He and His Wife Spent the Whole Weekend on Family Time. His Needy Relatives Still Wanted More
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As the kids grow into adults and leave home, families go through a natural transition period. Because as people age, things change – kids aren’t around for dinner every night any more, and as they get married or find their own lives in different parts of the country, or even different parts of the world, they might not automatically join in with every family holiday or celebration. Because a kid flying the nest is just that – they’re going to find their own path in life now. And that doesn’t mean they no longer love you, it just means that they’re doing exactly what they should be doing: living.
But though the guy in this story is a married man with a home and a life of his own, his family don’t seem to have fully accepted that he has flown the nest yet. That, or they refuse to have boundaries or relinquish control of one another. Because though he and his wife had other plans, after spending the entire weekend doing family things, they found out that through the evening they were expected to partake in family activities too – and these weren’t optional.
Read on to find out what happened here.
AITA for not thinking I should automatically have to drop my plans and help every time my family throws a party now that I’m married and moved out?
I’m 27, male, married, and don’t live with my parents anymore.
Growing up, whenever we had a party it was basically understood that everyone helped all day. Cleaning, setting up, tearing down, whatever.
I did that my whole life and never really questioned it because I lived there.
Now I don’t, and apparently my family and I have very different expectations about this.
Let’s see how things are now he is married and doesn’t live with his family.
My niece had her birthday party Sunday. On Saturday I drove thirty minutes to pick her up and spent basically the whole day with her for her birthday. Build-A-Bear, lunch, ice cream, etc.
My wife and I offered to keep her through dinner too, so everyone could get stuff done for the party.
My mom asked if I could have her at the clubhouse by 8pm because they had the room for an hour that night. I said sure.
I thought I was dropping her off. My wife and I were going to get ice cream after and then go home because I had to be up at 6am the next morning to play bass at church.
But the arrangements turned out to be quite different,
We get there and it turns into “we only have an hour if y’all want to help.”
I was annoyed because nobody told me we were helping that night. I also felt like I couldn’t really leave without looking like a jerk, so we stayed and helped. I’ll admit I had an attitude about it.
On Sunday we still showed up 1.5 hours early to help set up, stayed for the whole party, and helped tear down afterward. We did leave before everyone else and didn’t stay for the final loading of the cars.
Now this has turned into my family saying I don’t show up for them any more, and that helping them feels like a burden to me.
Read on to see how he felt about that.
That honestly really hurt. We see my family at least once a week and usually one or two times. We’re almost always the ones driving to them too.
Just recently I went to my sister’s musical and went to my parents’ afterward, came over another Friday literally just to hang out, went to my niece’s birthday dinner, my wife’s birthday dinner, spent all Saturday with my niece, then helped with this party Saturday AND Sunday.
My sister told me I’ve shown “time and time again” that I don’t show up. I asked for an example and she brought up one party for my niece I missed earlier this year.
I was at her actual graduation, but missed the party afterward. I’ve apologized for that.
And this is really getting to him now.
I’m not saying I’m perfect. If something gets thrown on me unexpectedly I can get annoyed and apparently it shows. I apologized to my mom for that and told her I’ll work on it.
But my mom told me family parties have always meant everyone helps, and she’s hurt she even has to ask me because I should already know.
That’s the part I don’t agree with. I don’t live there anymore. I still WANT to help. I literally told her please don’t stop asking me. Just give me a heads up when you can. Sometimes my wife and I already have plans and I might have to say no.
I just don’t think missing something occasionally or not being available every single time means I don’t care about my family, especially when I’m still over there every week.
AITA?
This guy is already doing way more than most folk would, without being asked.
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His family are guilt tripping him because he’s not a mind-reader?
Honestly, this guy has his own life and plans and can’t just be dropping them because his family have yet another random thing for him to do that they never warned him about ahead of time.
Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.
This person thought that he was already doing more than enough.
While others thought that his mom expected way too much.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about siblings who don’t think they should have to give up their own sports’ seasons to help with their younger siblings.
Meanwhile, this Redditor felt sorry for the guy’s wife.
Honestly, this guy clearly loves his family and spends significant amounts of time helping them out, visiting them, and doing all the other things that he’s been brought up to believe are necessary. Well spoiler alert. He’s doing so much more than most folk ever do – and he’s still being guilt tripped and shamed alone the way. This guy is an adult man, he’s married and he has a house and a life of his own. It’s about time his family realised that he is an individual and does not automatically have to do everything that they are doing just because that is how it has always been.
Really, the audacity of them suggesting that he was basically letting them down by not doing enough! The guy is already doing more than enough by supporting his family with so much of his free time – without them even asking for it. He needs to set some boundaries right away, and accept that they might get spiteful and hurt him while he’s establishing and enforcing them. First of all, he needs to be asked and given notice for all these things that they need him to help with. Second, they need to take no for an answer.
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