In every relationship, there are sacrifices. You watch their terrible reality TV show. You agree to go to the farmer’s market on a Sunday when you’d rather be sleeping. You learn to live with their weird habits. But then, there’s a line. And that line is usually drawn right at the front door, especially when “sacrifice” means “let’s light our entire future on fire for my grown-azz, co-dependent family.”
Our story comes from a 30-year-old man who is in a truly tough spot. He and his 28-year-old fiancée of seven years are finally ready to start their lives. She just graduated from her RN program, which we all know is a special kind of brutal. They’re planning on getting married and trying for kids in the next year. This is their time.
But a family tragedy has just struck. His mother has Alzheimer’s and is being moved into a nursing home. This is awful, and our hearts go out to him. The problem? His two younger siblings and his four-year-old nephew, who all lived with his mom their entire lives, are now effectively homeless.
His 26-year-old brother has severe autism and anxiety. His 22-year-old sister is a young mom who has been “hopping jobs” and needs support. Their dad is out of the picture. This leaves our narrator, the oldest sibling, feeling like he has to “fix things.” His solution? Move all three of them into the two-bedroom apartment he shares with his fiancée.
But here is where his fiancée becomes the hero of this story. She is the only one with a shiny spine and a functioning brain. Before he could even ask, she saw this train coming down the tracks and stood firmly in its path. She told him, “don’t even think about moving everyone in here.”
He, of course, was shocked by this. He told her she needs to have more “empathy.” But his fiancée is not lacking in empathy. She is armed with facts. She pointed out that his sister has “always been co-dependent” on their mom. She pointed out that his siblings are “too grown to be depending on their brother,” especially when he’s about to start his own family.
This man thinks he has a simple solution. They have two spare bedrooms! One was going to be his fiancée’s new home office, but he says that can “possibly wait.” He is strongly considering them moving in. For “just a year.”
A year. A full year. In a two-bedroom apartment. With a 26-year-old with severe needs, a 22-year-old who can’t hold a job, and a four-year-old toddler. All while his fiancée is trying to start a new, demanding career as a nurse and they’re supposed to be planning a wedding. I am screaming.
His fiancée, the voice of all reason, immediately called “BS.” She rightly pointed out that “just a year” is a fantasy. She said that within that year, they’d never get married and their dream of a family would be gone. He said he’d “charge them rent,” and she pointed out the obvious: neither of them has a good job. That’s why they were living with their mom. She said they’d most likely never be able to get them out. And she is 100 percent correct.
This is where our hero really goes off the rails. He asks her, “what is the point of marriage if we can’t make sacrifices together?” This is not a “we” sacrifice, my dude. This is a “you” demanding her sacrifice. You are asking her to sacrifice her home, her office, her new career, her wedding, her family planning, and her sanity.
He’s marrying her because she’s “thoughtful and religious,” but the second she shows a shred of self-preservation, he’s “seeing a whole different person.” He then had the audacity to call her “selfish asf” for not understanding.
She fired right back, telling him he was the selfish one for “throwing ‘our’ future families plans down the drain” to “support grown adults.”
And reader, she is right. She is so, so right. He is not the ahole for being in a terrible situation. He is the ahole for calling his partner selfish because she refuses to set herself on fire to keep his family warm. This isn’t a “sacrifice.” It’s a relationship-ending act of self-sabotage, and she’s the only one smart enough to see it.