Man Upset Girlfriend by Building 'Man Cave' Without Consulting Her

In a now-viral post, a man claimed that he upset his girlfriend by building a basement "man cave" without consulting her.

Posting to Reddit's "Am I The A**hole" forum on Wednesday under the username u/lowesman102, the man explained that his girlfriend, Molly, spends "most of the week" at his house, but the two don't actually live together.

So far, the post has received more than 8,300 upvotes and over 2,300 comments.

"I pay for all the bills and have never asked Molly to contribute," the man told Redditors.

"She does buy groceries for us and will buy crafty items for the house. But she's never been asked financially to contribute as she still has her own apartment she stays at about once or twice a week," he said, adding that the two haven't discussed moving in together.

The one thing the two have talked about, however, is what should be done with his home's finished basement.

"I've always wanted to make it my man cave but Molly wanted to make it like a basement living room and dining space," he said. "She would always watch HGTV and say things like, 'See we could turn that basement into this.'"

But the two never came to an agreement, and the basement sat unused for over a year.

One week, when Molly was out of town visiting her parents, a friend of the man's came to stay with him at the house and the two decided—after watching a TikTok video—to finally transform the basement into a man cave.

"We went to Home Depot that night and started the project...[We] painted, designed the bar, built a bar, found an old ping pong table on marketplace, got all my sports memorabilia out of boxes...We created this really bada** man cave," he wrote.

When Molly returned, however, she "flipped out."

Speaking to Newsweek, u/lowesman102 said that Molly won't spend time with him in the basement because the space gives her "bad vibes." Apparently, Molly feels that he went about creating the man cave in a "shady way."

Still, she has spent every night since she returned from her trip at u/lowesman102's house.

"She just stays upstairs," he said.

Redditor u/lowesman102 isn't the first Redditor to have a disagreement with their partner over a man cave.

Posting in the same forum earlier this month, a man under the username u/Evening-Section2887 said he upset his wife when he petitioned to turn their home's basement into a man cave.

He told her she could have free reign over the design of their main living room, but the suggestion offended his wife.

"[M]y wife started guilt-tripping me saying that she was offended that I was 'excluding' her and how this is not just my house, but how it's our house," the man wrote.

A majority of Redditors took the wife's side.

In u/lowesman102's case, however, Redditors were pretty split. Because he and Molly are not married and are not officially living together, many agreed that he wasn't wrong to do what he wanted with the basement. That being said, they also argued that the man cave sent the wrong message to Molly about the state of their relationship.

"You two have been together two years, are almost 30, and have had conversations in the past about potential mutual plans for the house...So yeah, technically you had every right to do this but you also clearly communicated to your girlfriend that the two of you aren't on the same page," wrote u/Temporary_Badger.

More than 21,000 Redditors upvoted u/Temporary_Badger's comment in agreement.

"Technical NTA [not the a**hole] since it is your house, but what you've unintentionally done is send a loud message to Molly that you don't see yourself sharing a home with her anytime soon. The man cave was built with only your wants and needs in mind, and not as a space to be shared with a committed cohabitating partner," said u/AccessibleBeige.

"She totally overreacted BUT I can see where she is coming from. Yes it's your place, she doesn't pay for it, but you both are in a long term relationship and she spends a lot of time at your place, contributes to the household [cooking, cleaning, groceries] and it looks like you waited for a chance when she was absent to make the changes," added u/_louiisa.

"At the end of the day, yes, it's your house and you have the say in what to do and what to change, but she's your partner and being left out feels kinda miserable," u/_louiisa continued.