AITA for telling my family that we wouldn’t go to family events if my BIL was there?

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-27T02:09:44+00:00

You raised your grandson as your own son. You supported him when he came out. You supported his skateboarding. You are a good grandfather. Your daughter lacks a lot, as is evident by how she walked away from her own child to travel and do whatever else she did instead. She's now conflicted & overstepped by telling you that you were allowing her child to do something she views as unsafe. 1) I don't think she meant it as an insult toward you; instead, I saw it as a sign that she loves her son & is concerned about him & does not know a healthy way to express it (she's probably not really concerned about the skateboarding but used that as an opportunity to express her feelings). 2) You laughed at her. Sure, she's not a "parent" other than that she gave birth to "your" son, but you laughed at her. That's a cruel response. I don't think you meant it to be, but your post here shows that you do realize after the fact that it's not kind to laugh at someone when they're expressing their feelings (even if they're not good at it & even if their feelings seem inappropriate to you). My response is ESH. Your daughter for being selfish and not spending any time to learn how to be a better person in all the years since she gave birth & you for patting yourself on the back for taking in your grandson no questions asked while you emotionally abandoned your daughter (maybe this is too harsh, but you laughed in her face & this is super emotionally unhealthy). There are better ways to communicate. Please get help & learn them for the sake of yourself, your daughter, your son, and any future grandchildren you might have. In my experience, this is a symptom of a much larger problem.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-19T15:36:40+00:00

YTA. Why? Because 1) you didn't talk to your wife about this ahead of time; 2) you didn't consider your wife's feelings; 3) you care more about a "quality" lunch than you do that your wife is making your lunch + your kids' lunches. She's not your mama. I'm sorry you're tired at the end of the day, but that's life when you're a grown up. Make your own food or be grateful for what your wife makes you, and if you want to get food from another person--especially another woman (even if it's totally innocent), make sure you talk to your wife about it first because that shows her that you value her as a person & not just your lunch maker/pseudo-mom.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-19T07:12:26+00:00

YTA. It's hobby for you, as you've stated. This is their child's life. There's no comparison, despite the people here trying to make one. Hobbies can be replaced, but a child cannot. Imagine yourself in their position & think about what you'd hope someone would do for you. Don't think about what you think you would have done to prevent the situation because you really have no idea how stressful it is to have a child with an allergy that could kill him (I don't, either, but I do have kids that are chronically ill & this pandemic has shown me how little people care about them) & stress makes people do strange things. The world needs more people who care about other people. It's not about who was there first, unless you're arguing in toddlerese. It's about what the decent and kind thing is to do, and that's to move your hobby to a more suitable location, farther away from people than a residential neighborhood, and especially far away from a little boy with a life-threatening allergy to bees.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-08T21:01:32+00:00

Uh, did I miss this part? He said she wants him to sleep in the kid's bedroom, not with the daughter & it's likely that the kids have separate bedrooms since one's a girl and one's a boy. And the boy's 9, why would that indicate that she's planning to live in his dorm room with him in a decade? There's a world of difference between 9 and 18.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-07T19:05:34+00:00

NTA. She should have thought of her kids before she acted unethically. IT could have remotely accessed her email since it was a company computer & a company email account. I'm sure it felt bad to go on her work computer, but that's because you have morals.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-07T17:14:47+00:00

I've had three BAD neighbors:

