'AITA for kicking my brother and his pregnant girlfriend out of my house?' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITA for kicking out my brother and his pregnant girlfriend out of my house?"

I (28F) know this sounds terrible, but please bear with me. My brother (24M) is the only son in our family, and I don’t know about anywhere else, but in an Asian family, it’s basically a given that he was treated better than my older sister and me growing up.

Our father passed away right before my brother graduated high school, and our beloved mother decided it was a good idea to make my sister and me pay for his college tuition because my father paid for our tuition until we graduated.

For the record, I don’t make tons of money. It’s above average, but I’m not exactly swimming in cash. Plus, I work long hours. The economy sucks these days. Now, I’m married. I proposed to this beautiful man (28M) I’ve known since middle school after he got into a terrible accident that caused him to lose almost all of his motor skills.

He was in a coma for about two weeks, and I swore that if he woke up, I’d marry him. So I did, I’m a woman of my word, after all. He also lost his job because of the accident, but he still has income from his investments, and his parents gifted him one of their property to rent out afterward. Yes, his parent is Loaded with capital L.

Even without financial trouble, I still watched him fall into a deep slump, struggling with depression because he’d been robbed of everything he knew, his job, his active outdoor hobbies. He couldn’t walk for almost a year, and to this day, he still can’t stand or walk for too long, even with his cane. He was in a dark place until about a month before our wedding.

Now, almost a year into our marriage, I can see the light starting to come back to his eyes after getting really into cooking and baking, to the point where we revamped our entire kitchen to fit a bigger oven and store all his baking equipment. He’s actively researching how to get a permit to start a bakery, and I love seeing it, even after three weeks of eating sourdough bread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

Back to my brother. He and his girlfriend got pregnant by accident. He’s currently job-hunting, having graduated two years ago. He started a business right after college, but yeah… you probably know how that goes. It failed, after he spent almost all the money our father left to us (his three children) as inheritance.

That caused a rift between him and my oldest sister. I don’t blame my sister for being furious because he also spent her share of the inheritance after paying his tuition. And if you know anything about Asian families, you know the oldest daughter has it the hardest. He’s also not really on great terms with our mother because of the unplanned pregnancy.

She’s not exactly against his girlfriend, but she’s not thrilled either. However, he's still the golden child and that’s why she asked me, her newlywed daughter, to let my brother and his girlfriend stay in our house until he finds a job. Since I live in a big city, she assumed it’d be easier for him to get hired here. I asked my husband if I could rent one of the room he owns to accommodate them.

My husband, being the absolute angel he is, said that since what he owned aren’t exactly suitable for long-term living with a baby, he’d see if he could remodel one. They could move in once it was ready and only start paying rent once my brother got a job. In the meantime, they could stay in our upstairs guest room.

I’ve read stories about situations like this being recipes for disaster, and d*mn, I should’ve listened. They moved in sometime before Christmas. Both of them did the bare minimum around the house. They washed their own dishes, but only the small ones like plates, glasses, and bowls, leaving the pots and pans for us to clean. They did their own laundry, but that’s it.

They’d raid our pantry and fridge without ever restocking anything. Some days, I didn’t even get a taste of my husband’s baked goods.. they’d eat the ones he specifically set aside for me. I had to wash dishes that I knew my husband didn’t use, even after pulling two consecutive shifts at the hospital (I’m a freaking resident).

They never vacuumed the second floor where they stayed, never helped take out the trash even though they filled it to the brim. I usually helped him with it whenever I got time but I had seen my husband taking out trash multiple times when I just got home.

I don’t expect them to clean the whole house, but come on watching my husband limp around with his cane, washing dishes and taking out the trash while they did nothing? That’s just rude, especially when they’re living rent-free.

Of course, I confronted them with a very watered down and gentle version of bro you won't get a job if you can't even help take out the trash and sis, you’re pregnant but you can at least wash the dishes you use. Both of you have two hands you can wash the cooking utensils you use to make food. Team works make the dream works.

They got slightly better after that. Now they wash all their dishes—but don’t bother putting them back in the drawers. But hey, progress.

Now, here’s the breaking point.

During Chinese New Year, my mother and oldest sister came to visit. My husband went all out with his cooking. I cleaned the entire house and prepared the other guest room for my family. That’s when I realized the second floor hadn’t been vacuumed in ages. My brother and his girlfriend didn’t come out of their room until my family arrived.

