It’s always hard when doing what’s right for you ends up hurting someone you care about.

So, what would you do if you wanted to live with your best friend for the first time, but your current roommate assumed you’d continue living together when your lease is up?

Would you stay with your original roommate? Or would you move in with your best friend?

In the following story, one woman finds herself in this situation and really needs advice. Here’s what’s going on.

WIBTA for abandoning my roommate?

Currently, I live with my roommate, Emma (not her real name), in a 2-bed apartment. We have lived together in big apartments since junior year, and this is the first year we have lived just the two of us.

We are two and a half years out of college at this point, so we have lived together for 4 years total.

However, my best friend from back home, Sarah, and I want to live together next year. Sarah is not a U.S. citizen, and so this may be her final year living in NYC, as she may not get the Visa lottery.

She’s good friends with both of them.

We have been best friends since we were 14 and have never had the chance to live together, so we would like to next cycle. The only catch is that Sarah does not want to live with Emma. Not for any particular reason- they just don’t know each other that well.

Emma and I are very good friends, but we have had some hiccups recently when we were looking for our current place.

For reference, we live in NYC, where the rental market is insane, and so it is always incredibly stressful to move. Our previous lease ended Sept 1, and then we moved our stuff out to Emma’s parents’ garage in LI.

During this time, she struggled a little.

I then couch surfed in the city while touring apartments, and Emma lived at home.

This was a point of friction as I felt I was doing the bulk of the legwork to find a new place, whereas Emma was at home and didn’t really participate in touring until mid-October.

All to say that while we get on well, there has been some tension.

Emma would not see this coming.

We eventually moved in on November 1 and have been here since. Our lease is up May 1 (it’s only 6 months)- which is the same time Sarah’s is up. We took this 6-month lease with the assumption that we could find a third roommate in May and move into a new place.

I want to live with Sarah, but I would feel bad leaving Emma without a roommate. She doesn’t have another obvious person to live with, so I would feel bad that she would have to find someone else.

Emma is definitely expecting us to live together again in May, so I don’t know how to bring up the subject without blindsiding her.

AITA?

Yikes! That sounds like an incredibly tough decision.

Let’s see what advice the folks over at Reddit have to offer her.

This person foresees problems for her in the future.

Here’s an excellent question.

She should think about this.

According to this comment, Emma is an adult and deserves to know ASAP.

This requires a lot of thought.

She already knows what to expect with Emma, but Sarah may present a whole new set of problems.

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.