Family

<p>Family can be complicated, as a story recently posted to Reddit highlights. A guy turned to Reddit&#39;s &quot;Am I The A**hole?&quot; forum for advice on how <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/cs6k42/aita_for_asking_my_cousin_not_to_bring_his/" target="_blank">he handled a tricky situation</a> involving his cousin, and the cousin&#39;s son (the guy&#39;s &quot;nephew&quot;), who has autism.</p><p>The son developed an attachment to the man&#39;s wife (his aunt) when he was younger, and has since insisted on calling her his &quot;girlfriend.&quot; Although at first, the man and his wife thought it was &quot;sweet,&quot; as the boy got older, they became less comfortable. Now, he&#39;s in his early 20&#39;s, and the man says the situation is starting to negatively impact his family, including upsetting his own young son.</p><h2>During a recent visit, the autistic nephew had a &quot;meltdown&quot; and had to be &quot;forcibly restrained&quot; from following his aunt around the house. This caused the man&#39;s son to start crying, and resulted in the man asking his cousin, cousin&#39;s wife, and nephew, to leave his house.</h2><p>He turned to Reddit to ask if he&#39;s &quot;the a**hole&quot; in the situation after his extended family got mad, telling him he should&#39;ve been more sensitive.</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>The man writes:</p><blockquote> <p>I know from the title, it definitely sounds like I would be the asshole but please hear me out. I have an older cousin whose son, my nephew, is in his early 20s. My nephew is autistic and holds a part time job, but is significantly delayed in many developmental areas (I don&rsquo;t know the specifics) and will never be independent according to his parents.</p> </blockquote><h2>He explains that the nephew&#39;s attachment to his aunt began when he was a kid, and he &quot;always wanted to be near her.&quot; She &quot;gently&quot; tried to discourage the behavior, but he insisted on calling her his &quot;girlfriend.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>Recently, my cousin and cousin-in-law have been thinking about relocating to our state because of recent job opportunities, and we&rsquo;ve hosted them in the past when they&rsquo;ve visited. The first time they stayed with us (before my son was born), my nephew seemed to develop a strong attachment to my wife and always wanted to be near her.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He drew a picture of a heart and picked some flowers from our yard and gave them to her before they left, saying he loved her. My wife thought this was sweet and gently handled his crush by telling him she would always love him as his aunt, but she was sure he would find another girl to fill his heart soon. He told her no, she was his girlfriend.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>Recently, his cousin and the autistic son were staying at their house when the nephew had a &quot;meltdown&quot; that caused both his son and wife to get upset.</h2><blockquote> <p>This weekend, they were staying with us again and my nephew again wanted to be near my wife every chance he got. His mom and dad noticed and told him that because my wife now had to care for our son, she couldn&rsquo;t pay attention to him as much as before.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He got upset telling us that she was his girlfriend and had a meltdown, which caused my son to start crying. When my wife got up to take our son to another room to calm him down, my nephew got up to follow and his dad had to forcibly restrain him from following them. I stood up to block the hallway into the separate room just in case he got away from his dad.</p> </blockquote><h2>The nephew&#39;s parents apologized for his behavior and vowed to &quot;keep better tabs on him.&quot; But the man had had enough and said he &quot;didn&#39;t feel comfortable&quot; with his nephew being &quot;so possessive&quot; of his wife. He apologized and asked them to leave and get a hotel room for the rest of their stay.</h2><blockquote> <p>Once they calmed him down, they apologized for his behavior and said they would keep better tabs on him. Here&rsquo;s the part where I may be the asshole. I told my cousins I didn&rsquo;t feel comfortable with my nephew being so possessive of my wife, and I know for sure she didn&rsquo;t, especially since he seemed to be so jealous of our son.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>I told them I couldn&rsquo;t allow their son in our home until he learned to control himself and understand that my wife was not his girlfriend. I apologized but asked them to get a hotel room for the rest of their stay and not to visit us again unless they left my nephew behind with people they could trust and knew would care for him, while they searched for jobs in our state.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>They didn&rsquo;t say anything but looked saddened and went to the guest room with their son to pack up their bags.</p> </blockquote><h2>He has since received criticism from his extended family for how he handled the situation and asked Reddit to weigh in.</h2><blockquote> <p>I guess they must have told my extended family what happened because my paternal grandmother called me this afternoon, telling me that I should&rsquo;ve been more understanding and that I was wrong to ask them to leave. Am I the asshole?</p> </blockquote><h2>Since the Reddit post received a lot of attention, the man added some updates, thanking everyone for their input and addressing some of the questions he&#39;s received.