rSlash - r/AmITheA**hole for Not Giving My Sister My Inheritance Money?

Episode Date: August 9, 2021

r/AmITheA**hole In today's episode, OP and her sister inherited some money from their deceased father. The sister spent her inheritance on a new car and home improvements, despite the fact that her hu...sband is chronically ill. Eventually, the inevitable happens and OP's brother-in-law needs surgery. OP's sister asks OP for her inheritance money to save his life, but OP refuses. Does that make him the butthole? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to R-slash, a podcast where I read the best posts from across Reddit. Today's subreddit is R-slash Amai the Butthole, where someone demands that OP hands over her dead father's inheritance money. Amai the Butthole for refusing to pay for my sister's husband's surgery with my inheritance money? My sister is 27 and I'm an 18-year-old girl. We lost our dad a year ago. He was my only parent. My mom was never in mine or my sister's life. Our dad left money for me and my sister, and my sister used her inheritance to get new cars in Renovator House. I live with my aunt right now, because my brother-in-law wouldn't let me stay with my sister.
Starting point is 00:00:37 I'm planning on using my inheritance money to pay for college tuition. I've always wanted to be a doctor, but I haven't decided which branch yet. My sister and I have never been close. It started after she got married to her chronically ill husband, who was allowed to make backhanded comments about my dad, mock my dad's illness, and make a scene at his funeral. My brother-in-law kept getting away with this because he was sick and he wasn't held accountable for his behavior. I've distanced myself, but my sister's been visiting a lot lately, venting about my
Starting point is 00:01:07 brother-in-law's condition. He's been in and out of the hospital for heart problems, and he needs a surgery. My sister brought up my inheritance money several times, but I would always cut the conversation short. She then just straight up asked me if I could help pay for her husband's surgery, and she'd pay me back in less than a year. I felt uneasy because if I give her money for my inheritance, which is a large amount, then there's no guarantee that she'll pay it back before it's time to apply to college. I'm taking a gap year, but I know that my sister can't pay me that much back, and I felt
Starting point is 00:01:39 like I was risking my future. I refused to help, and she had a melt on it at my aunt's house calling me heartless, cruel, and having no empathy. She said that her husband's health should be a priority, and I needed to help because education is nothing compared to someone's health, and she asked me if I'd be happy to see her as a widow and have my nephew have no father. My aunt suggested that other people could pay, but most family members have already cut off my sister and her husband. I argue that her husband's poor health isn't my fault after she got blaming and guilt-tripping me. My sister kept crying, and although my aunt decided to stay
Starting point is 00:02:15 out of it, she said that I should be prepared for permanent damage in my relationship with my sister if I don't help her now. My sister's been sending me texts and pictures of her family, telling me this is what I was saying no to. A happy, healthy family with a healthy husband and father. I cried and felt like I was being selfish and not a good entre sister. I asked my friend, and he said to let them sell their cars and all the luxurious stuff they bought to afford the surgery, and he warned me that if I gave them money, I'll never
Starting point is 00:02:44 get it back. And I may not ever be able to go to medical school. Alright OP, so first things first, your friend is completely 100% correct. Your sister objectively does have the money to pay for the surgery, it's just hide-up and assets like their car and their home. If they really want to pay for the surgery, then they can sell their car and get a mortgage on their home, lots of people do it all the time. And to make things worse, it's not like this was some surprise heart attack.
Starting point is 00:03:10 Your sister knows that her husband has medical conditions, and she chose to spend that money on stupid stuff instead of saving it. If my wife or my child had chronic medical issues, and I got a sudden windfall, I wouldn't go out and buy new cars. I would stash it away to save for the future because inevitably their medical issues would crop up again. OP, don't think of this as you're refusing to pay for the surgery. Think of it as it really is. You're refusing to pay for your sister's new cars and their home renovation because that's really what it is.
Starting point is 00:03:41 And worst of all, your brother-in-law insulted your father. Then they expect your father's money to pay for his health? No way, OP. That is completely hypocritical and disrespectful. Your sisters are real piece of work, OP. I'm giving her and your brother-in-law four out of five buttholes. I'm giving you zero out of five buttholes. OP, please do not give your sister your money.
