22-year-old college grad finds herself living alone with her 52-year-old mom’s ex-boyfriend, forced into the role of reluctant housekeeper for a man who refuses to leave: ‘I’m pretty weirded out by the situation’

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Apr 29, 2025 6:00 PM EDT

Listen, I'm not here to judge. I've witnessed some bizarre roommate arrangements in my time, but this one? This one takes the off-brand cake. Having a fifty-something Steven permanently superglued to your living room couch is weird enough, but if Steven were at least still lovingly glued to your mom, that would be an entirely different, still cringey, but thematically consistent, flavor of awkward. 

Instead, what this girl landed in is the uncanny valley of domestic limbo, where Steven isn't her stepdad, isn't her roommate by choice, and definitely isn't the guy who remembers where the vacuum lives. Because Steven and Mom broke up, but he just… stays. Like a haunted recliner. Like a sitcom character who missed his series finale.

Steven's main hobbies are marathon TV viewings and narrating the worst pet stories while you try to eat. Household cleanliness is a concept he recognizes the way a cat recognizes algebra. And the woman's mother, meanwhile, has peaced out to play Best Daughter at Grandma's, leaving her to star in Full (of Steven) House.

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  • Just when you think you’ve hit peak oddness, Steven invites you to Easter dinner at his family’s place. Because nothing screams normal post-breakup arrangement like bonding with your mom’s ex’s relatives while she maintains diplomatic relations.

  • "My mom’s ex-boyfriend lives with me and doesn’t plan on leaving"

    "My mom's ex-boyfriend lives with V me and doesn't plan on leaving"
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  • When I (F22) was very young, my mom and my dad split. It was just me and my mom until I turned 9. That's when her now-ex Steven moved in. Steven is in his late 50s.
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  • His hobbies include watching tv in the living room and...that's about it from what I've seen. On an average week day, I would say he spends around 6-7 1/2 hours
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  • in front of the tv, and the time that he doesn't spend watching tv, we're both working. On the weekends, he watches tv from about 8 am to 12 am. Sometimes
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  • he goes out, but it's not very often. Steven hasn't been outwardly weird or creepy towards me, but he's a bit of an odd-ball. He is always striking up
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  • a conversation, but when I try to respond, he usually cuts me off and keeps talking. Not only that, but the topics are a bit awkward and forced. For example, the
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  • other day when I was about to eat dinner, he felt the need to tell me that my cat pooped in the kitchen and my dog ate it (ewww). It also kind of sks
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  • because with the way my house is laid out, he can casually see what I'm doing in the kitchen or the hallway from the living room. Sometimes, I pull up to the house and he opens the door, which
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  • means he saw me out the window. Growing up, my room was my only safe space where I could be alone, and even now I tend to stay in there.
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  • Around a year and a half ago, my grandparents started to need a lot of help around the house. My mom ended up moving in with them, and so she hasn't really been at home. She will come
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  • once or twice a week at most if even that, and she usually just comes home to pick up her mail and shower. She told Steven he could keep living in the house as
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  • long as he paid rent and cleaned the house. I was away at college when this arrangement started, but I graduated last May and I cannot currently afford to live on my own, so I moved back in.
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  • Immediately I noticed that the house was a mess. There were huge spiderwebs on the walls, crumbs all over the floor, the counters and stove top had horrible stains, and the
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  • bathrooms had not been cleaned in a while and smelled pretty bad. Steven had clearly not been keeping up one end of the bargain and my mom was upset about it.
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  • I found that I've been consistently the one a lot of the chores in the house. He will run the dishwasher, take out the trash, feed the pets (most of the time), and occasionally cut the grass.
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  • Usually, there is no room for a lot of my dishes in the dishwasher so I end up handwashing my dishes, and he hasn't offered to take the trash out in my room for weeks at a time even when I'm home. I vacuum the house, clean off
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  • counter tops, mop/sweep, consolidate and organize things, and clean the bathrooms. I don't mind doing these things as long as he also does them, but if I don't do them every week, they don't get done.
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  • Another thing: Steven is a huge procrastinator. He won't do a task if there isn't some applied pressure. He got a hand-me down car from his parents, and
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  • his old one sat in the driveway for over a year. This was problematic because once winter hit, we both were unable to park in the driveway and our town has
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  • parking bans when it snows, so street parking wasn't an option. I would have to park at my boyfriend's apartment so that I wouldn't get a fine. It took my mom constantly nagging him to move it until he finally did in February.
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  • Back in February, my mom and Steven broke up. Not going to lie, I was happy about it because it meant I finally could have the place to myself. That was until Steven told me he was going to have to stay until the end of the year. I'm not going to lie, I'm
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  • pretty weirded out by the situation. It felt strange to me that there was no family or friends that Steven could crash with. He has a huge, friendly family who I'm sure would be willing to help him out. Not only
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  • that, but my mom won't kick him out. Her and Steven have been acting like everything is completely normal. She even has a new boyfriend, and Steven doesn't seem to care. I've talked to my mom many times about how I've been feeling about this
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  • living arrangement before and after they broke up. She's aware how unhappy I am and agrees that Steven is taking advantage of the cheap housing, but she feels bad for him because he's in a bad financial spot.
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  • Easter was really triggering for me because Steven asked if I wanted to go to his family's house for dinner and he "promised it wouldn't be weird even though they all know about the break up". His family is super sweet, but I just couldn't bring myself to go. I sat at home by myself and cried
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  • because the situation has been stressing me out so bad. I told my mom that I didn't go because I felt weird about it, and my mom essentially said "I know it's an odd situation but I want to keep my good relationship with his family because I like them".
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  • I just don't know what to do. I've tried talking to her, she's tried talking to him, nothing changes. I never want to be home, so I either stay with my boyfriend for the night or I stay out/in my room until Steven goes to bed. I feel like my house isn't even mine - I'm just a live-in maid. I'm so angry and tired all the time. I feel
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  • like my feelings about everything are just constantly getting disregarded, and I don't think my mom is going to do anything about this. I feel like I'm going crazy. Am I valid in my feelings? Is this not an odd situation? I can't afford to move out, so where do I
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  • go from here? I'm nervous about posting here because my story is so niche that people from my personal life will probably know I wrote it, but I don't know how much longer I can live like this. Any advice is appreciated.
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family drama inheritance brother mother tradition siblings family feud favoritism wedding aunt in laws mother in law sister fiancé grandmother Father
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