</h2><blockquote> <p>Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment or private message me with their own experiences with family members who are/were autistic. There&rsquo;s not nearly enough time for me to respond to each of the comments (which honestly surprised me when I saw how many had reached out to me), but I wanted to address some questions that had been asked.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>He explains that technically his cousin is not his &quot;nephew&quot; but he refers to him that way because it&#39;s simpler than calling him a &quot;cousin-x-removed.&quot;</h2><blockquote> <p>1.) The first one is that technically, my cousin is my second cousin. My dad is an only child so the cousin I refer to in my post, is the son of my own dad&rsquo;s first cousin (my paternal grandmother and his paternal grandfather were siblings). I&rsquo;m not sure if this is correct but his autistic son would technically be my third cousin(?).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>The reason I refer to him as my nephew is because he&rsquo;s the generation after mine in our family tree and it&rsquo;s less of a mouthful to refer to him as cousin-x-removed. A lot of people have posted that it&rsquo;s not correct to refer to him as my nephew but to be frank, I don&rsquo;t care, and my family&rsquo;s never followed this traditional genealogy nomenclature.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>I apologize if it was misleading in my post. Without being specific, in the western state I was born and grew up in, it&rsquo;s not uncommon to refer to even close (unrelated) adults as uncles or aunts. I call him my nephew because my cousin and I were close and I still hope to have a close relationship with him if at all possible (though I don&rsquo;t know how after this situation).</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>He clarifies that no, he is not &quot;jealous&quot; of his nephew calling his wife his girlfriend, because he thinks of his nephew as a &quot;kid.&quot; He was only &quot;concerned&quot; for his wife and son&#39;s safety.</h2><blockquote> <p>2.) Some have asked if I was jealous of my nephew calling my wife his gf. The first time, I thought it was amusing and was surprised that he had any romantic notions towards anyone, let alone my wife. Remember, in my mind he&rsquo;s my nephew and I never thought of him as anything other than a large kid because of his developmental delays and normal (for him) childlike behavior.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Regarding the situation that happened this weekend, I was only concerned for my wife and son&rsquo;s safety. I didn&rsquo;t know how he would react and followed my cousin&rsquo;s lead, but wasn&rsquo;t about to let him get near my wife and son once they left the room.</p> </blockquote><h2>He doesn&#39;t want to talk to his cousin until they&#39;ve both had time to &quot;process&quot; what happened.</h2><blockquote> <p>3.) I don&rsquo;t know what was said to my paternal grandmother but I don&rsquo;t want to react in anger and want to talk to my cousin once we&rsquo;ve both had time to process what happened and calmed down.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><h2>Commenters are unanimously supporting the man&#39;s decision.</h2><h2>Some are saying NAH (Noone&#39;s an A**hole Here) because it&#39;s a difficult situation, but the man did the right thing and handled it well.</h2><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/algelb/">algelb</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>NAH. You <em>were</em> understanding the first time around, but this time he got physically aggressive and presented himself as a possible danger to your wife and child. It&rsquo;s a perfectly reasonable request and you handled it very maturely.</p> </blockquote><p>And <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Cap-Abs/">Cap-Abs</a> agrees, writing:</p><blockquote> <p>Definitely, NAH! I have a brother who is on the higher functioning of the spectrum like OP&rsquo;s nephew seems to be and is a similar age to what is described. He can become obsessed to the point of hurting himself or others with certain things. He has attempted to walk across a small lake chasing bugs (he was up to his chin in water).</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>He fell out of his bedroom window attempting to sneak out of the house. He let a wasp repeatedly sting him bc he was studying it and only later registered that it hurt. He played with matches &amp; candles in the kitchen and could have burnt the house down. He never truly repents or feels bad and is always concerned with ONLY if he got what he felt he needed.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>As much as I love my brother, I would be terrified for a poor girl if she got involved with him and he became obsessed with her. I have no idea is OP&rsquo;s nephew is the same as my brother, but he is certainly displaying creepy behaviors.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Since the nephew had to be physically restrained and there is a small child that is becoming an object of anger this is a perfectly reasonable request. Also, he is IN HIS 20&rsquo;s. No matter his mental abilities this is potentially an able bodied young man that has the capacity to cause a lot of damage to a house, woman, and baby.</p> </blockquote><p>And <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/WhyAreYouUpsideDown/">WhyAreYouUpsideDown</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>This is a tough one. I&#39;m so sorry for everyone in this situation, it just sucks.