Drawing boundaries with your partner's family can be a rough task. On one hand, you don't want to stand in the way of their lifelong relationships, relationships that try as you might - you'll never fully understand in the way they do.
On the other hand, you need to be honest about your comfort level and needs. Sometimes, your comfort and supporting your partner's family relationships can feel at odds.
She wrote:
AITA for telling my husband that his sister needs to be clean for a least a year before she is allowed in our house?
My husband has a sister that has been in and out of treatments for her addictions for years. The family enabled her and so does my husband. She stayed over once and the next morning stuff was missing. I have met her when she has been clean before, for a few months and let her meet the kids. She was in their lives for a few months and then relapsed.
I had to explain to my kids why their aunt was going to be around. The longest she's been clean is 7 months. To be honest, I am tired of letting her back in and then she f**ks up. She's been clean for 2 months now and my husband wants her to stay at the house and met the boys again.
I told my husband that I won't let her back in this house until she is clean for a year, and she can't come back into the kids' lives until that. This started an argument. He left to cool off and his family called me a jerk.
agirlnamedlola wrote:
NTA. You are setting boundaries to make sure your family does not fall down the slippery road of codependency. It’s real tough love, but it’s necessary. Especially with your kids in the mix - you need to protect their mental well-being at all costs. Trust me - childhood codependency can have very lasting effects that are difficult to deal with at an older age.
Sk111W wrote:
NTA. Not to diminish the difficulties of addiction but having a known addict and thief in your house and around your kids is dangerous. It's perfectly acceptable to need to see a bit more progress in her recovery before you bring her into your home.
LadyMacGuffin wrote:
NTA. Your husband is using your kids-- and therefore the risk that they'll get hurt or harmed by Aunt's behaviors-- as both a reward and as a stake to be lost. That they're a stake to be lost even shows that he knows there's a risk of harm to the kids and he's so far gone he doesn't even register it as harm anymore.
I'd maybe point those things out to him, so far as his enabling and codependence-- that he's tempting his kids into a riptide because he doesn't realize he's been drowning so long he's living underwater.
Chance-Work4911 wrote:
NTA, but some thoughts...
Do you ever take the kids with you to meet a friend for lunch, but the friend doesn't have kids? If so - consider something like this for his sister. Not at your home. Choose a neutral location like a casual restaurant. Don't play it up to the kids, and don't put a lot into the kids interacting during the meal.
Let them do their typical kid thing and eat (or choose a place with a playground or activities if the kids are of that age) and let the adults just sit and talk. This gives your husband the sense of connection to his sister, gives the sister the feeling that you want to rebuild trust but can't do it all at once, and adds some time for the sister to re-learn the family dynamic.
You can call it off and walk away if the time goes awry, or if it's going really well you can easily extend the time by just sitting at the restaurant longer or moving to a second location like a park or dessert shop.
Addiction is hard on everyone. It doesn't negate the love you have for them, but sure makes it harder to see and feel every time you wanted to believe they turned it around and find out they crashed again. Try to understand this is also hard on your husband and giving in to him a little (with boundaries) isn't the same as giving in to her.
OP is for sure NTA in this situation, it's just a hard dynamic all the way around.