'WIBTA if I asked my adult brother with autism to move out?' UPDATED

"WIBTA if I asked my adult brother with autism to move out?"

I am feeling really conflicted. Nearly a year ago three things happened: 1, me (22m) and my boyfriend (23m) started renting my stepdad’s old house. 2, my mom and stepdad’s house burnt down, and they were struggling to find a house big enough to accommodate the family. 3, they asked if my younger adult brother(21m) could move in with us since we had an extra room.

My mother had floated the idea of my brother moving in with me for a while before this as well. It caused issues between her and my stepfather as he felt my mom babied him, and let him get away with doing nothing.

The only reason my brother has a job is because my mom asked one of her friends to hire him. This was a big point of contention in their relationship and my mother has said if my brother didn’t move out when he did then they probably would be headed for divorce.

I want to clarify he is not high support needs or anything like that, in fact, my mother used to hold the fact that he had a higher IQ than me over my head. But he does not act like it. I feel like his Asperger’s diagnosis made my mom keep him from any responsibility. So, while he is quiet, and we don’t see him often (he works overnights) we still end up dealing with his mess.

This includes but is not limited to: washing all of his coffee cups because he never does any dishes , having to force him to clean his room because the floor is hidden by fast food bags and boxes, he drinks all our beer or alcohol without asking, he never takes out the trash, never sweeps or mops, never helps with outside work.

This all sort of came to a head last night/this morning. My boyfriend and I went out of town for a week and deep cleaned the house before we left. We asked my brother to watch/feed/water the cats and make sure the house stayed clean. When we got home, the house stank like body odor and cat piss. In the bathroom all of our towels were in a pile by the door.

Since we were tired, we just assumed the piss smell was from one of our cats, cleaned it, and then moved on. After that I went to the kitchen and made spaghetti. It’s worth noting that there is a sizable part of our kitchen ceiling missing, which leads to some pipes + a small maintenance door next to our toilet in the upstairs bathroom.

The next day, yesterday, after trying to pick up the towels, my boyfriend mentions he thinks that my brother overflowed the toilet while we were gone. We had also been having some mild food poisoning all day, and where the kitchen and bathroom are connected, I just got the worst feeling. I asked my brother if he had overflowed the toilet while we were gone.

He said yes, he had. I didn’t really know what else to say so I asked him to clean up thoroughly. I feel like I genuinely don’t know what to say to him. How does a grown man not know to clean up after himself?

He left it all over our bathroom. And because my boyfriend didn’t know the towels were used to soak up toilet water, he used one to dry his athletes foot that night. (I personally wouldn’t have used a towel that had been on the floor for this but I digress)

That brings us to this morning: my boyfriend is at the clinic because this morning his foot was super inflamed, covered in pus, and super painful. So this would mark two ways that we’ve been affected physically by my younger brother not cleaning up after himself.

I am at a total loss for what to do because he is my younger brother and I love him but I’m tired of playing caretaker for this grown man who is fully capable of taking care of himself. Growing up I was very parentified by our parents when it came to him and the rest of our siblings, moving out was supposed to be an escape from that.

He is fully capable of cleaning up after himself instead of leaving messes for us to come home to. I feel If he is intelligent enough to brew his own mead and play intricate card games he’s intelligent enough to clean up after himself. WIBTA if I kicked out my adult brother with autism?

EDIT: My reasoning for thinking I might be the asshole is because my mom is always like “Well he’s autistic so you just have to tell him!! He doesn’t think about things the way we do!!”

But like I feel like I shouldn’t have to tell a grown man to clean up his piss. We were also homeschooled so he has like no social life and I don’t even know where he would go if we kicked him out (no one else in my family wants to take him in funnily enough)

What do you think? WIBTA? This is what commenters had to say:

strubisach said:

HOLY MEATBALLS NTA!!! this has nothing to do with autism, and everything with slaggish entitlement, please don't be an AH to yourself and your bf anymore and send him away. your mother's marriage almost ended in divorce, do you want to risk your relationship to fail too?

OP responded:

That’s what I’ve been worried about 😭 I’m thankful at least he’s not my kid like in my mom’s situation. My boyfriend has actually been really kind to him and we’ve never had any other problems with my brother besides his cleaning habits. This just drew a new line in the sand for me and I’m having a hard time dealing with it.

SecretOscarOG asked:

Dude why do you need internet strangers to tell you the boy who cant clean up his piss shouldn't live with you

OP responded:

Because I feel like our parents failed him in how they raised him, he has literally no friends, my dad and stepdad don’t give a damn about him, and he is my little brother. I feel like he has nobody else who cares sometimes, even if my mom says she does, she doesn’t show it in any meaningful way. It makes me feel conflicted. I know maybe that makes me retarded or something but it’s hard.

Yiayiamary said:

Nah, if he’s so damn smart, let him figure it out. Tell him he behaved SO badly that he can no longer stay with you. Not your problem!

Specialist_Agency30 said:

Nta. I have autism and I can clean up messes and do the laundry.

No-Past2605 said:

NTA. What you described is disgusting. He needs to move back with mommy so she can clean up after him.

OP responded:

Literally I cannot tell you how nauseated I have been over this. It felt like coming home from a beautiful vacation to a miniature version of my dad. The only issue is my mom absolutely will not take him back, I know my stepdad won’t allow it.

Fun-Yellow-6576 said:

NTA he needs to be told to clean up his messes or he’s out. Now since you’re re ting from your Step father this might be an issue. If you don’t have a signed lease, you and your bf could move out. This may hurt you financially, but your brother would no longer be your responsibility.

A frank discussion with your brother about what needs to happen or you will no longer live together. Talk to your bf, it might be easier if the two of you just find a new place to live and move out without giving any notice.

