AITA for not wanting to visit my wife’s grandparents after they gave my brother-in-law (BIL) a 50K truck?
A Reddit user shares their frustration over their wife’s grandparents gifting a $50K truck to her unemployed brother, despite her hard work and self-sufficiency. Now, the user is reluctant to spend vacation time visiting them, feeling the treatment was unfair. However, their wife believes they should cherish the time they have with her grandparents. Read the full story below to see if you think their stance was justified or if family connections should come first.
‘ AITA for not wanting to visit my wife’s grandparents after they gave my brother-in-law (BIL) a 50K truck?’
My BIL is a 28M with no job who lives in my in-law’s basement. He is obese and survives off of welfare cheques from the Canadian government. He is capable of working but chooses not to. My wife on the other hand (26F) moved out at 18, self-funded a degree, works in a good field (80K annually), got married, and has never sought a hand-out from her parents or her grandparents even though they both have the means.
We spent our vacation time the last two years visiting her grandparents who live across the country. Recently her grandparents (85), moved out of their house and into retirement living and no longer had space for both of their vehicles. Her grandpa decided to gift my BIL a truck with a fair value of $50,000.
His justification was to “help him build confidence” and “give him something to care for.” My wife was given nothing and they did not do anything to even out the gift. We have a trip planned to visit them in a few months, but I have no interest in going to see them.
I am mad at myself for letting money ruin my perception of them, but I do not appreciate how my wife was treated. I feel they take her for granted. We always go out of our to visit them. All of our trips are self-funded. We have never asked anything of them while lots of her cousins have been baled out financially.
I just have an icky feeling about the whole thing. My wife got upset when I told her I wanted to do something else with our vacation time. She got really upset and it led to an argument. She took the stance we have to enjoy our time with them while we have it.
My wife and I are currently saving for our first house, paying off student loans, and saving for our first child. We still drive my very first car I bought 10 years ago. The situation stings, as we could have used the help, while her brother lives a free ride and gets nothing but help all the time. AITA for not wanting to see my wife’s grandparents because of this?
See what others had to share with OP:
empreur − I’m going against the grain with NTA. The other posters are right, it’s not your business who her grandparents give stuff too. That said, spending your vacation time and money to spend time with people that you resent and have emotionally hurt your wife is something I wouldn’t want to do either.
chubeebear − I am going against the grain here and asserting that You are NTA. It reads to me like your wife IS very upset about the inequity but values her relationship with her grandparents more than her feelings about these gifts and inequities. My BFF had grandparents and parents who treated her brother very much like their golden child.
It took her a very long time to come to terms with that. I understand your reluctance to seeing these people but your wife is right and you should listen to her. They are old (85) and have already lived far longer than the average lifespan for their generation. Help her where you can to accept the treatment and understand that it is not a reflection on her value.
I grew up hearing “the squeaky wheel gets the grease” until my ears bled. To her grandparents they may be bursting with pride over her accomplishments and not consider the help and gifts to those who can’t or won’t improve their own lives as slights to her. If she has never had that conversation with them perhaps this trip would be the time.
Better to air this out than be left to wonder the rest of her life after they pass. I hope that you listen to her and do not cut these people out of your lives. It sounds like that would hurt your wife far more in the long run.
Remarkable_Sea_1062 − NTA. I would not waste PTO time on her grandparents either. If your wife wants to go, fine. PTO time is limited. I suggest you do something you would enjoy doing with yours.
Neat-Drawer-50 − Update: Thank you everyone for the comments so far! You have reinforced my gut feeling that I am wrong to feel this way. You are also right that I was wrong to make rude comments about my BIL. I never planned to intervene or bring our feelings up with anyone, especially not her grandparents. My only reason for postponing the trip was to let myself cool down before we saw them next.
corgihuntress − I tend to feel the same way as you. It’s not that the truck was given, it’s that no thought was given to her. NTA
Traveling-Techie − In a similar situation a wise friend told me, “Yeah, but he has to be him.” Let it be.
OrigamiStormtrooper − It’s genuinely really sweet that you’re angry/frustrated by this on your wife’s behalf. But, yeah, I’d let it go. You don’t know if they have plans to give her something else later on, but even if they don’t, tell her that one possibility is that they see clearly how capable and together she is,
and that she doesn’t NEED help from them (sounds like they would’ve been better off “gifting” her brother an intervention of some kind instead of a valuable car, but whatever — grandparents gon’ grandparent).
Cerealkiller4321 − NTA. My in-laws favour my sil like this – gifting her 500000k and the two others nothing. So they can choose to spend their money how they wish and we can choose to spend our time with whom we wish. We rarely see the in-laws.
They aren’t allowed around the kids unsupervised and we ask them for nothing. We don’t vacation with them anymore. We don’t sleep over at their house. We don’t even spend Christmas with them.
We’ve also agreed that when they’re old, it’s sil who has to tote them around to appointments and do all the care for them. They’re no longer our problem. My family on the other hand gets all the visits, all the holidays, all the babysitting. If they can play favourites, we can too. F**k in-laws!
AdDramatic8568 − NAH – if you don’t want to be around these people, then going to visit them is probably a bad idea. That being said, I’m not really sure what you’re complaining about. You say that you and your wife have never asked for handouts, then why expect them? If the cousins and the brother are asking for these things, then it makes sense that they would be given to them.
Closed mouths don’t get fed, and you even say that your wife makes decent money. None of your expenses/savings goals are beyond what’s normal for your age and education level. What do you actually want? Them to transport the car across country for you? Sell it and give you the money? Why should they ‘even out the gift’ in the first place?
They aren’t dying, they’re moving house and had to get rid of things that they couldn’t store any more. D’you want some of their furniture? None of the rest of this post really matters.
All trips are usually self-funded, I’d be mortified asking my family for money to come visit them, and you even say that the grandparents came to visit you so it isn’t really one-sided. You haven’t even explained how your wife is being taken for granted, unless there are other issues going on.
NoImpress9065 − Nta, blatant favouritism is an ick for me
Do you think the user is justified in wanting to skip the trip, or should they overlook the favoritism for the sake of family? How would you handle feeling slighted by family over financial favoritism? Share your thoughts below!
