I 28yo F moved back home with my mom and her husband, we’ll call him Sammy, due to health issues when I was 25 and have been renting out the downstairs of a split level house that they are renting since then. I pay rent and for all of my own expenses. I am not signed on the lease and I did not sign anything when I moved back in. We had a spoken agreement that if I was moving back in, I would have to stay until their lease is up which is July of 2026.
I grew up in a very religious household which I have not been a part of for about 8 or 9 years. I injured my back in March and don’t have much mobility so I unfortunately have been having to rely on others for help on most things. I have always kept my private life to myself because of their religious views. When I first got injured, my boyfriend would ride his bike to my house, leave it in my garage and then we would take my car back to his house. My mom started saying that I was not allowed to stay the night at his place because of THEIR religious views because, “if I was spending the night, they have to assume we’re having sex”. This went on for a few weeks and I made sure to be respectful but firm in my responses and we eventually came to the agreement that I wouldn’t spend the night until I was able to drive myself so that when I leave, I’m not telling them where I am going and so they are only making assumptions of where I am since they don’t see the bike there as ‘proof’ of where I am.
I started being able to drive at the beginning of June and since then, she has made some more comments about me ‘not being allowed’ to stay the night, but nothing to the extent of a full blown conversation or argument. My boyfriend, we’ll call him David, has been using my car since I’ve been out of work so yesterday he came to pick me up. There was no one home but we have ring cameras.
This morning, Sammy texts me. (any text messages will be verbatim coming from him as I have not responded. Apologies for his messages; he apparently doesn’t proof read)
10:27am “Hi (my name). Did you sleep at David’s last night?”
10:29am “I just want to understand and not assume because he picked you up and didn’t come home, you slept at his place or another place with him.” (This is where the ring camera part comes in- he had to check them to know this information)
11:17am “And, I am asking you because I feel like we are putting your mom in the middle. She is already stressed.” (I am not ‘putting my mom in the middle’ of anything- you just have some weird, perverted sense of entitlement to the intimate details of my personal life)
11:18am “So, let’s just be transparent with each other.”
2:11pm “So, did you sleep at David’s last night?” (he’s apparently not getting the hint that I’m not responding to his inappropriate questions because it’s NONE OF HIS BUSINESS)
3:31pm “I am not sure if you are seeing my text. But, just in case, I want to make clear. As a member of our household, we have the right to set specific rules. Those are based on our faith and are not up for negotiation. We have very few rules. We give you both a lot of autonomy.” (the ‘we’ is referring to my little brother (25) as well. Also you ‘give me a lot of autonomy’? As if that is not an automatic right as a human being?)
3:33pm “That said, we have been clear that you cannot 1) have sex with someone whom you are not married to, and 2) you may not allowed to stay overnight with a member of the opposite sex or someone with whom you are romantically involved.” (I’m ‘not allowed’?? lmao also, I have never viewed this guy as part of my family, let alone a ‘father figure’ so him trying to tell me what I can and cannot do at 28 years old is crazy.)
3:34pm “So, from this point on, I’d expect you, as a Tenet At Will, will respect our rule.”
3:34pm “Are we clear?” (This one had me seeing red)
3:35pm “I want the best for you. I hope you improve physically. But, I have to be firm on this. You are baptized and also are an example to (my younger brothers name).” (As I said earlier, I have not been apart of this religion in any way, shape or form for almost a decade. Also, my brother is 100% his own person and an atheist through his own decisions.)
I have not responded because this is actually mind blowing that he thinks that these are appropriate questions to ask and that he is for some reason entitled to the answers. I find this grossly perverted and so far out of line it’s actually hard to wrap my mind around.
EDIT: I have never and would never bring someone over other than my female friends because I know how they would feel about it. I have made sure to be as respectful of their religious views as possible.
Comments
They have zero authority because you are an adult. They cannot make you stay there, and you should move out.
What did I just read?
Get out of there ASAP. Your mom has gone straight cuckoo marrying this guy. Wow.
His house so his rules. You need to find a different house immediately. Even sharing a place with room mates would be better than this.
Friendly reminder to send telepathic messages to the cosmic Jewish zombie who was his own father which will make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and tell him you accept him as your master. Appeasing him will remove a dark force from your body that is present in humanity because a rib woman was convinced by talking snake to eat from a magical tree.
Luke 12:47-48 NIV
47 “the servant who knows the Master’s will & does not get ready or does not do what the master wants, will be beaten with many blows. 48 but the one who does not know & does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows”
Respectfully, all religions are a brutal Urban development project built on the conversion of hunter-gatherers into slaves and pawned off as an ethical coping mechanism. All of the omniscient, magical deities could have taught us industrialization but instead advocated slavery for many, many more centuries. The only thing worse would be burning people alive. Oh wait…
If they want to act like parents in this fashion I would stop all financial support and return to living a ‘teenage’ lifestyle… Just like what they’re trying to push onto you.
If you are laying your way in that place they have no right to impose their imaginary beliefs into you.
If they’d like to do that, then you don’t need to be paying to have rights (that try won’t allow a grown woman to have) in that house.