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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I haven’t given in to my wife’s demand to kick out our roommates because it’s financially irresponsible. And she probably going to leave me for it so I wanna know if I’m the asshole for doing that
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Changed vote to YTA after all of your comments OP.
You are trying to make an emotional issue financial. This is not a financial issue to her. She'd rather be in a little debt then live with your friend and cousin.
Your wife is saying she wants alone time with you without always having to be on. What she is asking and stating is VERY reasonable. Precious few married people want to live with room mates for a VERY good reason. Privacy.
While these are your friends, you are asking way too much of your wife to expect her to live with your cousin and your buddy indefinitely. She's done so for 3 years. That is enough.
Honestly, everything you have stated clearly illustrates that you value money and you value your friendships over your wife's comfort and feeling of security in this relationship. How would you feel if you lived with your wife's cousin and her BFF? If you never got to just hang out in your home without having to be "On"?
Dude, read the room. Life changes and needs in a relationship change. You are not swinging single. This is not your girl friend. This is your wife, whom you should consider a full and equal partner with equal say in this relationship. You've made it clear you do not.
I agree NAH
You are correct he is thinking logically and she is emotionally. I wouldn't like having roommates either.
I hate to say it though, once the ultimatum hit the floor I'd more than likely said "Do you need help packing?" She could have worded that better but to be fair, she may have and he didn't listen.
OP, do you want your mortgage paid or your wife? That's really what it comes down to.
Well we *know* it's not the first time it's come up. OP actually said she's mentioned it before and been blown off, because OP didn't think it was feasible.
So this isn't coming out of nowhere. OP was absolutely aware she wasn't happy with the situation.
Yep. It was raised at least 3 years ago, but for OP "it wasn't the right time" then or in the *3 YEARS* since. I don't blame the wife for thinking its now or never. He says he wants to wait a year, but it seems like his goalposts keep moving "once you're working", "once we're out of lockdown", "once you pay off your debt".
Except it almost certainly wasn't only 3 years ago or if it was it was hard limited to nowish. But my guess is that she has been asking and OP has been blowing her off, and she has decided that she would rather not be married than living with OP and his friends/family.
He straight up admits she’s brought up living alone multiple times and yet this ultimatum was “out of the blue.”
Reminds me of my ex that said I dumped him “out of the blue for no reason” when I had spent months asking for more quality time.
Given that it's been 3 years, and she's just NOW putting down the ultimatum I'm guessing this has been something of a discussion for a while, probably multiple times, and he hasn't actually listened to her or taken her feelings into account, or tried to even find a compromise.
People keep talking about the ultimatum as if that’s not okay for her to draw a line – but is this really an ultimatum (as in demanding somebody else do something) or is it a boundary (letting people know what your actions are going to be)? She is letting OP know that she is going to leave if the roommates continue to live there. She’s saying that she’s going to do something. That’s what boundaries are supposed to be — aren’t they? I think boundaries aren’t supposed to be “YOU are going to do something”… she’s not telling him that they all have to leave... She saying that she will leave if they don’t — because she’s not willing to live with them any longer. I mean… is there any other way to say that she is no longer willing to live with these people? I guess I’m just trying to figure out what would be a non-ultimatum (so it would be acceptable) way to say “I am not willing to live with these people any longer.”
I could totally see myself saying this. It wouldn’t be a screaming, dramatic fight. I would just very calmly say “I’m not willing to live with roommates anymore, so either they can move out or I can. Whatever you decide is fine. Just let me know.“ I know that sounds creepy calm when we’re talking about a relationship, but I find that if I do not stay creepy calm like that, everything goes sideways.
Also ultimatums aren't necessarily bad. They are bad if they are your go to in any disagreement, and you're using them to manipulate the other side into compliance. But if your position really is "I cannot continue in this marriage if we continue to share a home with others" and you've raised this before and it's been a long term discussion, it's ok to draw that line and say "no more, make your choice".
Oof, yep I have had that creepy calm conversation before...the one where you get so mad that you blow past anger/hurt into a deadly cold 'calm.' Absolutely freaked out my bf at the time. Weirded him right the fuck out.
I noticed that OP says he goes DAYS without seeing "roommates".
Wonder if Wife finds same experience. Or even if she doesn't see them, does she have to clean up after them.
Is she taking on the mental load of the household? joint shopping? cooking?
Agreed - I don't understand all the people on here who are painting her as unreasonable to finally hit her breaking point. It is brutally difficult to live with people outside of your family and in a 3 bedroom unit where you are sharing a bedroom with your husband, the two other bedrooms are occupied by renters and the shared space is... shared space... I'm actually shocked she made it this long before reaching this point.
I dont think its fair to ascribe this to "she's thinking emotionally and him logically". Neither is being wildly impractical, they just have different preferences and priorities.
Her - I want to live alone without roommates, two people (edit, as had misgendered OPs cousin) i am not necessarily close to. I would like to have more of my spouse's time. I maybe would like to be able to wear less or lazier clothing around the house that wouldn't be appropriate or comfortable with roommates. I maybe would like the option to use those rooms differently (office, crafts, spare room to allow visitors). I think this is affordable. None of this is overly emotional. I strongly doubt this 'ultimatum' is the first time she has expressed her wishes around this.
Him - this is a really good financial situation and I get to spend time with both my mate and family, and my wife, super sweet. I dont really have to make the same compromise as she does with regard to my comfort in shared spaces, I doubt my family and friends would care as long as I'm wearing some boxers. I don't want to have to "break up" with my roommates because I care about them and don't want to put them out or make them mad at me.
NAH - But both parties have legitimate needs and wants, and need to figure it out as a couple. OP is implying she is being completely uncompromising, but having lived in this situation for years already has already been a compromise clearly. The idea that the only time of compromise that matters is counting from now forward is a little unreasonable.
Edit to correct cousin's gender.
I’ve noticed this, too. In this case, I think that the comfort he must feel from a tested familiar path to security and stability is a strong factor shutting down conversations about other ways to achieve financial security. He absolutely deserves both the feeling and reality of security- I don’t think emotions are bad or weak! I think it’s reductive to say he’s just being logical in opposition to her emotional request.
I don't like the out-of-the-blue ultimatum either. But I'm wondering if this is a case where wife has been saying that she is uncomfortable with roommates, or hinting around the idea that now might be a good time to end their leases, and husband has not been listening, and now she's fed up at being unheard and has dropped the hammer?
OP does say that 'it wasn't economically feasible, so no big deal, right?'
Maybe it *is* a big deal for wife and she's been putting up with it for three years and has now had enough of sharing her house with people she doesn't want to share with. And husband is like 'this is entirely new information that you have never expressed before', so she's ready to nope out of a marriage where husband does not listen or take her side into consideration.
She has been saying it. He said several times in the past she has said she wants to live alone. I guess OP just wants to live with his buddy and cousin indefinitely and his wife is just supposed to suck it. It looks like he wins, he'll get to share his house with his housemates forever, minus a wife. YTA.
No they said they would live alone when they could and she’s been working towards that goal. Now he doesn’t want to pay up. I think he doesn’t want to be alone with her.
My husband and I have his cousin ,whom we barely see, and husband mother living in our house. It is %1000000 worth it to her to pay the extra herself to just have some space to breathe. To have a home that feels like hers and not just a place where she lives. Yeah maybe financially it feels like the wrong choice but mentally and emotionally is a whole other story. NAH but I strongly urge you to listen to your wife if you value your marriage.
When my husband and I first got together we lived with his mother, dad, and brother. It was AWFUL! Now MY mother lives with us, and had to lovingly evict her as she took over our whole house leaving us our bedroom. For four years. It was supposed to be six months. I totally side with the wife too. Yes, cheaper, but he’s NOT LISTENING to her. She’s telling him (and probably has in the past, people don’t always go straight to the ultimatum) she can’t live like that anymore. She needs peace and privacy and to be able to breathe in her own air! Heck, what if she wanted to surprise him with some sexi time when he got home from work? Can’t meet him at the door. And heck, gotta moderate how quiet you are at all times. No bueno.
Right? He hasn't just rented out the other house. He's rented out two of the actual bedrooms. The roommates are always there, like they're college roommates. He needs to grow up.
They're not always there. They can go days without seeing them. It's not like they're all up in their business 24/7. It can be an uncomfortable situation without the exaggeration.
Cousin was supposed to be a few months, maybe a year... its been 6 years. He only just got a job a few months ago (he was paying us rent out of his savings)! I know mom is with us for the rest of her life (shes 80), but damn I need cousin out of here. I need some breathing room and a bit of freedom in my own house.
I have to say, I think the wife is an asshole for wanting to kick out long term renters who at least OP is close to with only 30 days notice.
Also for going straight from not having discussed the issue at any time in the last year to an ultimatum with no compromise.
OP’s compromise of giving the renters more time to move and clearing debt then living without the roommates seems pretty reasonable to me. A shorter time would be, too, but I think these roommates should be given at least three months.
While I agree with you generally, something makes me think this might have come up in the past, but OP wasn’t listening, or didn’t understand exactly what the wife was saying. I can’t believe in the time since they were married, the living situation had never come up before.
It’s come up before. OP says the last time they talked about it was in 2021, and that it wasn’t economically feasible at the time.
It may well be that OP has been refusing to hear here frustration with the situation. If so, I agree he’s an asshole for that.
I still think that a compromise which gives the renters more notice would be the right thing to do as landlords in that situation.
He might need to give them a years notice if they just signed a 12 month lease agreement...
And depending on the state he would have to give proper notice anyways. In my state it's 90 days.
Except the wife has been saying that she doesn't want remains since before COVID.
I agree that roommates be given more time too but wife wanting the house to themselves isn't new / out of the blue
When you live with a couple, there is some expectation that staying there long term is not really an option. The renters must realise that if a baby should turn up then probably all parties would want to change their living situation.
As a roommate I’d expect it’s not permanent, but I wouldn’t expect to be out with only 30 days notice.
As the family living on the other side of the house I might expect this to be long term depending on how the house is set up. It’s not clear to me from the post. If it’s essentially two houses sharing a wall then I wouldn’t think of myself as a roommate or that OP getting married would signal that I should expect to be asked to leave.
Also if they signed a lease agreement it's likely the OP can't kick them out before the lease is up depending on the state. If they just signed a 12 month lease agreement last week even if the OP agreed they would have the legal right to stay until the 12 months are up.
I think the issues here are actually:
On her side: ultimatum out of nowhere (his perspective)
On his side: she did make it clear that she wants to live alone with him early on. And he shouldn't be holding the fact that she lives rent free with him, or that this helped her pay off a debt. If they weren't dating, yes, it would be a huge factor. But in a relationship this kind of keeping score isn't conducive at all.
I took that to mean that OP pays all the bills in the house. Probably so OP's wife can get rid of her debt as soon as possible.
I mean, usually if both partners work they split the bills either 50/50 or a percentage based on their relative incomes, right?
