Some lessons in trust only need to be learned once.

So, what would you do if your family lied to your face about a medical emergency just to dump childcare on you, then come back months later expecting you to help for real?

Would you give them another chance? Or would you stand your ground and refuse to help?

In the following story, one aunt finds herself in this scenario and stands her ground.

Here’s what happened.

AITA for refusing to babysit my nephew, even in a family medical emergency, because my brother and SIL lied before?

I am my brother and SIL’s only relative in the city.

When SIL was pregnant, I made it clear that I’d only babysit for them in the case of a serious emergency, e.g., someone has a medical emergency.

I won’t babysit if they just want time off from being parents, because I don’t have the free time for that. I work 60-100 hours a week, so if anyone needs time off, it’s me.

She had an important work affair, but they still asked her to babysit.

Last year, my brother and SIL asked me to babysit on the day of an informal work meeting, a lake retreat organized by my company. Everyone is expected to go, and it’s frowned upon if you miss it.

They wanted to go on a date. I said no; I had an important work event. They continued to nag me about how they hadn’t gone on a date for so long.

The night before that day, they called in a panic and said their friend Mike from the next city over had been in a car accident, and I needed to babysit my nephew for a few hours so that they could go visit Mike.

She had to cancel the work event because they didn’t come back in time for their son.

I reluctantly agreed, with the stipulation that they’d be back by 7 am the next day to pick up my nephew so I could leave for my work event. They did not come back until two days later.

I had to cancel on my superiors the morning of, which looked awful.

My brother and SIL never responded to multiple texts and calls from me. Their excuse was that Mike’s life was in danger and they were too busy helping his girlfriend.

Though she didn’t really want to, she helped them out.

I accepted that, since I had met both Mike and his girlfriend at a party in the past and thought they were good people, but I emphasized that this absolutely could not happen again.

Throughout the next two months, my brother and SIL regularly used the excuse of aiding Mike in his recovery and needing to visit him in order to make me babysit my nephew.

Mike’s girlfriend’s company and my company had a meeting two months after Mike’s “accident.”

As it turns out, it was all a lie.

I ran into her and asked her how Mike was recovering. Apparently, she had no idea he had ever been hospitalized. Neither did Mike.

Mike had never been in an accident, and although brother and SIL had gone to visit them recently, it was for drinks and bowling, not bringing them chicken noodle soup in the hospital.

I confronted brother and SIL, and they denied at first, but finally admitted they had been lying about Mike’s accident so that they could go on date nights.

After all that, she wanted nothing to do with babysitting for them.

They claimed I “gave them no choice since I would never help them out when they needed time together because parenting was so stressful and difficult, and I had no idea, and it was just a little white lie”.

I made it clear that after this incident, I would never babysit for them again, and I’ve stuck to that.

Yesterday, my brother and SIL begged me to babysit for them because there was an actual medical emergency in SIL’s family.

When they really needed help, she still refused.

They even sent me proof of the relative’s hospitalization.

I still said no.

They didn’t care about betraying my trust, so I don’t care if they can’t afford childcare or if their relative is in the hospital. They said I was a bad aunt, needed to get over my grudge, and was a petty *******.

AITA?

Yikes! They were way out of line for that stunt.

Let’s check out what the folks over at Reddit think about it.

This reader doesn’t think she should help.

Here’s a great idea.

According to this reader, she should never help them again.

This would’ve ended badly for them.

They have some nerve! She has every right to refuse because they broke that trust, and it’s hard to earn back.

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.