Man wants to keep living with his female BFF after he gets married: 'AITA?' UPDATED

"AITA for not wanting my female best friend to move out once I get married?"

I know this sounds a little weird, but I’m in such a strange position right now and I genuinely have no idea what to do. So me (32m) and my best friend Sam (32f) have been living together for five years now. Originally it was supposed to be a temporary situation because of some health issues she was having, but we decided she would move in permanently when we found out her health wasn’t going to get better.

She’s schizophrenic and blind, along with having various other medical issues, so a lot of daily tasks are difficult for her. Our arrangement is, I cook, clean, drive, and do other things she struggles with, while she pays for all our shared living expenses.

This honestly has been a dream situation for us– it allows me to do my dream job, for which pay isn't great, without ever really having to worry about money, while she lives a pretty normal, independent life and gets support with her health issues, plus she never has to do housework.

I met my girlfriend Emma (31f) three years ago. Sam and Emma were never super close, but they were always friendly and Emma was always super understanding of our living situation and never mentioned having a problem with it to me. Recently we started talking about getting married and moving in together.

While we were discussing it, I mentioned that I didn’t know what would happen to Sam once we got married. Emma got kind of irritated, and said Sam would just move out and get her own place finally. I reminded her that it wasn’t that simple, but we started fighting and I asked to change the subject.

It came up again when Emma said something about moving into my apartment, and I told her we couldn’t because it was Sam's apartment, not mine, and I'd never be able to afford the rent.

(EDIT: Emma has known the whole time about how my financial situation works, this is no surprise to her. I guess she didn't know the apartment isn't mine, but we still have the money to get a place to live and support ourselves without Sam.)

We started fighting again, I said Sam could never live by herself and I wasn't sure I could get married if it meant I had to leave her alone, Emma said she needed space to think and drove away.

A couple hours later she texts me and basically says that I can keep having an emotional affair with Sam if I want, but she won’t put up with it anymore; she doesn’t want to talk to me for a week, and then after that we can talk about if we want to be together. I’m seriously so lost and conflicted on what to do. Emma never expressed these opinions before.

I completely understand why she’s upset, but Sam isn’t a regular roommate that can just move out. I want to be with Emma and live with her, but I can’t just kick Sam out on the side of the road either. I'd absolutely be willing to leave Sam, if she found another arrangement that worked for her. But I might be TA for not being willing to leave Sam without a new caretaker to marry Emma.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

Infamous-Wasabi-9007 said:

The problem here is that Emma wants to marry you and you alone. Not to marry you and Sam. You never mentioned that you would or could not abandon Sam. If you want to spend your lifetime caretaking Sam, I respect your choice. But the chances of you finding a woman who is willing to "share" your attention with Sam is highly unlikely. NAH

champagne_apples said:

YTA. Why did you waste Emma's time by not letting her know how the living arrangements were gonna be from the start? As another comment said, you are putting your relationship with Sam before EMMA WHO WAS GOING TO BE YOUR WIFE AND LIFE PARTNER. Trashy

aamfbta said:

I'm gonna go with YTA, but I want to clarify that I don't think you're an asshole for wanting the best for Sam and that I recognize that you're between a rock and a hard place. That being said, you are putting your caregiver relationship with Sam above your marriage with Emma, and it's a bit unreasonable to have just made the assumption that Emma might not want to start life as a married couple alone.

The wording in Emma's text might have been wrong, especially if she just came to the realization - but even I sense that you and Sam may have a co-dependent relationship and I can totally understand that Emma might even feel like a third wheel in your relationship - at least that's the sense I get.

It's tough to leave a loved one in a precarious position, but I'm not sure how you expect this to go on for the foreseeable future. Emma is marrying you, not you and Sam, and it's not wrong for her to not want to live separately from you (!!!!) or with Sam for the rest of your married lives.

Electrical-Ad-1798 said:

It's always a mistake to attempt to be in a relationship when you aren't available to be in one, and that's what you're doing. Emma looks like she's not unwise enough to do that.

And abilityalt said:

INFO: Have you actually ever discussed with Sam how comfortable she'll be with this? Why are you speaking for her? I'm sure Sam has opinions on what she can/can't do and possibly have others in her deep corner that could help. Talk with Sam then go back to Emma after speaking with her. I can't come up with a decision right now

Response from OP:

you guys are right, it's dumb for me to try and hide this from Sam, she probably would want to know what's going on. I'm going to tell her later when I pick her up from work.

Also while my pay isn't great, including my savings and Emma's job too we could get married and be fine financially without Sam's money. And Emma knew our financial arrangement this whole time, it's no surprise to her.

Lastly, I just want to make it clear that while I'm hesitant to leave Sam, it's not because I like the money and the lifestyle she provides. I WANT to marry Emma. This is 100% about what's best for Sam. But me and Sam will talk about it in a few hours and I'll update then.

He later shared this update:

You guys were right that I should have included Sam in the conversation about all this from the beginning. She was, like me, surprised at Emma’s reaction. Me and Sam agreed that open communication between all three of us is the best way to fix this, so we decided not to talk about it until all of us were talking together.

I gave Emma the space she asked for for a week, and then called her and asked if she would be willing to come over so we could talk about it. We had a very long, very emotional conversation that night.

Emma apologized for blowing up and said that while she’s always understood and respected me and Sam’s relationship, she hates feeling like she has to “share” me. She said she wanted to be my first priority, not Sam, and if I couldn’t do that she understood but she didn’t want to be with me anymore.

I told her she had nothing to apologize for, that I was sorry for acting the way I did, that I loved her more than anything in the world and I was stupid for doing anything to make her feel like that wasn’t true. Sam also apologized for crossing boundaries, and that if me and Emma wanted to get married she wouldn’t get in the way of that.

She said that this past week had made her reconsider a lot of things, and that she wanted to be as independent as she could be, and that she knew being her caretaker had been hard on me. We did a lot more talking than that, but that was the gist of the conversation.

I asked Emma, when we were alone, if she would take me back; she said she loved me and she was glad for my change of heart, but she still needed space to think about if our relationship was going to work.

Two days ago we went out on our first date since then, and she told me she wanted to try again; I asked her to marry me, and she said yes. We managed to find a place a short walk from Sam’s, and we’ve been helping her look into medical caretakers and housekeepers so she can have some space and independence.

This is a huge change for all of us, but Sam will still be a part of me and Emma’s life, she just won’t depend on me anymore; and anyways I think all of us were ready for a new chapter. Everything has worked out so much better than I could have hoped for. I’m so lucky to have such special people in my life. Thanks again to everyone who helped me with this.

Edit:

Honestly I can't believe the people predicting the collapse of my marriage or telling me to abandon my best friend. Me and Emma are both deeply in love and over the moon about this next step in our life. She loves Sam about as much as I do and also wants to be able to help out sometimes.

Sam needs mental support as much as physical support (and I'm no longer providing physical support), I'm not going to run away as fast as I can to prove a point. Emma's a grown adult, if she was unhappy she would say something like she has before. Honestly wasn't looking for advice, just wanted to share this fantastic news.