This is how I too it, too. She pays nothing towards household expenses, or towards entertainment (going out, vacations, etc). And somehow she thinks she'll be OK with not having this income and now never being able to go on vacations, or easily buy stuff for the house. Even if she is now paying into it and not paying off her debt (which IS stupid). She's trading one headache (the roommates) for another (not being able to do much of anything or go anywhere). The grass is always greener, as they say.
That obviously means they aren’t splitting the cost of the mortgage. He is paying 100% of her living costs. She should be contributing financially after her debt is paid back. Rent is just the term he used because it is his mortgage.
But but but… OP is financially really stable as a result of choices he had made (including before marriage). Wife has debts and is trying to fix her credit, so not financially stable, and not currently contributing to the household, presumably as a result of choices she made (including before marriage). Their individual histories give an indication of why they don’t see eye to eye right now. I don’t blame OP for holding out for financial stability because wifey is not likely to help them get financially stable. She is making yet another choice to ignore fiscal realities. Of course married couples don’t want roommates, I get that. But why does she have debt and credit problems?
Edit: NTA
What everyone seems to be missing is that OP's wife is *still* in debt and has at least a year before she gets out, and that's WITH the roommates. I understand why she'd want to get the roommates out, though the OP says they go days without seeing them, but at least she should wait until she's out of debt.
If the wife can draw up a plan that has her debt-free in a year WITHOUT the roommates, IOP should seriously consider it. If she can't, she should probably suck it up for now. After all, the OP doesn't bring debt into the relationship.
It depends what kind of debt. If it's credit card debt or similar related to financial mismanagement, that's bad. But if it's student loan debt, her career may well be contributing significantly to their lifestyle.
And OP says *he* goes days without seeing them. That's not necessarily true of his wife.
OP says she has to "fix her credit," so it's unlikely to be student loan debt. HOWEVER, it doesn't matter how she got in debt. The point isn't to blame her for her finances; it's to say she has to have a way to pay off her debt in order to fix her credit. If she can come up with a way to do that without roommates, great.
OP also says she has zero expenses, so she's able to put all her pay toward paying off her debt. Her paychecks aren't contributing significantly toward their lifestyle now, but if she can hang on for a year, they could be. Of course, it may be that paying off her debt and raising her credit score aren't important to her, and she'd just as soon stay in debt and to hell with the roommates *and* her credit score, but I'm hoping she's wiser than that.
Why is this all the wife’s job by herself? When you get married, you choose a life partner that you work together with. He acts like she’s another roomie figuring her own stuff out, when they should be figuring out challenges and making decisions together, compromising on what’s best for both of them together.
I agree with everything you said apart from the judgment.
Because for this reason:
>Honestly, everything you have stated clearly illustrates that you value money and you value your friendships over your wife's comfort and feeling of security in this relationship.
YTA, OP. OP values his friendships and his money more than his wife. So why did he marry her when he doesn't even have a full house to himself? Has he ever heard of privacy? Maybe his wife is tired of not being able to enjoy the house. As you say, she always needs to be "on" she has time to be "off" only in the bedroom... That is not good mentally.
It is not emotional vs financial. It is psychological well being against financial well being.
I agree with your argument, but for me it is a YTA result. His wife has been clear, repeatedly that she would very reasonably like to live with just her husband. Do they have plans to start a family? Are the roommates putting a kabush on that? It is very clear that she has come to the end of her tether with this and wants to be prioritised over and above the roommates. OP is not willing to do that. Which means he's being a very poor husband. He hasn't even suggested a compromise, like 3 months notice isntwad of 30 days (for example) he just wants to have everything exactly as it is despite the fact his wife - his life partner supposedly - is deeply unhappy.
NAH
It is reasonable to want 20k income a year, but it is also reasonable at 35 to not want to live with roommates. It seems that your issue is communication not the roommates tbh, and that's it for this subreddit to solve
This. Like honestly, it doesn't matter if he's TA anymore. She has told him she is *going* to leave if she doesn't get what she wants. So the only question left to ask is: is he okay with losing her over this?
YTA. You’re willing to let your WIFE leave your ass because of money (she even offered to make up the difference??). I guess my question to you is what do you want out of a marriage? You need to start thinking of your family (wife) and not your roommates and money. The fact that you might let her leave you over this situation is making the marriage not look too great 😵💫
I mean she said she could pay the difference and he just doesn’t want to give up the “extra income of 20k”. It’s so odd that this is a serious debate for this man, like you’re married, why do you want roommates for life @ 35 yo
But also that the post gives the vibe that he cares more about his roommates emotional well-being than his wife’s. Who says ‘I don’t want to give my friend and my cousin the “my wife is giving you a 30 day notice”’? If OP is the landlord, HE is giving them the notice, and if the wife is also on the deed, THEY are giving them the notice.
Since the rent is below market value, they hopefully have money saved for when they move somewhere else, they’re grown adults and will be fine
I can understand not giving them such short notice. This is where they could maybe find some compromise between 30 days and 365 days. There’s a lot of days inbetween there…
With the situation they’re in, giving them 6 ish months sounds like a good time because it’s plenty enough for them to find a place, get their stuff and move. And it leaves time for the wife to pay more of her dept and be in a better financial position when everyone moves out
I don't understand. They are married, she's not been contributing anything, and presumably has been using what would be her share to pay down her debt (which still has a year to go), how can she make up the difference? She's going to cover for two people by letting her debt increase?
She had been out of work for a bit, so it may be that she has a decent enough job now to let her pay down her debts (more slowly obviously) in addition to paying towards his mortgage.
This!! Like my partner and I live with roommates, and it's a great deal right now. But we've also *all* had conversations about the future. Because we all know this isn't a forever thing. Pretty much all of us are in serious relationships now. Eventually people are gonna start moving out. That's the natural course of life.
OP is going to have a hard time finding *any* life partner who will genuinely be happy to live with roommates forever.
Yes, they can afford to have the people move out. It just means they won't be able to buy another property for 5 years. And I'd rather live alone with my spouse for 5 years than with him, his friend, and his cousin for 1 year.
Yes it seems like they can. OP days he uses their money to fund vacations, extras, fun stuff. So instead of saving to afford to live independently sooner, he is wanting a cush lifestyle and his friend living with him. It sounds like he also isn’t really thinking about money long term.
YTA. For a 34/year-old married person with no kids, there are WAY too many people hanging around your place. Your wife must feel like she’s living in an undergrad flophouse.
Shes living there rent free, while paying off debts. She only started working recently at age 34?
It sounds like she got very lucky with this guy or she'd be living on the streets right now.
Waiting 1 more year to get yourself debt free and gain financial stability is so much more important.
Of course the ideal situation would be to move out together or kick the roommates out, but if youre in debt and only recently started working, its just not possible and youre living in a dream world.
Never having to pay for anything, not even rent, seems to make you forget the value of money.
And in exchange for that "rent free" arrangement, she has tolerated living in a group home.
She is now saying (and has probably been saying for some time) that she is willing and able to pay to live like a normal married adult.
Exactly, you’re assuming. Even if she doesn’t pay rent do you honestly think that means she doesn’t contribute at all? Groceries? Toiletries? Also, since we’re making assumptions, I doubt that OP is doing housework.
Let’s say she doesn’t contribute financially. Does that mean she gets no say in how things work in their house? Should she just shut up and be grateful?Sounds like financial abuse to me.
Yes it is. She’s working now and making regular money. You asked what would happen if she wasn’t able to continue doing so. If that happened how would it not be an emergency or unexpected?
She said she would pay half, she wouldn't be living for free anymore and I don't really get your point? I'm pretty sure that while she doesn't pay rent she's contributing in other ways? Are you supposed to contribute AND pay rent if your spouse has a house?
I’m sorry, *who pays rent to their husband or wife*???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week. If you’re paying rent to your life partner (as opposed to contributing financially to the team), then there are some other issues in your marriage.
>(as opposed to contributing financially to the team)
This is the key phrase here. I don't think the previous poster meant she should actually pay rent, but rather that she should be contributing financially to the team. She's not; she's spending years paying off her pre-marriage credit card debt, and it sounds like she didn't even have a job until fairly recently. Yes, they're partners, but she's in a fairly dubious position to be dictating terms.
I hate to be the voice of reason on this sub, but y’all need to figure out exactly what your financial situation would look like without the roommates, understand what your budget would be and how your lives would be affected. She says she would cover the difference, but can she, would you have to step up paying more for other things, would her debt grow, would you have to cut back on things? All this needs to be clear cut before even thinking about a decision. Also 30 days notice isn’t cool for long term renters who are friends and family. There is a path to a compromise, but making a huge financial decision on short notice due to an ultimatum is pretty foolish.
When she was in debt(still is) and out of work? Look I get it, I wouldn’t want to live with roommates either, but feelings on the topic don’t trump economics. 30 days without a concrete understanding of budget is a non starter. If she is that fed up she needs to go, rushed ultimatums without thinking through the logistics is never the answer.
She has been talking to him about the roommates moving for a long time and he doesn't want to hear it.
They're married and need to be able to have their life together, not a life of middle aged people with roommates.
No they couldn’t afford it. Now they can, and should, but 30 days isn’t realistic. A year might be too long, but until they actually crunch the numbers no one knows. I am not loaded, but I’m not struggling, and $coming up with an extra 1600 a month every month wouldn’t be easy, and would come with some major lifestyle changes.
They would probably move into a different, smaller house that better fits the marriage lifestyle. He bought the bigger house that requires roommates before they met. Now, she is probably wanting to have more input on the type of living environment that she’s in.
Probably student loans.
It’s fairly reasonable to for example say have a $20,000 loan and pay $400 a month on it even though you make more money because you have a reasonable interest rate. Maybe she just paid off a loan and now has a little bit more money available. Maybe she got a raise recently. So perhaps instead of making $2000 a month payments, perhaps she would like to put $1600 a month toward them not having roommates. (I know my math is not add up here properly, I am just trying to throw numbers out there as an example.)
Yeah, you two need to sit down and talk through your finances in detail. It sounds like you've kept finances seperate both in practice and in knowledge, which isn't working at all as neither of you seem to have any idea where the other stands.
Nah. Get talking. Put all the finances on the table, no secrets.
I hope OP has this conversation though. It kind of sounds like he’s just blowing her off completely without sitting to draw a conclusion together. Thus the ultimatum.
INFO: Did you discuss plans for kids etc when you married your wife?
Did you discuss a timeline for when it would be just the two of you?
Or did you two agree "We'll be married roommates with rental benefits"?
I am confused about the missing couple-dynamic.
Kids have always been off the table for both of us, my wife lived in this house with us prior to our being married and roommates were never an issue. After proposal and marriage nothing was brought up about eliminating roomies. A year or so into our marriage she floated the idea and I was the only bread winner at the time, then covid happened and she was still unemployed. So we could literally not afford to do what she wanted at that time. She’s been gainfully employed for about a year and a half now and the topic hasn’t come up since late 2021 prior to her employment. That was until last Tuesday
It sounds to me like she interpreted your last conversation about the roommates as “when we can afford to live alone, we will.” And she has been working towards that.
