Boundaries, dear Pandas, boundaries are what keep family relationships healthy. No matter how close you are to your parents, siblings, and all the extended family members that are as numerous as hobbits, you can’t constantly sacrifice your own life for their needs. Love, respect, and support don’t mean living in constant servitude, at the beck and call of others’ every whim.
Reddit user u/IamAndy123 turned to the AITA community and asked it if he was wrong for refusing to babysit his nephews by rushing out of his home before they could arrive. Now, at first glance, that sounds really bad, doesn’t it? But the fact is, the redditor felt like it was the only way to establish proper boundaries: he had important personal plans that he didn’t want to give up. And his sister-in-law didn’t get that.
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Scroll down for the full story and let us know what you think of the entire bizarre situation, dear Pandas. Do you have any thoughts on how you’d have handled things?
No matter how much we love our family members, there have to be some boundaries
Image credits: Picsea (not the actual photo)
An uncle shared how his sister-in-law didn’t care about the personal plans that he had when she wanted him to babysit. Here’s what happened
Image credits: IamAndy123
At the core of this story lie two things. First of all, redditor u/IamAndy123 feels like he never had a choice in deciding how often he can babysit his nephews. He believes that this whole babysitting business was thrown onto his shoulders by his younger brother.
Second of all, it seems like the younger brother and the sister-in-law definitely have some boundary issues. There’s nothing wrong with asking a family member for help; however, demanding that they change their important plans isn’t the diplomatic way to go.
While getting out of the house to avoid one’s SIL is definitely a last-resort kind of action, it’s not difficult to see that redditor may have simply become fed up with the entire situation. Or he may have felt like discussing this with his sibling and SIL wouldn’t work because they don’t understand his perspective.
Whatever the case might be, establishing boundaries really is important, even in (or rather, especially in) family settings. However, you have to be delicate when you do this. Relationship coach Alex Scot told Bored Panda that the closer you are to someone, the more flexible you have to make those boundaries.
“Without them [boundaries], we live our lives at the expense of ourselves. The mindset for many when it comes to setting boundaries is that they feel selfish, or that they aren’t being a good partner when they implement them, so they avoid doing it altogether,” the expert revealed to Bored Panda.
“Boundaries are there for us to be able to take care of and to protect ourselves so that we can show up and operate within our lives as successfully as possible.”
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Redditors were nearly unanimous in their verdict. Here’s what they had to say about the family drama
The post Entitled Parents Expect Brother-In-Law To Take Care Of Their Kids Whenever They Want first appeared on Bored Panda.
Source: boredpanda.com