We exchanged greetings, gave my mother her New Year’s bow, and sat down for dinner. That’s when all hell broke loose. My brother, with confidence straight out of his colon, actually said it was time for my husband to get a "real job” again because “he can walk now.” He added that he’s younger but working hard to find a job.

Then he really added the words no offense, before saying cooking is a weird hobbies for a big guy (6"3') like him and also he doesn’t really have the talent for it. His girlfriend chimed in, saying she feels like my husband is “more feminine” than she is because he takes care of the house and cooks better than she does.

Of course, the bar is somewhere below Satan’s throne if she’s the standard. She even said she and my brother keep asking my husband why he’s still at home when it’s been years since his accident and that I’ll leave him soon if he keeps being “cooped up in the house.”

She then whined about how my husband always just smiled at them and never responded. I think even my brother realized she’d messed up because he quickly backpedaled, saying it was only “once or twice.” I just stood up, took both their plates, and told them to pack up and leave. I couldn’t even look at my husband. I was so pissed and ashamed of them.

It took every ounce of self-control not to curse them out right then and there. They said I was being too sensitive over “harmless comments.” My mother tried to defuse the situation, saying my brother and his girlfriend “meant well,” that their comments “didn’t come from a bad place,” and even pointed out that my husband didn’t seem offended so she asked, “Why ruin a good day?", which I ignored.

I even handed them my car keys because I just wanted them gone. They left with my oldest sister after giving my husband a half-hearted apology. She told me they stayed at a motel before returning back to my mother's house. The next day, my older sister came by to pick up my brother’s stuff. She laughed a lot about the whole ordeal and she’s the only one who thinks I did the right thing.

My husband said he was glad I defended him but he never took their comments to heart because he knows I love what he’s doing so he suggested I might’ve been a little harsh. My mother later told me their words weren’t a “good enough reason” to kick out my “struggling brother and PREGNANT girlfriend” (she really emphasized the pregnant part).

She said I could’ve just scolded him like I did over the dishes, yep, he tattled about that too. I still don’t think I am TA nor I'm overreacting, I'm still pissed off to be honest but now I’m second-guessing myself because even my husband was so chill about it. AITA?

The internet did not hold back one bit.

SparklingPetalWhist wrote:

NTA. You’ve been more than generous by allowing them to stay, but their disrespectful behavior crossed a line. They were rude to your husband and ungrateful, especially considering the sacrifices you’ve already made for them.

You have every right to defend your marriage and stand up for your husband when he’s being belittled, regardless of your brother’s situation. You set clear expectations, and they blatantly ignored them. Your mother’s attempt to downplay their behavior is just her enabling them, but you were right to kick them out.

MajorAd2679 wrote:

NTA. Your brother st*le inheritance. He’s a th**f. He’s a lazy AH who knocked up his girlfriend, doesn’t work, is disrespectful of your home and husband when he’s staying for free and being a horrible guest!

You were too kind and let it go for far too long. You weren’t too harsh. Actions/words have consequences.

Never lift a finger for your brother ever again. He’s entitled because your mother especially but you’ve all been enablers.

OP responded:

Now that I think about it, you're right. I also contributed to enabling him to some degree. Lesson learned, and never again thanks for the response anyway!

Juzme99 wrote:

The difference between your husband and brother is miles apart, your husband cooks cleans is looking for a new future and can support himself. Your brother is ungrateful spoiled brat, who can barely look after himself, stole his sister's inheritance.

Because he just had to ask mummy and she handed it over and once he went through it all just decided to free load of his family through mummy, because that is all he knows.

PleasantCan81 wrote:

NTA, good for you for standing up for your husband and hopefully, teaching your ungrateful and lazy brother and his gf a lesson. They need to step it up since they chose to be irresponsible and get pregnant. I can’t believe their audacity to say such things at your house where they were living for free! 🤦🏻‍♀️

The next day, OP jumped on with a major update.

I was pleasantly surprised when I woke up this morning to find so many responses, and I want to say thank you to everyone who bothered to read my long post and respond kindly to it. Last night, both my husband and I actually read everyone's responses together. He said that he's thankful for the supportive messages, and he even blushed a little at the comments calling him a saint.