Starting point is 00:04:04 You're only 18, and I don't want to talk down to you because I really want to build you up here, but I'm really telling you that you have no idea how much of an impact that money can make on your future. Anyone who's had over a decade of student loans can tell you that really sets you back. So please, keep your father's money for yourself and spend it on your future. Not your sister's toxic husband. Am I the butthole for making my son deal with rotting meat? I go hunting every year. I'm not a trophy hunter by any means. I do it for the meat and almost purely for economic reasons at this point. Taking a few deer off my property once a year cuised my freezer stocked and the grocery bill way down, which is important
Starting point is 00:04:44 because finances can be tight sometimes. As a little relevant background, the bulk of the meat is kept in a large freezer in the garage. And about once a week we'll pull out what we need for the next week or so. This means my freezer is normally only open for about once a week. About 6 months ago, my 15 year old son decided that he's vegetarian, which my wife and I have no problem with. We started making meatless meals twice a week, and we made sure that every other dinner
Starting point is 00:05:08 was such that the meat was separate from everything else, so he could salute with us. This has been working great for the last six months with no complaints. However, last week when I pulled the meat from the freezer in the garage, he decided to come behind me and unplug the freezer. I guess he thought that we weren't doing enough to support his cause. He never spoke to us or complained about our twice a week setup prior to unplugging the freezer. Well, as you can imagine, with a now unrefragurated pile of meat in the summer heat, it didn't
Starting point is 00:05:36 take long for the meat to start to rot and stink. The freezer kept the smell in for a while, so by the time we finally noticed, everything was completely putrid. I asked my son if he knew what happened, and he proudly said that he had unplugged it on purpose, and now we would have to be meat free. I told him that he didn't have the right to ruin a freezer full of meat and raise the family's grocery bill without discussing it with anyone. I told him that, as part of his punishment, he had to clean up his mess, meaning dispose of all the rotting meat and either sufficiently clean and sanitize the freezer or purchase a new one out of his
Starting point is 00:06:10 savings. He called me a butthole for making him interact with meat in any form, but he made the mess so he needs to clean it up. Am I the butthole? Okay, okay so as I'm reading this post I am like starting to figure out where it's going. Obviously the kids unplugging the freezer, the meat's going bad, and he has to clean it. Okay, and as I'm reading this story, I'm thinking about the commentary that I'm going to give, and what I was going to say, OP, was, well, sure you can make him clean the freezer, but a good alternative punishment that would still be respectful of his vegetarian beliefs would be to have him buy a new freezer for you. But you actually beat me to it, OP, because you made him that same offer. Your son is calling you the butthole because you're making him interact with me, but
Starting point is 00:06:53 you're not. You gave him an alternative, which is to buy you a new freezer, which is fair. So I feel like the age of 15 is one of those awkward ages where you're still a child, very much a child, but you're starting to do adult things. So it's one of those weird transition points between being a kid and being an adult, and it sounds like your son hasn't fully understood that the world doesn't revolve around him. I mean sure, it might have been when he was younger, but how that he's getting older,
Starting point is 00:07:20 he has to be held accountable to his actions. So yeah, OP, I'm completely on your side. If you dug in your heels and said that he had to clean out the freezer and you didn't give him the option to buy a new freezer, then yeah you might be the butthole. But the fact that you gave him a choice means that he's just being spoiled. Much like the meat. Also down in the comments, we have this contribution from Liz Weasley. Not the butthole.
Starting point is 00:07:42 I'm a vegetarian myself and I would argue that what he's done is worse because now the deer's died for no reason. Plus, it's not okay for him to intentionally ruin the family's gross reason waste money. Buying a new freezer might be overkill, but I don't think it's unreasonable at all to make him clean it. Am I the butthole for pointing at the kitchen
Starting point is 00:08:00 when my mother-in-law asked, where's our dinner? My husband had a serious injury a few weeks ago. He's bedridden and his family came to see him every day. My mother-in-law keeps drilling what I have to do to make my husband comfortable, but does nothing to help. She just visits every day and sits around,
Starting point is 00:08:17 expecting to be fed and entertained. Sometimes, my brother-in-law, his wife and kids, join them and turn the house into a mess. Yesterday, my mother-in-law, his wife and kids, joined them and turned the house into a mess. Yesterday, my mother-in-law, her husband and son came again. They checked on my husband, then went to sit in the living room for hours. I served them coffee and croissant. A few hours later, my husband threw up for the second time today, and I had to take care of changing his clothes and cleaning the sheets to avoid infections.
Starting point is 00:08:42 I was exhausted. I came downstairs, and my mother-in-law looked at me and said, hey, where's our dinner? I was shocked that after seeing me go up and downstairs many times and cleaning and bringing new sheets and running the washing machine, that she'd expect me to cook dinner for her. I'd already eaten the sandwich and yogurt, and oh, by the way, I'm also four months pregnant. I pointed at the kitchen and told her to help herself. She gave me a look, then said that she didn't expect me to ask her to cook dinner at my house. I said that I didn't expect her to
Starting point is 00:09:16 ask me to cook her dinner while I'm taking care of her son. She started arguing about the way that I spoke about my husband saying that as his partner, this is the least that I could do. And she called me unhinge for throwing in her face that I'm helping my husband. She got her husband involved, asking what his thoughts were on me making guest go hungry, and forcing them to cook when this is supposed to be my duty as a host. My father-in-law said they could just order food and call it a day, but my mother-in-law got mad and lashed out criticizing me, saying that I wasn't up to the challenge of taking care of my home and my guests like an adult.
Starting point is 00:09:50 I lost it on her and told them to leave, since she kept yelling and disrupting my husband's sleep. She left after saying that she felt sorry for her son and her grandbaby with an aggressive wife and mother like you. She said that she understood that I had a lot on my plate, but she lectured me about how I should have respect for her as a guest. She kept saying that if she was his wife, then she wouldn't have acted this way. And I shouldn't be using the fact that I take care of my husband against them.