OP responded:

We have discussed moving out a couple of times- I really hate it but I love the house we live in and most apartments in our area are more expensive than even the full amount of rent we pay. Not to mention most do not allow pets and I cannot bear the idea of giving up my cats. They have been keeping me sane in all of this haha

My stepfather has been completely on me + bf’s side since the beginning, he really dislikes my brother so I know we probably wouldn’t have any issues with him. He has offered to kick him out before over a much less serious interpersonal dispute. Ultimately it is his house and not my mom’s so I’m not scared of retaliation or anything like that.

I think I’m going to try and scare my brother straight with a frank conversation after work tonight.

A week later, he shared this update:

Hi guys. I want to start by saying thank you to everyone for the advice and support. Part of me felt like I was overreacting and part of me felt like I was under reacting whenever I made the original post.

Hearing outside perspectives really helped me get a grip. I also want to clarify that my mom, stepdad, and brother are not bad people. I know my anger did not paint them in the best light but I promise they are not manipulative evil people. They may be a bit maladjusted but so am I lol. Anyways onto the update:

I was originally supposed to see my mom the day after I made the post, in order to install some hair extensions for her. I planned on discussing the situation with her and making a plan. I had called her on my break at work that day and she was seemingly supportive of my choice to ask my brother to move out. She said she understood why it crossed a line although it made her sad.

Well, that night, my boyfriend’s infection in his foot crawled up his ankle. We spent a long time in the ER that night to make sure nothing was wrong and that the antibiotics were working properly, and thankfully, he is making a great recovery right now. But because we were at the ER until the early morning, I ended up cancelling on my mom.

I told her I wanted to regroup whenever my brother was off work that way we could all sit down and have a conversation. Our schedules are opposite where he works nights and I work all day, so usually I only see him for a few minutes if at all when I get home from work.

I discussed my concerns with my mom over text and she made it clear she would support us in our decision. Here are some of my texts:

Me: “He’s made it clear in multiple ways he has different standards of living than what I want in my household and that’s fine but I don’t want it under my roof. I can handle messy but I cannot handle dirty. Obviously I still want him in my life and I love him but I think he needs to self sustain and learn that mess doesn’t just disappear if ignored.” My mom: “I understand that.”

“Leaving items covered in piss everywhere is unacceptable for us to come home to after vacation, and in general. It felt really disrespectful considering how hard we worked to make the house clean before we left. It just crossed a boundary for me. Especially when it gave us food poisoning and gave (Boyfriend) a skin infection. It could have also gotten our cats sick.“

My Mom: “Be prepared for him to have some big feelings about this. He loves living with you guys.”

Me: “I know and I’m trying to prepare myself for that. I love him and this doesn’t mean I want him out of my life or anything like that. But (Boyfriend) could have gotten very sick because of his negligence. He made our house smell rotten. He doesn’t pull his weight and he doesn’t respect the space. He needs time in the real world where someone isn’t cleaning up after him.

I’m not willing to let messes sit around in my home so he can come back to them and maybe clean them. I am not interested in having to coach a grown man into picking up after himself.

If he is so autistic he cannot clean up piss covered towels or floor mats or dishes, then he needs a caretaker, and that will not be me. But I think he is just lazy and doesn’t put any thought into whether or not we want to live in a pig pen."

Soooooooo that brings us to last night when we had the talk. I texted my brother and told him how we needed to have a talk about some things and that our mom and stepdad were going to come over. I was incredibly anxious all day because I had mostly just been avoiding him all week because I didn’t know what even to say. My stepdad (at my request) kept a backseat in the convo.

Basically it started with me asking a few questions. Q: When did the toilet overflow? A: Sunday night when we left for the beach. Q: Did he intend to leave the messes for us to clean? A: Not really. Q: If we hadn’t cleaned the messes, how long would he have left them there? A: I don’t know.

After that the words just kinda flew out of me. I told him how disrespectful it felt. How it is not our job to coach him into taking care of the home he shares. How frustrating it was to come home to that. How dangerous it was, that my boyfriend could have ended up really sick.

My boyfriend and my mother also chimed in with talking points along the same vein. Then I asked my brother another question: Do you have any goals at all for your life?

My brother is not a particularly emotive person mainly because of his autism, so I didn’t really expect an explosive response. But I also didn’t expect him to start crying either :/ He started saying things like he feels like he’s not really living and just going through the motions of life. He struggles a lot with feeling listless and anxious so he just shuts down.

I think it really resonated with him that his actions (or lack there of) were hurting the people he cares about. He doesn’t feel like a real person. It broke my heart mannnnn. It kinda clicked that this is all indicative of a bigger issue and he needs some help to do better. Some of my anger towards him was definitely misplaced. My parents genuinely failed him. He will be moving out.

We have a deadline for him but he is on board completely with getting his own place somewhere within walking distance so we can still spend time together and in case anything happens. He says he is going to contribute more to the household and get himself to a place where he feels more fulfilled and responsible.

He also apologized to my boyfriend about his foot. We wanted to wait until we got the culture results back before pointing fingers, so while my brother knew my bf was sick, he didn’t know why. But it was definitely the towels. My boyfriend loves my brother and forgave him. All is well again.

Anyway this update is getting wayyy too long so I’ll wrap it up. Ultimately it went way better than I had expectations for. No one was overly aggressive or cruel and the message was put kindly but firmly. We should be touring some apartments with him in the coming weeks and getting his life on track.

I recommended to him that he should work on getting his GED as well as I think that accomplishment would make him feel good and boost his self esteem. Again, thank you to everyone who commented on the original post and sorry this update is so messy haha. I’m much better at structuring my words when I’m worked up.