Woman asks plus-size roommate to not sit on couch; 'it's my money, it's MY couch.' AITA?
Woman asks plus-size roommate to not sit on couch; 'it's my money, it's MY couch.' AITA?
"AITA for asking my plus-size roommate not to sit on my lounge?"
I’m current sharing my flatmate (F30) who moved in with me (F31) after her partner left her and took all her stuff. I invited her to move in with me in my flat, and that’s been fantastic. She pays her share in rent, and does her share of tidying up, and is a generally decent person.
She is an obese girl, and that’s not an issue, except that I’ve noticed that over the course of her living with me that my new furniture is starting to wear out really fast, specifically where she sits. Its not even been a year since she’s moved in, and I’ve noticed the living room furniture looking worse for wear.
I’ve spent a lot of money on renovating my flat and getting nice furniture when I was living alone, so I was upset when I discovered my expensive new lounge starting to become flat, and the fabric basically saggy, worn out, the physical joint that holds it together now warping in the middle, and gaining a distinct odor (which is a whole other issue in itself).
It’s not like it was a badly made lounge couch either. I started to get tense and resentful because she spent a lot of time watching TV, and my couch was taking the toll.
So I asked her straight up to buy a reinforcement seat pillow for the lounge. I gently let her know that it wasn’t really designed for someone >250lbs. I work in OH&S so tried to make things as objective and solutions focused as possible so the focus was on the modification and not her weight.
She started yelling at me, and told was me I was fat shaming, fatphobic, and controlling. I explained that it wasn’t about her, but about making sure that she could enjoy using the lounge.
Now she won’t talk to me, or use the common areas. It has been a week. Part of me is slightly relieved she isn’t using the living room right now because my lounge started looking sad and compressed.
I feel like I didn’t really have a a choice unless I asked her to move out, or buy her own furniture to sit on. It’s not just the lounge. It’s all the chairs in the house. She pays her rent. And she’s closer to 300lbs…. AITA?
Let's see what readers thought. They were DEFINITELY torn.
remarkableinternt67 writes:
YTA, very obviously. Your furniture is perfectly fine, it's compressing, that's normal. It will do that no matter how much she weighs. The fact that she's heavy will only make a minor difference. It's been nearly a year, you're describing normal wear and tear. Telling anyone this would be rude as hell.
Telling a woman who's paying rent she can't use the furniture is outrageous. You would have needed to try to be more hurtful, the fact that you tried to couch it in pseudo professional nonsense just shows you know how wrong you were and thought you could skate by it, because apparently you think she's stupid too.
ITGUY7645 writes:
NTA. You don't say but is she paying you rent and her part of the utilities. Does she share the cost of the groceries? Maybe it's time she went and found her self somewhere to live and moved out. Asking her to respect your furniture is not Fat shaming or fat phobic.
ireadot writes:
Your flatmate isn't too heavy because a couch should be designed to hold at minimum 2 people depending on its size. You're just assuming she's the cause because of her weight. If she were double her size you would have a case. YTA. Maybe you should move your couch out and let her get her own if it's a communal space.