When does helping family cross the line into enabling? Would you be upset if your in-laws left everything to your irresponsible brother-in-law but left nothing to your wife?

The man in this story is navigating this situation. He’s been helping out his brother-in-law and mother-in-law after his father-in-law’s death, and he’s not okay with how things are going.

Let’s read the whole story.

Aitah for telling my wife to tell her mom to move out of our home after she decided to leave all inheritance to her brother?

Me 32

Wife 30

Brother/brother in law 27

MiL late 50s

My FIL recently passed and left a very sizable life insurance policy to his son and wife(MiL), my wife received nothing.

They figured this made sense.

We understood this because her brother(27) is not the brightest and still lives at home, he never goes out and only goes to work, and back home to play video games all day.

They both recently moved into our home as they were too distraught to continue living in the home my FiL passed in.

My FIL was truly the only adult in the home and was responsible for taking care of everything. He even drove my MiL to and from work on a daily basis, a responsibility that has now been passed onto my wife.

He did a lot to help out his wife’s family.

I have since taken over the estate planning, such as paying bills, swapping over polices, etc.

My MiL doesn’t speak English and doesn’t drive, so as family it was my pleasure to take on this responsibility.

After a month and a half I finally settled all the bills/funeral planning/etc and all the heavy lifting a complete.

I do not say it lightly, but without me, the family would be lost on what to do. For example, they did not even know where he worked, and were surprised to find out he even had a life insurance policy.

He made a suggestion his MIL didn’t like.

Both do not have any retirement plans or savings.

I suggested a shared bank account for my wife and her mom to put the payout into, where it will accrue interest but also to pay off bills every month(mil had no bank account before).

It was at this point MiL says she would rather not have her daughter on the account and wants to give her portion of the payout to her son and have him set up with a savings account. She says this because since me and my wife have a home, that it would be better used on her brother.

We do have a home, but we are by no means rich, in fact, them moving in would help us out financially as there would be extra income from them paying rent.

He really thinks it’s a bad idea for everything to go to his irresponsible brother-in-law.

I expressed to my wife that leaving everything to him would be incredibly irresponsible because then he will be left the family home and the payout, but mainly because he cannot do anything for himself and can not be trusted with the money.

I say this because of things I have learned about him, he does not have a drivers license but drives a car to and from work, never helped with the estate, and something I learned was that he has a large amount of cash in his checking account.

He has never had a girlfriend and since the known him has shown no signs of ever wanting to move out.

The large bank balance worried me because when I asked him about this, he told me he just had no idea what to do with it and has no concept of retirement planning, since his parents took care of all the bills, and all he did was pay some of the mortgage, go to work, and then go home to play video games.

Now, he’s arguing with his wife.

My wife was also there when her mom had breast cancer and took her to and from every single appointment, to the point of using all her vacation/sick days to help during this time.

Her brother is not a bad guy, in fact he is a great friend. But he just doesn’t ever seem like he will grow up to be a responsible person.

I told my wife that after agreeing to take them in and have them live with us, that it would be a slap in the face to be left nothing, so I told her that her mother and brother should move back to their home, and use the money from the payout to help them live with the absence of my FIL.

She was then furious with me and said all I care about is money, even though I feel that this is not so much about money, but that there is a complete lack of respect with being shown nothing for all the help we have and will be giving.

So Reddit, AITAH?

Are they helping or enabling? It seems like his wife should be upset that she will be left with zero inheritance. It’s weird to entrust the family home and savings to the irresponsible child.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This is why his wife isn’t getting any inheritance.

Another person blames the FIL and MIL not the BIL.

This person explains the wife’s perspective.

This doesn’t seem fair.

Here’s a suggestion to call the police.

His in-laws are taking advantage of him.

If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.