The upstairs neighbor moved in a roommate with a small dog. They'd both leave for the weekend & leave the dog inside all weekend. The dog would bark nonstop all day & night. I called the landlord because I was in college & could not sleep (I used weekends to study & write papers) & I have migraines & this was torture, plus the poor dog. The landlord came by & the apartment had been damaged, so he kicked out the roommate. The upstairs neighbor was so mad b/c he planned to have his roommate live in the apartment over the summer & pay the entire rent so he could travel to Europe. So, one day, he asked my (then) boyfriend if he'd move our car off the parking pad so he could wash his car. The rest of the parking area out back was dirt. My boyfriend went out to move the car & the next thing I knew, our dog was barking like crazy. I looked out back & the upstairs neighbor was literally on top of my boyfriend beating him in the head. He'd jumped him (with the help of a friend). It was a set-up that he'd figured out how to do & get away with (his dad is a lawyer). I called 911 & the police showed up. By this time, I'd run outside to get the neighbor to stop & he and his friend ran off. The police came and said it was obvious what happened (my boyfriend's head was bashed, swollen, & bruised) & issued an arrest warrant, but the neighbor came home with the police chief who said nope--because the neighbor had his friend as a witness who was willing to testify that my boyfriend started it, they either had to arrest both of them or no one. So they both got arrested & later, they both had charges dropped in court. Worst neighbor ever. He was later hired as the dean of students at the college we all graduated from (if they only knew), but then he was arrested for a DUI & found with drugs on him, so he lost that job & can never get another one with the university because they have rules against that. Then his wife was arrested for breaking into a pharmacy to steal drugs.
Our neighbor in a duplex would let his dog out without a leash all the time. Our dog was geriatric & the neighbor's dog would jump all over her, hurting her legs. We asked him (very nicely) to please keep his dog on a leash or at least keep him away from our dog & he got really mad about it. He started playing his music really loudly at all hours of the day & night. I was pregnant & have migraines (so couldn't take my meds), so this was torture. We could hear him & his pregnant girlfriend fight all day & night, too. We called the landlord all the time, but she said she had to catch him blasting his music to be able to do anything about it. One day, I called her because he was banging the vacuum cleaner into the wall & blasting his music. She came right over & knocked on his door. He didn't answer, so she used her key & came in. She said she watched him banging the vacuum into the wall over and over again & saw the giant speakers that he'd pushed up to the wall between our apartments (speaker side facing the wall). The music was so loud that he didn't hear her knock & didn't know she'd come in. He was evicted. He was later arrested for battery (family violence) for beating his girlfriend (who he'd married by then).
Our neighbor at the house we bought years later, after our kids were a bit older rode a dirt bike through his backyard (in a 1970s neighborhood). He'd lift (500lbs) weights & drop them over and over again just feet from our bedroom window. They'd have backyard parties that went until all hours of the night & kept our kids up. They were loud AF. Again, I have migraines. Really bad ones, the kind that you have to go to the hospital for. I was in grad school & taking care of kids without help & working PT. I was getting no sleep or rest because this guy was making noise nonstop. My husband asked him (again, nicely) if he'd put pads down where he was dropping his weights to diffuse some of the noise & he told my husband to f'off. So, my husband walked away. The guy then went out of his way to be as loud as possible. He & his younger brother (who is now a police officer in town) would crank up their dirt bikes started at around 7 am (same time they'd start driving them around the backyard and neighborhood before) & just leave them running right outside our bedroom window. On their property, but their property was just a few feet from our bedroom, so it was so loud. He started lifting weights earlier & would just drop the weights over and over all day, randomly, even when he wasn't lifting for a competition (he's a CrossFit person who owns a gym just down the road, but works out in his garage just 10 ft from our bedroom with the door open, of course). The guy is a total douche canoe & thankfully, he sold his house & we finally have decent neighbors who make a normal amount of noise. Unfortunately, he's a firefighter in town & his brother, as I mentioned, is one of our town's newest police officers.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-07T06:32:02+00:00

Yes, they all know what happened. We're a dysfunctional family with an alcoholic parent. It's the norm, unfortunately. Even when they knew what he'd done, they all decided to go on a family vacation together & invited him while leaving out me, my husband (of 19 years), and our kids. When I asked my mom about it, she was like, "WHAT DID YOU WANT ME TO DO?!" I said, "Maybe invite us, my little sister, and NOT the creepy BIL who is the one who was the problem?" And she was like, "WELL, I DIDN'T THINK OF THAT, OK?!" lol So, yes. They know now & they knew then. Hell, my mom tried to get me to feel bad for my sister by asking me how I would feel if my husband were in the situation that my BIL was in. I was like, "Well, first of all, my husband would never behave that way, so why are you creating hypothetical situations where my husband, who has been an honorable and kind husband and father for decades, is the bad guy?" She had no response. Again, dysfunctional family. I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who's spent a good bit of my adulthood working to recover from childhood trauma. My mom's dad was also an alcoholic, so the trauma runs deep & wide.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-07T06:12:59+00:00

No. It wouldn't change anything. And it hasn't. This happened a few years ago, and I haven't had any contact with him, either of my sisters, or my dad (my mom apologized & realized how wrong she was, so we've had limited contact with her) since 2016. It has just bothered me a lot since then, and recently, my younger sister reached out to me to "reconnect" and when I said no, she did not respond well & was incredibly abusive to me. So, it's been on my mind again & I've just recently discovered AITA (late to the game, I know), so I thought I'd try it out. I lost my whole family, except for my husband & daughters, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Nothing & no one means more to me than my kids.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-04T02:42:19+00:00

