In November 2021, an anonymous woman shared a moving account on Reddit’s “ AITA ” forum. The 24-year-old woman told a story about her 32-year-old sister and her 38-year-old husband, which was the epitome of family incompetence.
Despite having a full-time job of more than 40 hours per week, managing the entire house and taking care of their four children -10F, 8M, 5M and 3F- while pregnant, her sister’s husband did not collaborate at all.
It seemed amazing to the woman that her sister got up at 4 in the morning, took care of breakfast and housework and prepared the children to go to school, While her husband stayed at home, she worked and entertained herself with video games after picking up the children. In particular, the woman mentioned that her sister earned more than her husband.
¿What happened when they stayed with their sister?
While they were renovating their home, the Redditor had to stay at her sister’s house for six weeks, with her 26-year-old fiancé. As the couple worked from home, they were able to offer help, and the additional support made the woman’s sister feel happy and relieved.
He claimed that the incident had made him a laughingstock in his family.
The woman contributed by helping her sister with the children, and her fiancé even took her to doctor’s appointments. Instead, the husband only recognized his paternal role when his family was present, presenting himself as a God-fearing and hard-working father of five children.
Although the woman’s sister wanted to stop having children after the last baby, her husband insisted on having more boys. The original author was concerned not only with her sister, but also with her children, especially when the eldest began to recognize the situation and tried to help her. However, the sister flatly refused to let her son take responsibility.
The Redditor admitted that she had never gotten along with her brother-in-law, and that her behavior persisted since the birth of her eight-year-old son. Despite attempts to discuss the option to leave, her sister resisted and feared that her children would grow up in a broken home.
Her perspective on divorce differed from that of the Redditor, since her own experience with her parents’ divorce was very different. He believed that his children needed their mother and father together and was reluctant to consider the possible benefits of a divorce, given their situation.
Thanksgiving dinner
The weekend before she shared her story, her sister and brother-in-law organized a dinner before Thanksgiving, which was attended by the two families. Anticipating her brother-in-law’s lack of collaboration, the Redditor had stayed with her sister a few days earlier to help her.
During dinner, she said that she and her fiancé were trying to start a family. At that time, her brother-in-law made an out of place comment to her boyfriend about the challenges of parenting. What he said irritated the woman, who replied: “ As if you knew ”.