Most of us dream of owning our own homes from a relatively young age – but in this economy, the reality is that achieving that dream is going to take time and a lot of effort.

So for many, early adulthood means either living with strangers, or staying with parents for longer than might really be desirable.

For the couple in this story, the latter seemed like the logical choice.

However they weren’t prepared for the complications that this living-situation would bring.

Read on to find out what happened.

AITA for telling my mother-in-law that we’re not paying for her appliances?

I am a 25-year-old woman, and I live with my husband (25, male) and his family.

His family consists of his mother (my mother-in-law) and two older brothers (Kevin, 30 and Alan, 27).

I would consider my husband’s family very close knit: they’ve always had movie nights, game nights and dinner together the majority of nights.

I got along well with my mother-in-law before this situation.

Let’s see how the situation with this couple and the mother-in-law started.

We recently got married, and decided to move in with my husband’s family because we want to save up for a house, while I also finish my education.

Of course, before making this decision we had sat together as a family and discussed what everyone thought and if everyone agreed.

We specified that we would have a timeline to move out, regardless of whether or not we were able to purchase a home.

When I moved in (about four months ago) we decided to split every bill equally, and that my mother-in-law would send a text letting everyone know the total for the month.

Read on to find out how this mutual agreement became problematic.

Last month, my mother-in-law decided to purchase some appliances for the home. This wasn’t discussed as a family, and most of us didn’t even know until a few days before they arrived.

When we found out about this, my husband and Kevin both separately spoke to their mom to make sure this was an individual purchase instead of a family one, since none of our appliances were broken/non functional.

In both cases she stated that it was her purchase and left it at that.

But when a month went by and my mother-in-law sent the bill text, Kevin noticed that the appliances had been added.

Uh-oh. Let’s see what happened when they confronted mom on the extra charges.

He sent a text asking why her appliances were on the bill, saying that this needed to be discussed.

But my mother-in-law’s only reply to this was, “since we all use the appliances, we should all pay for them.”

Since Kevin, my husband and I were at home together at the time, we had a conversation and decided to send the money excluding the appliance cost.

To my knowledge, Alan just goes along with whatever his mom says, and probably sent the full amount.

But no one was prepared for how the mother-in-law would react when she received their money.

A few hours later, my mother-in-law came home furious. After some time we all stated that weren’t going to pay for appliances we didn’t need and had previously clarified we weren’t paying for.

I left most of my commentary for my husband to handle so it wouldn’t come off as me trying to attack her, or intrude on her home.

However I did clarify at a certain point that it just didn’t sit well with my husband and I that she would just add that to the bill without even motioning it.

This was amplified because my husband and I trusted her completely and never looked at the breakdown of costs she would include with the bills. We would just see the total and send it.

Read on to find out how her mother-in-law responded.

She said we’re being unreasonable and that we should be grateful, because moving out would be way more expensive.

Then, after a few days, she proceeded to ask my husband when we plan on moving out, and started sending passive aggressive texts and rental bills showing how expensive everything is.

Were we wrong for basically telling her we’re not paying for her appliances?

AITA?

Sure, it would be one thing if the mother-in-law had just included the appliance costs in the text without really thinking about it.

But two of her sons had a clear discussion with her about the appliances, to which she stated that they were individual purchases.

She can’t just change her mind now, and hope that her kids won’t notice.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit thought about this.

This person agreed that they shouldn’t be paying for the new appliances.

While others were curious about what these randomly-purchased appliances were.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought it was clear they should move out.

It sucks that at the heart of this tight-knit family is a mom who is apparently trying to scam her kids.

Most moms would be happy to have the kids feeling in no rush to leave the family home. But this mom?

As soon as she’s not getting her own way, she’s dropping hints that she wants her son and his wife to move out.

That’s not very motherly behavior.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.