Roommates: A rant and request for advice

[Sigdel]

I need help.

My roommates are not getting along and we have only been living together for under a month. Here is the situation, my fiance` is not getting along with my brothers girlfriend. It has gotten to the point that my fiance` is staying in our room when not at work. Infact, she was in tears tonight when I tucked her in to bed because she is so frustrated.
IMHO I think the trouble stem from these facts: 1) That both of them are A-type personalities. 2) Before we even moved in, the rooms of the house were divided up so that no single person took complete controll of the house. 3) The rooms that the biggest problems are occuring over are the four common rooms: Livingroom, dining room, kitchen, and bathroom.
They both want to do things with the rooms but bothe of their ideas conflict, and neither seem to be into compromising.
Three weeks into this house and already it's getting to be too much stress.
I need some advice. Desperatly.

 

[Harmon]

Sit down and talk to the others, get a feel for it, then got to your SO and have her explain.

Get everyone together and talk (no raised voices).

Go through the issues one at a time, see what they are willing to give in on. Remind everyone that this is not a must win situation, this is a family environment- this is your home.

Stop often and do not let it get into raised voices. Keep everyone seated and try to keep it civil.

Good luck, I hope this works out.

 

[Merkuri]

They both want to do things with the rooms but bothe of their ideas conflict, and neither seem to be into compromising.

Before going on, getting everyone in the house together for a house meeting and keeping voices calm (like Harmon said) is the most important thing. Put down some rules. Explain to the ladies that if they cannot compromise then the situation will never be resolved and see what you can come up with. If they are adults you should be able to calmly and rationally work something out.

Now, are you talking about doing things to the room or in the room?

Doing things in the room might be easier to deal with. Put up a schedule and give each person X hours or so many days a week in the room. Allow them to swap times if they want. This schedule doesn't mean that someone is banned from the room in question, only that the person who's night it is gets to decide what happens in that room. The person who controls the kitchen that night decides whats for dinner, for example. If a non-controlling person wants to do something in that room they can, but they can't interfere with the controlling person.

If you're talking about doing things to the room, like decorating and choice of appliances, then you might want to split the rooms up. For example, one person gets to decorate the living room and bathroom, the other gets to decorate the dining room and kitchen.

I'm sure you guys can work something out, but it will take calm, rational discussion with all members involved (including the guys). If anyone feels the need to yell (or starts yelling), take a time out. Do not let shouting matches start, because all they do is get tempers up and make people more bull-headed.

 

[Sigdel]

Last night their was another episode between these two. My SO got up to use the bathroom and on her way back to our room she stopped to turn the ac down, my brothers SO was sleeping on the couch, when she heard my SO fumbling with thermostat she said, "Don't turn that off. I need it cold so my throat wont close up." This upset my SO and she stormed to our room, saying something along the lines of, "Yes Hitler." (my SO is a bit of a drama queen. well they both are.)
It's just getting out of hand at this point.
We have divided up the rooms on the main floor. We have the living room and dinning room. They have the Kitchen and bathroom. It's still not working out.

 

[LightPhoenix]

Having my fair share of roommates, I think, honestly, that some people just can't live together. If they're not getting along and not willing to sit down and talk about it, like Harmon and Merkuri have suggested, then there's nothing really to be done. If it's so bad that it's causing your fiance emotional distress, perhaps you need to consider moving out and getting your own place. I know it's your brother, and you don't want to screw him on money, so you might want to let him know ahead of time if you do this.

Also, one thing I noticed - you all live in a house. Are you renting the house and splitting it four ways, or does someone own the house?

 

[Lord Zardoz]

This sounds exactly like the kind of situation that evolves into either a Cops episode or a news headline saying "Local woman found guilty of Assualt / Murder". Highly entertaining to read about on Fark. Extraordinarily bad for those caught up in the middle of it.

First, I would say that any scheme that involves schedules and dividing up rooms, is doomed to failure. It sounds good on paper. In practice, well, how many Sitcom episodes can you think of where this is tried? (On a more general note, I strongly suggest avoiding any solution to any problem that you can recall seeing on an episode of any family sitcom or Archie Comic).

I think that the only ideal solution here is for either you or your brother to find somewhere else to live. What will eventually happen is that someone's SO is going to get either you or your brother pissed off over the constant idiocy / conflicts / cattiness, and cause you to end up fighting with your brother as each of you tries to stick up for your SO.

