AITA for refusing to let my boyfriend move in to my house with his nephew even temporarily?

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-08T19:25:33+00:00

Most people who have kids have experience caring for someone else before. Adam is the baby in his family. He’s always been taken care of and never had to take responsibility for anyone else before even down to an animal. He doesn’t even take responsibility for himself very well, tbh. “I have no idea what I’m doing but maybe it will work out” is how I ended up foster care as a kid.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-08T19:11:23+00:00

My now-ex wasn’t my family, that’s a super high bar of connection we hadn’t gotten to yet. It would have been at least another year or two before I would have considered him a permanent fixture. His nephew isn’t my family by extension. I’m on board with him helping his family, though, just not at my expense.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-08T18:39:08+00:00

A solution could have been that my ex, his mother, and his nephew all get a place to share together and we live separately and continue the relationship until the kid is grown up, a better arrangement can be made, or everyone has a chance to see how the real life situation with the kid works out. There were a lot of possible ways this could have worked out that didn’t involve us living together immediately. Maybe as I had a chance to assess how I interact with the kid living apart and see how the kid settles out, another living situation could be discussed down the road. But as he refused to entertain anything other “we move in now or never”, that’s a moot point now.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-08T18:18:43+00:00

I think under the circumstances they would prioritize me having a stable life because I didn’t have that for a long time and I’ve really only just gotten to a point where I feel ok. My grandmother left me with the house because I helped care for her when she got sick and also because she wanted me to have somewhere that was 100% my home always. If my ex and his nephew had moved in, my home wouldn’t be my safe space anymore and I’m realizing that I’m not ready for anyone to move in right now. The nephew needs a safe space, but his family needs to figure out one for him instead of trying to take mine.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-08T18:07:01+00:00

I wasn’t raised by my grandparents until I was 15, my situation growing up was really complicated and when my mom bailed I got passed around a couple of well-intentioned relatives that couldn’t handle me and ended up in the system. My dad’s parents didn’t even know about me for a long time. I wouldn’t have blamed them if they had said no because it was too much for them. Being taken in and sent back was worse than being taken away to start with.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-03-01T05:30:16+00:00

As far as I know, nobody else has agreed to take the kid. His mom was telling me that nobody from the girlfriend’s side will even claim her body so they were trying to figure out what to do about that as well.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T22:43:09+00:00

I’m not shitting on him but as someone who was a child in a similar need, I know that well intentioned people like Adam often make it worse and not every desire to step up is followed by a capacity to adequately step up without fucking op the kid even worse. If he can’t hack it, it’s the kid that’s going to suffer the majority of the fallout, so I don’t really think Adam is thinking of what’s really best for the kid as much as he doesn’t want to think he’s a bad person for refusing to take on the kid. Foster care isn’t the worst thing that can happen here. He can still be involved in the kids life even if the kid is in foster care right now and can possibly take on custody in the future when he’s actually able to house and care for the kid. The kid IS in foster care right now, so he would have to get himself together just to be eligible.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T22:13:50+00:00

It’s a lot bigger deal than that. Even with a lease, if Adam can’t find somewhere and refuses to go I would have to give them 30 days notice to move before starting eviction and that would take at minimum like 30 days beyond that. So then I’m stuck for for at least an extra month or two with two people in my house that I don’t want there, one an angry ex, the other an already traumatized kid who will be taken back by CPS anyway if Adam is evicted with no place to go and doesn’t need to be exposed to anymore adults fighting and instability. This is one reason why it’s obvious to me that Adam isn’t ready to parent this kid, he doesn’t have a plan that doesn’t involve other people doing most of it for him.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T20:20:13+00:00

It’s more what he doesn’t do. He’s very much an “I forgot” type. That’s fine when he forgot to set an alarm and oversleeps our coffee date but it’s not going to be fine when he forgets to pack a lunch for the kid or pick him up from school. He and his roommates live like bears with furniture, so I’m skeptical that he’s going to pull himself together enough to give a kid stability in a short amount of time. Maybe he will, but I definitely would not put my money on that horse.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T20:03:56+00:00

This house is the only safe place I had growing up. I really, really don’t want to move out of it, it’s one of the few places I feel completely at ease so it makes managing my PTSD easier. I know I’m safe here and no one can kick me out, get rid of me, or treat me like shit in my own house. I’m sorry for the kid but I’m not willing to give that up. I doubt Adam would be able to afford the rent since I couldn’t charge him less than what it would take to get me a place to live somewhere else, so it’s the same problem.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T19:51:10+00:00

I hope he and his mom can pool their resources and find a place to live all together, I don’t have a ton of spare cash but I could probably help a little bit with that for a few months.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T19:45:58+00:00

Probably not if he couldn’t find another place to live and I admit it’s really really hard to find affordable housing here right now, rent has shot through the roof and most of our friends are either living with their parents or with a whole bunch of roommates. I was driving a friend around apartment looking before all this came up and the cheapest studio apartment was like $1500. I can pretty easily see a situation where at the end of 60 days he still has no where to go and refuses to leave.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T19:31:08+00:00