</p> <p>NAH.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>Your cousins aren&#39;t assholes, they&#39;re doing the best they can with the cards they&#39;ve been dealt. They don&#39;t seem to be negligent or anything- they&#39;re doing their best to help him understand, but he just can&#39;t.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>Same with the autistic nephew-- he literally doesn&#39;t have the capacity to empathize with you or your wife, and may NEVER learn to properly observe that boundary. Not his fault.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>But you are absolutely not the asshole for protecting your wife and child from someone who needs to be physically restrained from breaking boundaries. You might have given them one more shot to see if they can keep better tabs on him, but why take that risk? He&#39;s upsetting your wife and your son, and you don&#39;t know what types of behavior he may or may not engage in.</p> </blockquote><h2>Others are saying that this man is not the a**hole, but that his extended family behaved badly by getting mad at him.</h2><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Beep_boop_human/">Beep_boop_human</a> says:</p><blockquote> <p>NTA (it would be N AH except for the fact they&#39;re telling people you kicked them out and your extended family isn&#39;t being understanding).</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><blockquote> <p>You 100% owed it to your wife to ask them to leave. You weren&#39;t being a jerk about it. You understand that he lacks the full capability to understand his actions. But that is why the situation could become dangerous. You wife should not be on edge in her own home, made to feel as though she needs to be polite while a fully grown adult is restrained because she isn&#39;t acting like his girlfriend.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>YWBTA if you hadn&#39;t asked them to leave.</p> </blockquote><p> </p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/Stinktiere/">Stinktiere</a> adds:</p><blockquote> <p>Hang on...your wife is hiding In Another room with your infant son, you are having to block the corridor and your cousin is fighting to restrain a fully grown adult to keep him away from her? Can&rsquo;t see how you&rsquo;re the asshole for not wanting that situation again. NTA, because really, your cousin should have decided to go themselves.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/beejers30/">beejers30</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>NTA. I understand both sides, but you have to be protective of your son. Jealousy is ugly and can lead to your nephew hurting your child, even though he may not be fully aware of what he&rsquo;s doing.</p> </blockquote><p>And <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/eternachaos/">eternachaos</a> writes:</p><blockquote> <p>obligatory <em>I&#39;m autistic</em> remark. Hold autistic people accountable for their actions. Many disabled people (like myself) may have limited development in some areas, but if we pose a danger to you and children (which it seems he does), you have every right to bar them. You didn&#39;t insult the son or call him names, you weren&#39;t violent, you were extremely polite and kind.</p> </blockquote><blockquote> <p>If he isn&#39;t able t control himself, especially if he&#39;s old enough to hold a job, he may end up hurting your wife or kid and not even intend to. Also, with all due respect, if he&#39;s capable enough hold a job, it&#39;s very possible he can understand &#39;no&#39;. They need to not coddle him if it comes to that point or they can reinforce harmful behavior.</p> </blockquote><div className="ad-splitter"></div><p>Seems like he handled things well and the internet agrees. What do you think?</p><div className="ad-splitter"></div>

Man asks if he's wrong to kick out autistic nephew due to romantic attachment to wife.

Family can be complicated, as a story recently posted to Reddit highlights. A guy turned to Reddit&#39;s &quot;Am I The A**hole?&quot; forum for advice on how he handled a tricky situation involving his cousin, and the cousin&#39;s son (the guy&#39;s &quot;nephew&quot;), who has autism.The son developed an attachment to the man&#39;s wife (his aunt) when he was younger, and has since insisted on calling her his &quot;girlfriend.&quot; Although at first, the man and his wife thought it was &quot;sweet,&quot; as the boy got older, they became less comfortable. Now, he&#39;s in his early 20&#39;s, and the man says the situation is starting to negatively impact his family, including upsetting his own young son.During a recent visit, the autistic nephew had a &quot;meltdown&quot; and had to be &quot;forcibly restrained&quot; from following his aunt around the house. This caused the man&#39;s son to start crying, and resulted in the man asking his cousin, cousin&#39;s wife, and nephew, to leave his house.He turned to Reddit to ask if he&#39;s &quot;the a**hole&quot; in the situation after his extended family got mad, telling him he should&#39;ve been more sensitive.The man writes: I know from the title, it definitely sounds like I would be the asshole but please hear me out. I have an older cousin whose son, my nephew, is in his early 20s. My nephew is autistic and holds a part time job, but is significantly delayed in many developmental areas (I don&rsquo;t know the specifics) and will never be independent according to his parents. He explains that the nephew&#39;s attachment to his aunt began when he was a kid, and he &quot;always wanted to be near her.