But lets assume that at least for the short term everyone is going to have to live together.

I would first suggest that the two people who have to work out this problem are yourself and your brother. Your respective SO's are the cause of the problem here, and if they were at all capable of coming to a reasonable solution to this, they would have done so by now. What you need to do is for you and your brother to sit down and, if you excuse the expression, Lay down the Law.

1) Make clear to your SO's that this nonsense has got to stop, and immediately.
2) You do not need them to like one another, but you need them to be able to stay in the same room alone together without pissing one another off.
3) You and your brother will not tolerate having one SO bad mouth the other.

Other:
- Consider implementing a swear jar equivalent for them, to be used when one bad mouths or antagonizes the other.
- If anyone in the household owns guns, lock them the hell up. Its stupid crap like this that gets people shot.
- Drag them out to a paint ball field, go couple vs couple, and let them shoot at one another.

This is a particularly bad situation in terms of its potential to escalate. Even avoid the Jerry Springer type extremes, this could result in you not being able to visit your brother very often because your wife hates his (assuming everyone gets married at some point). If your not especially fond of your brother, not a big loss though. The reason I so strongly suggest having one couple find new accommodations is because it is generally much easier for people to get along with one another when they do not have to live together.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Lewis526]

Having my fair share of roommates, I think, honestly, that some people just can't live together. If they're not getting along and not willing to sit down and talk about it, like Harmon and Merkuri have suggested, then there's nothing really to be done. If it's so bad that it's causing your fiance emotional distress, perhaps you need to consider moving out and getting your own place. I know it's your brother, and you don't want to screw him on money, so you might want to let him know ahead of time if you do this.

This is sound advice. If there's already this much trouble in the first month, they're never going to get along. This is the perfect storm of BAD. Some people just can't live together, and you shouldn't try to force them to, especially if you all end up in-laws some day.

Think about it this way. Rational, civilized adults don't resort to dividing the house up with big fat lines like you see in the sitcoms. It never works on comedy TV, and you shouldn't expect it to work in real life either. A group of roommates has to be able to share the common spaces freely, without any competition for dominance. It's not a time-share, but if you treat it like one, there will always be tension and stress associated with the common spaces, and as you've seen, people will end up retreating to their bedrooms to escape the stress. Your SO's reaction is understandable.

If these two women aren't interested in looking past their differences for the sake of the household, maybe they don't want to live together in the first place. It seems to me that what they really want is to get away from each other. Take their unwillingness to compromise as a signal that they never wanted to make it work in the first place. They have invested a lot in you and your brother, respectively, but they have little invested in each other. Don't force them to continue subsisting in this situation that was clearly doomed from the start.

Consider taking a step back from the problem at hand to the larger issue. Your primary value is the relationship, not the house. Maybe y'all should turn your problem-solving energy away from making the household work, and solve the problem of how best to move one of the couples (or both of them) out. I'm no relationship counselor, but I wonder if you're prioritizing the wrong things here.

 

[Lewis526]

Zardoz snuck his post in while I was posting mine, and it's telling how much of the same stuff we came up with independently. However, I want to comment on this:

What you need to do is for you and your brother to sit down and, if you excuse the expression, Lay down the Law.

1) Make clear to your SO's that this nonsense has got to stop, and immediately.
2) You do not need them to like one another, but you need them to be able to stay in the same room alone together without pissing one another off.
3) You and your brother will not tolerate having one SO bad mouth the other.

I fear this could only add pressure to the situation. It might force a calm couple of days, but only cause a greater eruption in maybe a week. I'd avoid "laying down the law" in this situation. I'd advise dictating less and listening more.

 

[frankthedm]

I need some advice. Desperatly.

New SO's or find a new place to stay.

If your fiancée is uncompromising now thats not a good sign. Plus she dissed your bro's SO after she made a very reasonable request {since you did not say your bro's GF was lying about her throat closing up, i have to assume it is true]. Your SO has agreed to be your wife, that means she has more a responsibility to your family than your brother's girlfriend does. The onus is on her not to escalate confrontations [imho].

Talk with your bro, find out how serious things are between him and his GF, if he is sticking with her for a while, then you probably need new living arrangements for you and your fiancée. Staying there in that situation could lead to bad blood.

Bro's before SO's

 

[Mark Chance]

You and your brother move out. You ought not be living with SOs you're not married to.