"AITA for throwing my sister-in-law out of my house?"
I, 21F, and my husband, 22M, James, have a beautiful daughter, 1y, and another child on the way. For context, my family and I live with James’ family (mom, Justine 43, brother, Liam 19, and grandmother, Kris 59), after we had some major financial struggles back in 2022.
They offered for us to live with them, to help us build our money back up and also help us raise our two children. We took the offer, and since then, everything has been very amazing since we moved in.
Liam has a girlfriend, Laura 18, and since she found out we were having our second child, has been very overbearing. We’ve had many issues in the past when it comes to her and our first child, and now, James and I are anticipating that it’ll be that way again.
I understand the excitement of a new baby, but the way she shows it… I’ll be the first to say, is a little stalker-ish/weird. She constantly messages me with one of the following: wanting bump photos to show random people I do NOT know (her teachers, friends, etc)...
updates on how many days till my planned c-section, or asking me intimate details about DR appointments (many of which I never told her about). In person, she will talk to my stomach, saying “auntie’s baby”, “my gorgeous little baby”, or something similar.
When we told everyone that we weren’t doing a gender reveal/baby shower, she was the most upset over the entire thing, saying that “she wanted to plan it” and that “she was so excited to have people together”.
Recently, Laura and I had an argument that led in a fallout between everyone. The event that caused this, was when Laura forced my daughter to come with her from Justine’s room...
(when my daughter wanted to stay with her nana) and my daughter had a breath-holding spell (started because she was forced to do something she didn’t want to), leading to Laura holding her in a hug and blowing in her face to try and get her to breathe.
My daughter didn’t breathe for over 15 seconds, and the reason myself and James were so upset was because Laura refused to bring my daughter to me like I asked;
Laura claimed she wanted to “show my daughter that she was kind” and that “auntie cares about HER baby”, which this was absolutely not how to attempt that. Like I said, this led to an argument that caused me to tell Laura to get the f- out, and to stop using our children as her little “surrogate babies”, as she has no kids of her own.
Liam and Justine are upset with me and James for “overreacting”, on top of some members of her family messaging me to say that I am an a-hole for treating her the way I did.
Kris is 100% supportive of what I did and says she would have done the same thing if she was in my position. I have not spoken to her since the incident, and we both are trying to figure out a way to address this. AITA for this? Any opinions or advice would be very much appreciated.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
hardtyrannicdino writes:
NTA. Laura definitely needs stronger boundaries set. I'd suggest that consider making your next step be to shut down the whole "auntie" thing. And I say that as a parent whose spouse has two close friends that we use that term when referring to them with our kids. But that was a title that we bestowed. They did not claim it themselves.
Where here, you don't say it, but it sounds like she bestowed it upon herself. It so, shut it down. Go full "All the garbage compactors on the detention level" shut down.
She is not their "auntie", she's BILs GF. He may think this relationship is serious and long term, but you don't have to put up with her claiming a kinship that isn't there. He may not like it. She definitely won't like it. But it's not up to them.
One reason I suggest this is that this whole "auntie" business is likely part and parcel with the root of the boundary stomping. She's claimed the title, and probably has a whole exagerated notion of what it means.
Disabusing her of her claim will help emphasize that she is, in the eyes of you and your husband, nothing mors or less than the girl BIL happens to be dating. Get ger straightened out there and it should become easier to straighten her out on other issues.
Also, keep in mind that even if she does end up marrying BIL, that will make her your kids aunt. Doesn't mean she'll have earned being an "auntie". They are, imo, not the same.
"Aunt" is the formal relationship of family connection. "Auntie" is an indicator of a close personal bond, as much between the parents and the "auntie" as anything with the child (more really). That latter relationship is clearly not there.
palecranberry7 writes:
NTA. This girl is disturbed as heck. I'd be concerned if I were you. You're in a delicate position since your in-laws are keeping you afloat, but you and your husband need to talk with his parents about that she's creeping you out. Hopefully they'll back you up, but it's possible they won't risk being estranged from Liam if he feels they come as a package deal.
