'AITA for setting a limit on how often my mom’s boyfriend can sleep over?'

"AITA for setting a limit on how often my mom’s boyfriend can sleep over?"

My brother (26M), our mom (51F) and I (28M) bought a house together in January. Just to preface, we’re all on the deed so we all have a right to enjoy/use the property. Things were ok until my mom and I had a falling out, we are no longer on speaking terms.

My mom is the type of person who can’t have any downtime between relationships and has zero personality outside of them. She started dating a new guy a month after she broke it off with her fiancée. He seemed nice at first, and she only had him over a couple nights a week.

Since then, he’s slowly been spending more and more time here, now consistently sleeping over 6 days a week. Our home is very small: it’s technically a 2 bedroom with an “office” that’s big enough to be a 3rd bedroom for someone who doesn’t spend a lot of time there. My mom likes to hang out in the living room so it wasn’t a big deal to her.

My mom and I got into an argument about bills last week, and her boyfriend finally decided to get involved. He had a lot to say about me and my lifestyle choices, so I no longer feel comfortable having him in my home. I sent a text to my mom stating that overnight guests are allowed a maximum of 3 nights per week, and reminded her that any one person has the right to force the sale of the home through partition.

I feel like I’m not wrong here. Is it unreasonable to get upset about this? They hang out in the living room literally all night every night. They will fall asleep out there and not get up until 2 am. I work until 8 pm every night so I’m typically up later than them, and find it uncomfortable having to walk past them constantly and basically pretend they don’t exist as we’re not on speaking terms.

And honestly, it’s MY house. I shouldn’t have to put up with some stranger that’s known me for 6 months thinking he has some sort of say on how I live my life. There’s other things too, like the fact that they get up at 5 am everyday, have full on loud conversations with music blasting. I’m a light sleeper due to some chronic pain issues, so this just makes it so much worse.

EDIT: I should have added this for context as to why I agreed to do this: I have several chronic illnesses that make it difficult to earn a living, mostly due pain. I cannot afford to live by myself, so I figured buying something with my family made more sense than renting with strangers. In hindsight, knowing how my mom is, I shouldn’t have done it, but we were in a desperate situation and I felt I had no other choice.

UPDATE: I appreciate everyone’s input. My brother and I talked and decided that a buyout would make the most sense, so we’re going to look into getting the house refinanced in just his name. As many have pointed out, this living situation just isn’t going to work. I have tried to reconcile with my mom, however she wants nothing to do with me.

She is a narcissist with major codependency issues. There is no reasoning or bargaining, she has to win no matter what. The one silver lining is that she’s not on the mortgage, just the deed, so she has no say and nothing to do with the refinance.

Here's what people had to say to OP:

makethatnoise wrote:

Info: Did you set rules for people staying over, dividing bills, or what might happen if there's a falling out between any of the family members, before purchasing the house together?

OP responded:

We did not unfortunately, this definitely should have happened. My brother and I are looking into refinancing so they can buy me out of my share. Fortunately there’s no specifics there as to how it’s split, just 1/3 each.

spotzie27 wrote:

"My brother (26M), our mom (51F) and I (28M) bought a house together in January."

OK but...knowing all that you do about your mom, and given how tiny this house is...I have to ask, why did you decide to do this?

OP responded:

I have several chronic illnesses/pain conditions that make it difficult to work consistently. I figured it would be better to live with my family to reduce the cost of living than to live with strangers, but knowing how my mom is, it was a mistake. I’ve kind of been in survival mode for almost 2 years now and we were in a desperate situation at the time.

someoneyoudontknow70 wrote:

ESH. Why did you guys buy a home together if you can't respect each other? You don't get to tell your mom whether or not she has guests because the house is hers, too. She doesn't get to question your lifestyle choices because you're a grown man. She should also be considerate of her housemates.

One or the other of you needs to buy the other out of their share of the house so that they can move someplace where they can make decisions about their own life without the other whining about them. The next time you go in on a house with someone, make sure it's someone who respects you. A spouse, ideally.

SomeoneSomewhereish wrote:

ESH. You hold some of the blame here. You knew what your mom was like when you bought a place with her. You mentioned that you bought this place in January and that your mom has been with her BF for 6 months.

What was it like when we was with her Fiancé? Also, what kind of terms did you all agree on with respect to how living together would work? Your mom is the biggest obvious issue. She and her BF are acting like no one else is bothered by their actions and/or, it doesn’t matter to them.

I wonder if her BF knows that you all equally share the house. You also don’t mention how specifically you paid for it (ie who put down how much money), but my guess is that the BF thinks it’s mom’s house and that you and your brother live at her house. Since you all live in fairly close quarters, I’m curious why they don’t spend more time at his place? Does he have roommates?

What’s his situation? All of the above is more out of curiosity because I don’t think there is a workable solution here. It’s not clear if you can buy your mom out, or if you did, would she even take a buyout? Because her behavior won’t change and you don’t seem to have a good enough relationship to workshop a solution with her.

If you are all in a position to get out of this mess, do it. Because it will not get better. If you’re not, you need to have a house meeting and agree on rules and how you can all coexist. I would also say that if you stop tiptoeing around them and start using the living room when they fall asleep out there, they’ll get the message quickly. But don’t be surprised if it escalates.

Your mom is mostly the AH here, but you knew this dynamic when you made this decision, so you aren’t blameless. It’s not clear why you chose to do this, but I can’t imagine it was worth the problems it’s going to cause. And while you’re right to want rules in place, you cannot unilaterally make them.

unsafeideas wrote:

If 3 people own a property 1 cant just decide the rules for the other 2. You cam state preferences and also sell.

So, either ESH or YTA depending on what the guy said.