AITA for kicking my SIL out for making my drunk husband feel like s**t?
A Redditor faces backlash after kicking her sister-in-law (SIL) out of her home for berating her husband during a celebratory night out. As the SIL unleashes her frustrations about alcohol on the husband—who was simply enjoying a rare night of fun before becoming a dad—the situation escalates, leaving the Redditor feeling protective and ultimately leading to her decision to ask her SIL to leave.
Now, with family tensions running high and her husband’s feelings hurt, she questions whether her reaction was justified. Read the original story below to see how this family navigates the complexities of grief, alcohol, and support.
‘Â AITA for kicking my SIL out for making my drunk husband feel like s**t?’
My SIL, her husband and her kid (14) are staying with me and my husband for the next week because there’s a family funeral and all hotels were booked out for the blue grass fest and Kane Brown concert. We have a big farm house so it’s not big deal but SIL is very opinionated.
My SIL and my husband have different fathers. Her dad died from liver failure 10 years ago and his d**th date just past by not too long ago. He was a massive a**oholic and due to this, my SIL turns in to a b**ch whenever she sees anyone drinking, especially people in her family.
Well, my husband (who isn’t a big drinker) went out with friends last night as kind of a last “hoo-ra” because we will be welcoming our first daughter in to this world in about a month and he just wanted to celebrate his becoming of a dad. I encouraged him to go. I arranged for his Uber back home and he came in around 11pm last night.
He was very drunk. He walked in the door singing “Let’s Stay Together” by Al Green, dancing, spinning me around the living room floor in some very sloppy waltz and laughing the whole time as he was tripping all over himself. Now, my dad is an a**oholic too. So I get it, but honestly, I was having a f**king blast with my drunk husband.
SIL comes in to the room and just starts laying in to my husband about him drinking. Screaming about how he was going to turn out “just like dad”, etc etc. At this point my husband’s mood is dead. He’s crying. I lost it. I told her “how he can he turn out like a POS when that POS isn’t HIS father? Get out of my house right now and don’t ever come back.”
She immediately went quiet and said she couldn’t take her daughter out at this time of night and that no hotels had vacancy and my husband “knew better” than to drink around her and I told her that’s not my problem. Leave. The whole family is pissed at me and my husband right now for both him drinking in front of SIL and me kicking them out at midnight.
AITA? ETA: I never said her daughter or her husband had to leave. I told her she had to. She chose to wake them up and drag them with her after she caused problems.
Lets dive into the reactions from Reddit:
KenGriffinsMomSucks − NTA. Not even a tiny bit. Hell you’re the type of partner that a guy would be lucky to have. You let him go and hang with his buddies to celebrate, you celebrated with him when he came home happy drunk, and you defended him fiercely when he needed it.
It is also obvious he doesn’t have a drinking problem, that he just had fun RESPONSIBLY (you got him an uber home), so your SIL needs to get some help with her very obvious mental issues and not equate one night of your husband having fun to what her dad was. SIL is the true a**hole here for stressing out a pregnant woman.
witchrist − NTA. she needs to see a therapist. her projecting anger onto other people when it’s not warranted is a reflection of her unhealed trauma.
CielMonPikachu − SIL comes in to the room and just starts laying in to my husband about him drinking. Screaming about how he was going to turn out “just like dad”, etc
NTA. She’s using the situation as an excuse to abuse someone. She has options if she’s distressed, like crying, walking away, or going to her husband for support.
Trespassingw − NTA. She interferes in your family life, insulted your husband and did not even apologize, just whinnied about “no vacancy”.
Rumpelstiltskin-2001 − Definitely NTA, she’s visiting YOUR house, if she dosent like what you allow under your roof then she either needs to keep her mouth shut or leave. Your husband is a grown man capable of making his own decisions and from the sounds of it he’s a happy drunk who wants to dance and sing and have fun and be funny, he dosent sound like an a**sive angry, loud and screaming drunk.
He sounds like he’s very capable of handling himself and you sister in law needs to understand and respect that. The only thing I would’ve done differently was to tell her she needs to leave by the end of the next day, that way she has time to figure out where she’s gonna go (not sure if this happens before or after the funeral and if she still needs a place to stay plus she should check air bnbs too)
RealbadtheBandit − NTA. Why don’t guests act like guests on this site? Every other AITA is about people being allowed to stay with this or that OP who then take the first chance to throw a tantrum, turn the household upside down, steal, etc. She walks in, sees a married couple having fun with each other, and immediately seizes the opportunity to scream and belittle and attack. Upside: Next time, she will know better than even to ask to stay. With luck, you’ll never hear from her again.
psrandom − ESH. Reddit always has their knives out to kill anyone and everyone. However, kicking someone out at middle of the night was too much. If you are aware of the difficulty finding accomodation and they were in your house for a difficult occasion (funeral) then you should have let her n her family spend the night. Saying you didn’t ask her husband n kid to leave makes your more of an AH as everyone knows how illogical that will be.
stink3rbelle − ESH. You overreacted by a long shot. I get you wanted to defend your husband, but kicking his sister out made this conflict 1000X worse. It turned her jerky words into a problem for which she’s garnering family sympathy and for which she’ll resent you and her brother for years.
You shouldn’t even be asking internet strangers, you should be asking *him* whether this has made his life easier or harder. There’s no shame in backpedaling from an emotionally-charged threat. There’s no shame in giving an a**hole til morning to apologize. There’s no shame in calling her up, apologizing for overreacting, and telling her you’d be happy to have her family back again tonight.
JustWatchin2021 − NTA – holy entitlement batman! She may be grieving, she may legitimately be concerned about her brother’s drinking but neither entitles her to become a screaming l**atic towards her hosts when staying in someone else’s home for a frickin WEEK!
Tell any family who are p\*d off at you that they are welcome to host people who disrespect them in their own home, that they are welcome to have a guest interrupt a private pregnancy celebration and berate the father-to-be and reduce him to tears, but that you don’t see that as appropriate behavior.
If they have no problem with her behavior they are welcome to host her. It sucks that her daughter got caught in the crossfire but she’s a teenager and old enough to learn that actions come with consequences. This might specifically be a great lesson for her as her mother obviously is incapable of teaching it.
Routine-Hour1191 − NTA – she made a man cry in his own home….
Do you think the Redditor was right to defend her husband and kick her SIL out, or was it an overreaction given the family dynamics at play? How would you handle a similar situation where boundaries and emotions collide? Share your thoughts below!