Daughter With Chronic Illness Refuses To Clean House For Stepdad, So He Throws A Tantrum And Sparks A Potential Divorce
by Diana Whelan
When living with your mom and her husband means you’re stuck in a real-life drama, where you’re the villain for not playing housekeeper while battling chronic illness.
Oh, and stepdad’s grand performance of stomping around and slamming doors? Classic.
Read on for the story!
AITA for fighting with my mother’s husband over me not cleaning the house and potentially causing their divorce?
I (30F), am currently living in a shared space with my mom (54F) and her husband (49M) after running into some medical troubles and no longer being able to afford to live on my own.
And before anyone says anything, yes I am paying rent/bills to live here!
The issues started between me and her husband a few months after I moved in with him taking every opportunity he could to “talk to himself” about how I’m so lazy…
Oh please.
…How it “must be nice” that I’m stuck at home while I’m on medical leave from work, how I’m faking my chronic illness flair ups to get away with doing nothing and just generally complaining about my existence any time I wasn’t in my room.
So, I started spending all my time in my room unless my mom was home and only coming out to talk to her when she got back from work or updating her on my medical stuff.
Apparently, her husband has an issue with that as well. He gets mad whenever we talk and just generally acts like a jealous boyfriend and that I’m trying to steal his girl away as if she isn’t my mother.
That’s absurd.
To try and keep things brief, it’s essentially gotten to the point where I can’t even leave my room without him starting something or finding issue over it.
He finds even more issue in the fact that I don’t leave my room because he expects me to play Cinderella and clean up after his messes everyday and cook dinner for them every night.
Despite the fact that I cannot stand or walk more than 20 minutes at a time without immense pain.
I also have doctors orders that I can’t so most of what he demands of me because I end up hurting myself more and prolonging my injury.
You can only do what you can do.
I’m not sure how I’m supposed to “do more” when I’m on restrictions of what I can do after suffering a back injury that I have already had to get 3 surgeries for and am waiting for more of.
It’s already frustrating feeling like a prisoner in my own body and being stuck living somewhere I don’t even want to be, but, here is where I might be the a**hole.
I ended up getting into a screaming match with her husband after he came home acting like a toddler, i.e., slamming doors/cabinets, stomping around, throwing things, and loudly talking sh*t about me because I didn’t clean the house after getting home from another round of spine injections to try and manage the swelling.
Oh dear.
A lot of things were said and my mom came home and they ended up getting into a huge fight that went on for 3 more days and now my mom is saying she threatened divorce and that she’ll lose the house without his job to pay for it and I just really don’t know what to do.
I’ll admit there are some things I can do to help clean that I’ve stopped doing out of spite because he talks sh*t regardless if I do it or not.
And while I would have no issue cooking for my mom, I have no desire to cook for someone who treats me like sh*t for things I can’t control even if I know my refusal isn’t helping the problem.
I don’t want my mom to suffer because of me. So AITA?
All of this because someone wasn’t ready to be the live-in maid and another couldn’t handle the heat!
What does Reddit think?
This person says she isn’t the jerk, but she still needs to leave.
This person also says she needs to get out. NOW.
And this person agrees, and also clarifies she is NOT the reason for the divorce.
Turns out, this house is messy in more ways than one.
Sometimes divorce is the answer.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.
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