&quot; She &quot;gently&quot; tried to discourage the behavior, but he insisted on calling her his &quot;girlfriend.&quot; Recently, my cousin and cousin-in-law have been thinking about relocating to our state because of recent job opportunities, and we&rsquo;ve hosted them in the past when they&rsquo;ve visited. The first time they stayed with us (before my son was born), my nephew seemed to develop a strong attachment to my wife and always wanted to be near her.  He drew a picture of a heart and picked some flowers from our yard and gave them to her before they left, saying he loved her. My wife thought this was sweet and gently handled his crush by telling him she would always love him as his aunt, but she was sure he would find another girl to fill his heart soon. He told her no, she was his girlfriend. Recently, his cousin and the autistic son were staying at their house when the nephew had a &quot;meltdown&quot; that caused both his son and wife to get upset. This weekend, they were staying with us again and my nephew again wanted to be near my wife every chance he got. His mom and dad noticed and told him that because my wife now had to care for our son, she couldn&rsquo;t pay attention to him as much as before.  He got upset telling us that she was his girlfriend and had a meltdown, which caused my son to start crying. When my wife got up to take our son to another room to calm him down, my nephew got up to follow and his dad had to forcibly restrain him from following them. I stood up to block the hallway into the separate room just in case he got away from his dad. The nephew&#39;s parents apologized for his behavior and vowed to &quot;keep better tabs on him.&quot; But the man had had enough and said he &quot;didn&#39;t feel comfortable&quot; with his nephew being &quot;so possessive&quot; of his wife. He apologized and asked them to leave and get a hotel room for the rest of their stay. Once they calmed him down, they apologized for his behavior and said they would keep better tabs on him. Here&rsquo;s the part where I may be the asshole. I told my cousins I didn&rsquo;t feel comfortable with my nephew being so possessive of my wife, and I know for sure she didn&rsquo;t, especially since he seemed to be so jealous of our son.  I told them I couldn&rsquo;t allow their son in our home until he learned to control himself and understand that my wife was not his girlfriend. I apologized but asked them to get a hotel room for the rest of their stay and not to visit us again unless they left my nephew behind with people they could trust and knew would care for him, while they searched for jobs in our state.  They didn&rsquo;t say anything but looked saddened and went to the guest room with their son to pack up their bags. He has since received criticism from his extended family for how he handled the situation and asked Reddit to weigh in. I guess they must have told my extended family what happened because my paternal grandmother called me this afternoon, telling me that I should&rsquo;ve been more understanding and that I was wrong to ask them to leave. Am I the asshole? Since the Reddit post received a lot of attention, the man added some updates, thanking everyone for their input and addressing some of the questions he&#39;s received. Thank you to everyone who took the time to comment or private message me with their own experiences with family members who are/were autistic. There&rsquo;s not nearly enough time for me to respond to each of the comments (which honestly surprised me when I saw how many had reached out to me), but I wanted to address some questions that had been asked. He explains that technically his cousin is not his &quot;nephew&quot; but he refers to him that way because it&#39;s simpler than calling him a &quot;cousin-x-removed.&quot; 1.) The first one is that technically, my cousin is my second cousin. My dad is an only child so the cousin I refer to in my post, is the son of my own dad&rsquo;s first cousin (my paternal grandmother and his paternal grandfather were siblings). I&rsquo;m not sure if this is correct but his autistic son would technically be my third cousin(?).  The reason I refer to him as my nephew is because he&rsquo;s the generation after mine in our family tree and it&rsquo;s less of a mouthful to refer to him as cousin-x-removed. A lot of people have posted that it&rsquo;s not correct to refer to him as my nephew but to be frank, I don&rsquo;t care, and my family&rsquo;s never followed this traditional genealogy nomenclature.  I apologize if it was misleading in my post. Without being specific, in the western state I was born and grew up in, it&rsquo;s not uncommon to refer to even close (unrelated) adults as uncles or aunts. I call him my nephew because my cousin and I were close and I still hope to have a close relationship with him if at all possible (though I don&rsquo;t know how after this situation). He clarifies that no, he is not &quot;jealous&quot; of his nephew calling his wife his girlfriend, because he thinks of his nephew as a &quot;kid.&quot; He was only &quot;concerned&quot; for his wife and son&#39;s safety. 2.) Some have asked if I was jealous of my nephew calling my wife his gf. The first time, I thought it was amusing and was surprised that he had any romantic notions towards anyone, let alone my wife. Remember, in my mind he&rsquo;s my nephew and I never thought of him as anything other than a large kid because of his developmental delays and normal (for him) childlike behavior.  