I live with a roommate who I’ve been having a lot of issues with lately. For context, I have a history of cancer and a chronic liver disease, so getting sick is a big deal for me.
She caught the flu recently and spent days coughing and sneezing all over me. I tried to be understanding and even cooked for her, cleaned up, helped her with stuff, all of that. I also told her I needed to quarantine myself for my own health. I didn’t even ask her to isolate. I just said I would. She got offended.
Tonight she finally felt better and asked if I wanted to go to a coffee shop with her. My car is having issues until tomorrow, so she offered to drive. One of my friends who is visiting from overseas was going to meet us there.
Everything was fine until we were leaving. She suddenly made this pouty face and asked if I wanted to drive her car home. I was starting to feel flu symptoms and really didn’t want to drive, but I said “I can if you want.” She got quiet and clearly irritated.
We were on our way to the grocery store to get hot cocoa and then watch a movie at home. My friend was driving behind us to meet us there. The whole drive she stayed silent and looked angry. I finally asked if she was upset that I didn’t drive. She blew up and said she wants to feel loved the way she gives love, and that I should have said yes. Then she said I was starting drama just by asking. I told her she had been irritated with me lately and it was making me uncomfortable. She went straight into “I guess I’m just a terrible person.”
My friend knocked on the car window at that moment. I said “Let’s go inside,” trying to smooth it over. She refused to get out of the car. My friend and I went in the store.
Inside, I realized she wasn’t coming in, so I told my friend that my roommate and I were fighting and that I wanted to talk to her alone. I apologized to him and said we’d hang out tomorrow. He left.
I took one very quick lap around the store to clear my head, maybe two minutes. When I walked out to talk to her and apologize, her car was gone. Her location was turned off. No text.
It was dark and freezing. I had no car and I was starting to feel sick. Luckily my friend was able to answer his phone and came back to pick me up and take me home.
When I got home, I was worried she might have done something to herself, so I called her mom. Then my roommate turned her location back on and claimed she would never leave me stranded because she knew my friend was there. I told her he had already left because I asked him to. She accused me of manipulating her and said she knew I wasn’t going to be alone.
I told her I wasn’t going to argue. Now she isn’t coming home tonight and is still mad at me. I just returned to work today after four weeks on disability and tomorrow is only my second day back. She knows how stressed I’ve been, and she knows my health situation. Her disappearing like that scared me so badly.
She usually clings to me and calls me her best friend. She tends to blow up, apologize, smother me, then blow up again. This is the first time she’s just left and stayed gone. I have no family to go to and no backup support, and now I feel sick on top of everything. I’m exhausted and honestly really upset.
So AITAH for not wanting to drive her car and for being upset that she left me alone in a parking lot at night?
This dynamic seems unsustainable. She expects you to read her mind, gets offended when you don’t, then punishes you when you try to communicate. That’s not healthy. You didn’t cause her feelings, and you’re not responsible for managing them. Given your medical history and the stress you’re under, you might need to seriously consider finding a new living arrangement, because this level of volatility is not something you should be dealing with.
> I have no family to go to and no backup support, and now I feel sick on top of everything
This here is the problem. You can’t set reasonable boundaries with your roommate because you feel like you don’t have anybody else, but a roommate isn’t an appropriate person to rely on as a caregiver for a chronically ill person. Nor would a healthy, normal person agree to be their roommate’s only support, so you’ve ended up living with someone who didn’t have good boundaries themselves to begin with.
This relationship has now become codependent and is taking the predictable wrong turns that happen in codependent, enmeshed relationships.
Look into CODA and see if you can start attending meetings. I understand that your chronic illness limits your ability to broaden your support network, but this situation isn’t sustainable and will blow up in your face eventually. So you can either just wait for that to happen to look for any other forms of support, or you can start taking baby steps towards diversifying your resources now and hope that you have a backup plan by the time the roommate arrangement falls apart.
She doesn’t know how to handle her negative emotions in a mature manner and that is not your fault.
She is not your partner nor family. Why is she so dependent on you? Cut this toxicity