Hi Reddit, this happened earlier this year, and my in-laws are no longer staying with us. Here’s the story.
Background
My husband and I (24F & 24M) have been married for two years. I’m a social worker, and he’s an electrician. We own a 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom house. One bedroom is ours, one is a home office, and the third is a guest room.
In my state, the foster care system is severely under-resourced. There aren’t nearly enough foster homes for the number of children in care. As a result, kids often end up staying in hospitals, psychiatric facilities, or group homes simply because there’s nowhere else for them to go. Some even sleep in sleeping bags on the floor at CPS offices.
Social workers frequently take kids home for the night, including me. It’s especially tough to find emergency placements for siblings, so if I can’t place them together, I bring them to my home. My husband and I don’t have kids of our own, but he’s incredibly supportive of this. To accommodate, our guest room has two twin beds with pull-out trundles underneath, allowing space for up to four children.
The Problem
Earlier this year, my husband’s brother and his wife became temporarily homeless after losing their jobs and failing to renew their lease. Scrambling to find new jobs and a place to live, they needed somewhere to stay. We agreed to let them stay with us for two months. I wasn’t thrilled, but it felt like the right thing to do.
However, they were not happy about the twin beds. Due to the bed frames, the twin beds can’t be pushed together. The room is also small and awkwardly shaped, so fitting a queen air mattress in there would mean removing the twin beds entirely. With no garage or extra storage space, there wasn’t anywhere to put them.
My in-laws wanted me to either get rid of the beds or put them in a storage unit so they could set up a queen air mattress. I refused. I had worked hard to make the room welcoming for kids in crisis and didn’t want to undo that. Plus, I knew they wouldn’t be staying long, so it didn’t feel worth the trouble.
I didn’t tell them this, but I was also concerned that making the room more comfortable for them might encourage them to overstay their welcome. I would rather house children in need than accommodate ungrateful in-laws.
My Husband’s Response
My husband backed me up completely. He told his brother and sister-in-law they could stay in the room as it was, get a hotel, or leave. When they kept complaining, he reminded them they were lucky to have a roof over their heads at all and threatened to kick them out if the complaints continued. He’s a good man.
Eventually, they moved out, but not before telling everyone in the family how terrible we were for making them sleep in “kid beds.” My husband has been blunt with his relatives, essentially telling them to mind their own business and not speak to us unless they have something nice to say.
AITAH?
I genuinely want to know if I’m in the wrong here. My husband and I think we made the right call, but a dozen people in his family seem to think we’re the assholes. What do you think, Reddit?