Regarding the situation that happened this weekend, I was only concerned for my wife and son&rsquo;s safety. I didn&rsquo;t know how he would react and followed my cousin&rsquo;s lead, but wasn&rsquo;t about to let him get near my wife and son once they left the room. He doesn&#39;t want to talk to his cousin until they&#39;ve both had time to &quot;process&quot; what happened. 3.) I don&rsquo;t know what was said to my paternal grandmother but I don&rsquo;t want to react in anger and want to talk to my cousin once we&rsquo;ve both had time to process what happened and calmed down. Commenters are unanimously supporting the man&#39;s decision.Some are saying NAH (Noone&#39;s an A**hole Here) because it&#39;s a difficult situation, but the man did the right thing and handled it well.algelb writes: NAH. You were understanding the first time around, but this time he got physically aggressive and presented himself as a possible danger to your wife and child. It&rsquo;s a perfectly reasonable request and you handled it very maturely. And Cap-Abs agrees, writing: Definitely, NAH! I have a brother who is on the higher functioning of the spectrum like OP&rsquo;s nephew seems to be and is a similar age to what is described. He can become obsessed to the point of hurting himself or others with certain things. He has attempted to walk across a small lake chasing bugs (he was up to his chin in water).  He fell out of his bedroom window attempting to sneak out of the house. He let a wasp repeatedly sting him bc he was studying it and only later registered that it hurt. He played with matches &amp; candles in the kitchen and could have burnt the house down. He never truly repents or feels bad and is always concerned with ONLY if he got what he felt he needed.  As much as I love my brother, I would be terrified for a poor girl if she got involved with him and he became obsessed with her. I have no idea is OP&rsquo;s nephew is the same as my brother, but he is certainly displaying creepy behaviors.  Since the nephew had to be physically restrained and there is a small child that is becoming an object of anger this is a perfectly reasonable request. Also, he is IN HIS 20&rsquo;s. No matter his mental abilities this is potentially an able bodied young man that has the capacity to cause a lot of damage to a house, woman, and baby. And WhyAreYouUpsideDown writes: This is a tough one. I&#39;m so sorry for everyone in this situation, it just sucks. NAH.  Your cousins aren&#39;t assholes, they&#39;re doing the best they can with the cards they&#39;ve been dealt. They don&#39;t seem to be negligent or anything- they&#39;re doing their best to help him understand, but he just can&#39;t.  Same with the autistic nephew-- he literally doesn&#39;t have the capacity to empathize with you or your wife, and may NEVER learn to properly observe that boundary. Not his fault.  But you are absolutely not the asshole for protecting your wife and child from someone who needs to be physically restrained from breaking boundaries. You might have given them one more shot to see if they can keep better tabs on him, but why take that risk? He&#39;s upsetting your wife and your son, and you don&#39;t know what types of behavior he may or may not engage in. Others are saying that this man is not the a**hole, but that his extended family behaved badly by getting mad at him. Beep_boop_human says: NTA (it would be N AH except for the fact they&#39;re telling people you kicked them out and your extended family isn&#39;t being understanding).  You 100% owed it to your wife to ask them to leave. You weren&#39;t being a jerk about it. You understand that he lacks the full capability to understand his actions. But that is why the situation could become dangerous. You wife should not be on edge in her own home, made to feel as though she needs to be polite while a fully grown adult is restrained because she isn&#39;t acting like his girlfriend.  YWBTA if you hadn&#39;t asked them to leave.  Stinktiere adds: Hang on...your wife is hiding In Another room with your infant son, you are having to block the corridor and your cousin is fighting to restrain a fully grown adult to keep him away from her? Can&rsquo;t see how you&rsquo;re the asshole for not wanting that situation again. NTA, because really, your cousin should have decided to go themselves. beejers30 writes: NTA. I understand both sides, but you have to be protective of your son. Jealousy is ugly and can lead to your nephew hurting your child, even though he may not be fully aware of what he&rsquo;s doing. And eternachaos writes: obligatory I&#39;m autistic remark. Hold autistic people accountable for their actions. Many disabled people (like myself) may have limited development in some areas, but if we pose a danger to you and children (which it seems he does), you have every right to bar them. You didn&#39;t insult the son or call him names, you weren&#39;t violent, you were extremely polite and kind.  If he isn&#39;t able t control himself, especially if he&#39;s old enough to hold a job, he may end up hurting your wife or kid and not even intend to. Also, with all due respect, if he&#39;s capable enough hold a job, it&#39;s very possible he can understand &#39;no&#39;. They need to not coddle him if it comes to that point or they can reinforce harmful behavior. Seems like he handled things well and the internet agrees. What do you think?

Family can be complicated, as a story recently posted to Reddit highlights. A guy turned to Reddit&#39;s &quot;Am I The A**hole?&quot; forum for advice on how he handled a tricky situation involving his cousin, and the cousin&#39;s son...