Man’s Family Keeps Expecting Him To Drive His Grandma Around Without Giving Him Details, But They’re Upset When He Finally Sets Boundaries
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Helping your family when you can is a great thing to do, but you have to be careful not to get taken advantage of as well.
What would you do if your elderly grandmother was always asking for rides to different places, but she wouldn’t give you specifics about where she needed to go or when, which made it very inconvenient?
That is what happened to the young man in this story, so he started making boundaries about what he needed in order to help, but that only upset his family.
He is doing the right thing by establishing boundaries, even if it upsets the family. Read through the full story below and see if you agree.
AITAH For not driving my sick grandma home from the hospital?
I, (24m) have been helping my (70f) grandma with a lot of things since 2021 after she had to get a liver/kidney transplant.
His situation has changed.
Whether it’s been driving her to the store, hospital, going to her house to close the garage door, or anything that really comes up, I have always helped her because she was like a third parent to me growing up.
The past year, however, has been getting incredibly frustrating as I’ve gotten a high paying job and work 4 10s (I’m also in college), yet her and my aunt still expect me to drop everything and help no matter what I’m doing.
Grandma is being very deceptive.
Though I still did it if it was possible, this all culminated to my grandma stopping in front of my house, asking if I could take her for a quick drive.
She waited until I got in the car to tell me that it was a doctors appointment that was 10 minutes from then, which caused me to have an asthma attack because I didn’t bring my inhaler.
What I thought would be a quick drive turned into me waiting at the doctor’s office with her for an hour and a half.
These are all very reasonable.
After that, I started to try to have more boundaries with her, simple things I believe. “Tell me if you need a ride in advance, don’t make me fish for information, and please respect my time”.
To which she proceeded to have a meltdown and refused to talk to me. This all lead to her getting bad and having to go back to the hospital about 2 weeks ago as she was having problems with her kidneys again.
He seems more than happy to help when he can.
My aunt and grandma started talking to me and asking me for help with some things, to which I happily obliged. A couple days ago, my grandma asked me if I could drive her back home after she was discharged.
I didn’t have a problem with it as long as it didn’t fall on a time I was working, but my aunt mentioned that she was on antibiotics for something.
They are being intentionally vague and deceptive.
After a bit of describing what my grandma had (bacterial infection that was resistant to several antibiotics, that is spread if you touch their wound) I started to think it sounded like MRSA.
I told my aunt that I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with driving her home and her response was “you don’t have to worry about getting anything as long as you don’t touch the wounds on her arm and that since she’s on antibiotics, I shouldn’t worry about her being contagious.”
To which I straight up asked her if my grandma had MRSA. Her only response was “I’ll tell her you’re not driving her”.
There are precautions he could have taken.
I have not heard from them since and every time I’ve tried talking to my aunt when I see her around (we live close by) she ignores me.
I’m not completely stupid, I’m interested in biology and epidemiology and understand that bacteria can survive on surfaces for a long time and I didn’t want my personal car or myself to be exposed to MRSA. Especially since I don’t live alone and don’t want to spread it.
He didn’t even refuse, he just wanted answers to his questions.
I don’t know what to think if I’m being honest, I don’t think I was in the wrong, but I’m starting to have my doubts.
AITA?
His aunt and grandma are the ones that are making things harder than they need to be. If they would be up front with him about what they need, he could make decisions more quickly and easily.
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Read through the comments below to see what other people had to say.
It doesn’t seem like he needs to go this far.
This commenter makes a good point.
Her wounds should be covered.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about two kids trying to earn money by mowing grass, and decide to solve their gas issue by stealing some of dad’s.
His requests were very reasonable.
She likely is not contagious.
He is already going above and beyond for his family, and he isn’t asking for more than common curtesy in return.
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