New mom of 2 asks brother and sister-in-law to live with her for 3 weeks after she gives birth, berates them when they don't follow her exact rules

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• I agreed to help my sister for 3 weeks with her kids, but I left after 2 weeks

  My sister just gave birth to her second child a month ago. She asked me and my wife to fly and stay at their home for 3 weeks to help with childcare and chores while she recovered and got used to being a mom of 2. I work from home and my wife does not work, so I reluctantly agreed. I was reluctant because I am going through a stressful period at work and my wife and I are on a break from trying to have our first baby after 3 unsuccessful tries last year. I agreed because she seemed really anxious and has a BTS concert to go to soon (she needs someone to help her husband with the kids while she flies out to see the concert and fly back the next day). She and her husband are currently on parental leave for the next couple months.

   

  Even before my wife and I got to their house, she was texting me about how frustrated she was with her mother in law and my parents who were there before us because she expected them to do some chores. My sister complained about how she and her husband weren’t getting any rest at all since they had to “pick up the slack” on chores. I assured her we would do our best to help with chores and kids.

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• Being a new parent can be stressful, and being a new parent of two can be even more so. It's a big adjustment in your and your family's life. So it's only natural that you would want a little support on that journey. You want people around you who can ease the burden and make your share a little more manageable. But you can't just expect your family to swoop in and fix all of your problems. That's putting way too much pressure on them, and then they'll end up resenting you. Keep reading to see what unfolded between these siblings.

• My nightmare began as soon as we arrived. First, I didn’t realize they wouldn’t pick us up from the airport. They covered our plane tickets but we had to cover the $50 Uber from the airport to their house. When we arrived, she asked us to do our own groceries so we would have our own food because they prepared special food to sustain her breast milk production and she didn’t want us to eat it. When we started to cook our own food each day, she appeared annoyed at us and later on I found out that it’s because she expected us to ask her first if she and her husband needed anything before we “started doing our own thing”. Because we had to do our own groceries, their fridge got full and she complained about the fridge being full even though 98% of it was their food. My wife and I did all the chores each day, making sure their house was tidy every night, but my sister still was not pleased. We spent all day with her 4 year old but my sister was constantly correcting my wife and I in how we interact with her 4 year old asking us not to reprimand her kid even when her kid was hitting us and saying some pretty mean things since she wanted her mom only. The kid disliked my wife so much that she lied to my sister that my wife punched her (she did not), and my sister confronted us about it. My sister told me that it was okay if we wanted to leave early because our presence created more stress for them than relief, so after 2 weeks I decided for us to leave a week early because the situation felt like slavery.

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  via Jamie Coupaud

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• You can't expect people to behave exactly how you'd like them to. You have to surrender some amount of control when you're asking for a favor this big. They can't read your mind, and they need to live their own lives. Her sibling was already making a huge sacrifice, and that's nothing to sneeze at. She should have just been grateful for the help instead of micromanaging, and then she would have gotten what she ultimately wanted, which was free help. But she instead decided to create a nightmare for everyone. Keep reading to see how they thought it might resolve. 

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• My sister has sent me text messages after we left telling me how she doesn’t think my wife is good enough for me (because my wife apparently can’t do chores, wants too many breaks during the day from childcare and can’t take care of kids) and that there is something wrong with my wife since her 4 year old doesn’t like her. I responded and gave her my opinions about her insane expectations on free help (she was so insistent on exactly how everything needed to be done that I had nightmares) and that I don’t need her opinion about my marriage. She messaged me again telling me that I always twist everything and I’m acting like the victim here, and that I’m never there for her. I have not responded to her since her last message that was very hurtful. AITAH?

  -u/tokenhead27

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