Dear Abby:Questions About Sleeping Arrangements Arise in Planning a Trip to Vegas

[cereta]

DEAR ABBY: My elderly mother, my daughter, her boyfriend and I are planning a trip to Las Vegas. Because of the costs involved, we are considering sharing a room with two queen beds. The plan would be for me and my mother to share one bed, and my daughter and her boyfriend to share the other.

My wife thinks this is weird -- that my mother and I should share a bed. I explained that it will be a queen bed, and I don't understand why she thinks it is strange. This will save us around $1,000 that a second room would cost. What do you think? -- RALPH IN OHIO

DEAR RALPH: Is saving the money more important to you than privacy, comfort and propriety? Your wife may have been thinking along those lines when she suggested the "boys" sleep with the boys and the "girls" sleep together. Before rendering an opinion, I'd have to know what your daughter, her boyfriend and your mother think about this arrangement, because unless you all agree, it might make more sense to request a cot or bring an air mattress with you.

P.S. If one of you gets lucky in Vegas, maybe you can afford a second room.

Comments

[cereta]

I must be weird, here, because I...was not expecting the objection to be the LW sharing a bed with his mother, and I was not expecting Abby to support the objection. I dunno; I guess because I've shared hotel rooms with everyone from my mother to near-strangers to save money, I can see the pecuniary interest reigning supreme, here. Judging by the comments on the site, I seem to be the odd one, though.

[kaberett]

... yep

[cereta]

Yep I'm odd or yep you also don't see the big deal? ;)

[kaberett]

The latter, naturally :-)

[cereta]

Just checking ;).

[jadelennox]

Whereas I'm the only person in the comments here whose reaction to adults sharing beds with an opposite-sex parent is *squint* ew.

I mean, if it's cool with all the adults in question, sure. But if my partner suggested that, I'd be like, "*squint* okay? you sure you don't want to get a cot?" Which is possibly all the LW's wife suggested; it's unclear.

And Abby's suggestion -- make sure all four adults in question are on the same page -- seems completely reasonable to me, and not even slightly judgmental. (Okay, the word "propriety" is judgmental.)

(Wow, she really should not have used the phrase "gets lucky".)

[rosefox]

I think it's pretty unusual in the U.S. for adults to platonically share a bed with a different-sex parent, but if everyone involved consents to it, sure, why not?

[cereta]

It's unusual, but vacation/travel together brings about all sorts of not-usual things. I'm just sort of gobsmacked at how freaked out so many people on the web forum are.

[ambyr]

Your wife may have been thinking along those lines when she suggested the "boys" sleep with the boys and the "girls" sleep together.

But . . . the wife explicitly doesn't suggest this. She suggests they get a second room. Abby is projecting like whoa, here.

[ayebydan]

I caught that wtf.

[cereta]

I caught that, too. I also don't get how a man sleeping with his son-in-law would be less odd than the original configuration.

[ayebydan]

It is no big deal. He's a guy trying to save a sizable chunk of coin not Norman Bates. Overreaction from Abby.

[cereta]

Thank you. I was beginning to think I was a complete and utter weirdo. Well, I am that, but you know what I mean.

[ayebydan]

Haha you seem pretty cool to me from what I've seen around here. I'm Scottish so I don't know if that is influencing my chill reaction. I mean I'm just back from 6 weeks in Aus/NZ and when we were not staying with my fam my bestie and I went for the cheapest room available. If it had two beds great but otherwise we just got on with it. No one ever gave us odd looks like ERMAWD GAYS. They saw by our interactions right off that we were just buddies saving on a room. She talked in her sleep, I flailed about. We dealt with it XD

[kiezh]

Wait... this is a person not going on the trip taking issue with perfectly reasonable and economical sleeping arrangements?

How do privacy, comfort, and propriety have anything to do with the non-attending person's perspective? If the actual people in the room have a problem with sharing space to save money, they can and should say so during the planning. (The fact that he says "planning" and "considering" suggests that the topic is under discussion ahead of time, which is good.) People who aren't going to be there... should probably keep the kibitzing and suggesting of extra costs to a minimum.

And yeah, Abby is projecting a lot of weird gender issues on this. So is the wife, possibly, and maybe that needs some discussion between her and LW, but I don't think an advice columnist can help.

[cereta]

Thank you for this injection of Earth Logic.

[adrian_turtle]

This. This! It doesn't matter what anybody outside the room thinks; not Abby, not 21st century social consensus that it's "weird," not even Ralph's wife. If the 4 people in the room are comfortable with the arrangement, it's ok. I'd expand on that to say that if any of the 4 are a little uncomfortable with sharing beds this way, they should seriously consider getting a cot. It doesn't seem to have occurred to them, and it's much less expensive than a second room

[amireal]

I agree that normally this isn't an issue, but the times I HAVE seen a partner object is when the parent/ adult child relationship has other issues . My questions would be about parentification, emotional incest, lingering emotional abuse and what exactly the relationship is like between the Son and his mother.

The fact that the wife is SPECIFICALLY objecting to her husband's arrangements tells me EITHER there's a lot about that relationship we don't know about, the wife got out of a parental relationship like that and is extra sensitive to the signs OR she's got her own personal hang ups that need exploring.