Woman bans her parents from sharing the same bedroom in her house to prove a point

Each family adopts its own set of rules in raising children, often varying these rules based on gender. Though well-intentioned, these disparities don't go unnoticed by children, who may confront their parents as they mature. This narrative highlights one such instance.

Reddit user u/ResponsibleWinter758 shared the tale with the r/AITAH community in a post that reads: "I think you know where this is going but there’s no definitive answer on who’s in the wrong. Also, for simplicity's sake, I’ll be saying parents but it is my mother and stepfather. My mother and stepdad have been together since I was little."

She continued, "So, I’m a 25-year-old woman with two older siblings, both male. When we were growing up, we were never allowed girlfriends or boyfriends to spend the night, which I felt was fair enough. When my brothers got to about 16, however, their girlfriends were allowed to spend nights but they had to sleep in the spare room. Again, fair. That makes sense to me. I was always somewhat of a tomboy so, as you can imagine, teen boys didn’t show much interest in me romantically, so I didn’t get my first boyfriend until I was already 18."

"My parents wouldn’t allow him to spend the night at all, despite us both being over 18," she revealed. "I wouldn’t have minded if my brothers had been held to that standard but I felt as if they were favored over me. It isn’t even because they disliked my boyfriend at the time either. Everyone seemed to love him."

Although this relationship did not last for more than a few months, later in her life, OP got engaged to someone else and even then, her parents held on to their rule. "I got with my now fiancé when I was 22 and we’ve been engaged for a year. We’re getting married in only a few months. Still, just like every time before, my parents wouldn’t allow him to spend the nights until a few months after we got engaged after I brought it up to them. It wasn’t a conflict, but they knew I was irritated and allowed him to start using the spare room. We moved in together not long after so it didn’t really matter," she shared. Eventually, u/ResponsibleWinter758 came across the opportunity to give her parents a taste of their own medicine when they came to visit her.

"My parents arrived and we spent the first day going out to dinner. I’d like to point out that the two aren’t married and are steadfast that they won’t be getting married again, both of them divorced already, my stepdad twice. So, as the night was slowing down they asked to be shown to their room. I directed my mother to one guest room and my stepfather to another," she recounted. "I explained that, just like she told me, it was my house and I didn’t want them sharing a bed in my house. I basically repeated word for word what she would tell me when I’d complain about my brothers getting better treatment than me when it came to their partner... I told them that it didn’t matter because this is my house and my decision is final."

Several Reddit users responded to the amusing post, which gained over 14.6 upvotes. u/0---------0 commented, "This would be a good one for r/MaliciousCompliance too. I don't think I'd call you an a**hole; after all, you're treating them in exactly the way they treated you and what's good for the goose and all that. Bottom line is that as you say, your house, your rules and if you choose to make them abide by the same rules you had to, even if it seems petty, that's your choice." u/2Kittens4me shared, "When your parents don't treat you with respect as a child, and they get the same treatment from you once you're an adult. I'm all for it."

This article originally appeared on 07.18.23.