agonyaunt | (no subject)

(no subject)

Dear Abby,

My boyfriend, "Paul," and I have been together for 18 months. We are both divorced and each have two children. Mine are in college. His are in elementary and middle school. They stay overnight with him on the weekends.

When they are there, I go home and sleep at my place. Over the last few months, Paul has asked me to stay the night when they are there; however, he wants me to sleep on the couch because they sleep in the bed with him. A few weeks ago, he announced, "I'm going to talk to them about you and me sleeping in my bed together and see if they are OK with that." Since then, I have heard nothing, so I continue going to my own place at night.

My questions are: Is it acceptable for children to sleep in the same bed with their parent? And, is it acceptable for children to decide if Paul and I sleep together?

— Confused in Kansas

The answers to your questions are "Yes," and "No." In some cultures, it is common for families to share the same sleeping accommodations, including a family bed. In our culture, it is less common but not unheard of, particularly with kids much younger than his.

As to your second question, Paul may be uncomfortable raising the subject with his children, or they may have told him they like the status quo, and he hasn't communicated that to you. But they are not the ones who should make that decision. As the adult in the family, that privilege should be his. And after 18 months together, you should be comfortable enough to ask him anything.

https://news.yahoo.com/dear-abby-boyfriends-bedroom-gets-090205836.html

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It's not culturally normative in the US for kids in middle school to routinely share their parents' bed.

Now, if the kids and Dad are all 100% okay with this, fine, no skin off my nose - but if Dad is doing this because he can't be bothered to get his kids actual beds or even a futon on the floor for their weekend stays, that's another issue. The kids very much do know if bedsharing is because they're all so close with each other or if it's because he isn't willing to do the bare minimum to have his home be their home as well. Unless, I guess, he genuinely can't afford a place with enough space for the tiniest of futons or a single bunkbed, in which case that really sucks but I retract my comment - but really, they should at least have the option of their own sleepspace, even if they never choose to sleep there, because, again, it's not the usual thing in the US for people to share throughout their kids' childhood up until adolescence.

Though we don't know if he's american or from an american background.

In any case why is besides the point; Paul doesn't seem to want to sleep with LW, and that's all LW needs to know.

(unless there's a money issue, but I'd expect to see that in the letter.)

He's okay sleeping with LW when the kids aren't there.

But I really do think the kids need the option to not sleep in his bed. Even if they never exercise it.

Dad needs to address this issue in two steps. First, move the kids to their own beds. Second, later, have LW begin staying the night when the kids are there. It’s crucial to put some time between these steps so the kids don’t link them. The kids shouldn’t see LW literally taking their place in Dad’s bed (life).

'He wants me to sleep on the couch' - does that imply that there is only one bed? This all sounds as though his place is a bit lacking in sleeping accommodations generally.

It absolutely sounds like there's only one bed in the house.

...this really sounds like "Divorced dad got a bachelor pad and never got around to making it a home for his kids too", tbh.

LW, if the kids don't sleep on the bed, where will they be sleeping? Will they be sharing the (possibly not even fold-out) couch? The answer he gets from them may be different is if the question is "Would you guys be willing to sleep on the couch from now on so my girlfriend can stay over?" vs. "I think it's time to get you your own beds, you want to come shopping this weekend?"

If he's living in a place where there's literally no other space to put a place to sleep, you could at least go shopping together to get a better futon/foldout couch for someone.

the kids get to have an opinion about step mum, but their dad should take that as part of his decision and present it has his decision, not blame the kids

I really want more information.

Is Paul one of the many folks who's barely scraping by -- in which case I can see why he might not have the space/money for an extra twin bed or at least one of those foam chairs that folds out into a bed -- or does he have the space and money to provide a bed for his kids, and he's just not bothering?

*Is* Paul from a culture where co-sleeping into tweenhood is a thing?

Are the kids girls or boys? (Particularly the middle schooler, who if a cis female is likely to hit puberty any time now if she hasn't already, at which point she really needs a bed that's separate from her dad's.)

What are LW's long-term thoughts about this relationship? Do they want to live with Paul, or are they still in the "nah, this is fine as-is" or "I don't know if I want to get more entwined with Paul" stage? If they want to move in with Paul six months or a year from now, is Paul going to expect to keep having the kids sleep in his and LW's bed, and is LW up for that?

Edited 2022-06-17 16:40 (UTC)

I know many of you said it is not culturally normative to raise kids where they sleep in the same bed as their parents. And so I am a little confused. I am definitely in the US and I was raised sleeping in my parent's bed. And often were asked to sleep there well into my twenties (and probably would still do it if I lived anywhere near my parents.) My sister is definitely raising her kids like that. If I visit I sleep with her kids (one is 22 and I slept with her last month when we got a hotel room on vacation) so. I am really shocked that this is not considered normal. And now (knowing my own family history of abuse) wonder if that sleeping with my family was another form of it? Help a person out here. Is that considered another part of the control over the kids thing I didn't realize?

Sleeping with kids in the bed is not necessarily abusive, no. Families handle it differently for different reasons; it's not particularly common for kids in the US to share beds for a long time with their parents, but it's not particularly weird, either.

