The Sims 4 - unactive households does whatever they want

@Kanelbullet Even when you have aging off on the non-active household the sims in other households will not be frozen the same state as when you left them IF you have played another household in-between visiting that household. As soon as you play any household, with aging on or off in the household or the rest of the world, certain types of life-interaction will be going on in the other households you are not playing.

I guess I gotta change playing style then, like make sure I do not stop playing in the middle of something that I actually want my sim to complete in a specific way.

Tell me something, will births happen when I'm not there with these settings? I've had two births happen without me playing the household but I think (I hope) it was before I found the aging settings.

@Kanelbullet, it would only be necessary if you were filling out a Bug Report in the Bug Report section., but this isn't a bug, just something that some players find aggravating.  😉 Sometimes it is helpful to list all your packs you have installed, but in this case it doesn't matter since the base game works the same way.  

I don't care for this feature myself.  I'm a bit of a control freak when it comes to my Sims. 😃  The way I deal with it is to make each household its own Save Game.  So I can control the Goths, then in another save control the Pankcakes, and then control my Sims in another Save.  I usually only play one family in each save (but I do have exceptions) So I might have a Sim I made marry one of the Caliente sisters, and in another save the Caliente sisters will still show up, just not married to any of my Sims.  

The biggest drawback to playing the way that I do is that if I have multigenerational families that have to live in more than one home.  In that case I would have to play as you are playing now, in order to preserve the relationships with family members who live in other houses.  

Finally, there could be a Mod out there that would help your situation.  I don't play with Mods, as they often break when EA updates the game with a patch (much like they will do later today).  After EA releases a patch, all the Modders have to update their Mods to fit with EA's changes, and then you have to be sure you have the updated Mod and not the older one!  Too much hassle for me, but you can check it out if you want!😉

But give playing each family in their own save a try!  The worst that can happen is that you don't like it, and then you can go back to playing the way you did before!

Good luck and Happy Simming! 🥳

Thank you for your answer! I don't think I'll have multiple saves because I do like having my sims interacting. At least the unplayed households won't age up, will they? I could manage the birthing by playing that family until the baby is born. Again I have to change my play style, but I'm still figuring this out so I'm fine with that.

My friend's got a household of their own in my game too, and isn't playing too often, and it would be awful if my friend turned on my computer only to find their sim is now an elder. So I hope that's not happening at least. I can deal with the sims changing lots but not aging.

@Kanelbullet I play with all aging off. Personally, I have never had any major events happen to any of my played households while I was gone playing another one... for instance, I have never come back to one of my played households and found someone was aged up, lost their job, made any progress in skills, had a child taken away, or things like that. They may have various degrees of met needs, decay in relationships outside of their household, some new funky hat or outfit they got, I may see them out and about in town while playing another household, etc., but those are not the types of changes that would upset me. @PugLove888 Have you had any of these issues in your game? Do you have aging on or off for active &/or non-active households?

@Kanelbullet  @PugLove888 I heard that about the reset time (like for plants, etc.), but have never saved accordingly. I must say, I do always play a pregnancy and infancy through in a household through to toddlerhood or childhood better yet before moving on to play another of my households. I've never had a 'stuck' pregnancy or any issues doing it this way, but I can see how it could maybe get glitchy leaving them in a limbo at such an intense developmental time.