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As an older sibling, you often might find that you feel a sense of responsibility or care towards your younger brothers and sisters. This is perfectly normal, and can form a lifelong bond between siblings, especially when you know that no matter what happens, you will always have one another’s back. It’s an enviable position to be in, and one that will likely be a big part of your entire life.

So understandably, when she was aware of her mother’s abusive behaviour, the older sister in this story was keen to help her younger sister move out of the family home. After all, she wanted her sister to be able to live somewhere where she would be safe and treated with respect. So naturally she suggested that she move into the house share where she herself was living.

But the younger sister had one condition for moving, and it left another roommate in a difficult position.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for pressuring my roommate to move into a smaller room for my sister?

To add context I (female, 22) live in a house with four girls currently, my sister is moving in soon and will be the fifth.

My little sister (female, 20) is looking to move out of our mom’s house. Our mom is a bit abusive so I want to get her out ASAP.

I have asked her to move in with us before but she has denied me for numerous reasons.

But she finally said yes, on one condition. She would like a room similar to what she has at home.

Let’s see how the older sister is looking to achieve that.

Our house has five rooms, and the only one currently open is a very small room, basically half the size of a dorm room. We have had a hard time getting someone to move in that room because of it.

My sister moving in would also lower our rent which is a huge plus.

So I had the idea of asking one of my roommates to switch into the smaller room so my sister can have hers. This particular roommate (Mary – female, 22) is recently rarely home anymore.

She is usually at her boyfriend’s house or with her family and doesn’t really hang out with us. I figured she wouldn’t care since she doesn’t use it often (she is home maybe three times a week).

So this woman decided to request that Mary switch rooms.

I approached her about the idea and she declined, saying that it’s her room and how often she’s in it doesn’t matter cause she was here first.

This annoyed me a bit so I put pressure on her by saying that she will be the one who keeps my sister from moving in.

Thanks to Mary my sister won’t move in and we have to keep paying higher rent. Mary basically shrugged and left it at that. Since then we’ve all been a bit distant with Mary.

AITA?

Yes, of course she is the one in the wrong here.

Requesting that Mary switch rooms is really unfair – if there is a problem, then this older sister should be the one to switch rooms.

In the end, she can’t save her sister from her mum’s abuse unless her sister really wants to get out, and it doesn’t sound like she does.

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

This person agreed that she should have given her sister her own room.

While others explained that Mary was in no way obliged to trade rooms.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about an artist who made sure to leave the walls of her home blank and boring before moving out, even though they were covered with gorgeous murals before then.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that the other roommates were a problem here too.

If the younger sister wanted to get out of the family home, then she should have been grateful to take any room available. And sure the other room was small, but that really wouldn’t be a problem if she was desperate to leave. But it really feels like she wasn’t, and she was only leaving because her sister kept urging her to. And that really isn’t a good way to be leaving at all. She needs to be leaving her abusive mother on her own terms, otherwise there’s a chance she’ll end up resenting her sister too.

As for trying to force Mary to switch to the small room because she’s only home for half of the week? Mary’s right, she was here first, so she has no obligation to switch rooms. The only person who really should be switching to allow her sister to move in is the older sister herself – but given she’s not prepared to move to the small room, why would Mary do so? Honestly, this whole situation and the treatment by the rest of the roommates might end up pushing Mary to move out altogether – and then their rent will be higher once again, and no one will be happy. Except for Mary, who won’t have to deal with these mean girls any more.