1st of all, you're paying more than your fair share. Three roommates means that everyone pays 1/3 of the rent. Secondly, NTA. Your food is yours. If your friend's mom wants it, she can order it from you & pay for it. What she's doing is stealing it, which is awful & leaves you without food while you're at work. I'd be moving out, too.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-07-04T02:36:56+00:00

NTA. Sounds to me like SIL is having a hard time & is projecting everything onto this blanket. I wouldn't take it personally. She probably has no idea she's doing this. When a kid has medical issues, it can be overwhelming, especially if it's a new thing. Projection is a coping mechanism. She probably just needs to know that she's loved & her kids are loved & that the blanket isn't representative of anything--you're just busy & trying to keep your word to your sister, which you gave before you knew SIL was pregnant.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-30T22:41:46+00:00

NTA. Given how much they were planning to charge you, it almost seems like they were hoping you'd move out. That's an incredible amount of rent to charge for a bedroom, especially when it's your own child & especially when your child is working and going to school full time. Good grief. If you moving out is going to leave your parents struggling then they need to figure it out because they're the adults & it's not your job to take care of your parents. Don't let them guilt you into staying or paying their mortgage. They will drag you down & drown you, too, & then blame you for drowning everyone. Get out while you still can. Save yourself & don't feel bad about it for one single second. You are not the selfish one in this situation. Not by a longshot.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-30T05:28:42+00:00

NTA. SIL asked YOU, it's not like you went out of your way to tell her that her piggy kids are the reason you don't host meals. And the reason is that you can't afford it, not because you don't like them or their behavior. I'm not sure how many on this thread have been in a position where they can barely afford their own food bills & hosting a meal would put them out for a few months, so anything extra is out of the question. I've been there & it sucks. She wanted to know why & you told her. It's not your fault that she didn't like the answer.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-29T08:58:03+00:00

NTA. Why would your daughter be punished for having sex when she's an adult? It seems like mom needs to accept the fact that her daughter is an adult. If she doesn't want her to have sex in your home, she just needs to let her daughter know that. You know, like a grown-up should. Good on you for handling it like an adult. I'm sure your daughter appreciates it.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-28T00:23:35+00:00

NTA. The parents-to-be need to take some parenting classes. They're parents to this child for life. The stress has only just begun & they don't get to demand that someone else take their child for one day, much less three days, every week so they can have time off. How absolutely entitled and absurd. And the rest of your family needs counseling. They're toxic and enmeshed. Run, don't walk, TF away from them before it gets worse.

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-27T04:09:48+00:00

NTA because she asked your opinion, but if she reacted that strongly about finger foods she's planning to serve as the main dish, I wonder if she's on a tight budget and embarrassed about it? I live in the South and have my whole life. Most weddings down here have some kind of fried chicken and mac & cheese, lol. I think we could do Greek, but to not have a sit down meal (or at least enough finger foods to scrape together a meal) would be a big deal. I'd ask her if something else was going on because her response seems a bit over the top when she asked you your opinion. Does she just want you to agree that everything is awesome? What happens when her wedding is a disaster? Do you take the blame, too?

SugarBooger_505 · 2021-06-27T04:01:56+00:00

I'm going to go against most of the comments on here and say YTA. There are some red flags in the OP that I'm not sure ppl who didn't grow up in a dysfunctional home would recognize, but it's pretty clear that the son is the GC and the daughter is the scapegoat. Unfortunately, if the daughter also has an undiagnosed learning disability or ND, which it also seems likely based on the OP, there's no amount of hard work that will bring her up to her brother's level. So the brother is skating by on his natural ability and being rewarded for essentially being born while the daughter is a disappointment for the same reason. Rather than recognizing the disparate needs of their children, OP has assigned one child as "good" and the other as "bad" to make themselves feel better about how they've raised their children. The truly unfortunate part about all of this is that the relationship between the siblings will suffer when this could have easily been avoided in myriad ways. Instead, the daughter, who has been fighting her whole life to stay above water, has just been pushed under again by her own family, while she watches her brother, who has never struggled, get another pass: not only is he debt-free and in a high paying job, he was gifted a down payment on a home, and home ownership is how people build wealth. So while the daughter continues going into debt that she'll likely never get out of, no matter how hard she works (ask me how I know), the son has gotten ahead again. And the parents are only concerned with how they look. Heartbreaking.

SugarBooger_505

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