Man's entitled mother helps him and his girlfriend purchase a home, but demands girlfriend get rid of her 2 cats after the sale: ‘I would never give up my cats’

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Dec 22, 2025 3:00 PM EST

Purchasing a home in this day and age has gotten ridiculous. It seems like in order for a real estate agent to actually accept your offer on a home, you must sell your first born child and and make at least half a million dollars, not to mention have proof of hundreds of thousands of dollars in liquid assets. As frustrating as the real estate market is, nobody is coming to save us from that pesky yearning for the American dream, baby! Get with the program; homeownership is only becoming more difficult.

Some folks are lucky enough to have parents who lay their own finances out on the line for their children, opting to be their cosigner on a home sale. Most of the time, this is a return-the-favor-free process, but some your old folks might be plotting to use your eagerness to become a homeowner against you, and that's exactly what happens in the story below.

A man and his girlfriend, who are in their late 20s, have lived an hour apart for a while. They finally decide that they want to move in together, and the man wants to purchase a home because of issues with his girlfriend's financial past. His mother is happy to cosign, but she ends up not cosigning at all. Instead, she puts her name on the home the couple will be paying for, and then demands that the girlfriend gets rid of her cats or she's not welcome there. We skipped a few plot points, apparently. Scroll to read.

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  • 01
    woman hugging cute black and white cat with a photo of an upset middle aged woman overlayed
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02

    "AITA for not wanting to get rid of my cats just because my boyfriend's mom says so?"

    My 29F and my Boyfriend 29M, Cole have been together for almost 3 years. We do not live together and live about an hour apart from one another.
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  • 03
    He comes over every weekend. We have REALLY been itching to live together, but have run into some roadblocks trying to rent.
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    We are trying to move towards where he lives, as it is our hometown and closer to both of our families.
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    Nowhere will rent to us due to a couple reasons. 1. I foolishly filed for bankruptcy with my ex, and now it is on my credit record for another 5 years.
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    2. I have 2 cats, and 3 dogs (I know that's a lot of animals.. I am an animal lover, and got most of them when I had owned my house with my ex, so I didn't anticipate having to rent again) and 3.
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    Cole works for his dad's company, gets paid cash, uses mostly cash instead of card, and doesn't really have a paper trail for his money.
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    Currently, I rent a small house from a friend of mine. Cole is allergic to cats, but takes some allergy medication while he's here on the weekends.
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    Cole works for his dad's company, and is hoping to take it over when his dad retires, so him moving in with me wouldn't be ideal, as he would either have to drive 1+ hour each way every day, or he would have to leave his dad's company (which would really screw his dad over, because he already relies on him a lot) A while back, Cole asked his parents to help him buy a house for us to live in.
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    He would pay for it, but just needs a cosigner or something. They started looking for houses.
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    The whole situation was kind of annoying from there. They didn't tell him when they were touring houses and wouldn't really clue him in on any part of the process.
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    At one point, they mentioned that they put in offer in on a house, and Cole kind of snapped at them.
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    He told them that if he was going to be living there, that he should at least SEE the house before they put an offer in.
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    After that, they told him what they were doing. Eventually, they found a house that everyone liked and put an offer in.
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  • 15
    They bought the house as is and it definitely needs some work, but Cole's dad and family are contractors and have no problem fixing it up.
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  • 16
    They closed on the house a couple weeks ago. 2 weeks ago, we got into the house to start cleaning it up.
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    The previous owners hadn't been there in a while and it seems there were squatters or something, so there was a ton of trash.
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    It was Cole, Me, his mother, and his father there cleaning up. At one point, I mentioned the idea of an accent wall that I thought would look nice.
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    The rest of the day went by as we continued to clean. The next day, Cole went to his mom to talk about some renovations and she starts going off on him that this is HER house and that SHE gets to make all the decisions.
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    She says that the accent wall will make the room smaller and she needs to make sure the property value stays up after the renovations.
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    Fine, no accent wall, whatever. Then she starts going off about how I am absolutely not allowed to bring my cats because Cole is allergic and that she doesn't want them damaging the property.
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  • 22
    Cole and I had already discussed a plan for the cats. We would convert the basement into my gaming room, closed off from the rest of the house, so that the cat's wouldn't invade the space he would spend most of his time, but they can still have room to roam and socialize.
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  • 23
    She said absolutely no cats in the house. Cole mentioned the idea of making a cat house in the back yard separate from the house and she still refused.
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    middle aged woman turned away from man with her arms crossed over her chest
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  • 25
    Cole told her that he would never ask me to get rid of my cats, as they are my family and have been with me for over 10 years.
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    He told his mom that we would either move in to this house with the cats, or he would move in with me and he would be around cats every day anyways.
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    The second issue that arose with this whole situation is that I asked Cole what the payment arrangement would be.
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  • 28
    It turns out that they took a loan out against their own money (not a mortage).
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  • 29
    Cole put a down payment down, and will be paying back the loan monthly, but his name is not on the loan or deed at all.
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  • 30
    It turns out, that her plan was that even after he fully paid the loan back, it would STILL not be in his name, but that she would leave it to him in her will after she dies.
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    (She is only in her late 40's/early 50's so that could be a LONG time from now) I told him that it wasn't fair for him, since it does not protect him in any way, wouldn't allow him to make any decisions about the property, and would not give him any equity in the house.
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    I guess she is really worried about it "staying in the family" which Cole thinks is just her way of saying if him and I get married and divorced, she doesn't want me to have it.
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  • 33
    I told him that is EASILY solvable with a pre-nup, that I am more than happy to sign.
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  • 34
    After things cooled down a bit from the last conversation, he spoke to her again. He said that the whole point of them buying this house was for him and me to live in together, and at some point the goal strayed from that, is no longer meeting our needs, and it seems like she just sees it as her investment at this point.
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  • 35
    He mentioned that it doesn't make sense for him to not have any equity in the house after paying it off.
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  • 36
    He mentioned the pre- nup. He posed the question; what if something happened to him? If he passed away, his wife and kids would not be protected in the house if its not in his name.
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  • 37
    He said that he brought up a couple points that he could tell got her thinking differently because she didn't have an immediate come back for it.
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  • 38
    But she still said absolutely no cats and he still said that is not acceptable. I am at a complete loss of what to do here.
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  • 39
    This house would be an amazing opportunity for us. It is in a great school district (we would like to start a family at some point down the road) and would finally give us a chance to live together.
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  • 40
    But I would never give up my cats for no REAL reason. But I am worried about the future if she continues to treat this house as HER house.
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  • 41
    What happens if we get on her bad side for whatever reason and she decides to either hold it over us or kick us out.
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  • 42
    Cole said that he is giving her 1 month to come to a compromise, otherwise he is just going to move in with me, even if that means leaving his father's company.
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  • 43
    Is there any way to help her see reason? Am I being a whiny entitled asshole?
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Tags

family drama entitled parents new homeowners relationships mother in law Cats
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