Starting point is 00:10:17 She asked me to apologize, but I didn't. Alright OP, so when my daughter was born, my mom came to live with us for like a month straight and let me tell you how that went. My mom changed diapers, she helped with bottle feeding, she helped with bat time, she basically helped with all chores involving the baby. Of course my wife and I provided food, but also my mom went to the grocery store, got food and cooked meals for us. Because yeah, you as the host have obligations.
Starting point is 00:10:43 But also the guest has obligations too. The guest can't just show up and leech, leech, leech, take, take, take infinitely. It doesn't work that way. Your mother-in-law was basically treating your home like a resort. Based on this story, it sounds like your mother-in-law was more interested in the free meals than in taking care of her own son. If my daughter were an adult and she was sick and bedridden, then I would happily go to my son-in-law's house and help however I could, cleaning up puke,
Starting point is 00:11:10 changing sheets, giving medicine, cooking meals, honestly anything I could do to help because I actually care about my kid. O.P., your mother-in-law is being a huge butthole here. I'm giving her 3.5 out of 5 buttholes. I'm giving you 0 out of 5 buttholes. Am I the butthole for throwing my daughter a second birthday party after the special needs girl that I asked her to invite ruined her first party? My daughter turned 12 a few weeks ago and for her birthday party, she wanted pizza, a double feature movie at the drive-in, and ending the night with a sleepover in game night. I told her she can invite four friends. I suggested she invite Molly, a girl who just moved to my area and is in my daughter's class. I even admitted Molly's mom had told me that Molly was having a hard time making friends since the move.
Starting point is 00:11:54 Molly has cerebral palsy and some developmental and intellectual delays, but overall she seemed very sweet. My daughter agreed to invite Molly, but I think it was only because I asked. While Molly seemed to be a very sweet kid, she was absolutely awful at the party. She cried when we didn't get a pizza with her favorite toppings, and then stole the first slice of cakeman from my daughter. Things got even worse at the movie. The first movie, Cruella, was too scary for Molly, and she started freaking out and crying multiple times throughout the movie.
Starting point is 00:12:25 I tried to calm her down, suggesting that we take a walk to the snack bar during the scary parts or close her eyes, but she was inconsolable. I tried calling Molly's mom a few times to pick her up, but I didn't get an answer. Eventually, we had to leave before the second movie, Black Widow, which was the movie my daughter really wanted to see. That night at our house, things still got worse. Molly threw a wee remote after she lost a just dance and didn't want to play any of the other games that the girls did. The next morning, I called Molly's parents to pick her up early. Her mom apologized for Molly's behavior and admitting that she's prone to outbursts
Starting point is 00:13:00 when she gets overstimulated. But that she had been doing so much better lately in therapy. A few days later though, Molly's mom told me that Molly can't stop talking about the party and how much fun she had. That evening, after all the other girls had left, my daughter was clearly upset about having her birthday ruined. I felt bad for asking her to invite Molly, so I told her the next weekend, I would take her and her friends out for pizza and to see Black Widow in the theater to make it up to her. However, my partner thinks that's a real jerk move. He pointed out that sometimes life just isn't fair and things get ruined.
Starting point is 00:13:34 He also doesn't think that it's a good idea to show our daughter that it's okay to exclude people who are different. Anyway, I'm a little torn here. Also, OP clarifies in an edit that Molly's mom was not intentionally dodging OP's calls, and in fact, when OP finally got in touch with her, she was very apologetic and offered to come pick up Molly immediately. Alright OP, so honestly this feels like a no-butthole situation. Your daughter has every right to be sad about her birthday party, because what 12-year-old wouldn't? Zero buttholes there. OP, you tried to include Molly into the party and you also tried to make it up to your daughter,
Starting point is 00:14:09 which is reasonable, so zero buttholes there. Your partner brings up a good point. Yes, sometimes in life things do get ruined and that's an important lesson for your daughter to understand, so also zero out of five buttholes. It sucks because it's tough love, but yeah, he's not wrong. I also can't really fault Molly's mother because it sounds like she was being fairly reasonable. I mean, yeah, I guess she could have warned you, but even if she had warned you, would that have changed anything? So I'm giving her 0 out of 5 buttholes. And as
Starting point is 00:14:39 for Molly, is it even fair to give her a butthole score when she has developmental disabilities? Not really. I would say that maybe it sounds like Molly isn't quite ready for this kind of group dynamic, but for the most part, I think that everyone in this situation has a right to feel the way that they do, and so zero out of five buttholes across the board. Also OP, don't worry about the makeup birthday party. You're not really cutting out Molly, you're just taking your daughter and her friends to go see a movie that they want to see, but that Molly doesn't. Seems reasonable to me.
Starting point is 00:15:08 That was our slash of my The Butthole, and if you like this content, you can sponsor this podcast to unlike extra episodes. Also, be sure to follow my podcast because I put a new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.

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