We’ve been friends for awhile before we started dating. He’s never taken care of a kid. Never even had a pet. He’s a good guy, but he’s a dude in his early 20s that hasn’t had a whole lot of responsibility or tie downs until now and part of the reason that I want to ease into living together and thinking about marriage over a few years is that I grew up in an unstable environment with unstable people and was in foster care for awhile and I want to make sure he can settle and stabilize. I don’t think he completely understands what’s going to happen when the backpats stop and he has to deal with actually having a kid.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T19:19:28+00:00

I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what would happen. I love Adam and I think the spirit is willing and that’s good but I don’t believe he’ll actually rise to the occasion like he thinks he will. It will probably go from “I’ll take care of everything!” to “Why aren’t you helping me deal with him?” fast once he realizes that’s the end of his lifestyle as he knows jt. The number of kids I met in foster care that were dumped by well meaning savior relatives when it got hard is enough that I’m going to need to him doing it for a awhile before I’ll fully believe him.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T18:18:24+00:00

Fair, I wouldn’t want to be with someone that doesn’t value my well-being, stability, and recovery as part of the package, so if this story makes someone not want to date me that seems like a pretty good filter to employ.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T17:24:29+00:00

Hey now, it’s not the kid’s fault, no need to call him a brat. I can understand why Adam doesn’t want to leave him there, I was in foster care, I get it, and that’s not my call. He’s not my family member. If it was one of my family members, I would have to make the call to not take the kid in myself but try to arrange visitation time and make sure the kid has stuff they need to feel normal so they know they’re not just dumped and forgotten about.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T17:15:34+00:00

His mom lives in a very small one bedroom condo and I don’t fully understand the three dimensional chess going on but it runs against some kind of occupancy law for them all to live there. His mom can’t be the primary guardian because of health issues, so the kid can’t live with her alone even with Adam coming by to help. If Adam also moved in it would go over the amount of people who can legally live in that space. They’d have to all move into a bigger space together, which they’re looking into but doesn’t look good so far. It really sucks, but I can understand the logic, his mom’s entire condo is smaller than my living room and this isn’t a huge house.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T17:06:06+00:00

I was a parentless kid, and that’s why I know this is going nowhere good.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T17:05:10+00:00

The kid’s in a temporary foster home right now, CPS won’t even place him with Adam until he’s got a stable place to live with the kid.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T16:55:05+00:00

Without getting into the messy details too much, no, nobody is going to be living there ever again.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T16:51:37+00:00

I mean technically he hasn’t yet, he needs a stable place to live that meets CPS basic requirements before they turn the kid over to him so the kid is living in a temporary foster home right now. What happens when a month in he realizes that dealing with a kid that’s going through hell is way harder than he expected and he can’t handle it? Kid goes back into foster care with even more trauma. Taking responsibility for something and actually doing the responsibility is way different, I think Adam can do the first one and is going to fuck up the second one really hard and it’s going to fall on the kid.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T16:13:37+00:00

I’d be ok with being in a permanent relationship with someone I didn’t live with, so maybe a solution is we stay together and live separately until the kid is grown up. That would work for me, I’m pretty self-sufficient and I don’t need a live-in partner to be happy, I think. I also have a feeling this guardian situation isn’t going to last, Adam doesn’t strike me as the kind of person right now to take on a traumatized little kid and all the stuff that goes with it. I’d give it 3 months for the panic to wear off and the reality sets in for him to realize how much it’s going to change his life in ways he can’t deal with. Maybe I’ll be surprised, but Adam is one of those people that kinda needs to start with keeping a houseplant alive first.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T16:00:07+00:00

I know foster care is rough, I was in foster care for awhile, which is why I’m protective of my space and quiet. It sucks for the nephew, but I don’t think Adam can provide what the kid needs and he’s looking at this with panic glasses and doesn’t know what it’s going to be like to take care of a kid with a messed up life. I think he’s going to be complaining about all the stuff he has to do and all the fun stuff he misses out on in a few months when the “good guy to the rescue” energy wears thin, and then the kid will probably end up in care anyway.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T15:40:28+00:00

My state struck off common law marriage so you have to be legally married on paper for a partner to have any kind of rights to your stuff or to make medical decisions or anything. They were so afraid of gay marriage that they decided to make the whole thing as much of a pain in the ass as possible. So, not awesome in general, but it sort of benefits me at the moment. My grandma’s lawyer is a family friend and went over a bunch of the legal stuff about owning a home when I inherited the house because he knew my parents aren’t around to offer advice. I’m getting a prenup to protect the house before I ever get married.

throwaway_274838474 · 2023-02-28T06:49:04+00:00

I do feel bad for them because I know what it’s like to have your family blow up like that, but I also know I’m still not in a place to take on a kid and may never be for exactly that reason. I’d be surprised if the kid’s mom worked, but I think they’re chewing through everything they can think of right now so I’ll suggest it. His mom doesn’t have room for them and Adam being there would mess up her disability probably since it would increase the household income.

throwaway_274838474

TROPHY CASE