She’s Been Paying Her Mom’s Bills Since She Was 17 — Now This Redditor Is Finally Choosing Her Own Future

Some people don’t recognize a favor, they just keep collecting it.

Now she’s 21, living with her mom and two younger siblings, including a 17-year-old sister and a 10-year-old. Her dad left when she was 13, and her mom leaned hard on the “housewife” plan, surviving on savings until it stopped being enough. The agreement was simple, she’d cover utilities, her mom would pay rent, but the rent never actually got paid, and the debts kept ballooning after government help supposedly covered it.

The landlord is threatening a court date, and OP is realizing she’s been doing this alone for years.

The OP only learned how bad things were when the landlord finally contacted her directly.

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Original Post

I've been supporting my family since I was 17f. I'm 21f now. I live with my two younger siblings (17f, 10f) and my mother (48f). My mother has always been a housewife until an event with my dad. He's not here and we don't have contact (I was 13 when he left), but my mother always kept the housewife mentality

She would do anything to avoid finding a job, because she lived only off savings that my father left us and said she never expected to work. She needed help because savings and government money wasn't enough anymore, so I found a job at 17 and I'm still supporting her.Our agreement was that I paid utilities and she paid rent. She hasn't paid rent though, because in 2019 we ended with 10k debt when she told me she was paying rent the entire time and we got it covered by the government. In 2020, she actually found a job, got all the stimulus, unemployment, etc. and I thought she still had rent handled. We ended that year with 13k in debt instead (she lied), and we don't qualify for the same government program again. I've been paying the base rent for the past four months in addition to some utilities (my mom does a couple and I made sure she's actually doing them this time) but it's eating through my bank account. Now, she's handling the debt like it is *both* of our responsibilities to pay it. My savings have been eaten up the past 4 years because I've been supporting them, and not once have they expressed gratitude.They berated me for not doing more, even though I was a student giving almost their entire income. Our landlord, wants to work through this with us because he understands a single parent household is hard to maintain, but he is behind on mortgage because we are late on all our payments. He demanded we start paying it off this month or else he is going to give us a court date. I'm not liable because my name is not on the lease, but I've been helping them for as long as I can and the rent not being paid is something I simply did not have knowledge of because my landlord didn't even reach out to me until it got to that point. I expressed that I wanted to move out after my degree (winter).My mom will not look for a job and thinks she can live off government money or my money for the rest of her life. I need to move on and I'm being chained down by debt that isn't even mine to pay. She called me an a-hole, and said I should prioritize my family over my future, because family is supposed to mean everything and I can't just leave her to get evicted. I think I might be the a-hole too, because there is a very real possibility they might get evicted. But I've sacrificed so much for people that would never do the same. Shelters and city housing are also an option. AITA for wanting to move out and leaving my mother to pay her own debt?Edit: Thank you all for the comments and advice. It makes me feel better knowing I'm not in the wrong to leave them as they are, and will be looking to move soon (And take my smaller sister with me if I can go through the fancy legal stuff). Thank you so much!Further Edit: I have just checked my credit card score and no accounts have been opened in my name, so no need to worry about that!

Let’s see how the Reddit community reacted.

Deleted user

Get your degree and run!

MamaofTwinDragons

Get out now!

akhicat

She’s the parent here, not you.

Boomgtd_

Your mom is using you.

beller36

Her debts are not your responsibility.

PlaneJaneLane03

This feels like the AITA post about a newborn, an OP refusing to host Thanksgiving, and family backlash.

Let her pay off her own debts.

gnimmuc6898

NTA.

Heheos_

She’s manipulating you.

whatifimtheproblem

You should call CPS.

deadlyhausfrau

Let her sink or swim.

TheIdleWriter

Time to cut her off.

snootnoots

She’s a user.

fruitbat1994

She’ll keep doing this as long as you let her.

our100thcaller

Her “utilities only” deal started unraveling in 2019, right when the family ended up with $10k debt after her mom claimed she was paying rent the whole time.

In 2020, her mom finally got a job and collected stimulus and unemployment, but the year still ended with $13k in debt because OP says the rent story was still a lie.

That’s when the landlord started pushing for real payments, demanding they knock out the base rent and mortgage this month or face a court date, even though OP’s name is not on the lease.

OP is now trying to make sure her mom actually does the utilities, while her savings get drained and her family keeps berating her for not “doing more.”

At the end of the day, the Redditor isn’t asking for luxury — she’s asking for a chance to build a life that isn’t buried under someone else’s choices. After years of carrying responsibilities that were never supposed to be hers, she’s finally realizing that choosing her future doesn’t make her heartless… it just makes her human.

The court date threat is the first time anyone is treating OP like a tenant, not a free paycheck.

For another family fight, read about the OP who skipped her sister’s gender reveal after relentless parenting criticism.