Imagine being 18 and still living with your parents. What would you do if your dad insisted that you needed to pay him a certain amount of money every month? Would you question what it was for, pay up or refuse?

In this situation, one teen is in this exact situation, and he has paid his dad thousands of dollars but has no idea why. His mom even seems confused.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for fighting about money?

A few years ago, my family fell into a serious financial hole. We couldn’t afford food after bills, and ended up having what was donated to us through food drives and such. (While we aren’t rich now, or even close, we have recovered, and are doing much better.)

A while after this, though, my father started asking for money from my work so that he could pay the bills.

I sometimes asked which bills, but he wouldn’t say. He would actually get pretty defensive and upset.

I always just assumed that he felt bad for having to ask for the money, and he genuinely seemed to be that way for a while, but things changed.

The requests for money got more and more urgent.

He started asking for more and more money each time I was paid, and would still almost never tell me what it was for.

Around this time, he also started to be a bit mean when he asked, and would demand that I give him the money faster, or send it to him via PayPal so that he could use it sooner.

He started to call me during work or in class if I forgot to pay on time.

It seemed like this was pretty urgent for him, but I still had no honest idea of what he needed my money for.

It got more intense.

After maybe 20 months of him increasing the amount that I had to pay, and getting bossy about how soon I deliver it, I ended up losing my job.

Once I could no longer pay at all, I noticed that those rare times when he was actually nice to me were starting to come less often.

He actually threatened on two different occasions to kick me out of his house as a way of ending arguments (I’m 18 now, so it’s perfectly legal).

I thought he was just stressed out, so I just started to leave him alone so that we could stay civil.

OP gave his dad a LOT of money.

I later did the math, and my father ended up needing roughly $18,560 from me over that year and a half.

I don’t know if this helps.

I just found a new job after a few months, but one of my personal bills needed to be paid ASAP, or I would risk losing that service (phone data, if it matters).

His mom doesn’t even understand why the dad needs the money.

I asked him for the $70 to pay it, but we ended up fighting.

I offered to pay him back as soon as I was paid at work, but he said that there were a few unpaid bills, and that they couldn’t wait.

Mom told me that she had personally taken care of the upcoming bills earlier this week, and that she had no idea what dad was talking about.

Later, he agreed to give me the money, but only if I pay him back the second that I wake up next pay day.

Now, the dad claims the money was rent.

He kind of made me feel awful for asking.

I felt a little insulted, so I reminded him that I had been giving him money every week for the past 20 months, and I only asked for some of it back twice to buy heart and stomach medicines.

He yelled that the money that I paid was my rent for staying in his house and eating his food.

I really, feel worse now, like maybe I went too far to bring that up.

So, Reddit, let me have it. AITA for fighting with my dad about this? Should I apologize?

What is going on? If OP is expected to pay rent, that should’ve been made clear in the beginning. I think he should talk to his mom about this because she seems confused too. Is the dad doing something fishy with the money? Does he have a gambling problem or something?

Let’s see what advice Reddit has to offer.

This is a lot of money.

Another person thinks rent isn’t a reasonable request for a minor.

This person makes a good point.

Everyone thinks the dad shouldn’t have made OP pay him all that money.

I wonder what the dad is up to.

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