If you knew a family member was in a tough situation financially, would you offer to help? If you did offer to help and they rejected your offer, would you be offended?

In today’s story, one man offers to help his brother-in-law, but when his offer is rejected, he thinks it might cause problems in his marriage.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for telling my wife that we should not be providing financial assistance to her brother after our offer to assist him and his family was denied twice?

My wife (37) and my BIL (33/34) recently lost their father.

My BIL has not been handling it well.

To offer some context, my BIL, I believe has some mental issues. When he was a lot younger, he received a disability check. Of course being underage, the check would go to his parents.

These stopped at the age of 18, however, he was still enabled by his parents.

Things changed.

Eventually, their parents divorced.

My wife and I moved in together and continued our lives.

My BIL continued to stay with their father.

Over time he got himself a girlfriend and had kids. He has 5 now. And during this time they all lived together. BIL, GF, kids and his dad.

The financial situation isn’t good for the BIL and his family.

My BIL and FIL were the only ones working, which is understandable.

But due to the recent passing, there is only one income coming into the home (they rent) now and my FIL did not have life insurance.

My BIL now has to support 5 kids and the GF.

I’m not sure if they plan on her working but she hasn’t worked in about 15 years. Even with her income, they will struggle badly.

They offered to help.

Me and my wife offered twice that we could move in and help if they wanted.

While we aren’t rich, we live in a LCOL state and a MCOL city. We don’t have kids. I’m paid extremely well and she’s paid decently.

We could definitely assist them if we all lived together but we cannot assist and live separately.

The offer was denied both times.

He’s really upset.

At this point, I’m pretty mad.

He clearly isn’t thinking straight because if he was, he would know that he is not going to be able to support his family on his income. The kids are going to suffer and they will be one emergency away from having nothing.

I’m also mad because I know my wife and I know what she is thinking about doing.

Here’s what his wife is thinking.

She thinks we will be able to assist while we are trying to live our own life. She’s thinking like a sister and not thinking like a wife.

I sat her down and told her that’s not going to be possible. Her brother is going to have to learn the hard way.

She was clearly upset and didn’t say much after.

As I said earlier though, I know my wife. I have a feeling this is going to drive a huge wedge in our relationship.

I’m not sure what to do.

Maybe they stop offering to help and let the BIL figure it out on his own.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

He was very generous with his offer.

Perhaps he could help with childcare instead.

Here’s some more advice.

This is a helpful idea…

You can’t force someone to accept your help.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.