'AITA for 'ruining' my roomie's anniversary by refusing to leave the apartment?' UPDATED

The internet is the ideal place to come shopping for a second or third opinion, which can be incredibly helpful when you're dealing with a strong personality.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for "ruining" her flatmate's anniversary by not bending to his GF's wishes. She wrote:

"AITA for ruining my flatmate's anniversary weekend and crossing his girlfriend's boundaries?"

My (22F) roommate (22M) is my best friend and has been for years. We’ve lived together for 2.5 years and it’s genuinely the best living situation I’ve ever been in. We love to hang out and have a very close relationship, often talking for hours on end. Two years ago, he started seeing “Rachel” (21F). Rachel and I get along very well, often drinking together and watching movies without my roommate.

I consider her one of my best friends. Rachel is also frequently at my flat, often spending four days there at a time. The problem arose a week before their two year anniversary. Rachel asked me to leave the flat that my roommate and I share for the weekend because they celebrate their anniversary over two days and she wants to be alone with him.

She wants me to sleep in her bed at her flat that she shared with her two other flatmates. I pushed back against this as I have a weekly call on Sunday, and the WiFi in her flat is terrible and would make the call quality extremely poor. She agree to let me stay home on Sunday and says that she’ll make her bed for me to sleep in on Saturday. All is well.

Then Saturday comes. I’m at the library writing my dissertation with a good friend, and I get a text from Rachel telling me that she’s sorry, but that she forgot to change her sheets for me to sleep in. She asks me to instead go sleep at another friend’s house. I say that I don’t want to do that, as this friend’s house very far away. She gets very upset with me and says it will have to be Sunday instead.

I again refuse as this is the day that I have my weekly call. Rachel absolutely blows up at me. She says that I’ve violated her boundaries and that she cannot believe that I’ve done this to her. She says that I am acting like her (very cruel and ab*sive) mother. She berates me for the other time I came home after she told me to stay at another house and that that was another boundary crossed.

I am astounded at this. The reason I went to my house was I was being followed by a man in the dark. I even sat outside of our door for 30 minutes and was planning on staying there for a few hours to give them their space, until she opened the door to let me in. I immediately take it back and say that I’ll go to her house for both nights so they can have a special weekend.

Since this has happened she has not spoken to me for four weeks. I have repeatedly reach out to her to apologize, but have gotten literally nothing back. She has come over to my flat a few times in the mean time, but has ignored me when she walks to his room.

There was even an occasion when I was hanging out with two of my friends and she ignored me and had a conversation with the two of them in front of me, even arranging for them to hang out later, again, without me. Though I still feel bad, my friends have told me that I have done nothing wrong and that she’s being an AH, plus she has no right in general to order me out of my house. So Reddit I ask, AITA?

Redditors had a lot to say in response.

wordsmythy wrote:

NTA. You went out of your way to stay at her place, and she's too lazy to get some clean sheets on the bed for you? This was all her doing. The only boundaries crossed were YOURS. Stop apologizing. You aren't her mother. Any trauma she's claiming is imaginary, and any blame she's trying to stick on you is next-level gaslighting. Stop falling for it. You need to get a backbone.

Talk to your roommate and let him know that her behavior is making your home, your safe space, a hostile place to be.

Tell him until she apologizes to you and agrees to stop doing this weird power flex (talking to your friends as if you're not there, making plans with them), she can just stay in her own place and he can visit her there. Stop being a doormat in your own home. What does he say about all this, BTW?

OP responded:

You're right about me missing a backbone, I thought I was doing something nice and ended up being a pushover. This is an absolutely wake up call. My roommate has said nothing! He's super adverse to conflict and normally its fine, but this has just gone too far at this point.

Polish_girl44 wrote:

One important thing - she is a GF of your friend? Is he aware of this? Did he said something? You said you are best friends etc and he accepts all this shit without a word? I think this is more important than Rachel not speaking to you. She is a random AH. But you friend seams to be a mayor one.

OP responded:

He is aware of all of this. He’s just incredibly adverse to conflict. I am upset with him for not supporting me in this, but I also get that he doesn’t want to get between me and his girlfriend.

Edmondontis wrote:

INFO:

Is she jealous of your relationship with her boyfriend?

Have you and your roommate ever had anything close to a romantic relationship?

You’re NTA no matter what, but I’m curious to know if this isn’t deeper than this specific situation.

OP responded:

Nothing that I’ve ever noticed? We’ve been best friends for four years (to the point where people wouldn’t refer to us as one person), and we tend to cuddle a lot which I could see as pissing her off if not for point two which is. I’m a lesbian. I love him a lot, but it’s purely platonic. Even when we met there was never a hint of anything.

OrneryDandelion wrote:

INFO this is really just me being nosey but if GF has her own place why the f$%k did she want to throw you out of yours for the whole weekend? She and your roommate could have celebrated their anniversary there, problem solved.

