Have you ever done something nice once and then your family expects you to keep doing it forever?

That’s the situation the man in this story found himself in. The nice thing he did was grill for his entire family, but he didn’t intend to have to grill every weekend for the rest of his life!

He finally put his foot down, but he’s feeling pretty guilty about it. Keep reading for all the details.

AITA for putting my foot down on being treated like a free cook for ungrateful people?

I live in my ancestral home, with my elderly parents. I have a sibling that lives on the same property in a financed trailer.

Some years ago, I paid to build a rather nice shop building and I installed a BBQ pit on it, for socializing.

My sibling’s spouse apparently loves my grilling and, for the last 4 months, every Sunday I have been pressured into grilling.

But they don’t want to pay for anything or help.

They bought only the first time. They washed dishes only the first time.

Every time since it has been – our mum buys and preps the patties – I clean my grilling flatware and grill the patties – my sibling walks up takes three patties for his spouse, says 2 words and leaves.

I have been very vocal with our mom that this is not how communal dinners are supposed to work. I have told her I don’t want to do it.

But every time she pressures me into doing it again because she is just about the nicest person in the world and will do anything for the sake of avoiding conflict, whereas my sibling will blow up and not talk to someone for months for the simplest thing…his spouse isn’t any better.

Today was extra frustrating.

Which brings me to today.

Suffice to say, I wasn’t in a good state of mind to begin the day, in the middle of going from a night schedule to a day schedule, I would have preferred to be in bed instead of being expected to grill.

Our mum was still awake at 4AM making the patties. I was going to grill them at 10AM so I could get to sleep, my foot was hurting (I didn’t tell anyone) and I have a sizable job on Monday.

So the lot of them go to church service (I don’t really attend anymore), leaving me here. So I bring all my dirty utensils in from my shop to wash them in the dishwasher and I can’t find soap anywhere.

But waiting didn’t help.

I wait until they come rolling in from service at 11:30, I’m used to being in bed by noon at this point. Then, my father gets out and they…leave… to go shopping.

By this point I am royally ticked off because, IMO, communal meals shouldn’t be this kind of crap.

Months of this taken for granted stuff kinda came to a head. I texted our mom, after multiple failed calls: “This is some nonsense. I have no clean tools, they’re all in the dishwasher and I can’t find your soap, and I’m really tired. I’m going to lay down in 15 minutes. You guys either come back and help or I’m saying to freaking hell with the hamburgers.”

She begged me to make the [sibling’s wife’s] burgers.

I replied “Parties or shopping, you have a choice to make. I’m tired.”.

He feels guilty.

I admit that I feel guilty about the language I used in those texts to our mom, I shouldn’t have done that, but that’s not the problem.

The problem is my psychotic sibling and their even more psychotic spouse read the texts over my mom’s shoulder in the car, without her knowing, with the former grabbing the phone from her and apparently they’ve gone bat crap crazy over them, painting me as the bad guy.

Now our mom is looking at me like the bad guy because I didn’t just make the patties to appease them, saying I ruined Christmas. AITA?

Not grilling can’t ruin Christmas.

They expect too much of him. He should just go to sleep.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person has a suggestion of what he could say to his family.

Another person tells him not to be a doormat.

Here’s a suggestion for a book that might help.

Nobody thinks he should keep cooking for his ungrateful family.

He should’ve put his foot down a long time ago!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.