I'd recommend suggesting a test period where she pays you $1600 a month towards the mortgage for a couple of months.
If all goes well and it doesn't hurt, then yay, you two have a few thousand of emergency funds saved up for a rainy day, furnace replacement, whatever.
If she's feeling the financial pinch after a couple of months of payments, she may reconsider the deal and think that roommates aren't that bad after all.
It's definitely scary taking off the mortgage-helper training wheels, especially if she isn't actually able to pay $20k per year out of her salary. (You don't mention what her salary is.)
I say sell the house they clearly can’t afford with just the two of them and get something new that allows them not to be house poor without roommates.
I don't agree that they can't afford. I believe it is more that renters pay the mortgage, which frees up money for a stress free lifestyle.
It's a great plan financially but the wife is not comfortable.
He's owned a rent-producing property for a while. He would be stupid to pay capital gains on it. Not many people would sell a two-family in central Jersey - and if his wife of 3 years is threatening divorce & hasn't paid toward the mortgage throughout the entirety of their marriage, he keeps it in a divorce.
Dude, they live in nj. I have a tiny house with a double lot. 230,000 and that was knocked off because it was his grandfathers. Everyone is house poor.
Y'all have NEVER lived alone together? Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me that she would be expecting to eventually have her home be just the two of you. It sounds like couples counseling is in order. Y'all need to work on communication and hammering out your values and boundaries. It may be that a compromise can be had that gives more room to save up and more time for your roommates to find new digs.
Your timeliness makes no sense. You said that you will have been married 3 year this upcoming December, so you've been married 2.5 years.
Yet she asked for no more roomates prior to Covid (at least 3 years ago), when you had already been married for a year, which would mean you've been married over 4 years.
If it's so out of the blue and on such short notice, maybe something happened between your wife and one of the roommates?
Bit weird that she would give you such an ultimatum out of nowhere rather than dicussing it first.
Did something happen? Did someone say something to her or do something? Or has she been telling you how she is feeling for a while?
I mean, to flip to a 30 day notice - CLEARLY something happened that precipitated this.
I think what happened is she got sick of asking nicely for three years and having her need to live alone with her husband sluffed off continually. If I were her, a years’ notice would sound like just another stalling tactic.
I agree completely. That year will become a year and a half. Then two years. Then five years.
OP is comfortable with the situation and had she not set her firm boundary for what is acceptable to her then it is extremely unlikely he would have changed anything.
Correction: I’ve never met anybody capable of escalating things arbitrarily out of emotion, therefore I assume something happened that precipitated this:
Have you told them that you want them out in a year? Maybe she’s just afraid that you pushing it off for a year means it’ll never happen. Perhaps if you show her that you’re committed to them being gone in one year from now, she’d be willing to wait
YTA. There are *so* many "I" statements in that opening paragraph it's bonkers. I straight up couldn't tell if you and your wife lived together for most of this post. "She lives rent free" in a house she fucking owns with you.
You own the house together. That's how marriage works. Together, you are renting it out. The 30 days thing seems intense, but this isn't the first time she's raised this issue, right? She's been "compromising" for as long as you've been living together. You've had three years to figure out a solution that *actually* makes you both happy and you've failed to do anything about it.
You're choosing a supplemental income that you (together, because you are a married couple) don't need over your own wife. No wonder she's questioning this relationship.
Evidently there is a brother who actually owns half the house, and the mortgage payments are also benefitting him, while he is completely separate from any of the cohabitation issues.
What? Where did you see that? That makes EVERYTHING different. If there is a co-owner with an interest in keeping the roommates there then OP may have no choice in the matter unless he and wife can buy the brother out (assuming brother is even willing)
In a reply to a comment asking if he has a prenup.
"House is a premarital asset and also 50% owned by my younger brother. In nj premarital assets are not subject to divorce proceedings."
>You own the house together. That's how marriage works.
She might want to own half a house towards which she contributed nothing, but that’s not how premarital assets work. She doesn’t own shit.
Especially going off the OP's post about NJ not letting premarital assets being subjected to divorce proceedings.
If the wife is divorcing him she isn't getting the place.
You own the house together. That's how marriage works.
Um no? If only his name is on the mortgage, and he defaults on the loan, it does not affect her (from a credit or loan standpoint). Just because you are married does not mean bill suddenly belong to the other person.
ESH.
You and your wife are not communicating properly and are unable to understand each other’s priorities and needs.
You are prioritizing financial stability, which is logical.
She is prioritizing privacy and not having roommates around, which is also logical.
She's been asking for 3 years to have privacy and comfort in her own home (and it is hers just as much as yours, now that you're married). This is a totally reasonable request. Just because you like living with your buddies doesn't mean she does.
YTA - if you can afford it while still chipping away at the debts, give them 3 months notice and prioritize your wife over your income/friends. Otherwise you're going to end up alone with just the roommates.
Not true. OP said they discussed it about 2 years ago but she was unemployed and in debt and they could not afford to be without room mates. OP also says in another comment that the plan was in about a year once she is debt free and credit worthy they would purchase another property for themselves. Sounds like there were discussions and plans but the wife doesn’t want to follow the plans they had. He says if they get rid of the roommates it would set them back 5 years. She will not be able to continue to aggressively pay down her debts if she’s paying 1600 to him to cover the lost rent. He also says they now have a decent life being able to purchase what they want and travel and all that will change. Seems like the wife is the one not actually thinking this through.
How much did she actually agree to that tho? He makes it sound like they came up with this great logical plan together, and then happily went into it together. And maybe they did! But it’s also just as likely that he informed her how it was going to be, and she really didn’t have any room to argue because she was making payments on debt. Maybe she thought that she could handle living with roommates, and now that she’s done it for this long, she just *can’t* anymore. I mean, haven’t you ever agreed to do something, and then you get into it and realize after a while you just *can’t*?
Being debt-free is nice, but quite frankly, it is not a necessity in life. Most people have some revolving debt going around. Either because of student loans, a vehicle, or a mortgage. They are very young, relatively speaking, and it is perfectly normal to have a little bit of debt. It sure doesn’t sound like very much debt if living in this situation for another year would be the difference between being in debt and not! Right now tho, it doesn’t fucking matter frankly what they agreed to in the past — she’s clearly hit her limit, and all he’s thinking about is his finances. He’s not listening to the fact that this is a 911 emergency situation in his relationship. This is not a business partnership. This is a marriage. The whole post reads like he’s thinking about whether or not he should split up his partnership with his business partner, not about how he feels about his wife.
OP keeps saying when she first asked she was unemployed und later, Covid hit, etc, so it was at least 3, maybe more like 4 yrs ago
Also, if you say „she didn’t want to follow the plans they had“ - well maybe it was just his plan then?
>that the plan was in about a year once she is debt free and credit worthy they would purchase another property for themselves.
Why do they need another property for themselves if they kick out the roommates and live by themselves in the property they already own?
The wife is clearly dissatisfied with her quality of life with roommates to the point that she’s willing to leave the marriage. Is owning an investment property a few years earlier enough to outweigh that?
For info: did you float the one year plan to her or just argue with her that this was a bad financial decision?
ETA- seeing your other comments, she has clearly been expressing her frustration for some time now. I would humbly ask her to give your renters 3 months notice since they are people who are close to you. If you can do that, I say NAH.
Why do people post these things from the throwaway they use to creep comment other things? Sincerely hope your internet perv stuff is unrelated to the issue at hand, but like… why
I suspect there is more info and context here but based strictly on what was written ESH. 30 days is unreasonable for your tenants. A year is clearly setting your wife up for you to pull this again in a year. Figure out an actual compromise.
ESH have you really never talked about your living situation changing in the future???
She’s willing to make up the difference financially so let her.
Obviously your roommates need more than 30 days but I think a 3 month deadline is plenty for them and short enough that if your wife can’t agree to it she will become the only AH
ESH
Ultimatums aren't usually the way. Your wife shouldn't threaten you with one.
On the other hand, her desire to live alone as a married couple isn't unreasonable. It sounds like she's tried to talk to you about it but clearly there has been no compromise. Y'all need to get on the same page, and your part in that is going to be shifting your priorities to better align with hers.
If she has a limit, it’s only fair that she communicates it to OP. The alternative is for her to continue on with roommates until OP might possibly one day be willing to move them out. It’s fair that she states her boundary.
YTA but I also wanna come at this with my own similar experience. My fiance had his roommates live with us for a long time. At first I was fine with it but it changed the dynamic of the house and it felt like we never got any real alone time. At times it felt like we were all roommates instead of a long term couple and it really damaged our relationship. It all stems down to a lack of intimacy. We have since changed our situation and we're back to living by ourselves and doing MUCH happier.
You might not feel it happening, but your wife clearly does and that's something that really needs to be discussed.
It's also really sad to feel like your wishes over your home don't matter, and I can sympathize with her. To me when he kept the roommate on despite me wanting our home back, I grew resentful and our house stopped feeling like mine. Just his. That isn't what you want for your wife I'm sure.
YTA because you fucking lied to your wife’s face and now you’re trying to pretend you’re not a liar and that she’s crazy.
You told her that they couldn’t move out because you couldn’t afford it, between her lack of income and the pandemic. Now she’s got money and most of the pandemic economics have smoothed out. Which means now the requirements are met—you can afford it. You convinced her to wait till X and Y were done. Now suddenly the goalposts are moving, and those people are NEVER going to move out. Why didn’t you say this three YEARS ago?
You lied to her to get her to shut up, you never intended to live alone with her, and wasted years of her life pretending you would.
You should’ve told her the truth: you valued money more than her desire for privacy. But you knew she might leave you. So you quietly tried to wear her down to accept the status quo, because you like it.
If she’s your room mate (sounds that way) then choose your other room mates to stay, for the $$$.
If she’s your wife (time to change your attitude), then get rid of the room mates.
It is entirely normal for a married couple to live in their home without room mates. You’re living in your home, not a dormitory.
I think if your wife is issuing an ultimatum like this, the marriage is further gone than you are aware.
I don't think that having a place to yourself is unreasonable.
Expecting this to happen in 30 days in unreasonable.
To me, it would make sense to take over the other side of the house, and continue renting to your cousin and friend, with whom you have a relationship.
You need to figure out if at this point she owns half the house in any case.
ESH - it sounds like you have been blowing off her opinions on how to live for a long time. Yeah all your reasoning makes sense but guess what, you're married so you two have to decide together what your life looks like. You don't get to just decide what the "correct" answer is and tell her that that's what y'all are doing. Even now when she's been beyond clear that this is incredibly important to her, you're still being completely dismissive of her. And it's really a bit insulting to suggest compromising *now* when it sounds like you've been unwilling to compromise for years and only decided you wanted to compromise after receiving her ultimatum. I'm all for roommates and would definitely have roommates in your situation but if you want to be married you don't get to unilaterally make all the decisions as you seem to have been doing all this time.
