Generally, you want to create space with toxic people, not give them a key to your house.

Imagine you had a relative who spent years stirring drama, disrespecting your family, and crossing personal boundaries, and then was suddenly handed access to your home by a parent who should be protecting you.

What would you do?

In the following story, one daughter finds herself in this situation and tries to confront her father, but it doesn’t work.

Here’s what’s going on.

AITAH for not wanting my aunt to have a key to our house?

My dad’s sister (my aunt) has caused so much chaos in my family over the years.

She’s lied about us, manipulated relatives, turned people against us, created fights out of nowhere, and constantly made me, my sister, and my mom feel small or disrespected.

She even used my sister when she was a kid to feed into her drama. She’s the kind of person who loves control and attention, and everything has to revolve around her.

Her dad wants to give his sister a key to the property.

Recently, she’s been saying and doing things that just… drain me emotionally. I’ve tried distancing myself because every interaction with her leaves me stressed or angry.

But my dad never wants to talk about the past or acknowledge any of it, because “she’s his sister,” and he immediately gets dismissive whenever I bring up my feelings.

Now here’s where everything is exploding for me: We’re putting a new gate on our property, and my dad wants to give my aunt a key. As in, access to our yard and basically our house whenever she wants.

She and a few other family members all agree that it’s a bad idea.

The idea of her having that kind of access makes my stomach drop. This is MY home. MY safe space. And it’s the one place where I’m not forced to deal with her energy. My mom, my sister, and I all said we don’t feel comfortable with this at all, but my dad keeps acting like we’re overreacting or being dramatic.

I ended up crying yesterday because it’s not even just about the key. It’s all the years of him dismissing how she treated us. All the times he told me to “let it go” or acted like I was the problem for reacting to her behavior. It feels like everything I’ve held in just piled up, and now this key situation is the breaking point.

He doesn’t understand why this is such a big deal to me, but all I can think is: why should someone who has done nothing but disrespect us get a key to our home? Why should she have access to my safe space? Why am I the one being treated like the unreasonable one?

AITA?

Yikes! It’s easy to see both sides of this, but maybe her father shouldn’t be so dismissive.

Let’s see what the fine folks over at Reddit think about this family drama.

According to this reader, they need to talk.

Here’s someone who would never give her a key.

This person gets it.

As this reader explains, it’s best to get her mom on her team.

She’s right to feel this way because no one should be made to feel uncomfortable in their own home.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.