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'AITA for telling my roommate's mom I won't be following her rules in my apartment?' UPDATED

'AITA for telling my roommate's mom I won't be following her rules in my apartment?' UPDATED

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"WIBTA if I told my roommate's mom that I won't be following her rules in my apartment?"

My roommate, who I'll call Emily, and I (both 21F) are college students, and we live in an off-campus apartment together. We split rent and utilities 50/50. I pay for my part myself, but Emily's parents pay for hers.

Emily's mom is a bit overbearing and has a lot of rules for our apartment- the main one being that no boyfriends are allowed to sleep over, as it's against her religion. She specifically told Emily to have a talk with me about this subject to tell me this isn't allowed, AFTER we moved in.

Emily doesn't care if I have my boyfriend over for the night, as she does it all the time without telling her parents. However, it strikes me the wrong way that Emily's mom feels like she can impose non-negotiable rules on ME when she doesn't pay for any of my part of the bills.

Today Emily's parents are coming to visit , and I expect her mom to go over all of the rules that she's set with me. WIBTA if I told her mom that, with all due respect, I am paying my portion of the rent and she doesn't have any control of the things I do in my own apartment?

On one hand, I feel like I'm justified. This woman is trying to impose her own religious beliefs onto me in an apartment that I pay half of the bills for. The idea of just rolling over and telling her that I'll obey her demands when just doing my own thing behind her back doesn't sit right with me.

However, after speaking to my own mother about the subject, she thinks that it would be disrespectful. She says that even though I am paying for my half of the rent, Emily's family is still paying for this apartment and they should be able to have a say of what goes on, even if Emily and I just end up breaking those rules anyway.

I've spoken to Emily about this subject, and she doesn't care if I tell her mom that I will or will not be following those rules, as long as I don't indicate that Emily breaks them. So, I was hoping to get some outside opinions here. What do you think? WIBTA if I told my roommate's mom that I won't be following her rules in my apartment?

What do you think? WIBTA? This is what top commenters had to say:

said:

NTA. 1.) She’s not your mom. 2.) She’s not paying your bills. Tell her to eff off.

said:

NTA at all. But please follow up. I want to know how this goes.

And said:

You have every right to tell the mom you won’t be following her rules. But, don’t be surprised if you’re looking for a new roommate soon after.

As promised, she later shared a series of updates. Here's her first update:

Thank you all for your input! Her parents stopped in briefly but then left to go get food. They'll be staying here overnight though, so I'm planning on updating this later tonight to let everyone know what goes down when we all sit down and talk.

I also just wanted to say that after talking to Emily further about this, it turns out that her dad really doesn't care what I do and thinks that his wife's demands are extremely unreasonable. This is why Emily doesn't care if I speak up or not, because I guess that even though her mom is paying the bills, it's her dad who makes the money to support them all.

Emily says that her dad would never make her move just because her roommate doesn't follow traditional Christian values, and even though her mom is a bit of a "squeaky wheel" (her words, not mine), her dad makes all of the final decisions here.

Second update:

Thanks again for everyone's input, as well as all of the awards! As of right now, nothing has really happened. They're all in the living room watching movies and I'm just hanging out in my room. That being said if Emily's mother does say anything I'm planning on still addressing it in a respectful way while also making my boundaries clear. I'll do another update tomorrow morning after they leave.

Third and final update:

Okay so her parents just went home, so this will be the final update. As I expected, her mom DID bring up the rules, but it didn't go in the way that I expected.

First, a little bit of background info about Emily's relationship with her mom. They argue about politics a lot. I won't go into specifics but essentially Emily is on one end of the political spectrum and her mom is at the exact opposite end. Her mom is also into a lot of conspiracy theories and this topic causes a lot of arguments between the two.

Anyways, I guess the entire time they were together yesterday, Emily and her mom were arguing over politics. This morning, when I came out of my bedroom, I overheard them arguing about it again. They stopped when they saw me.

I sat down and was having a casual discussion with Emily and her parents, and then her mom started saying something about the vaccine. Emily just snapped at her mom, and told her to not bring politics up. Emily's mom was quiet for a minute, and then she brought up the rules. Emily snapped at her mom again, told her that she already talked to me about it, and to just drop it. It wasn't brought up again.

And then that was that. We all talked casually about school and work for a little bit and then they packed up and left.

Sources: Reddit
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