Woman calls out pregnant SIL for 'treating brother badly,' family gets mad at her.
Pregnancy is a tough physical experience. Even the most excited pregnant people are likely to hit some bumps in the road emotionally and physically, and this can put a strain on a relationship before the baby even enters the scene.
Standing by and watching these tense dynamics between a loved one and their partner can be supremely awkward, particularly if you think they're being mistreated.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for calling out her sister-in-law's mistreatment of her brother.
She wrote:
AITA for telling my pregnant sister-in-law to stop yelling at my brother for making her a “whale?'
My sister-in-law is pregnant with their first child and I get pregnancy is hard but for the last few weeks she’s been lashing out at my brother non-stop and you can see he looks visibly stressed out now. She’s done it in front of our family and her family but nobody ever defends by brother or says anything to her because they’re all excited about the baby so they’re treating her like a queen who can do no wrong.
Now, I love my sister-in-law and we’re like sisters since we grew up together which is why I felt comfortable telling her to stop. I spoke up after she started yelling at my brother for making her into a “whale”.
He kept apologizing to her and everybody was coddling her and telling her how beautiful she was and how she didn’t look big at all. When we were alone I told her how she was behaving unfairly and treating my brother badly and stressing him out. I thought she took it well since she said she knew but apparently not since she started crying to my brother.
Everybody is treating me like I’m the devil now for making her cry. My brother told me to stay out of his marriage and to mind my own business because I didn’t understand what she’s going through and he said I was causing her stress. I tried to explain that I wasn’t trying to hurt her but I felt like she was being mean but it hasn’t helped the situation. AITA?
People had lots of opinions in the comment section.
MrChaddious wrote:
NTA. I’ve never in my life seen any friends or family of mine who’ve had children treat their partner like that while pregnant. She is completely out of line and your family should be ashamed for treating you like that for defending your brother which they also should be doing. Your brother is spineless for lashing out at you like that.
Curlycue1412 wrote:
NTA. When my friend was pregnant she could get really nasty, with her fiancé in particular. It was very much a hormonal thing, but that doesn’t make it ok. She once yelled at him for getting her normal fries instead of curly fries and then yelled at him again when he went back for curly fries because it took too long.
I called her out on it and said she was overreacting and he was doing something nice for her (in gentler terms though). She would take a few minutes to breath and then she’d always give him a genuine apology.
cpagali wrote:
I say mild YTA for not talking things over with your brother first before talking to her.
Affectionate-Can-279 wrote:
NTA. Mom of two. There's no reason to act like that CONSTANTLY. Both my pregnancies were high risk and everything that it comes with. There's a certain way to act. And that's not it.
CollegeWarm24 wrote:
YTA. If you were really worried about your brother, you should have gone to him first and said “you seem stressed out when she says X” and gauged his reaction. You’re assuming that based on how he looks? You mention she’s lashing out (although I’m not sure what all that entails) so clearly she is stressed as well.
Now she also has her SIL telling her she’s being rude when no one else in the family is having a problem with her (including her own husband apparently). You should’ve minded your business unless asked to step in or had better evidence from your brother that this specific behavior was upsetting him.
Clearly, no one can agree on his one - some think OP is fully in her rights, and others think she overstepped. What do you think about the situation?