I’m a 22F that’s been living with my mother’s side for the past couple of months for better job opportunities. My housing situation right know is me, my aunt, my two uncles, and my grandmother all living under one roof. My grandma has a history of being complicit in my grandpa’s abuse towards my mom and aunt during their childhood. Sometimes looking away and sometimes contributing to the abuse. I saw her true colors a couple of days ago after an argument broke out between my aunt and grandma over her opening our air fryer while my aunt’s lunch was right in the middle of cooking. Even before I moved in, my grandma has always been very disrespectful towards my aunt.
She has barged into my aunt’s room and went through her things, talked smack about my aunt, her sister, and my uncles with her friends, and left food out on the table for days until it attracted rats
Upon witnessing first hand of all of this happening, it pissed me off. So, I decided to ignore her every time she tried to speak to me and completely not acknowledge her whenever I was in the same room as her. Noon hits and my aunt calls me to tell me that I need to apologize to her for disrespecting her since she does make the food in the house.
So, people of reddit, AITA?
EDIT: we’ve been trying to confront her about her actions. but, it goes into one ear and out the other
EDIT 2: this house belongs to my aunt and she was the one who’s letting me stay in her house
EDIT 3: yes, i did apologize. im having conflicting feeling about apologizing to her though
NTA, and you may want to look for a better place to live. It sounds like having to deal with people like that is the hidden added cost of living with family, and they may decide that you don’t get to live there anymore.
Thanks for this, right now I’m staying at the house I’m in right now because I don’t have the funds to find an apartment elsewhere. So, fingers crossed that I get a start date from the job I got through networking!
Okay. Well, going off of your edits, you may not have as much to worry about being thrown out if it’s your aunt’s house. Not sure where you are or what culture you come from, but you may also want to encourage your aunt to stick up for herself and lay down the law with your grandma, since your grandma is disrespecting your aunt in your aunt’s own house. It also might not be worth the effort, though.
YTA
I don’t understand this family dynamic at all. 4 grown adults living under grandma’s roof? You want to live how you feel is better, move out and support yourself. Stop taking cues from that family because they all sound like failures.
ESH. Has it ever occurred to you that your grandma might take your disrespect out on your mom and/or aunt? You’re making things harder on them by acting like a four year old. Problems don’t resolve themselves through passive aggression. If you have an issue with grandma, then confront her on it like the adult that you are. Also, why didn’t you put the food up yourself instead of waiting for the rats to show up? You have hands, don’t you?
YTA. You can’t take advantage of living with the woman and eating the food she makes and actively disrespect her AND expect to get away with it. I don’t care about respecting her, in theory, but if she runs the house, you’re endangering your living circumstances AND your aunt’s over this completely useless rebellion.
Those AND\`s are the key, OP. The disrespect itself it not A-holery, but doing it in a way that makes you feel better but doesn’t actually change or improve anything for your aunt is a useless. In fact, since your aunt is the one asking you to give it up, I suspect it makes things worse for her, which makes this petty act worse than useless.
Note that your answer to “this woman is abusive” is not to move yourself and your aunt out of the house. Note that you accuse this woman of being complicit in abuse of your mother and aunt and are still willing to live with her for your convenience. Note that whatever you think about the matter, your aunt is still living there, presumably an adult woman who can make her own choices.
i understand where your coming from. but, the household i live under belongs to my aunt : she runs the house and pays the bills.
Did you say attract rats???? I would be gone immediately
NTA…You’re an adult and you’re allowed to express yourself. Your grandmother’s behaviour is abusive to everyone who has to witness it.
ESH and who the HELL left food on the table for days until it attracted rats? Like, were you forbidden from touching the rotting food? Gross.
my grandma likes to cook a little too much and we don’t eat all of the food. so, it’s left out for days until either me or my aunt/uncles throws it away
All of you are disgusting then. Leftovers get packed up and put in the fridge or thrown away immediately. Grow the fuck up.
What did I stumble into here? These comments are kinda wild.
Really, I think this is above Reddit’s pay grade but I’ll do my best for you.
Your grandma is abusive. Not complicit in abuse. Currently abusive with the snooping and the smack talking and the leaving food out. I’m assuming that was some sort of passive aggressive power play on her part. I refuse to believe no one else in the house, including you, was capable of putting food away so if it stayed out, that must be because she’d raise hell if you put it away, right? (if I’m wrong here, just put the damn food away before rats come)
Maybe (probably?) this pattern started with your grandpa abusing her, and her struggling to know what the right action was, within whatever parameters she had to deal with. But now it sounds like grandpa is gone and she is continuing to be problematic. Repeat after me “Just because her pain is understandable doesn’t make her behavior acceptable.”
What your aunt is doing in calling you and telling you to be respectful is called “don’t rock the boat.” Search that term on Reddit. Incidentally, what a couple commenters have said regarding ‘don’t make the situation worse for everyone else’ is also “don’t rock the boat.”
Also search (whether on reddit or off) the following terms:
DARVO
Grey Rock
Don’t JADE
Basically by refusing to acknowledge your grandma you were like half engaging in grey rock. But you have to establish the boundary first, and then use grey rock within the terms of that boundary, not across the board.
Get a therapist if that is at all feasible. Not a religiously affiliated counselor. A licensed therapist. And start making your plans to move out as soon as humanly possible because this situation will not get better.
NTA
Definitely look into Gray Rock. Done properly it’s a way to preserve your peace without being confrontational. The Full-on silent treatment is only pissing grandma off, but a polite but limited passive interaction could be the sweet spot for you and your aunt.