Woman's Boyfriend Has Been Overcharging Her Rent and Pocketing Half of It

It's not every day a post on Reddit's "Am I the A-hole?" inspires me to coin an acronym, but today is that day. This post is guaranteed to make you want to TTWMA, or Throw The Whole Man Away. This dude has literally been stealing hundreds of dollars from his girlfriend right out from under her nose for months, and she's asking if she's being ungrateful. 

Yikes. Yikes and a half. The title of the post is, "AITA for not wanting to pay rent to live in my boyfriend's mom's house?" And yeah, it sounds kind of bad on the girlfriend's part. But wait until you hear the rest of it. Never have the tables turned so quickly. 

She explains that she and her boyfriend moved into his mother's rental property a year and a half ago. He told her that his mom was charging them $800 a month for rent and utilities, making that $400 for each of them. For where they live, that's "well below market rate," and she was very happy to pay $400. 

So every month, she gave her boyfriend $400 to give to his mom for her half of the rent. Sounds like a pretty sweet deal. But eventually, the truth came out. I don't know if this dude thought his mom and his girlfriend would just never talk about their rental arrangement, but one day they did. 

She writes, "Imagine my surprise when his mother mentioned to me that she was only charging us the cost of monthly utilities and upkeep, $200 a month." She clarified that his mother had only been collecting $200 from her boyfriend each month. Not $800, of which she was paying half. $200. Total. 

"Turns out," she writes, "that my boyfriend was using my money to pay his mother and then pocketing half of it, while contributing nothing himself." What. The. Hell. TTWMA!!!!!! But let's see. Maybe he has a good explanation for it. I don't know what that could possibly be...

Poor, swindled OP writes, "I confronted my boyfriend about this and he didn't deny it but said that since it was his mother's house, he could charge me whatever rent he wanted and this was essentially a 'finder's fee' since it's only because of him that I'm paying way under market value." That is some dizzying logic, my dude. 

She writes that they "NEVER discussed this arrangement," and of course, she is "livid." She told him he needs to pay her back for all the money he was taking from her, and he told her she was being selfish and ungrateful because $400 a month is way less than she'd be paying if she lived alone. 

I can't even. Either he really thinks he's justified in charging his own girlfriend made-up amounts of money for rent, pocketing the rest, and probably not even spending it on her, or he knows he's wrong and he's trying to gaslight her into thinking otherwise. I don't know which one is worse. 

No matter his reasoning, he obviously has no problem taking advantage of his girlfriend, and Reddit united pretty wholeheartedly to say TTWMA! DTMFA! "If you don’t break up for this you will be very, very foolish," one person wrote. 

"I never advocate for couples to break up on this subreddit because we only get a snapshot of what goes on between a couple, but I’m making an exception for you OP. The kind of things that went on in your bf’s head that made him think it was OK to earn money off you by telling you the rent is four times more than it is...it’s appalling," another wrote.

Several commenters asked, and I really want to know if she told his mother what he's been doing. Because her son has been using her nice gesture to steal thousands of dollars from his girlfriend over the course of a year-and-a-half. 

Not only is what he did so beyond wrong and grounds for a breakup, but it's also likely illegal. This is fraud! And many commenters suggested she gather any documentation she has of this arrangement and consult a lawyer about next steps. One thing is certain: She cannot stay in this relationship. She may end up paying more rent by breaking up with him, but it's a small price to pay to rid herself of a horrible partner!