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This might be crossing the line just a bit...
By Isaac Serna-Diez — Written on Dec 22, 2022
A 48-year-old father found himself in a very awkward situation one day when his son’s ex-girlfriend called him in the middle of the night and asked for a place to stay.
Wondering if he handled the situation correctly, he walked over to his computer, logged on to Reddit, and posted about the story on the “r/AmItheA--hole” (AITA) subreddit, where millions of people discuss problems that other strangers post.
The father invited his son’s 18-year-old ex-girlfriend to stay over — without telling the son.
To provide some context to the relationship between the parents and the ex-girlfriend, as well as the actual relationship between the two high school seniors, he explained.
“His ex-girlfriend is well-mannered and intelligent, my wife [and I] both adore her. Her parents are the same,” he began the post. “They broke up at the end of October after they went to a Halloween party and she broke up with him.”
Their son never disclosed why she had broken up with him, but they mentioned that it hurt him dearly and the two have despised each other since.
“A couple of days back, a number was calling me several times in the middle of the night and I answered. It was his ex-girlfriend, she was crying and mumbling,” he continues. “She was going on about her mother and it was all incoherent.”
After calming her down, she asks if she could spend the night at their house in their guest room — a request that the father swiftly granted.
However, they made no mention to their son that his ex-girlfriend would be sleeping inside their home that night.
When the son found out, he was furious with his parents for not telling him.
“Me and my wife included her into breakfast the next morning even though she felt embarrassed and my son joined us, but was clearly flabbergasted by seeing her and was about to leave, though I encouraged him to sit with us,” he explained.
He says that the meal was very awkward, but makes it a point to add that he thinks they “clearly still like each other” because he has “seen her at our house.”
After she left, the son confronted his parents and asked them why she was there.
“As soon as she left, he got upset at both of us and was wondering ‘why she was here for breakfast?’” he continued. “He told us that we were immensely invasive of a space in his life that is fragile and that I don’t respect his boundaries by letting her stay without his knowledge.”
He said that they could have at least told him that she was coming first, and his “greatly upset” reaction to the event is what cause the father to think he was wrong for what he did.
Redditors ultimately said that he wasn’t wrong letting her stay, but he should have told his son.
The top commenter said he was the “a--hole,” giving him a “YTA” (You’re The A--hole) rating because “it's weird” that they’re “maintaining” a relationship with her.
“You also don't know why they broke up, so for all you know you invited your son's abuser to breakfast,” they added.
Although these assumptions cannot be proven, they are valid points, but the top reply to this comment argued that it doesn’t matter.
“She may be 18, but she's still a teenager. A teenager who called a trusted adult for help when they needed it,” they wrote.
“I do think that [the father] should have warned the son what was going on. Especially as he doesn't know the details of what happened with the relationship.”
They go on to explain that it doesn’t seem like they were “overly invested” parents, but that they saw a teenager in a potential emergency situation and decided to help her.
The general consensus, aside from the top comment, is that although they were wrong for not telling the son she was there, they weren’t in the wrong for helping a teenager in need.
Isaac Serna-Diez is an Assistant Editor who focuses on entertainment and news, social justice, and politics. Keep up with his rants about current events on his Twitter.