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Dad’s crazy GF
Tj1140
Registered User new member
Registered User new member
Hi I’m 18 years old and a few months ago I moved out of my moms to go spend some time with my dad because I barely knew him and I wanted to get to know him more. But it’s been extremely difficult to keep a conversation with him because his GF keeps butting in our conversations. Than a few weeks ago I left the house to go to work and I come home and she’s been in my room and cleaned it and moved stuff around. I don’t know about you but I personally hate when people go into my room and move my stuff around. As you can tell she has some boundarie issues and what makes the whole thing better she fights when I try to stop her from breaking boundaries and my dad doesn’t do anything about it. I talked to him about it and nothing seems the change and I’ve been thinking to move back into my moms. But I don’t want to ruin me and my dad relationship and anxiety is also getting in the way.. I’m new to this site and looking for advice.. What should I do?
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I don't know the tenor of your original conversation with the GF - I'll name her "Janice" for convenience - more detail about the specifics of the conversation you had would make for better advice, probably. One thing is that teenagers can sometimes come off as either emo, irrational, or flippant to an adult, (even if the actual emotion the teenager is experiencing is 100% legit) so she may have just taken the emotion from the conversation ("he's being rude and disrespectful to me") and ignored the actual words you were saying. If that is the case, you may be able to ask her, calmly and politely, "Janice, I would appreciate it if you never enter my room without permission." and see what she says. If she tries to divert the conversation with things like, "but your room is always so messy!" you should not accept the bait for the argument she's trying to present - don't start discussing the cleanliness of your room. Instead, agree with her, "Yes, it is very messy. Please do not enter my room without asking me first." Try to keep emotions at bay when having this conversation. Try not to place blame or talk about the issues in ways that will raise her emotions. It's not, "you're a bad person who did this bad thing to me and I'm mad!", it's not a negotiation or a referendum on her qualities as a person. If this is a boundary you need to teach her, then it's probably something that will come up again; be prepared for that and prepared to not come out angry and yelling at her the next time it happens and you have to say again, "please do not enter my room when I'm not here." (boundaries with boundaries-crossing people usually take a lot more than telling them two times, unless the first time was just a legitimate mistake that they understand not to repeat)
You haven't given us a lot of information about "Janice", so I can't tell you if that will work or not. You're calling her "crazy", but she may just be a person with anxiety or a person who's trying too hard to please (and then is hurt because you weren't pleased). She may be more reasonable than you realize and just needs to understand, in a calmer discussion, how important this is to you.
If calmness and reasonableness doesn't work, even after multiple reminders of the boundary, then your next step is to go to your Dad. "Dad, I need for Janice to not enter my room when I'm not here or when I haven't invited her. What can we do about that?" And see what he says. Maybe he'll offer to talk to her? Maybe he'll offer to add a locked handle to your door so you can lock it before going out? Maybe he'll say tough luck, she goes where she wants? If he refuses to do anything about it then at that point you have a Dad problem, not a Janice problem. You'll have to decide whether that boundary is worth enforcing to you or not.
As for "butting" into your conversations, if you want to have quality time with your dad you are probably going to have to ask for it. Request a guy's night out periodically where it's just you and him out to dinner or something. DO NOT make it about Janice, make it about getting to know him. "We have so much to catch up on, I'd just love some father-son time." If you have a job, you can even offer to pay for the meal. It's a positive thing you're asking for, not a negative thing about the girlfriend you don't like - the girlfriend should never come into this discussion*. I don't know what your hobbies are like, but maybe you can center it around a hobby if there's something you both enjoy. Video game boy's night (no girls invited)? Working on cars? Having a jog around the local park? Taking the dog for a walk?
*If he doesn't get that this is just you and him and he brings Janice to one of your boy's nights, you may have to discuss Janice, but again not as a negative: "Dad, Janice is great, but I want time to spend just with you."
Also, a really good source of advice that's helped me through the years is the Captain Awkward Blog. Here's her tag on Boundaries: https://captainawkward.com/category/boundaries-2/ and on Family: https://captainawkward.com/category/families/ and if you're willing to wade through to find a letter that applies to you, you'll get way better advice than I can give. You can also just try submitting your question to the blog, but I don't know how often they answer.
But fuck you — no, fuck y'all, that's as blunt as it gets"
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