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Some family crises feel sudden right up, but in reality, you can see them coming for years if you’re really paying attention.

One woman watched her older sister live rent free in their mother’s house for over a decade, fully aware that a government redevelopment project would eventually force her out.

Despite knowing the timeline for years, her sister made no effort to save money or plan ahead, choosing instead to hope the situation would somehow resolve itself.

When the eviction notice finally arrived, she didn’t take accountability, she exploded, accusing their mother of not fighting hard enough and expecting their aging parents to fix everything.

That’s when the family started treating the fallout like a tragedy instead of a consequence.

Keep reading for the full story.

AITA for not caring that my sister is about to lose her home

My (36F) sister (46f) has been living in a house owned by our mother for the last 10 years or so.

For the first few years, she was paying rent, but then she lost her job and stopped paying rent, and she never started again, even though she eventually found another job.

This had some big consequences for her sister.

Without going into too much detail (because otherwise this post would be way too long), the house is now being forcefully taken by the government, as they will bulldoze it (along with the surrounding houses) and build new apartments there.

By the time it happened, the family was already well acquainted with the reality of things.

We have known about this for YEARS, it’s always been a matter of when, not if, this was going to happen. Despite this, and despite not paying any rent, my sister has made no effort to save money for her inevitable eventual move.

She’s explicitly been hoping that things would just work out in her favour, that the development wouldn’t go ahead in the end.

But still, her sister refuses to take accountability.

Well, the time has come. My sister has been informed she is expected to vacate the property in three months, and she’s gone BALLISTIC.

She is now accusing my mother of conspiring to make her homeless (because she allegedly didn’t fight hard enough, even though they had endless meetings with lawyers etc), and she’s made it my parents’ job to find her another place to live.

Her parents fell right into the trap.

What’s worse, they’ve accepted the task. They called me today to tell me the news, with the gravity usually reserved for the death of a close loved one, and I could not bring myself to care.

Now this woman feels conflicted on whether to feel any sympathy for her sister.

Like sure, I do feel bad for her at a basic human level, it sucks that she’ll have to uproot her life and figure out a new place for her to live. But also, like, she only has herself to blame.

She made absolutely no effort to prepare for this.

Her sister isn’t really learning anything from this.

And now, instead of being humble and accepting she’s messed up and taking any help she can with her head down, she’s being horrible and expecting our parents (who are in their late 70s and aren’t financially doing great, in no small part because of my sister) to bend over backwards for her.

Now her mother is starting to pressure her into showing her support.

My mother is asking me to call my sister, to tell her that I’ve been told the news and that I feel so bad for her and that I’m there for support.

And I simply… don’t want to?

She starts to feel like her parents’ enabling has made her sister how she is.

I feel like a lot of what my sister is like, and how this situation is evolving, is in big part due to my parents, and in particular my mom, coddling and enabling her.

And I feel guilty that maybe I should have been more upfront about calling out my sister’s unreasonable behaviour, maybe in staying passive and out of the drama I have also contributed to the enabling.

AITA?

This is a tough one.

What did Reddit think?

This user calls this manipulation on her sister’s part.

Sometimes a firm “no” is all it takes.

This user doesn’t mince words.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a friend who is upset they missed out on cheap festival passes due to her pal’s indecision.

This commenter thinks the woman is right to follow her instinct on this.

Sympathy and accountability aren’t mutually exclusive.

This woman isn’t wrong to feel disconnected from her sister’s panic, since the entire situation was foreseeable for years and completely avoidable with even minimal planning.

At the end of the day, she’s allowed to care about her sister’s wellbeing without performing distress she doesn’t actually feel.