him. It was hard – I was unemployed at the time and had no guarantee of work, thought I was interviewing. I had to drain my savings and credit to pay 3 months rent in advance on a new place, figure out renting my former home, move, and cross my fingers I would find a new job before I ran against my credit limit.

He went back home to his mother at age 30 and knocked up a girl he’d known for three weeks. He’s never gone anywhere since. The uncle and aunt who loaned him the money have never seen a penny and no longer speak to him.

I found a partner who loves me as I am and raises me up, started my own successful business, travelled to Europe and got a great apartment with a view. I’ve never been happier.

Divorce is final in a couple months. 🙂

Reminder, I am not the OOP. This is a repost community

Do not comment on any linked posts or try to reach out to the OOP!