The kids should HAVE their own beds, if it's in the cards finance or space-wise, and obviously bed-sharing CAN be done in an abusive way. But it's not abusive on the face of it.

My 10 yr old asked to sleep in bed with us last week because they were having trouble sleeping. (The main problem with that is that they are a starfish who punches in their sleep, which means allowing them in the bed is basically asking for a sleep-maiming.) I've shared beds in hotels with my sisters as recently as 10 years ago (I'm in my 40s); after my parents split up my sisters would sometimes sleep in my mom's bed after watching a movie in her room or after a late-night chat.

I personally find it concerning if child sleeping in the bed is done on the parent's request or command, but not if it's done on the child's request or the parent offers it to a child in distress as an option (in the example of my 10 yr old, they will often pathetically flail around hoping we will offer so they don't have to ask, and when both our kids were younger we would offer after nightmares or if they were repeatedly waking up).

I'd say it depends on whether a kid who *doesn't* want to sleep with the parents is allowed to sleep in their own bed, or even on the couch or some blankets on the floor if there really isn't money/space for a bed.

I slept with my kids until they were a year or two old -- nowadays it's not recommended with babies because of higher risk of infant death, but at the time it worked for us, especially when I was breastfeeding. For a couple years after that I'd let them fall asleep in my bed and then move them to their own bed.

It wouldn't work for me or Spouse to regularly share a bed with an older kid -- we don't even share a bed with each other due to sundry sleep issues -- but I'd let a kid sleep in my bed for a few hours if they're having a bad night. For people who are able to sleep around other people, I could see a family deciding that it made more sense to get one really large bed for the parents and a couple of kids to share so that there would be more room in the rest of the house for waking activities.

I probably wouldn't share a bed with my mom if I lived with her, but I would have no problem with sharing a bed with her in a hotel room. (My dad, I'd feel weird about sharing a bed in any circumstance, but so would he.)

Abusive families can potentially make anything abusive, even if it wouldn't be in any other context.

With that said, if you and all your family legitimately were okay with this, then it probably *isn't*.

The norm I grew up with was that sharing a bed in a hotel room, or on an ad hoc basis when guest rooms were scarce, was quite different than sharing a bed routinely when it was possible to have separate beds. I would say that routine bed-sharing with one's parents or other adult relatives (past early childhood) would strike most people in my family as odd and a bit of a red flag. Not wrong in itself, but a signal that something wrong might be going on.

I don't think bed-sharing is inherently abusive, and doing so temporarily or when accommodations are scarce (or expensive) seems very normal to me, but in a case of kids not *having* beds of their own and always sharing a bed with family members...

The question that would raise to me is: do the kids have *any* space of their own? Any time when they don't have to be performing socially, any space or territory they get to claim as their very own and defend against all comers? Even in families with multiple siblings and shared spaces (often shared rooms with bunk beds), the customs I know include "one's own bed" being the fortress to retreat to.

In the case LW describes, it seems like the kids don't have beds at Paul's place and that's why they share the bed. That wouldn't seem strange to me for *one* weekend (though I still think the kids should have the option of the couch or an air mattress or sleeping bags or something if they'd rather sleep alone - boundaries are not just for adults!), but *every* weekend? I would expect that in an on-going situation where "Dad's place" is one of their actual homes, they would have space of their own, of some sort. Whether that's beds or something else is specific to the situation.

The biggest red flag I see in the letter is that LW and Paul are incapable of having a conversation about this. Much better to get norms and expectations out in the open so a workable solution can be found! Hard to tell at this remove if Paul is just as bad at talking about boundaries and expectations with his kids.

Yes, this is an excellent summary.

yeah I think that in my personal case we had our own room and our own beds. We just often fell asleep wherever we laid down and it was often enough in my parents bed (usually when one of them was absent. say one was out of town. one was working odd hours. If it was parent and the kids sleeping in the same bed and the other parent came home we were asked to move off to our own space and it wasn't a big deal.) if my mother was feeling particularly lonely. (that is where the red flag is) she would want to sleep where we were so say she would sleep in the living room if we were hanging out there instead of her bedroom. She often goes to my sister's house now and sleep on her couch bc she wants to be around people. But it wasn't part of the abuse in my family. With the exception of when my mother couldn't stand being alone. Since we often slept with her anyways even when she wasn't feeling that way it wasn't part of the pattern of abuse in general.

And since you all were so kind to answer my question I will tell a funny story about it. I came home from college (college was in my hometown, but occasionally I would go home to do laundry, etc) and it must have been after finals. I walked in, dropped bags at the door, and went and laid down on my parents bed. My dad was asleep and he got up to go to work a few hours later. He came back into the bedroom after getting ready for work and asked me casually if I had let the cat in. I couldn't remember and asked why. He said there was a fine layer of bird feathers throughout the entire living room and they must have brought a bird in to play with. I got up a couple hours later and no cat, no bird, and no dusting of feathers. a mystery!

Aside from all the discussions about beds, I don't think it's helpful to anyone to put the children in charge of how the adults' relationship progresses. The father is the grown up and needs to act like it.

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