In spring 2022, my husband and I were lucky enough to sell our house for a profit and, with help from my parents, bought a much bigger home. At the time, my friend was going through a tough time, so I asked if she would like to move in with us and our two children. There was no written agreement, but the plan was that she would either quit her job and retrain, or save for her own place and move out in six months to a year. She pays us £350 a month, which goes towards energy bills, bar a three-month period when she wasn’t working. I also gave her money towards taking a course.
She hasn’t retrained, got a new job or saved for a new place. And she doesn’t have the money to move out. I feel trapped and resent all I have to do as a working mum while she’s here, but that’s compounded by guilt as I know I’m very privileged to have a big house and a well-paid job. I hate that she sees me at my worst (rowing with my husband/sorting out arguments between the kids) and I feel as if I’m constantly keeping my emotions in check around her. Our friendship feels warped into a parent-child dynamic.
I can’t bring myself to talk to her when I know she’ll cry, which makes me feel like a coward. Any advice?
You’re not a coward, but something is stopping you saying what needs to be said. I went to psychotherapist Chris Mills and also solicitor Gary Rycroft.
You need to check where you stand legally. If you live in England and Wales, Rycroft didn’t think the payment of £350 could be said to give your friend acquired “equity” in the house as it’s clearly for expenses, and she doesn’t have exclusive occupation, which might have given her a right to stay indefinitely. Ideally, you would have got her to sign a formal lodger agreement to set things out, so please get the relevant legal advice.
Mills felt it was time for tough love: for you and your lodger. “You say you hate your lodger seeing you at your worst, but I suspect it was your own version of who you are at your best that led you into this dilemma; your overactive feelings of guilt and unworthiness that compelled you to rescue your friend from her problems rather than sympathetically being alongside her while she sorted things out for herself.”
We should all help each other if we can, but it’s nearly four years on and I fear you are being taken advantage of. You suspect this too, which is why you feel as you do. You seem apologetic about your house and well-paid job, and this seems to be stopping you acting. You may be privileged, but so is your friend – she has you. She hasn’t kept up any of her part of the bargain, either.
“It’s up to you to initiate an adult conversation about this,” says Mills, “but you need to be ready for the risk that she’ll kick back in ways that might reactivate your feelings of guilt. I don’t doubt that you’re a compassionate person, but these things are meaningless if they’re not balanced by an equal capacity to be clear, tough and decisive on your own behalf.”
This problem isn’t magically going to go away. You say you feel as if you’re the parent: well, sometimes the parents need to say no. Give her adequate but not expansive notice to assuage your guilt (and maybe fulfil legal obligations). “Don’t apologise or make excuses,” advises Mills. “You don’t have to provide justifications for wanting your house back.” If she cries that will be tough, but you will just have to let her. “The kindest thing you can do now for your lodger, and for yourself,” says Mills, “is to stop treating her like the child she isn’t. Once you realise that being hated by her isn’t the worst thing in the world, you’ll no longer be stuck.”
Being assertive isn’t about being unkind; it’s about redrawing boundaries when others can’t.
Every week, Annalisa Barbieri addresses a personal problem sent in by a reader. If you would like advice from Annalisa, please send your problem to ask.annalisa@theguardian.com. Annalisa regrets she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions. The latest series of Annalisa’s podcast is available here.