It was cute. Don't tell him I told you guys about it. Also, I tried to reply to everyone, but I gave up after an hour because I didn’t really have enough brainpower or finger capacity to do that. I wrote update in the title, but a big portion of this post will be explanations so to do that, I want to respond to a few questions I encountered a lot in my previous post:

1. Did I get my car back?

He never took my car. My sister did. She took it out and drove it to a motel, so my car is safe and sound in my garage.

2. Why did I let him into my house?

Honestly, I'm not really close to my family if we go by asian family standard. You can guess why. I also attended a boarding high school, so I had already moved out by then.

During all my college years, I can count on one hand how many times I came home, only during new year for less than a week each time. During semester breaks, I'd look for part-time jobs just to avoid going home.

I also kept very limited contact, and during those times, I only knew him as a spoiled brat, a mama’s boy. He never made any remarks against me or did anything out of line before. I believe, after my father, he’s the most wary of me since I was the one who scolded and forced him to apologize to either our mother or oldest sister multiple times after our father passed.

That’s why I never expected him to do or say something so outrageous. He also got good grades from a respectable college, so I assumed he’d get a job in no time.

Prior to my mother asking me to let him stay, she actually asked me to fund his wedding. Snowball’s chance in hell.

Even when she said it didn’t need to be a big one, still hell no. It'll be easier to split her hair into seven different parts than making me pay for it. That’s why I compromised to avoid a long, dragging series of nagging and grumbling by letting him stay until he got a job. That’s one of the biggest missteps I made.

3. Why did I agree to pay his tuition? Why did I let him take my share of the inheritance?

I didn’t exactly pay for his tuition. As I’ve mentioned, our father left an inheritance. I told my mother to use my share to pay my brother's tuition.

My thought process at that time was that she'd ask for something in return if I ever touched that money, so I’d rather not. If she thinks sending us to school is transactional, then I assumed everything else would be, too. I never considered that money mine, so no loss for me.

However, I actually needed to avoid her for a few months after my brother got into college because the inheritance was intended to fund our weddings in the future. She gave in rather quickly after I went MIA, though. I did sit him down, made him apologize and promised he’d pay it back to our oldest sister after he failed his businesses.

But it wasn’t my place to forgive or scold him because I had consented to my mother (which equals him, I guess) using my share. Thinking about it, I should’ve at least hold him for my sister to slap.

4. Why does my husband, as some of you put it, have no spine?

Excuse you? My husband’s got titanium in his spine. Literally and figuratively. Kidding. I know I didn’t add much regarding that matter because I was too focused on what happened prior to and during the height of the problem, not so much the aftermath nor my husband's perspective because in my mind, my post was about what I did to them and the motivation behind it.

I actually asked him right after that dinner if he really did say nothing and why he didn’t tell me that those toilet lid covers had been insulting him. He was pretty offended that I believed my brother and his girlfriend when they said he didn’t respond at all.

Nah, he told them off once during New Year when I was on call (yes, life sucks). He said something along the lines of, bro I'm still richer than you even when we’re both unemployed. I’ve got a doctor for a wife who proposed to me when I could do nothing but blinks. My life is fine. Just get a job. Rephrased by yours truly because he couldn't remember how he worded it.

He said he was laughing when he said this, so maybe that’s why my brother didn’t take him seriously but it might still hurt my brother and that was why he said those thing during dinner. But honestly, when I imagine my husband talking like that, it looks scary. Laughing just makes it worse. Kind of hot, though, but that’s TMI.

As to why he didn’t tell me, he didn’t take it to heart and was too lazy to bring it up. He mentioned that it’s still kind of difficult for him to pronounce a lot of words. He compared my brother and his girlfriend’s comments to the husky’s howls next door (very handsome dog, by the way), it's already in their nature so why bother?

I did tell him to let me know next time someone disrespects him, though. So that I can finally put the taekwondo skill I gathered during my elementary school years to use. I only got to yellow belt though, so don't expect much.

I do think he’s happier about what I did than he lets on, though. Don't ask me why.

5. Why am I enabling him?

Like I said in one of my replies, I did think about it, and I think me avoiding my family as much as possible can be considered enabling him.

In my defense, I’m not his parent, so it’s not my job to parent him, but I do take accountability for not whacking him enough growing up. That’s probably why he’s got some screws loose.

