‘I haven't been on a date for 6 years’: Retired, divorced dad asks his unemployed 25-year-old son to stay elsewhere for one night so he can have a date at home, and the son gets angry about it

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Jul 16, 2026 11:45 AM EDT

A man in his sixties finally gets a date on the calendar for the first time since disco was apparently still cool, and his 25-year-old, still-lives-at-home, doesn't-pay-rent, gets-a-monthly-allowance son treats the whole thing like a scheduling inconvenience he's personally offended by.

Here's the setup: two grown adults, one apartment, one bathroom probably, and only one of them is contributing rent, cooking dinner, or paying literally anything. The other one is bedrotting between comic book runs and dinners at mom's, subsidized like a tiny, moody startup that's never going to turn a profit. And when the guy footing every single bill in this arrangement asks for one night, one measly night, to have an adult experience in his own home, it turns into a full blown human rights debate. A divorced dad should be able to do whatever he wants, especially if it's one date after 6 years.

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  • AITAH for telling my adult son I need a little privacy?

    Older man in glasses stands outside by an arched stone doorway, wearing a gray button-down shirt.
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  • I'm an older, retired, divorced man. My kids are all adults. 2 years ago, I allowed my son, now 25, to move back in with me in my two bedroom 1,000 ft² apartment.
    via gofatwya
  • His mental health has been slowly going downhill, I believe. He has been diagnosed with anxiety and depress on, but refuses to get any kind of treatment for it.
    via gofatwya
  • He now has no job, few friends, and spends most of his time bedrotting in his room.
    via gofatwya
  • He only leaves to occasionally go to movies, comic book stores, or his mother's house for dinner.
    via gofatwya
  • Older man in glasses smiles beside a wooden door and stone wall, wearing a dark sweater.
    via Robert Godwin

    llustrative image only. Person shown is not connected to this story.

  • I don't charge him rent, and I actually give him spending money every month; mostly so that he is able to get out of the apartment and do something once in awhile.
    via gofatwya
  • I have not been on a date for 6 years. Several weeks ago a woman I dated in the past reached out to me.
    via gofatwya
  • We reconnected. We've been talking for weeks, wanting to get together. But we are both busy people, she lives almost 2 hours away, and so it has been very difficult for us to actually go on a date.
    via gofatwya
  • This Saturday however, she is coming to my place after work. We may go out to a bar or a restaurant, or we may just decide stay home.
    via gofatwya
  • She will most likely be spending the night, and may be here all weekend. I told my son about this date a week and a half ago, when I made it.
    via gofatwya
  • I was hoping he would volunteer to get out of the apartment for the night. He didn't.
    via gofatwya
  • I hinted to him that it might be awkward for him to be here while I am on a date.
    via gofatwya
  • His answer was that he would just stay in his room the whole time she's here.
    via gofatwya

  • The roommate comparison is where this really goes off the rails. Comparing a father-son living situation to a roommate situation is like comparing a hostage negotiation to a group project. Roommates split rent, roommates chose to live together as equals, roommates aren't the person who raised you and currently funds your movie ticket habit. There's no equivalency here, there's just a 25-year-old borrowing logic from a completely different living arrangement because it happens to support the conclusion he already wanted.

  • I even considered getting him a hotel room to stay in for the night, as my friend is really excited about coming back to my apartment, and would rather be here than in a hotel.
    via gofatwya
  • But a hotel room on the weekend, at short notice, was going to be super expensive.
    via gofatwya
  • Older man in a cap and glasses smiles outdoors in front of trees and a blurred building.
    via Centre for Ageing Better ageing_better

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  • I just couldn't do it. The situation has me stressed beyond measure. Finally today, I sat him down and told him that I need him to let me have the apartment Saturday night.
    via gofatwya
  • That he needs to spend the night at his mother's, or a friend's or wherever he can.
    via gofatwya

  • What's actually happening is a man who's given his son free housing, spending money, and two years of patience is now being treated like the unreasonable one for wanting a single evening without an audience. That's not entitlement dressed up nice, that's entitlement wearing pajamas and refusing to leave the couch.

  • It turned into as close to an argument as we ever get. I repeated my observation about how awkward it would be for him to be here.
    via gofatwya
  • He replied that when he lived on his own, with roommates, they all had guests who spent the night in their rooms while everyone else went about their business.
    via gofatwya
  • I told him that was a very different dynamic than a small apartment shared by a father and son.
    via gofatwya
  • He finally agreed that he would find somewhere to go. But he is extremely angry now, and feels that I am being unfair expecting him to leave for a night.
    via gofatwya

  • Asking someone to spend one Saturday night elsewhere, in a home you don't pay for, isn't cruelty. It's the bare minimum decency owed to the guy who's been quietly paying for everything, including the very bedroom your son is currently sulking in.

  • AITAH for insisting that he leaves?
    via gofatwya

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Dating-Relationships first date dating fails parenting advice dad divorce first dates retirement adult children son dating
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