Manipulation comes in all shapes and sizes, doesn’t it?

See if you can spot what’s going on in this story.

AITA for not considering my brother’s feelings?

So I’m moving out very soon for university and I have a place squared away.

It’s very cheap because the landlord is related to a friend of mine.

I’d ideally like to stay there for as long as possible because it’s incredibly unlikely that I’ll ever be able to find something better.

My father is going to be paying the rent as part of a custody agreement.

There’s some mess in the background.

I’m currently living with my mom and my older brother (20, soon to be 21) and things were very turbulent when I was growing up for reasons I can’t get into.

I have repaired a lot of my relationship with my mom and him, but it’s still not very appealing to me to stay at home.

Especially not since my brother is going to be starting school again and I expect all of my mother’s attention to shift his way.

But here’s where we’re at today:

Onto the issue.

My mom has recently been very lax about my move, saying I can always come back and move things and while the sentiment is nice, I don’t really want to do that.

It’s sort of uncomfortable to stay now, where I always feel like I’m waiting for her to blow up at me.

Anyway, I’ve started packing and I was talking about things I wanted to buy when she said I didn’t need to get that much stuff because “you’re going to be coming back anyway, right?”

I was sort of confused because… no, it wasn’t my intention to ever return home to live like it is right now.

I laughed awkwardly and asked “Why would I do that?” I didn’t mean it in a mean way but I can see how she would feel that it was rude, I was just confused.

Then she laid it on thick.

She went on to say that it was a lot of money (that she wouldn’t even be paying for, and I have a scholarship and my own savings anyway?), and that I should consider my brother’s feelings.

I asked her what she meant by that, why my living situation would have anything to do with my brother and she said that it was unfair for me to have this opportunity while he, the older one, was still living at home.

It really upset me and I said that he should be happy for me if he’s family, and why was it unfair that I had something good happen?

I’m not sure how putting your own life on hold would help your brother.

We went back and forth a bit until I said that this was basically the whole reason I couldn’t ever see myself moving back home.

We’ve had discussions about how I feel when she constantly brings up my brother like this and she always promises to do better but then she doesn’t.

For example, she told me I wasn’t allowed to talk about the job I got a few months back because my brother (20 at the time, having never worked a job) was still looking for work.

She called me ungrateful, said that I only ever think about myself, and that my brother loves me very much and I need to be more considerate of his feelings. So, AITA?

Let’s see what the comments have to say:

This isn’t what a supportive parent does.

Seems like brother is being used as a shield.

There’s this poetic way of putting it:

It’s not about your brother – she wants you to stay with her for selfish reasons, and by the sound of it, is encouraging your brother to stay too.

You’re both becoming adults and need to be allowed to go live your lives.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.