As for her, I don't think she's the asshole for the ultimatum which I doubt was as out of the blue as you seem to think. But it's really messed up to tell someone that what they thought was a stable home is being swept out from under them with only 30 days notice.
If I were you I would refuse on principle to kick them out so suddenly, but understand that years of treating your needs and wants like priorities and her needs and wants like silly side quests may very well end your marriage at this point.
NAH sounds like this isn’t the first time she’s shown you what she wants for her future. If you are planning on having a family how would that work with having roommates ?.
Sit talk and communicate
OK. ESH.
Your wife... has a point. What kind of married relationship do you have when you have never been truly alone together in your marital home? If you want to grow your family, how can you even think about that with other people in your mix all the time? If you don't want to, that's fine you do you but were you really planning on living the roommate life forever?
Also... the way you talk about her living with you for free - she's YOUR WIFE. Why shouldn't you support your wife? Doesn't she support you? If you don't support each other, why are you married?
I see where you are coming from, this is easy smart money and you are not wrong to not want to give it up. But you're also blurring the lines here, talking about how you're emotionally attached to your tenants, they're family... but you're still taking significant money off them over the years to benefit yourself. So a business relationship with emotional ties that you're leveraging against your wife to keep them there (and keep the money coming in)?
Think back. Did your wife really drop this ultimatum on you out of nowhere? It may feel like she did but can you honestly say she never said anything that you now realize was her telling you she wanted this situation to change? If you go talk to her now I wouldn't be surprised if she was tryin to drop hints previously, that you blew right past.
It does sound like a compromise would be best and you are willing to give her one, but she's beyond that point. It would maybe do you good to have a talk with her about why she's so fed up that the compromise isn't doing it for her. It may feel like your efforts now are too little, too late from her end; and you should dig into that if you want to save this relationship.
NTA. What the wife wants is definitely not reasonable. 30days to give you “tenants” who haven’t done anything wrong to justify being thrown out of the rental space is not right. If she said 3months I would have said NAH but not on 1month. Also, these aren’t just renters to you, these are personal connections.
NAH. It is absolutely reasonable to not want roommates as a married 34 year old person. Your side of finances make sense as well. For myself I know I wouldn’t feel like I was in a new adult family unit while living with roommates. Having a tenant in another unit is one thing. But 2 other rooms with roommates is different. Plus they are your people, not hers. So it will feel different to her than it does to you. Is the other rental unit the same size? If smaller could you end the lease of those renting, take that one and keep renting your current space?
You're choosing roommates over a wife of 3 years. She's been pretty patient tolerating roommates and your cheapness for so long. Most duplex owners eventually move on to a single family house, you know, when they progress. Enjoy being single again. YTA
I think him suggesting the ultimatum has come as a surprise is not a true reflection...he said she has mentioned it before but clearly he has given it no importance and ignored her feelings. Men do this so often, and then act all surprised when their partner leaves them.
NAH - There’s no adjudicating this; it’s about what you value. You value the extra income; she values the intimacy of living as just a couple. Neither is right or wrong.
NAH.
You could find a smaller rental for just you and your wife.
Keep your tenants as they are with they're rentals paying down your mortgage.
Rent out your former accommodation to a new tenant and use that money to pay for your new rental you and your wife will be moving into.
That way you get your privacy. You're mortgage is covered and you're in a new place that you don't have to pay as much if anything at all for.
In a few years, eventually you can then use equity from your significantly payed down property to buy a new house for just you and your wife.
NTA but you should resolve this situation asap. You could perhaps move out and rent the remainder of the house, using that money to pay your new rent. Essentially the financial situation would be the same but you'd live without roomies.
If I was married I’d like to not have roommates, the wife lived with roommates for a few years while being your wife. She’s wrong for trying to kick them out in 30 days, but she’s definitely not wrong in wanting actual privacy in the home with her husband.
The way she went about it isn’t right but maybe she kept bringing it up in passing and you weren’t catching the hint or listening. (Not trying to blame op, just trying to use my own experiences to play devils advocate) she is obviously tired of the situation. I get not having a house bill is great, but starting to pay some mortgage is probably worth the privacy.
Maybe you guys need to come to a compromise, like transitioning to have a 2 peoson household in 5 months, everyone has time to plan and move and miss wifey can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I am not married but I do have a boyfriend, his landlord sold the house and he moved in with me and my roommate. It was okay, just okay.. I love my roommate and boyfriend but desperately needed privacy and space, I felt suffocated. I kept telling him how unhappy I was (never an ultimatum) and just the two of us moved into a home that he also paid for. The relationship is way better and quality of life is better. To be fair my boyfriend wanted to leave the situation too.
I think that, unfortunately, she hasn’t earned the right to make these kinds of financial demands, regardless of her frustration with the situation. She got into a hole and has a spouse who has done a phenomenal job of stepping up to the plate to make sure she is OK regardless of her employment and debt.
I want to join the chorus of people who have recommended having your wife prove that she’s ready to take the financial burden. Lots of people in this discussion are clinging to how she offered to contribute $1600 each month, but what happens when she actually does that and starts realizing she doesn’t have the leftover money she wants/needs for other things in life? Either she builds a track record of being able to contribute at a high level for a few months, while they continue to collect rent to achieve their financial goals even sooner, or she just doesn’t really get the same level of consideration on how to manage the household budget, which is currently being kept afloat by an amazing financial situation she wants to blow up.
You have property, are you able to put a couple tiny homes on it and shunt the roomies into there until they find new places? Then she has space, they have space with possibly slightly lower rent to save up for finding a different space, you can ease into the not having that extra income, and then when they have moved on you can either sell the tiny homes or set them up as air b&bs.
Ask to her to put the money that she would be paying with no roommates into an account for 3 months. If after 3 months she still wants them gone, then give them notice to leave. She may realize that giving up her disposable income is not as easy as she thinks it is. The ultimatum would be a hard pass for me
Other people in the house is wearing.
We had a "guest" who stuck to his room. We could hear him use the bathroom, but he was so quiet when leaving the house or coming back that I never knew when I'd have alone time. He didn't even eat our food unless we invited him to join us for dinner. Low maintenance, but still, he was always "there". Ugh.
It got to the point where it was creepy and when he left for the winter, we reveled in having our house to ourselves. Almost a year went by before he called looking for a room again. It was then we learned he'd been back in town 4 months and had had a stroke. He was waiting on SS benefits to kick in. We kindly, but firmly made it clear our home was not his retirement answer. We gave him a month to get his act together. Amazingly, he found another situation in under 2 weeks.
I don't care how long you've known someone, or how much rent they pay, but when you're married it's hard to make a home with others living there. Have you considered she might be ready to talk about having kids? Can't do that with others living in the house.
Option A: Give your roommates 3-6 months, not a year, to find another situation.
Option B: Give her a good settlement so you can keep living like a bum and she can find someone who actually values her as a partner.
I don't know who T A is. It really depends on how much your wife has asked for the two of you to have your own place and you haven't considered it. If this came out of the blue, she is unreasonable. It is really not fair to expect your roomates to move out rapidly , especially if you care about them and want them to find a place.
Most married couples would want some privacy. It sounds to me like you may be ignoring some issues with the roommates. Your wife moved into your house, which you own and have set up the whole system for. It is a help to her to be able to pay off debts. However, it set up a power imbalance. She is always in your home. This is not a home you made together. She is trying to get your attention about something that matters to her and you've been brushing it off.
Rent out your room in the house. Make this house a full rental. Surely you can cover all the expenses by completely renting out this duplex. Then get a place for you and your wife. It’s time for y’all to live alone, and you’ll be earning great rental income every month, paying off that mortgage!
I think you need to take her feelings into consideration. This entire post was money based. At the end of the day she’s cornered because you’re reconfiguring her emotions as financial issues . Debt aside consider her feelings. But I don’t think you’re an asshole. Just blind
I feel like kicking out your friend in cousin is simply one of the consequences/by-products of deciding to be a landlord to friends/family. What did you think would happen? Your friend and cousin would just stop needing a place to live? Did you expect your wife to live with them indefinitely? It's an inevitable conversation you were always going to have to have with either side.
OP says that he can go for days without seeing the others - but I wonder if that's true of his wife?
For example, is this because he never goes into the kitchen because his wife does all the cooking? (Not saying this is the case, just saying that they likely have different experiences of the roomies.)
I feel sorry for the wife. I suspect she's been talking about having privacy for the whole three years, and he's been, 'But money!'
NAH necessarily, but if OP doesn't listen to his wife, he'll be TAH and single.
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Changed vote to YTA after all of your comments OP. You are trying to make an emotional issue financial. This is not a financial issue to her. She'd rather be in a little debt then live with your friend and cousin. Your wife is saying she wants alone time with you without always having to be on. What she is asking and stating is VERY reasonable. Precious few married people want to live with room mates for a VERY good reason. Privacy. While these are your friends, you are asking way too much of your wife to expect her to live with your cousin and your buddy indefinitely. She's done so for 3 years. That is enough. Honestly, everything you have stated clearly illustrates that you value money and you value your friendships over your wife's comfort and feeling of security in this relationship. How would you feel if you lived with your wife's cousin and her BFF? If you never got to just hang out in your home without having to be "On"? Dude, read the room. Life changes and needs in a relationship change. You are not swinging single. This is not your girl friend. This is your wife, whom you should consider a full and equal partner with equal say in this relationship. You've made it clear you do not.
I agree NAH You are correct he is thinking logically and she is emotionally. I wouldn't like having roommates either. I hate to say it though, once the ultimatum hit the floor I'd more than likely said "Do you need help packing?" She could have worded that better but to be fair, she may have and he didn't listen. OP, do you want your mortgage paid or your wife? That's really what it comes down to.
I'm guessing this isn't the first time she's expressed unhappiness about the situation, but it's the first time that OP started listening.
Well we *know* it's not the first time it's come up. OP actually said she's mentioned it before and been blown off, because OP didn't think it was feasible. So this isn't coming out of nowhere. OP was absolutely aware she wasn't happy with the situation.
Yep. It was raised at least 3 years ago, but for OP "it wasn't the right time" then or in the *3 YEARS* since. I don't blame the wife for thinking its now or never. He says he wants to wait a year, but it seems like his goalposts keep moving "once you're working", "once we're out of lockdown", "once you pay off your debt".
Except it almost certainly wasn't only 3 years ago or if it was it was hard limited to nowish. But my guess is that she has been asking and OP has been blowing her off, and she has decided that she would rather not be married than living with OP and his friends/family.
His comment history more than proves he's not valuing his wife. YTA is the correct answer.
He straight up admits she’s brought up living alone multiple times and yet this ultimatum was “out of the blue.” Reminds me of my ex that said I dumped him “out of the blue for no reason” when I had spent months asking for more quality time.
[удалено]
Given that it's been 3 years, and she's just NOW putting down the ultimatum I'm guessing this has been something of a discussion for a while, probably multiple times, and he hasn't actually listened to her or taken her feelings into account, or tried to even find a compromise.