OP responded:

She really doesn’t get along well with her flatmates. Plus she’s said it’s harder to get both of them out of the house then for one person (me) to go somewhere else.

wordsmythy wrote:

It's tough to stand up to nasty people when you're not nasty yourself. She's toxic. She probably walks all over her boyfriend too. But you need to tell him...she's not your roommate, she pays no rent, she has zero right to be there, especially when she's a flaming AH to you.

OP responded:

Yeah...a thing I didn't mention in the post is that during this four week period, he and I were hanging out together in our living room (she was in his bedroom) and she whistled for him. Yeah, like a dog. So he stood up and went to his bedroom to be with her. She has been treating him poorly and I really don't like it.

SheDevil1818 wrote:

WTF??? Def NTA, I can't even begin.

She is informing you of her need for you to leave your own house???

She then doesn't do the bare minimum she could do.

She gaslights you soooo hard.

Honey, pleeeeease cut this person our AND share the entire situation with your bf before she spins a different story if she hasn't already. She is a user and a gaslighter taking advantage of the fact you're super chill. Since she's all about boundaries, why doesn't she pay at least half of what you each pay?

She'd there more than half the week on average. Does she join in the utilites payments? I'm gonna guess no. Not only should you never ever apologize to her again, YOU should not want to speak with HER until sje apologizes. You are nice and happy to do people a solid, and she is trying to exploit that into gaslighting you. Speak with your friend!

OP responded:

Ah, okay. I guess I thought that I was breaking a boundary I didn't understand? It's reach the point where my roommate needs to be brought in. I'll talk to him tomorrow and sort this out because I'm really tired of being a stranger in my own home.

A day later, OP posted a major update comment.

Well, good news, bad news. Me and Rachel are no longer friends, and her and my best friend are over. When I sat down with my flatmate to finally talk about how hurt I’d been feeling about the whole situation he listened to my feelings and was supportive of me placing down boundaries about our home.

He apologized for not calling her out, saying he had no clue how to get between me and her. Then he left and told me he was going to talk to her about everything and get it sorted, which I really appreciated. Communication really is key I guess! Cue to me waiting about 4 hours. I figured they must have been talking for a while, but I won’t lie around hour 3 I started to get worried.

When he came back he was incredibly despondent and upset. When he went over to talk about me, she had broken up with HIM. The second he brought up how upset she’d made me, she told him that their relationship was over. Apparently Rachel had been feeling for a while that they had a “highly codependent relationship” and needed a while to figure out how she can be on her own.

She also said that every time she wasn’t with him she started having severe anxiety, even on the level of panic attacks, which is why she hated me being there when they were on dates and why she didn’t like me spending time with him. He was deeply shocked and asked her why.

She responded “She gets to see you 24/7 and I only get a few hours, she’s being selfish with your time and mine”. Whoever asked if she was jealous was right on the money! She also revealed that she had hated me since we met, labelling me as “not a person she would ever hang out with” and hid that from me and my best friend for years.

She’s said that this is a “break” and that she still loves him and wants to get back together with him, just later. Personally, I don’t see that happening. My best friend is heartbroken and deeply hurt by how she approached their relationship and me.

When I asked if he thought this was a break he responded “No f#$king way”.

She came back over the same day to pick up her stuff from our flat. Just as I was about to close the door on her, I said, “I think it’s obvious to both of us that we’re not friends and probably never were”. She just shrugged.

I guess that’s everything. Thank you so much for the help and support! It was really comforting to be told that I was NTA because I had basically been warping my reality to fit the narrative she had built around my actions. I also bought a book on boundaries because evidently I haven’t been exercising my own enough and need to make sure I do! Thank you all again :)

The internet was happy to hear that OP and her roommate are now free of Rachel.

midoriable_ wrote:

I'm getting pretty tired of the "it's my boundary to stomp all over your boundaries" bs so many people are employing lately. This word is losing all meaning.

Rknot wrote:

"My love language is you absolutely complying with my every demand, whim, or telepathic suggestion immediately and with no back talk."

Encartrus wrote:

"She agree to let me stay home on Sunday."

The person, who does not live in the apartment, telling OP, a paying tenant, if she will "let" her stay in the room OP pays for. And the OP listening to her.

Just absolutely bonkers.

Intelligent-Ad-4568 wrote:

Yeah, if she wanted to spend a weekend with her bf for an anniversary, the idea of renting a hotel room in their city or getting an AirBnb was never thought of. I don't think I would feel comfortable sleeping at someone else's apartment when they are not home.

Also, I assume she didn't talk with her roommates and when they found out they said that's not going to happened. OP didn't ruin anything, if he wanted to spend a weekend with his gf, no one was stopping them. They could have stayed there and just locked the bedroom door.

Tiffany_Case wrote:

Just in case anybody needs to hear this: boundaries are actions YOU take. Boundaries are about laying out your expectations and detailing what YOU will do if they're not met. Forcing other people to do or not do something is what they very much are not.

Basically you're saying 'to be in my life, to be in my space, this is what it is. So you can either be here or not'. It is very much not ever 'you cannot come to the place you pay for to sleep in your very own bed because that's my boundary.'\

Good riddance to Rachel, and her distorted view of "boundaries."