AITAH for not allowing my parents to sleep in the same bed?

A 25-year-old woman has a complicated relationship with her mother and stepfather regarding their parenting double standards. Growing up, she felt unfairly treated compared to her brothers when it came to overnight guests.

Now engaged, she faces resistance from her parents when they visit her home. When they insist on sharing a bed, she enforces her own house rules, mirroring her parents’ previous parenting approach. This leads to tension, as they leave the next day without speaking to her, and she faces backlash from her grandmother.

AITAH for not allowing my parents to sleep in the same bed?

I think you know where this is going but there’s no definitive answer on who’s in the wrong. Also, for simplicity sake I’ll be saying parents but it is my mother and step father. My mother and stepdad have been together since I was little.

So, I’m a 25yr old woman with two older siblings, both male. When we were growing up, we were never allowed girlfriends or boyfriends to spend the night, which I felt was fair enough. When my brothers got to about 16, however, their girlfriends were allowed to spend nights but they had to sleep in the spare room. Again, fair. That makes sense to me.

I was always somewhat of a tomboy so, as you can imagine, teen boys didn’t show much interest in me romantically, so I didn’t get my first boyfriend until I was already 18. My parents wouldn’t allow him to spend the night at all, despite us both being over 18.

I wouldn’t have minded if my brothers had been held to that standard but I felt as if they were favoured over me. It isn’t even because they disliked my boyfriend at the time either. Everyone seemed to love him.

That relationship didn’t last more than 6ish months so I dropped it after a while. I got with my now fiancé when I was 22 and we’ve been engaged for a year. We’re getting married in only a few months.

Still, just like every time before, my parents wouldn’t allow him to spend the nights until a few months after we got engaged after I brought it up to them. It wasn’t a conflict, but they knew I was irritated and allowed him to start using the spare room. We moved in together not long after so it didn’t really matter.

Now, I may be an a*shole. My mother asked about wedding planning, the first time she even contacted me since the move, and I told her I still had a lot to sort out but I was getting through it and she practically insisted on coming up to me and having a week of ‘mother daughter bonding time’ where she could help me with wedding planning.

My fiancé isn’t a very social person and is happy to be the money bags behind my wedding decisions hehe. He just likes to give little opinions and I’m sure to include them when he does.

My parents arrived and we spent the first day going out to dinner. I’d like to point out that the two aren’t married and are steadfast that they won’t be getting married again, both of them divorced already, my stepdad twice. So, as the night was slowing down they asked to be shown to their room.

I directed my mother to one guest room and my stepfather to another. We have a three bedroom with no kids yet so we have the space. My mother said that there was plenty of room in one for them both and instructed my stepdad to come in with her.

I explained that, just like she told me, it was my house and i didn’t want them sharing a bed in my house. I basically repeated word for word what she would tell me when I’d complain about my brothers getting better treatment than me when it came to their partner.

I told her that actually, they were in the same position I was in because neither of us were married. She tried saying it was different because they had been together for almost 20yrs.

I told them that it didn’t matter because this is my house and my decision is final, just like how my mother would shut down any discussions about it back then. I was sure to mention how my brothers were allowed their partners and I wasn’t but she claimed i was ‘making it up.’

They stayed the night and left for home the next day, which i preferred because I was happy wedding planning on my own, and I haven’t heard from them since. My grandmother has called to tell me off for it though so I’m wondering if I am in the wrong? AITAH?

Edit: a lot of people are confused. At my mothers house, we were not allowed to ever sleep in the same bed. Ever. Only months after we got engaged did my mother allow him to sleep in the spare room. Also, I said I don’t mind the rules they have. It’s their home but it was the double standard for me.

I had to wait until 25 to have my fiancé stay at my house when my brothers could have whoever they wanted from 16. We were engaged by the time they let him. I was no longer a child and it’s not like I’ve been holding on to resentment for years after it stopped, as some misguided people claim.

It was months ago it ended. Also, my intention was never to make them sleep the whole week separately. It was initially a ‘now the power is in my hands. Do you see the error of your ways?’ If they did, we could have moved on and laughed about it, and they would have slept in the same bed.

Because they didn’t and doubled down and started getting aggressive with ME, claiming I was ‘making things up,’ I stuck to it. I know I am being a*shole-y, but am I THE a*shole in the situation I’m in?

Here’s what people had to say to OP:

jondoeudntknow says:
You would be surprised at how many people are also assholes who want to upset people the way they upset them. They’ve got a solid argument about being together for 20 years, but the history of divorce kind of undermines their ability to stand on that point. Regardless, I personally wouldn’t try intentionally upsetting my parents in that kind of way.

Tosir says:
Exactly! Not only that, but I wonder if OP didn’t give them a taste of their own medicine how that same double standard would have applied to OPs potential kids. I’m willing to wager that there were other s*xist “gender norms” enforced while they were growing up.

DannkneeFrench says:
YTA, but with a huge twist here. I absolutely LOVE IT!!

Edit- I think you already know that you’re an AH on this one, you sly doggy. I hope your marriage is an awesome one.

This might be the best AITAH I’ve read in the short time I’ve been here.

Unknown User says:
Nipped in the bud as in – and this is total speculation – stopping the mother from being overbearing about the wedding planning. She already invited herself for a solid week of ‘bonding’ to ‘help out’ and it’s hard to imagine there wouldn’t be some element of control in there.

Tryzzya_358 says:
This post reminded me when my dad came for the first time and he told me to put the football game on TV (I hate football since forever, and he knows it), and I was able, for the first time in my Life, to tell him that in MY house we were NOT going to see any football match, that he was in MY house and I decided what are we going to watch.

When I was living in their house, I could never decide what to watch. Even if he wasn’t there and he arrived later, the minute he get to the living room, I couldn’t keep watching whathever I was watching. Always.

So I completly understand OP here. That satisfaction of saying to your parents the same BS they used to tell you, bc it’s your house and you make the rules… That feeling, it’s one of the BEST things about moving out.

So, of course, NTA at all!

somefunmaths says:
OP should’ve hit them with some kind of “I can’t control what you do away from home and don’t approve of your lifestyle choices, but when you’re here you’re under my rules.”

This is some hilariously malicious compliance.

Altruistic_Appeal_25 says:
I never understood that, when I found out I was having a son everyone said, at least you don’t have to worry he will get pregnant. I said but a girl can only be pregnant once at a time and a boy could knock up 3 or 4 girls, they all looked like they hadn’t thought of that.

BigMD86672 says:
I always got the “when you start driving, you can pick the music” thing, then when I started driving they tried to tell me what I could listen to. Even when I’d drive my sister places she’d complain to them because she didn’t like my music, or didn’t like that there were curse words in it (she wasn’t a kid by that point) and they’d try to tell me I what I should listen to her music to make her more comfortable when I was chauffeuring her around. I don’t think it was until I moved out of the house that I was totally free of their input on my driving music (whether I actually listened to them or not).