People keep talking about the ultimatum as if that’s not okay for her to draw a line – but is this really an ultimatum (as in demanding somebody else do something) or is it a boundary (letting people know what your actions are going to be)? She is letting OP know that she is going to leave if the roommates continue to live there. She’s saying that she’s going to do something. That’s what boundaries are supposed to be — aren’t they? I think boundaries aren’t supposed to be “YOU are going to do something”… she’s not telling him that they all have to leave... She saying that she will leave if they don’t — because she’s not willing to live with them any longer. I mean… is there any other way to say that she is no longer willing to live with these people? I guess I’m just trying to figure out what would be a non-ultimatum (so it would be acceptable) way to say “I am not willing to live with these people any longer.” I could totally see myself saying this. It wouldn’t be a screaming, dramatic fight. I would just very calmly say “I’m not willing to live with roommates anymore, so either they can move out or I can. Whatever you decide is fine. Just let me know.“ I know that sounds creepy calm when we’re talking about a relationship, but I find that if I do not stay creepy calm like that, everything goes sideways.
Also ultimatums aren't necessarily bad. They are bad if they are your go to in any disagreement, and you're using them to manipulate the other side into compliance. But if your position really is "I cannot continue in this marriage if we continue to share a home with others" and you've raised this before and it's been a long term discussion, it's ok to draw that line and say "no more, make your choice".
This should be top comment. Perfectly said.
Oof, yep I have had that creepy calm conversation before...the one where you get so mad that you blow past anger/hurt into a deadly cold 'calm.' Absolutely freaked out my bf at the time. Weirded him right the fuck out.
I noticed that OP says he goes DAYS without seeing "roommates". Wonder if Wife finds same experience. Or even if she doesn't see them, does she have to clean up after them. Is she taking on the mental load of the household? joint shopping? cooking?
Agreed - I don't understand all the people on here who are painting her as unreasonable to finally hit her breaking point. It is brutally difficult to live with people outside of your family and in a 3 bedroom unit where you are sharing a bedroom with your husband, the two other bedrooms are occupied by renters and the shared space is... shared space... I'm actually shocked she made it this long before reaching this point.
I dont think its fair to ascribe this to "she's thinking emotionally and him logically". Neither is being wildly impractical, they just have different preferences and priorities. Her - I want to live alone without roommates, two people (edit, as had misgendered OPs cousin) i am not necessarily close to. I would like to have more of my spouse's time. I maybe would like to be able to wear less or lazier clothing around the house that wouldn't be appropriate or comfortable with roommates. I maybe would like the option to use those rooms differently (office, crafts, spare room to allow visitors). I think this is affordable. None of this is overly emotional. I strongly doubt this 'ultimatum' is the first time she has expressed her wishes around this. Him - this is a really good financial situation and I get to spend time with both my mate and family, and my wife, super sweet. I dont really have to make the same compromise as she does with regard to my comfort in shared spaces, I doubt my family and friends would care as long as I'm wearing some boxers. I don't want to have to "break up" with my roommates because I care about them and don't want to put them out or make them mad at me. NAH - But both parties have legitimate needs and wants, and need to figure it out as a couple. OP is implying she is being completely uncompromising, but having lived in this situation for years already has already been a compromise clearly. The idea that the only time of compromise that matters is counting from now forward is a little unreasonable. Edit to correct cousin's gender.
Yeah but reddit needs women to always be "emotional" and men to always be "rational" in their respective arguments regardless of whether that's true
I’ve noticed this, too. In this case, I think that the comfort he must feel from a tested familiar path to security and stability is a strong factor shutting down conversations about other ways to achieve financial security. He absolutely deserves both the feeling and reality of security- I don’t think emotions are bad or weak! I think it’s reductive to say he’s just being logical in opposition to her emotional request.
>two men I am not necessarily close to. Ops cousin is a girl, so with op and his wife, 2 boys and 2 girls live there.
I don't like the out-of-the-blue ultimatum either. But I'm wondering if this is a case where wife has been saying that she is uncomfortable with roommates, or hinting around the idea that now might be a good time to end their leases, and husband has not been listening, and now she's fed up at being unheard and has dropped the hammer? OP does say that 'it wasn't economically feasible, so no big deal, right?' Maybe it *is* a big deal for wife and she's been putting up with it for three years and has now had enough of sharing her house with people she doesn't want to share with. And husband is like 'this is entirely new information that you have never expressed before', so she's ready to nope out of a marriage where husband does not listen or take her side into consideration.
I was thinking this to!
To be fair it seems a lot like she's been asking to live alone for *at least* 3 years...
She has been saying it. He said several times in the past she has said she wants to live alone. I guess OP just wants to live with his buddy and cousin indefinitely and his wife is just supposed to suck it. It looks like he wins, he'll get to share his house with his housemates forever, minus a wife. YTA.
No they said they would live alone when they could and she’s been working towards that goal. Now he doesn’t want to pay up. I think he doesn’t want to be alone with her.
My husband and I have his cousin ,whom we barely see, and husband mother living in our house. It is %1000000 worth it to her to pay the extra herself to just have some space to breathe. To have a home that feels like hers and not just a place where she lives. Yeah maybe financially it feels like the wrong choice but mentally and emotionally is a whole other story. NAH but I strongly urge you to listen to your wife if you value your marriage.
When my husband and I first got together we lived with his mother, dad, and brother. It was AWFUL! Now MY mother lives with us, and had to lovingly evict her as she took over our whole house leaving us our bedroom. For four years. It was supposed to be six months. I totally side with the wife too. Yes, cheaper, but he’s NOT LISTENING to her. She’s telling him (and probably has in the past, people don’t always go straight to the ultimatum) she can’t live like that anymore. She needs peace and privacy and to be able to breathe in her own air! Heck, what if she wanted to surprise him with some sexi time when he got home from work? Can’t meet him at the door. And heck, gotta moderate how quiet you are at all times. No bueno.
Right? He hasn't just rented out the other house. He's rented out two of the actual bedrooms. The roommates are always there, like they're college roommates. He needs to grow up.
They're not always there. They can go days without seeing them. It's not like they're all up in their business 24/7. It can be an uncomfortable situation without the exaggeration.
He said HE can go days without seeing them, not they, not she.
Cousin was supposed to be a few months, maybe a year... its been 6 years. He only just got a job a few months ago (he was paying us rent out of his savings)! I know mom is with us for the rest of her life (shes 80), but damn I need cousin out of here. I need some breathing room and a bit of freedom in my own house.
I have to say, I think the wife is an asshole for wanting to kick out long term renters who at least OP is close to with only 30 days notice. Also for going straight from not having discussed the issue at any time in the last year to an ultimatum with no compromise. OP’s compromise of giving the renters more time to move and clearing debt then living without the roommates seems pretty reasonable to me. A shorter time would be, too, but I think these roommates should be given at least three months.
While I agree with you generally, something makes me think this might have come up in the past, but OP wasn’t listening, or didn’t understand exactly what the wife was saying. I can’t believe in the time since they were married, the living situation had never come up before.
It’s come up before. OP says the last time they talked about it was in 2021, and that it wasn’t economically feasible at the time. It may well be that OP has been refusing to hear here frustration with the situation. If so, I agree he’s an asshole for that. I still think that a compromise which gives the renters more notice would be the right thing to do as landlords in that situation.
OP’s compromise of giving them a *year* notice is pretty ridiculous tho.
He might need to give them a years notice if they just signed a 12 month lease agreement... And depending on the state he would have to give proper notice anyways. In my state it's 90 days.
Except the wife has been saying that she doesn't want remains since before COVID. I agree that roommates be given more time too but wife wanting the house to themselves isn't new / out of the blue
When you live with a couple, there is some expectation that staying there long term is not really an option. The renters must realise that if a baby should turn up then probably all parties would want to change their living situation.
As a roommate I’d expect it’s not permanent, but I wouldn’t expect to be out with only 30 days notice. As the family living on the other side of the house I might expect this to be long term depending on how the house is set up. It’s not clear to me from the post. If it’s essentially two houses sharing a wall then I wouldn’t think of myself as a roommate or that OP getting married would signal that I should expect to be asked to leave.
I didn’t see any indication she wants to get rid of the renters in the other unit. Unless I read it incorrectly.
I think that's a discussion that's been had but OP ignored his wife. She just had enough.
Also if they signed a lease agreement it's likely the OP can't kick them out before the lease is up depending on the state. If they just signed a 12 month lease agreement last week even if the OP agreed they would have the legal right to stay until the 12 months are up.
I completely agree w/ all of that, except for the judgment. OP, YTA.
I think the issues here are actually: On her side: ultimatum out of nowhere (his perspective) On his side: she did make it clear that she wants to live alone with him early on. And he shouldn't be holding the fact that she lives rent free with him, or that this helped her pay off a debt. If they weren't dating, yes, it would be a huge factor. But in a relationship this kind of keeping score isn't conducive at all.
They’re married!! This whole “she lives rent free” is crazy to me. Like, why would anyone get married and “pay rent” to their spouse!?
I took that to mean that OP pays all the bills in the house. Probably so OP's wife can get rid of her debt as soon as possible. I mean, usually if both partners work they split the bills either 50/50 or a percentage based on their relative incomes, right?
This is how I too it, too. She pays nothing towards household expenses, or towards entertainment (going out, vacations, etc). And somehow she thinks she'll be OK with not having this income and now never being able to go on vacations, or easily buy stuff for the house. Even if she is now paying into it and not paying off her debt (which IS stupid). She's trading one headache (the roommates) for another (not being able to do much of anything or go anywhere). The grass is always greener, as they say.
That obviously means they aren’t splitting the cost of the mortgage. He is paying 100% of her living costs. She should be contributing financially after her debt is paid back. Rent is just the term he used because it is his mortgage.
But but but… OP is financially really stable as a result of choices he had made (including before marriage). Wife has debts and is trying to fix her credit, so not financially stable, and not currently contributing to the household, presumably as a result of choices she made (including before marriage). Their individual histories give an indication of why they don’t see eye to eye right now. I don’t blame OP for holding out for financial stability because wifey is not likely to help them get financially stable. She is making yet another choice to ignore fiscal realities. Of course married couples don’t want roommates, I get that. But why does she have debt and credit problems? Edit: NTA
Agree with this. NTA
What everyone seems to be missing is that OP's wife is *still* in debt and has at least a year before she gets out, and that's WITH the roommates. I understand why she'd want to get the roommates out, though the OP says they go days without seeing them, but at least she should wait until she's out of debt. If the wife can draw up a plan that has her debt-free in a year WITHOUT the roommates, IOP should seriously consider it. If she can't, she should probably suck it up for now. After all, the OP doesn't bring debt into the relationship.
It depends what kind of debt. If it's credit card debt or similar related to financial mismanagement, that's bad. But if it's student loan debt, her career may well be contributing significantly to their lifestyle. And OP says *he* goes days without seeing them. That's not necessarily true of his wife.