That's the end of Q&A session that I made myself.

Now, it’s only been a week since CNY, and not much has happened.

The most notable thing would be I’ve got my brother and mom blocked on both my and my husband’s phones after she tried to contact him separately yesterday, asking about the room we intended to renovate (the renovation is still happening because he already contacted his parents, but there are other people who probably need and deserve it, so he’ll just rent it to someone else later).

I just blocked her in his phone without replying when he told me about it. He actually kept asking if it’s really okay to cut off my family completely like that while reassuring me that he’s okay and not affected in the slightest every time this topic is being brought up.

That’s why I was second-guessing myself. But fret not. With the power of the Great Wall of China my husband’s ancestors built and the Turtle Ship my ancestors built, I’ve already guarded my mind, heart, and soul to never backpedal on my decision.

I’ll just think of both my mother and brother as that strand of hair you find on your butt. It’s there, but you don’t need it. It’ll feel even better after plucking it. I don’t know anything else about my brother and his girlfriend because I never bothered to ask during my calls with my sister.

But like some of you said, not my problem anymore. I did hear my mother called my boy crazy because I prioritized my husband over my family, but I mean, I'm her daughter so you can probably guess where I got it from. We had lots of conversations after reading my previous post and discussed a lot of things from each other’s perspectives throughout our relationship.

I also apologized once again and asked him if he ever thought of leaving me after the whole fiasco, which I admit really sucked for him. He asked me in return if I remembered telling him to just get fat after proposing to him with a ring that was too big because I bought one the same size as our couple ring (Asian thing, some of us are sappy like that, don’t judge me) a few days after he woke up.

He said, if I took a step forward to stay with him when he could do absolutely nothing, why would he even think of leaving me when I did everything in my power to stand by him now.

I might make mistakes, and it might seem like it’s not enough for others, but it’s more than enough for him. We can always fix it and like how he ate a lot throughout his recovery so his finger can fit that ring, he'll pick up my slack. So, what’s the problem? I bawled and am currently taking sick leave because my eyes are super swollen. Thanks for reading.

Lol, kidding, not yet, people.

I know I talk too much, but the last thing I want to say is I hope everyone who finds themselves in a similar situation knows that it’s normal to feel like it’s difficult to stand up for yourself.

It’s okay if it takes some time. Navigating difficult situations isn’t exactly a walk in the park, and if you decide to go through it, that act of navigating and standing up for yourself is what will be added to your value as a human being.

You made a mistake, managed to fix it, and learned from it. It’s easier said than done, and that’s why it’s something to be proud of. So keep your chin up and hang in there! Now for real, thanks for reading! I hope you guys have a great year ahead of you.

The internet was deeply invested.

Quarkiness wrote:

My guess is you are Korean since you said Turtle Ship? Anyways I wanted to fill you with Chinese auntie/mom energy which would chastise your brother for his poor rude behaviour. Am pretty sure Korean aunties and moms have it too.

Lots of Asian men do the majority of the cooking for their families and do it really well too. I'm in a Brain Injury discord server so I know about having to relearn everything and having difficulty speaking. Glad that he's found a hobby and passion. Some of our male members also love to bake too.

OP responded:

Correct! I'm of Korean descent. Older generations of Korean boy moms, at least the ones I encountered both online and irl, are one of the worst cases of boy moms. They truly think their little pup is a gift from heaven and deserve to be given everything on a silver platter. They'll defend their son no matter what they did and make sure he never did any house work even when you're about to give birth.

I'm not saying every Korean mother with sons is like that but there are many of them. I'm a gyopo (people who are ethnic Korean but were born and raised outside of Korea) and it's been decades since my mother left Korea yet she still acts like that. Thank you for your support and reassurance!

SuccessDifficult5981 wrote:

YAY!!! I'm so very happy for you, and very proud of you! Wishing you all the happiness you deserve. Both of you!

OP responded:

Thank you for the kind response! I wish you the same hundredfold!

imazing1 wrote:

NTA Sounds like you have all the family you need!

OP responded:

Yes, I probably used up all my luck meeting them!

According_Pie3971 wrote:

Your update made me smile. I’m sincerely happy that you and your husband have the relationship that you do.

OP responded:

Thank you for smiling at my update! It also makes me happy to hear that!