What started as a simple 50/50 roommate arrangement is getting complicated fast.

After agreeing to split a two-bedroom apartment evenly with his coworker, he later learned that once the coworker’s girlfriend moves in, the couple plans to split his half while he continues paying his full share.

On paper it works, but in practice, it leaves him paying significantly more than either of them individually.

AITA for wanting to split rent evenly between myself and my coworker and his girlfriend?

My coworker and I are planning on renting a 2 bedroom 2 bath apartment (both bedrooms are an en suite and are basically the same size).

The arrangement we have is that we would split rent between the two of us equally for the first couple months until his girlfriend moves in.

At that point, they would be sharing a bedroom and mentioned that they would split his portion of the rent and cover utilities while I cover my share of the rent.

Sounds fair.

At first, I thought nothing of it. But as we have narrowed down our housing choices and are about to apply, it has began to rub me the wrong way.

They’re a couple, so naturally they would be sharing a room and they are voluntarily choosing to do so.

If we split rent the way they propose, I would be paying $1,400 while they both pay $800 each. To me, this feels like a pretty big discrepancy and feels a little unfair as I would basically be living paycheck to paycheck while they save a lot on rent.

Ouch.

While I get that they would be losing out on space in the bedroom/bath, they would in turn be using more of the common space.

I mentioned this to him and he said they’d be willing to pay $200 on top to help me out, so now they would be paying $900 each, but would still put me in a relatively tight financial situation.

While this does help, I still feel that an equal 1/3 split between everyone would be fair to help everyone save a little money.

Sounds reasonable.

At the moment, it doesn’t seem like they’ll be likely to want to split rent evenly.

I’m not a very confrontational person, but I feel like this would be a deal breaker for me but I don’t want to feel like I’m screwing him over by potentially bailing out right before we submit apps after about a month of searching.

Any advice or past experiences would be much appreciated!

Redditors are weighing whether couples sharing a room automatically means they should pay less…or if fairness means splitting costs by person, not by bedroom.

Seems like most people agree with the former.

This person says two rooms = equal pay.

This person says this is more than fair.

And this person says rules are rules.

When you agree to split by room and then try to switch to split by headcount, don’t be shocked if you’re the one who looks unreasonable.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.