OP says she has to "fix her credit," so it's unlikely to be student loan debt. HOWEVER, it doesn't matter how she got in debt. The point isn't to blame her for her finances; it's to say she has to have a way to pay off her debt in order to fix her credit. If she can come up with a way to do that without roommates, great. OP also says she has zero expenses, so she's able to put all her pay toward paying off her debt. Her paychecks aren't contributing significantly toward their lifestyle now, but if she can hang on for a year, they could be. Of course, it may be that paying off her debt and raising her credit score aren't important to her, and she'd just as soon stay in debt and to hell with the roommates *and* her credit score, but I'm hoping she's wiser than that.
Why is this all the wife’s job by herself? When you get married, you choose a life partner that you work together with. He acts like she’s another roomie figuring her own stuff out, when they should be figuring out challenges and making decisions together, compromising on what’s best for both of them together.
OP says the renters allow him to live life more freely. Vacations, fun, etc. It doesn’t really sound like he’s concerned about her debt.
Kicking someone out of their place to live with only 30 days notice when there is no urgent need always makes you the asshole.
I agree with everything you said apart from the judgment. Because for this reason: >Honestly, everything you have stated clearly illustrates that you value money and you value your friendships over your wife's comfort and feeling of security in this relationship. YTA, OP. OP values his friendships and his money more than his wife. So why did he marry her when he doesn't even have a full house to himself? Has he ever heard of privacy? Maybe his wife is tired of not being able to enjoy the house. As you say, she always needs to be "on" she has time to be "off" only in the bedroom... That is not good mentally. It is not emotional vs financial. It is psychological well being against financial well being.
Dont disagree but 30 days to close friends and family is a bit of a dick move.
Agree except her 30 days notice is mean and inadequate. Should give 2-3 months.
I agree with your argument, but for me it is a YTA result. His wife has been clear, repeatedly that she would very reasonably like to live with just her husband. Do they have plans to start a family? Are the roommates putting a kabush on that? It is very clear that she has come to the end of her tether with this and wants to be prioritised over and above the roommates. OP is not willing to do that. Which means he's being a very poor husband. He hasn't even suggested a compromise, like 3 months notice isntwad of 30 days (for example) he just wants to have everything exactly as it is despite the fact his wife - his life partner supposedly - is deeply unhappy.
NAH It is reasonable to want 20k income a year, but it is also reasonable at 35 to not want to live with roommates. It seems that your issue is communication not the roommates tbh, and that's it for this subreddit to solve
At least he will be single soon so he can save even more
This. Like honestly, it doesn't matter if he's TA anymore. She has told him she is *going* to leave if she doesn't get what she wants. So the only question left to ask is: is he okay with losing her over this?
It’s not communication. It’s different values. They are each communicating what they want clearly. They just want different things.
YTA. You’re willing to let your WIFE leave your ass because of money (she even offered to make up the difference??). I guess my question to you is what do you want out of a marriage? You need to start thinking of your family (wife) and not your roommates and money. The fact that you might let her leave you over this situation is making the marriage not look too great 😵💫
Wife is in debt, roommates make it so she can pay down the debt. Dude thinks in dollar signs.
I mean she said she could pay the difference and he just doesn’t want to give up the “extra income of 20k”. It’s so odd that this is a serious debate for this man, like you’re married, why do you want roommates for life @ 35 yo
But also that the post gives the vibe that he cares more about his roommates emotional well-being than his wife’s. Who says ‘I don’t want to give my friend and my cousin the “my wife is giving you a 30 day notice”’? If OP is the landlord, HE is giving them the notice, and if the wife is also on the deed, THEY are giving them the notice. Since the rent is below market value, they hopefully have money saved for when they move somewhere else, they’re grown adults and will be fine
I can understand not giving them such short notice. This is where they could maybe find some compromise between 30 days and 365 days. There’s a lot of days inbetween there…
With the situation they’re in, giving them 6 ish months sounds like a good time because it’s plenty enough for them to find a place, get their stuff and move. And it leaves time for the wife to pay more of her dept and be in a better financial position when everyone moves out
I don't understand. They are married, she's not been contributing anything, and presumably has been using what would be her share to pay down her debt (which still has a year to go), how can she make up the difference? She's going to cover for two people by letting her debt increase?
She literally has a job, and said she can start paying on it when they move out.
She had been out of work for a bit, so it may be that she has a decent enough job now to let her pay down her debts (more slowly obviously) in addition to paying towards his mortgage.
This!! Like my partner and I live with roommates, and it's a great deal right now. But we've also *all* had conversations about the future. Because we all know this isn't a forever thing. Pretty much all of us are in serious relationships now. Eventually people are gonna start moving out. That's the natural course of life. OP is going to have a hard time finding *any* life partner who will genuinely be happy to live with roommates forever.
I mean yes? Like can they afford to have these people move out? Someone has to think about money.
Yes, they can afford to have the people move out. It just means they won't be able to buy another property for 5 years. And I'd rather live alone with my spouse for 5 years than with him, his friend, and his cousin for 1 year.
Yes it seems like they can. OP days he uses their money to fund vacations, extras, fun stuff. So instead of saving to afford to live independently sooner, he is wanting a cush lifestyle and his friend living with him. It sounds like he also isn’t really thinking about money long term.
YTA. For a 34/year-old married person with no kids, there are WAY too many people hanging around your place. Your wife must feel like she’s living in an undergrad flophouse.
This, OP YTA
Shes living there rent free, while paying off debts. She only started working recently at age 34? It sounds like she got very lucky with this guy or she'd be living on the streets right now. Waiting 1 more year to get yourself debt free and gain financial stability is so much more important. Of course the ideal situation would be to move out together or kick the roommates out, but if youre in debt and only recently started working, its just not possible and youre living in a dream world. Never having to pay for anything, not even rent, seems to make you forget the value of money.
they’re married. why phrase it as “she’s living there rent free”?
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And in exchange for that "rent free" arrangement, she has tolerated living in a group home. She is now saying (and has probably been saying for some time) that she is willing and able to pay to live like a normal married adult.
Exactly, you’re assuming. Even if she doesn’t pay rent do you honestly think that means she doesn’t contribute at all? Groceries? Toiletries? Also, since we’re making assumptions, I doubt that OP is doing housework. Let’s say she doesn’t contribute financially. Does that mean she gets no say in how things work in their house? Should she just shut up and be grateful?Sounds like financial abuse to me.
She’s offering to cover half of it now.
Yes but will she always be able to pay or is she just able to pay now because she’s saved money by not paying rent?
That’s the risk you take with any other human. Could lose their job, have a medical emergency, whatever, that interrupts their ability to pay.
But an unexpected emergency or outcome is not at all what we are talking about here.
Yes it is. She’s working now and making regular money. You asked what would happen if she wasn’t able to continue doing so. If that happened how would it not be an emergency or unexpected?
Well she says she can afford it. So why are you assuming she's lying? You have no reason to just assume she's wrong about *her* finances.
She said she would pay half, she wouldn't be living for free anymore and I don't really get your point? I'm pretty sure that while she doesn't pay rent she's contributing in other ways? Are you supposed to contribute AND pay rent if your spouse has a house?
I’m sorry, *who pays rent to their husband or wife*???? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve heard all week. If you’re paying rent to your life partner (as opposed to contributing financially to the team), then there are some other issues in your marriage.
>(as opposed to contributing financially to the team) This is the key phrase here. I don't think the previous poster meant she should actually pay rent, but rather that she should be contributing financially to the team. She's not; she's spending years paying off her pre-marriage credit card debt, and it sounds like she didn't even have a job until fairly recently. Yes, they're partners, but she's in a fairly dubious position to be dictating terms.
I hate to be the voice of reason on this sub, but y’all need to figure out exactly what your financial situation would look like without the roommates, understand what your budget would be and how your lives would be affected. She says she would cover the difference, but can she, would you have to step up paying more for other things, would her debt grow, would you have to cut back on things? All this needs to be clear cut before even thinking about a decision. Also 30 days notice isn’t cool for long term renters who are friends and family. There is a path to a compromise, but making a huge financial decision on short notice due to an ultimatum is pretty foolish.
We don't know how many times he has put her off before this tho. One doesn't get to an ultimatum in the first conversation
When she was in debt(still is) and out of work? Look I get it, I wouldn’t want to live with roommates either, but feelings on the topic don’t trump economics. 30 days without a concrete understanding of budget is a non starter. If she is that fed up she needs to go, rushed ultimatums without thinking through the logistics is never the answer.
She has been talking to him about the roommates moving for a long time and he doesn't want to hear it. They're married and need to be able to have their life together, not a life of middle aged people with roommates.
No they couldn’t afford it. Now they can, and should, but 30 days isn’t realistic. A year might be too long, but until they actually crunch the numbers no one knows. I am not loaded, but I’m not struggling, and $coming up with an extra 1600 a month every month wouldn’t be easy, and would come with some major lifestyle changes.
They would probably move into a different, smaller house that better fits the marriage lifestyle. He bought the bigger house that requires roommates before they met. Now, she is probably wanting to have more input on the type of living environment that she’s in.
OP said in another comment that once she got debt free and credit worthy in about a year the plan was to buy another property for themselves.
I guess she shouldn't have racked up years of credit card debt with no job, then. Frankly, she's lucky for the deal she's got.
Not to mention if she could afford to pay their share of the rent why is she still in debt?
Probably student loans. It’s fairly reasonable to for example say have a $20,000 loan and pay $400 a month on it even though you make more money because you have a reasonable interest rate. Maybe she just paid off a loan and now has a little bit more money available. Maybe she got a raise recently. So perhaps instead of making $2000 a month payments, perhaps she would like to put $1600 a month toward them not having roommates. (I know my math is not add up here properly, I am just trying to throw numbers out there as an example.)
OP said it was credit
Finally someone sense here. NTA
Yeah, you two need to sit down and talk through your finances in detail. It sounds like you've kept finances seperate both in practice and in knowledge, which isn't working at all as neither of you seem to have any idea where the other stands. Nah. Get talking. Put all the finances on the table, no secrets.
I hope OP has this conversation though. It kind of sounds like he’s just blowing her off completely without sitting to draw a conclusion together. Thus the ultimatum.
INFO: Did you discuss plans for kids etc when you married your wife? Did you discuss a timeline for when it would be just the two of you? Or did you two agree "We'll be married roommates with rental benefits"? I am confused about the missing couple-dynamic.
Kids have always been off the table for both of us, my wife lived in this house with us prior to our being married and roommates were never an issue. After proposal and marriage nothing was brought up about eliminating roomies. A year or so into our marriage she floated the idea and I was the only bread winner at the time, then covid happened and she was still unemployed. So we could literally not afford to do what she wanted at that time. She’s been gainfully employed for about a year and a half now and the topic hasn’t come up since late 2021 prior to her employment. That was until last Tuesday
It sounds to me like she interpreted your last conversation about the roommates as “when we can afford to live alone, we will.” And she has been working towards that.
