Woman yells at sister for making false promises to her son in the hospital. AITA?
"AITA for yelling at my sister while her son was in the hospital?"
VegetableSympathy389
My sister (34f) and I (28f) had an issue recently that led to me losing my temper and yelling at her and I want to know if I'm TA. So my sister is married to Ned (40m) and he has two older children from his first marriage. Those kids are 17 and 19 now.
My sister and Ned have my nephew Leo (8) together. Leo was born with a heart condition and recently was hospitalized after some very worrying symptoms. He ended up staying for about 3 weeks and is still recovering now but at home.
While Leo was in the hospital my sister asked me to stay with him for a few hours one day because she and Ned had other appointments and things that had conflicted and they didn't want him to be alone. I agreed to sit with him and I was there for 4 hours in total. While I was there Leo asked me why his siblings hadn't come to see him.
He told me that my sister had told him I would know and that I could help him with that while she and Ned were away. Ned and my sister had told Leo that his siblings would visit him every day and they made it seem like it was such a sure thing.
So Leo was waiting and waiting and he was so upset that they hadn't shown up 2 weeks into his being in the hospital and that they never answered when Ned called them. It was so heartbreaking to see and he was distressed.
I was furious that my sister threw me into the deep end like that and I can't answer for her stepkids. I hardly know those kids because they have always disliked that Ned married my sister and the truth is they never showed any interest or affection for Leo.
When my sister got back and we stepped outside so Leo couldn't hear/see us I lost my shit with my sister and yelled at her asking what the hell she was thinking and how dare she put me on the spot like that.
She started to cry and told me I didn't need to be such an ass because she was at her wits end and had been so worried about Leo and didn't I realize she was going through hell.
I saw her a couple of times since then because Leo wanted to see me. She was angry about me confronting her after the stressful time while Leo was in the hospital so that's why I'm asking. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
Worth-Season3645
NTA….there is no excuse for her not talking to her son about his half siblings or his father doing the talk. She was wrong for putting that on you. I would not apologize for yelling at her, but I would say hey, “let’s talk together about ways that you might be se to handle this situation and talk with son”.
KikiMadeCrazy
Sure already he has literally a broken heart, let’s all break it figuratively. This is the classical example of lie by omission or just plainly lie.
Z_is_green13
NTA. Your sister was a bad mother and a bad stepmother when she promised the other kids would visit Leo and made it your job to deal with it. Hopefully your sister realizes that her blended family dreams won’t happen and will start to be the mother Leo needs to navigate the fact his half siblings don’t care that he exists.
As blended families continue to become more common, parents need to stop this fantasy of happy family and start dealing with the ugly emotions of kids that don't see new additions as part of their family.
Reevadare1990
NTA with a touch of ESH. You should have kept your temper; yelling at just about anyone while their kid is in the hospital is crappy. And if you yelled loud enough, Leo probably heard you unless you walked VERY far away.
That said, your sister passed the buck to you because she was too cowardly to tell her child the truth. She has built up a sibling relationship that does not exist to that poor little boy, and now she wants to be angry at you for calling her out? Nu-uh.
Apologize ONLY for yelling, but stay firm that what she did was low, and cowardly, and shameful, and she needs to step the hell up as a parent and explain herself to her son and fix this BEFORE it gets worse.
redhair_redwine
NTA. Yes, you shouldn’t have yelled at her, but it’s not your responsibility to explain to her child what’s going on with his relationship with his step siblings. I get that she was under a lot of stress but at the end of the day, Leo is her son, not yours, and to put that on you was not ok.
Rawrsome_Mommy
NTA. You should not have been dragged into that messy situation. If anything, Ned should be answering those questions as it’s his kids neglecting one of their siblings.
Ask_Angi
Soft ESH. Going against the grain but you went from 0 to 60 in an already terrifying situation. Your sister's son was in the hospital for WEEKS. She must have been emotionally wrecked and you immediately turned to screaming at her for making a bad judgment call.
There definitely should have been a conversation where you explain to her that it wasn't okay for her to do that and how it made you uncomfortable to be put in that position but screaming was not needed. People calling your sister a bad mom are insane.
CrystalQueer96
NTA. If parents don’t want to deal with disappointed children, they shouldn’t fabricate lies about who does / doesn’t care about them.