Make sure everyone caretaking your daughter, from family to childcare workers, knows this psycho is not allowed to take her, just in case. She makes me very nervous. If your in-laws don't agree, you need to get out of there immediately, no matter how hard it will be financially.
This girlfriend who might not even go the distance with Liam needs to be no contact with your children. I don't care how many problems that unfortunately might cause for your husband and in-laws.
throwaway7 writes:
NTA I hope you are not giving her baby bump pictures and giving her all that information. It isn't healthy. Neither is forcibly removing your child from a room and forcibly hugging her etc. Sounds like she is causing your child anxiety. She needs to go on a time out.
About a year later OP posted this update:
After lots of messages asking for an update, I decided to give it a go! Since my original post, it took about a month to two months for us to all talk again, after the incident happened. My brother-in-law had a 3 hour conversation with her before they both came to our house to speak with us, and there was a major difference in her behavior, right off the bat.
Not only did she apologize to me and my husband for what happened, but she apologized for everything that she had done within the few years I have known her. We made a group decision to go low contact with her for a little while, and got back into contact with her shortly after we had our second child, and things have been fairly decent since then.
However, that is not to say that everything has been great. My husband and I have been making decisions about our lives moving forward when we move into our own place this coming spring.
There will be very minimum contact between my husband and his family, which we know will be beneficial for us, our family, our mental healths, etc. It is a lot that I frankly shouldn’t get into, so I can leave it at that.
I want to thank everyone for their advice, some genuine and some not so genuine. I know this probably wasn’t the update wanted, but it is what I have to give. Thank you all for listening!
OP gave more context in response to comments:
Clarification on baby being dragged out of the room:
Yes. She was in her grandmother’s room, and my SIL was pulling her out of there by grabbing her arm and pulling her, while my daughter was walking back toward her gm. She wanted to stay with her gm, but SIL was trying to force her out of the room.
A bit more on what happened:
Grandmother has been on our side the whole time. There has been a lot in between that incident and now that has happened as well, which is why we made the decision to go lc, if not nc, when we leave with everyone, except gm.
With the way things are in the home, we had to basically restart. I won’t say the exact circumstances as to why it happened, but we have had to replace over $4,000 worth of stuff that has been damaged.
All of our stuff is currently sitting in a storage unit to avoid further damage, but between that, our car being stolen this past October, my husband going back to school to become an electrician, and many more, it has been hard to get a jump on actually getting moved into a place.
For more context: financially, we are being used as a “savings bond” to his mother. Grandmother will try to intervene, but back off bc his mother goes to extremes of causing problems within the home (ex: if gm intervenes, she will take away gm’s ability to use the vehicle they share). For example:
I sold my old phone to my MIL, as long as she paid me $75 a month for the total cost of the phone. She paid me once, and has yet to pay me the rest. If I ask about it, she throws a whole fit, tells me how I’m “inconsiderate” of the fact that she has no job, and says she will just go die on the side of a bridge.
So, to inevitably answer your question: we have a secret savings account that no one in the house is aware of, except me and husband. We’ve been putting money into it, and have a good chunk in there.
The real push will be tax season, as both of us are getting very nice refunds. That + what we have saved is what will be used for us moving out. I apologize for the long explanation, but hopefully a lot of people who think the same will see this and kind of get a better understanding."
SIL is way too young to have kids anyway:
"My SIL back then was trying to actively trick my BIL into having children. Like many stated in comments on my original post, she was probably feeling left out because we had our first at 20 and 21.
However, with all that in mind, our decisions of when we had children shouldn’t force her into thinking she HAS to have kids. If she’s going to be influenced that hard (I.e: “baby fever”) that she HAS to have kids, we are not at fault for that.
SIL now:
She did a lot of growing up, especially after her own sister unexpectedly had a kid. Back then, she didn’t realize what actually comes with having a kid, because she didn’t have hands on experience with babies. She just wanted kids because she was having bad “baby fever”, which got taken to the extreme.