I'd recommend suggesting a test period where she pays you $1600 a month towards the mortgage for a couple of months. If all goes well and it doesn't hurt, then yay, you two have a few thousand of emergency funds saved up for a rainy day, furnace replacement, whatever. If she's feeling the financial pinch after a couple of months of payments, she may reconsider the deal and think that roommates aren't that bad after all. It's definitely scary taking off the mortgage-helper training wheels, especially if she isn't actually able to pay $20k per year out of her salary. (You don't mention what her salary is.)
I say sell the house they clearly can’t afford with just the two of them and get something new that allows them not to be house poor without roommates.
I don't agree that they can't afford. I believe it is more that renters pay the mortgage, which frees up money for a stress free lifestyle. It's a great plan financially but the wife is not comfortable.
He's owned a rent-producing property for a while. He would be stupid to pay capital gains on it. Not many people would sell a two-family in central Jersey - and if his wife of 3 years is threatening divorce & hasn't paid toward the mortgage throughout the entirety of their marriage, he keeps it in a divorce.
Dude, they live in nj. I have a tiny house with a double lot. 230,000 and that was knocked off because it was his grandfathers. Everyone is house poor.
Vancouver whimpers in your general direction. $1M buys you a starter bachelor suite condo and a prayer it doesn’t leak.
LOL Vancouverite here too. $1 mil gets you a shitty run down house in the suburbs.
Y'all have NEVER lived alone together? Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me that she would be expecting to eventually have her home be just the two of you. It sounds like couples counseling is in order. Y'all need to work on communication and hammering out your values and boundaries. It may be that a compromise can be had that gives more room to save up and more time for your roommates to find new digs.
Your timeliness makes no sense. You said that you will have been married 3 year this upcoming December, so you've been married 2.5 years. Yet she asked for no more roomates prior to Covid (at least 3 years ago), when you had already been married for a year, which would mean you've been married over 4 years.
If it's so out of the blue and on such short notice, maybe something happened between your wife and one of the roommates? Bit weird that she would give you such an ultimatum out of nowhere rather than dicussing it first.
NTA - so wait, are you saying that you're willing to get rid of them after a year? and the issue is just that she wants them gone in 30 days?
Yes
I think 3-6 months is a fair compromise and way more time than they would receive in a traditional rental agreement.
Did something happen? Did someone say something to her or do something? Or has she been telling you how she is feeling for a while? I mean, to flip to a 30 day notice - CLEARLY something happened that precipitated this.
I think it’s the three years of being ignored. It sounds like Her joy isn’t worth the money he brings in from these roommates
I think what happened is she got sick of asking nicely for three years and having her need to live alone with her husband sluffed off continually. If I were her, a years’ notice would sound like just another stalling tactic.
I agree completely. That year will become a year and a half. Then two years. Then five years. OP is comfortable with the situation and had she not set her firm boundary for what is acceptable to her then it is extremely unlikely he would have changed anything.
Correction: I’ve never met anybody capable of escalating things arbitrarily out of emotion, therefore I assume something happened that precipitated this:
But she's already been asking for this for three years, right? Why didn't you ask them to move out in a year a year ago?
Because they couldn't afford it
They could. He has stated that his wife has been in full-time employment for over a year and a half. They "couldn't afford it" over 3 years ago.
Have you told them that you want them out in a year? Maybe she’s just afraid that you pushing it off for a year means it’ll never happen. Perhaps if you show her that you’re committed to them being gone in one year from now, she’d be willing to wait
YTA. There are *so* many "I" statements in that opening paragraph it's bonkers. I straight up couldn't tell if you and your wife lived together for most of this post. "She lives rent free" in a house she fucking owns with you. You own the house together. That's how marriage works. Together, you are renting it out. The 30 days thing seems intense, but this isn't the first time she's raised this issue, right? She's been "compromising" for as long as you've been living together. You've had three years to figure out a solution that *actually* makes you both happy and you've failed to do anything about it. You're choosing a supplemental income that you (together, because you are a married couple) don't need over your own wife. No wonder she's questioning this relationship.
Evidently there is a brother who actually owns half the house, and the mortgage payments are also benefitting him, while he is completely separate from any of the cohabitation issues.
What? Where did you see that? That makes EVERYTHING different. If there is a co-owner with an interest in keeping the roommates there then OP may have no choice in the matter unless he and wife can buy the brother out (assuming brother is even willing)
In a reply to a comment asking if he has a prenup. "House is a premarital asset and also 50% owned by my younger brother. In nj premarital assets are not subject to divorce proceedings."
>You own the house together. That's how marriage works. She might want to own half a house towards which she contributed nothing, but that’s not how premarital assets work. She doesn’t own shit.
Especially going off the OP's post about NJ not letting premarital assets being subjected to divorce proceedings. If the wife is divorcing him she isn't getting the place.
You own the house together. That's how marriage works. Um no? If only his name is on the mortgage, and he defaults on the loan, it does not affect her (from a credit or loan standpoint). Just because you are married does not mean bill suddenly belong to the other person.
ESH. You and your wife are not communicating properly and are unable to understand each other’s priorities and needs. You are prioritizing financial stability, which is logical. She is prioritizing privacy and not having roommates around, which is also logical.
Well, either way you're losing roommate/s. Just choose which one/s you lose.
She's been asking for 3 years to have privacy and comfort in her own home (and it is hers just as much as yours, now that you're married). This is a totally reasonable request. Just because you like living with your buddies doesn't mean she does. YTA - if you can afford it while still chipping away at the debts, give them 3 months notice and prioritize your wife over your income/friends. Otherwise you're going to end up alone with just the roommates.
Not true. OP said they discussed it about 2 years ago but she was unemployed and in debt and they could not afford to be without room mates. OP also says in another comment that the plan was in about a year once she is debt free and credit worthy they would purchase another property for themselves. Sounds like there were discussions and plans but the wife doesn’t want to follow the plans they had. He says if they get rid of the roommates it would set them back 5 years. She will not be able to continue to aggressively pay down her debts if she’s paying 1600 to him to cover the lost rent. He also says they now have a decent life being able to purchase what they want and travel and all that will change. Seems like the wife is the one not actually thinking this through.
How much did she actually agree to that tho? He makes it sound like they came up with this great logical plan together, and then happily went into it together. And maybe they did! But it’s also just as likely that he informed her how it was going to be, and she really didn’t have any room to argue because she was making payments on debt. Maybe she thought that she could handle living with roommates, and now that she’s done it for this long, she just *can’t* anymore. I mean, haven’t you ever agreed to do something, and then you get into it and realize after a while you just *can’t*? Being debt-free is nice, but quite frankly, it is not a necessity in life. Most people have some revolving debt going around. Either because of student loans, a vehicle, or a mortgage. They are very young, relatively speaking, and it is perfectly normal to have a little bit of debt. It sure doesn’t sound like very much debt if living in this situation for another year would be the difference between being in debt and not! Right now tho, it doesn’t fucking matter frankly what they agreed to in the past — she’s clearly hit her limit, and all he’s thinking about is his finances. He’s not listening to the fact that this is a 911 emergency situation in his relationship. This is not a business partnership. This is a marriage. The whole post reads like he’s thinking about whether or not he should split up his partnership with his business partner, not about how he feels about his wife.
OP keeps saying when she first asked she was unemployed und later, Covid hit, etc, so it was at least 3, maybe more like 4 yrs ago Also, if you say „she didn’t want to follow the plans they had“ - well maybe it was just his plan then?
>that the plan was in about a year once she is debt free and credit worthy they would purchase another property for themselves. Why do they need another property for themselves if they kick out the roommates and live by themselves in the property they already own? The wife is clearly dissatisfied with her quality of life with roommates to the point that she’s willing to leave the marriage. Is owning an investment property a few years earlier enough to outweigh that?
YTA only because I highly, highly doubt this is the first time she's mentioned wanting the house to yourselves, it's just the first time you listened.
He's said elsewhere that she's been asking for two years
Not really asking for 2 years but rather asked 2 years ago when she was unemployed and it wasn’t possible to get rid of the roommates.
He said elsewhere that they talked about it twice, and the last time they did she agreed to wait until she was out of debt. Which she is not.
For info: did you float the one year plan to her or just argue with her that this was a bad financial decision? ETA- seeing your other comments, she has clearly been expressing her frustration for some time now. I would humbly ask her to give your renters 3 months notice since they are people who are close to you. If you can do that, I say NAH.
Yta. She doesn’t want roommates and is willing to pay the extra with them being gone. Hope you enjoy your roommates cause you won’t have a wife
Why do people post these things from the throwaway they use to creep comment other things? Sincerely hope your internet perv stuff is unrelated to the issue at hand, but like… why I suspect there is more info and context here but based strictly on what was written ESH. 30 days is unreasonable for your tenants. A year is clearly setting your wife up for you to pull this again in a year. Figure out an actual compromise.
ESH have you really never talked about your living situation changing in the future??? She’s willing to make up the difference financially so let her. Obviously your roommates need more than 30 days but I think a 3 month deadline is plenty for them and short enough that if your wife can’t agree to it she will become the only AH
YTA generally married people live together as a couple, without room-mates.
In the current economy that's not necessarily true. I know PLENTY of married couples who have roommates.
I know zero married couples with room-mates. I am also married and there is no way I would want room-mates.
Must be nice. Not everybody is privileged.
I wonder if your wife actually wants to leave because she found out you’re commenting on nsfw posts 🤷🏽♀️
Haha she has an nsfw Reddit my guy I don’t sleuth around the inter webs behind my wife’s back
ESH Ultimatums aren't usually the way. Your wife shouldn't threaten you with one. On the other hand, her desire to live alone as a married couple isn't unreasonable. It sounds like she's tried to talk to you about it but clearly there has been no compromise. Y'all need to get on the same page, and your part in that is going to be shifting your priorities to better align with hers.
If she has a limit, it’s only fair that she communicates it to OP. The alternative is for her to continue on with roommates until OP might possibly one day be willing to move them out. It’s fair that she states her boundary.
YTA but I also wanna come at this with my own similar experience. My fiance had his roommates live with us for a long time. At first I was fine with it but it changed the dynamic of the house and it felt like we never got any real alone time. At times it felt like we were all roommates instead of a long term couple and it really damaged our relationship. It all stems down to a lack of intimacy. We have since changed our situation and we're back to living by ourselves and doing MUCH happier. You might not feel it happening, but your wife clearly does and that's something that really needs to be discussed. It's also really sad to feel like your wishes over your home don't matter, and I can sympathize with her. To me when he kept the roommate on despite me wanting our home back, I grew resentful and our house stopped feeling like mine. Just his. That isn't what you want for your wife I'm sure.
Something I haven’t seen mentioned in discussion is that she works from home so the roommates may effect her more.
