Was This Roommate In The Wrong For Causing A Breakup?

I think that, as a basic rule of thumb, most of us try to stay out of other people’s romantic relationships. Butting in never turns out well; either they break up and are resentful that we didn’t help them see what was wrong sooner or they end up getting back together and can’t forget the not-nice things we said when we were just trying to be supportive.

Plus, you know. It’s really none of our business.

This roommate wasn’t looking to cause trouble or get involved, but the trouble sort of came for her.

She starts off the story with the basic information that she lives with a male roommate who has a girlfriend who sometimes stays over. The roommates are non-native English speakers while the girlfriend is a native speaker, and they live in a neighborhood that’s not really safe to venture out in alone at night.

OP makes her lunch and dinner just about every day, leaving her dinner in the fridge when she goes to work so that she can eat it and go to bed when she gets home.

I (25F) have a roommate “Steve” (26M) who was dating a girl “Kate” (24) for about 3 months. For background, English is not our first language while Kate is a native English speaker.

We live in a place which is really sketchy that it’s considered unsafe for women to go out at night. So I take a cab for work both ways and my time is from 2 to 10pm.

Steve comes home first. He sometimes picks up Kate whenever she wants to stay the night in our apartment.

I cook my lunch and dinner together before going to work and refrigerate my dinner so that I can eat dinner when I come home and sleep early.

One night, OP came home to find the girlfriend eating her dinner. She apologized and OP felt it was genuine, so she let it drop.

Not so the next night, when she did it again “because she was hungry,” though OP was still keeping her cool for the most part.

One day, I came home early to find Kate eating my dinner while Steve was in the shower. I told her that was my dinner. She said she thought it was Steve’s and apologized. I thought she was genuinely sorry and didn’t tell Steve anything about it. So I labelled my box and had some milk and went to bed. I have a low appetite so skipping a meal is not a big deal for me.

The next day the same thing happened but Steve was there with her. I confronted her again she said she was hungry and she’s really really sorry about that. Steve told her that it’s not okay cause now I can’t even go out to get food. I said “Please just don’t do it again and the food in this pink box is mine”.

The next day, when the same thing happened, OP had it. She yelled at the girlfriend and asked her roommate to please go and get her some dinner (though she offered to pay).

They were conversing in their native language and the girlfriend butted in, saying that OP couldn’t talk to her boyfriend that way, etc, etc, and expected the roommate/boyfriend to be on her side when OP continued to act upset.

Then the next day the exact same thing happened so I yelled at her why did she even eat my food in the first place. She couldn’t come up with an excuse this time, so I called Steve and gave him some money and told him to buy me dinner and yelled that she had eaten my food again and if she continues to do this I will kick her out. I told ALL of this in our native language so Kate didn’t even understand a single word.

Kate cut me off while I was yelling and said “hey you can’t speak to my boyfriend like that”. I asked her if she even understood what we were talking about. She said no, so Steve told her he was gonna buy me dinner because she ate mine.

Kate told me if I want dinner then I should go buy it myself. I told her it’s 10.30 now and I’m not going alone.

When he wasn’t, the girlfriend stormed out, breaking up with him on the way. The roommate didn’t seem all that upset about the whole thing, given her behavior.

Steve tried to calm her down but Kate wasn’t having any of it. I got so mad and said “fine your bf doesn’t have to go buy me dinner but you have to pay me back for my three meals”. She asked Steve “Babe this b*tch is so petty for asking money and she’s yelling at me for doing something so small, are u gonna let her talk to me like this?”.

Steve got mad and told her “what the hell am I supposed to do when its entirely your fault?”. Kate started crying when Steve didn’t support her. She stormed out while screaming “I’M BREAKING UP WITH YOU”. Steve went after her and dropped her home and bought me dinner while coming back.

I apologized to Steve for yelling and Steve told me that it’s probably good for him that they had broken up.

A friend of theirs accused OP of breaking up a relationship over a meal, so now OP is wondering whether or not she overreacted.

I was venting to my best friend and she told me to take a deep breath and told me “you broke up a relationship over a meal and when you put it like that you are the AH here”. So AITA?

Whew, this one was a doozy, right? Let’s see where Reddit is going to weigh in on the whole thing, yeah?

The top comment points out that none of this is OP’s fault and she had every reason to be upset. Her roommate broke it off because his girlfriend showed her true colors, that’s all.

Image Credit: Reddit

Another person thought the roommate caused the drama on purpose because she didn’t like her boyfriend having a female roommate and wanted to see whose side he would choose in a fight.