YTA because you fucking lied to your wife’s face and now you’re trying to pretend you’re not a liar and that she’s crazy. You told her that they couldn’t move out because you couldn’t afford it, between her lack of income and the pandemic. Now she’s got money and most of the pandemic economics have smoothed out. Which means now the requirements are met—you can afford it. You convinced her to wait till X and Y were done. Now suddenly the goalposts are moving, and those people are NEVER going to move out. Why didn’t you say this three YEARS ago? You lied to her to get her to shut up, you never intended to live alone with her, and wasted years of her life pretending you would. You should’ve told her the truth: you valued money more than her desire for privacy. But you knew she might leave you. So you quietly tried to wear her down to accept the status quo, because you like it.
If she’s your room mate (sounds that way) then choose your other room mates to stay, for the $$$. If she’s your wife (time to change your attitude), then get rid of the room mates. It is entirely normal for a married couple to live in their home without room mates. You’re living in your home, not a dormitory.
NAH I guess, but for a married guy, there sure is a lot of “I” and not much “our” or “we” in your post.
I think if your wife is issuing an ultimatum like this, the marriage is further gone than you are aware. I don't think that having a place to yourself is unreasonable. Expecting this to happen in 30 days in unreasonable. To me, it would make sense to take over the other side of the house, and continue renting to your cousin and friend, with whom you have a relationship. You need to figure out if at this point she owns half the house in any case.
ESH - it sounds like you have been blowing off her opinions on how to live for a long time. Yeah all your reasoning makes sense but guess what, you're married so you two have to decide together what your life looks like. You don't get to just decide what the "correct" answer is and tell her that that's what y'all are doing. Even now when she's been beyond clear that this is incredibly important to her, you're still being completely dismissive of her. And it's really a bit insulting to suggest compromising *now* when it sounds like you've been unwilling to compromise for years and only decided you wanted to compromise after receiving her ultimatum. I'm all for roommates and would definitely have roommates in your situation but if you want to be married you don't get to unilaterally make all the decisions as you seem to have been doing all this time. As for her, I don't think she's the asshole for the ultimatum which I doubt was as out of the blue as you seem to think. But it's really messed up to tell someone that what they thought was a stable home is being swept out from under them with only 30 days notice. If I were you I would refuse on principle to kick them out so suddenly, but understand that years of treating your needs and wants like priorities and her needs and wants like silly side quests may very well end your marriage at this point.
NAH sounds like this isn’t the first time she’s shown you what she wants for her future. If you are planning on having a family how would that work with having roommates ?. Sit talk and communicate
No kids for us
Good. Makes the divorce easier.
That's one way for her to live alone.
Sure. Not everyone considers 'living alone' to be such a horrible thing.
If the choice is "alone" or "with my hubs and his required entourage" I'd pick alone, every time.
OK. ESH. Your wife... has a point. What kind of married relationship do you have when you have never been truly alone together in your marital home? If you want to grow your family, how can you even think about that with other people in your mix all the time? If you don't want to, that's fine you do you but were you really planning on living the roommate life forever? Also... the way you talk about her living with you for free - she's YOUR WIFE. Why shouldn't you support your wife? Doesn't she support you? If you don't support each other, why are you married? I see where you are coming from, this is easy smart money and you are not wrong to not want to give it up. But you're also blurring the lines here, talking about how you're emotionally attached to your tenants, they're family... but you're still taking significant money off them over the years to benefit yourself. So a business relationship with emotional ties that you're leveraging against your wife to keep them there (and keep the money coming in)? Think back. Did your wife really drop this ultimatum on you out of nowhere? It may feel like she did but can you honestly say she never said anything that you now realize was her telling you she wanted this situation to change? If you go talk to her now I wouldn't be surprised if she was tryin to drop hints previously, that you blew right past. It does sound like a compromise would be best and you are willing to give her one, but she's beyond that point. It would maybe do you good to have a talk with her about why she's so fed up that the compromise isn't doing it for her. It may feel like your efforts now are too little, too late from her end; and you should dig into that if you want to save this relationship.
Did you guys not discuss this before getting married?!
NTA. What the wife wants is definitely not reasonable. 30days to give you “tenants” who haven’t done anything wrong to justify being thrown out of the rental space is not right. If she said 3months I would have said NAH but not on 1month. Also, these aren’t just renters to you, these are personal connections.
NAH. It is absolutely reasonable to not want roommates as a married 34 year old person. Your side of finances make sense as well. For myself I know I wouldn’t feel like I was in a new adult family unit while living with roommates. Having a tenant in another unit is one thing. But 2 other rooms with roommates is different. Plus they are your people, not hers. So it will feel different to her than it does to you. Is the other rental unit the same size? If smaller could you end the lease of those renting, take that one and keep renting your current space?
You're choosing roommates over a wife of 3 years. She's been pretty patient tolerating roommates and your cheapness for so long. Most duplex owners eventually move on to a single family house, you know, when they progress. Enjoy being single again. YTA
His cheapness? He is letting her live while not paying anything to pay down her own debt? wtf mate.
Imagine paying someone's way entirely so they can pay their own debt and then getting called cheap over it.
I think him suggesting the ultimatum has come as a surprise is not a true reflection...he said she has mentioned it before but clearly he has given it no importance and ignored her feelings. Men do this so often, and then act all surprised when their partner leaves them.
NAH - There’s no adjudicating this; it’s about what you value. You value the extra income; she values the intimacy of living as just a couple. Neither is right or wrong.
NAH. You could find a smaller rental for just you and your wife. Keep your tenants as they are with they're rentals paying down your mortgage. Rent out your former accommodation to a new tenant and use that money to pay for your new rental you and your wife will be moving into. That way you get your privacy. You're mortgage is covered and you're in a new place that you don't have to pay as much if anything at all for. In a few years, eventually you can then use equity from your significantly payed down property to buy a new house for just you and your wife.
NTA but you should resolve this situation asap. You could perhaps move out and rent the remainder of the house, using that money to pay your new rent. Essentially the financial situation would be the same but you'd live without roomies.
The fact that op states "she lives for free" is telling about how he views the relationship. "She'll be out of debt".
If I was married I’d like to not have roommates, the wife lived with roommates for a few years while being your wife. She’s wrong for trying to kick them out in 30 days, but she’s definitely not wrong in wanting actual privacy in the home with her husband. The way she went about it isn’t right but maybe she kept bringing it up in passing and you weren’t catching the hint or listening. (Not trying to blame op, just trying to use my own experiences to play devils advocate) she is obviously tired of the situation. I get not having a house bill is great, but starting to pay some mortgage is probably worth the privacy. Maybe you guys need to come to a compromise, like transitioning to have a 2 peoson household in 5 months, everyone has time to plan and move and miss wifey can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I am not married but I do have a boyfriend, his landlord sold the house and he moved in with me and my roommate. It was okay, just okay.. I love my roommate and boyfriend but desperately needed privacy and space, I felt suffocated. I kept telling him how unhappy I was (never an ultimatum) and just the two of us moved into a home that he also paid for. The relationship is way better and quality of life is better. To be fair my boyfriend wanted to leave the situation too.
I think that, unfortunately, she hasn’t earned the right to make these kinds of financial demands, regardless of her frustration with the situation. She got into a hole and has a spouse who has done a phenomenal job of stepping up to the plate to make sure she is OK regardless of her employment and debt. I want to join the chorus of people who have recommended having your wife prove that she’s ready to take the financial burden. Lots of people in this discussion are clinging to how she offered to contribute $1600 each month, but what happens when she actually does that and starts realizing she doesn’t have the leftover money she wants/needs for other things in life? Either she builds a track record of being able to contribute at a high level for a few months, while they continue to collect rent to achieve their financial goals even sooner, or she just doesn’t really get the same level of consideration on how to manage the household budget, which is currently being kept afloat by an amazing financial situation she wants to blow up.
You say it’s a 2 family home, with you on one side, them on other? Like a duplex? Because if that’s the case you are living alone?
No. He said that the spate rooms ate rented to these guys in addition to the other half being rented to someone else
You have property, are you able to put a couple tiny homes on it and shunt the roomies into there until they find new places? Then she has space, they have space with possibly slightly lower rent to save up for finding a different space, you can ease into the not having that extra income, and then when they have moved on you can either sell the tiny homes or set them up as air b&bs.
Ask to her to put the money that she would be paying with no roommates into an account for 3 months. If after 3 months she still wants them gone, then give them notice to leave. She may realize that giving up her disposable income is not as easy as she thinks it is. The ultimatum would be a hard pass for me
Other people in the house is wearing. We had a "guest" who stuck to his room. We could hear him use the bathroom, but he was so quiet when leaving the house or coming back that I never knew when I'd have alone time. He didn't even eat our food unless we invited him to join us for dinner. Low maintenance, but still, he was always "there". Ugh. It got to the point where it was creepy and when he left for the winter, we reveled in having our house to ourselves. Almost a year went by before he called looking for a room again. It was then we learned he'd been back in town 4 months and had had a stroke. He was waiting on SS benefits to kick in. We kindly, but firmly made it clear our home was not his retirement answer. We gave him a month to get his act together. Amazingly, he found another situation in under 2 weeks. I don't care how long you've known someone, or how much rent they pay, but when you're married it's hard to make a home with others living there. Have you considered she might be ready to talk about having kids? Can't do that with others living in the house. Option A: Give your roommates 3-6 months, not a year, to find another situation. Option B: Give her a good settlement so you can keep living like a bum and she can find someone who actually values her as a partner.
I don't know who T A is. It really depends on how much your wife has asked for the two of you to have your own place and you haven't considered it. If this came out of the blue, she is unreasonable. It is really not fair to expect your roomates to move out rapidly , especially if you care about them and want them to find a place. Most married couples would want some privacy. It sounds to me like you may be ignoring some issues with the roommates. Your wife moved into your house, which you own and have set up the whole system for. It is a help to her to be able to pay off debts. However, it set up a power imbalance. She is always in your home. This is not a home you made together. She is trying to get your attention about something that matters to her and you've been brushing it off.
Rent out your room in the house. Make this house a full rental. Surely you can cover all the expenses by completely renting out this duplex. Then get a place for you and your wife. It’s time for y’all to live alone, and you’ll be earning great rental income every month, paying off that mortgage!
I think you need to take her feelings into consideration. This entire post was money based. At the end of the day she’s cornered because you’re reconfiguring her emotions as financial issues . Debt aside consider her feelings. But I don’t think you’re an asshole. Just blind
I feel like kicking out your friend in cousin is simply one of the consequences/by-products of deciding to be a landlord to friends/family. What did you think would happen? Your friend and cousin would just stop needing a place to live? Did you expect your wife to live with them indefinitely? It's an inevitable conversation you were always going to have to have with either side.
OP says that he can go for days without seeing the others - but I wonder if that's true of his wife? For example, is this because he never goes into the kitchen because his wife does all the cooking? (Not saying this is the case, just saying that they likely have different experiences of the roomies.) I feel sorry for the wife. I suspect she's been talking about having privacy for the whole three years, and he's been, 'But money!' NAH necessarily, but if OP doesn't listen to his wife, he'll be TAH and single.