[UPDATE] – AITA for telling my sister it’s not my fault she has children?

This is an update to my original post – https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/KkFdZoquZc

I didn’t think I was going to write an update to this at all, but I got a few messages and requests for an update, so here we are.

My Sister and her Husband came by today as promised. They actually came over much earlier than I was anticipating and left a couple of hours ago, so I don’t know if I managed to say everything I probably should have at the time, but here’s the gist for those of you who wanted to know.

It didn’t take a genius to see that my Sister wasn’t doing too well. She normally takes pride in her appearance and how she dresses, while I’m usually the one to prioritise sleep over putting on a full face of makeup. But when she turned up this morning she looked as if she hadn’t slept in days, she had no make up on and she was just wearing some loungewear. Not overly important details except that she didn’t look like my Sister at all.

She immediately apologised as soon as she walked into the living room and hugged me before I could say anything. I hugged her back, because she’s my little Sister and no matter what, I love her to death. It also occurred to me that it felt as if she’s lost a tonne of weight and while she’s always been slim, this worried me a bit and any residual annoyance I might have felt dwindled quite quickly.

A lot of you guessed that my Sister is pregnant with baby number 3. I’m sorry to disappoint, but this turned out not to be the case.

As it turns out my Nephew (M4), her eldest son, has been diagnosed with Autism and has been having some major behavioural problems as of late. He’s always been a rambunctious kid and prone to a tantrum, but I put this down to him being a child and didn’t think too much of it. Apparently he’s been having huge meltdowns at nursery school, leading to him being violent with other kids and members of staff, and it’s led to my sister having to leave early from work on very short notice and has had to call in sick several times when he’s in a bad way. Due to this, she’s been called in to a disciplinary meeting which might lead to a formal hearing, and it’s really worrying her.

She’s also incredibly worried about what her son’s life is going to look like and how much support he’ll need moving forward.

Her Husband is there for her, of course, but he works a job where he needs to drive hours away at a time, so isn’t always at home in the mornings when things are at their worst. His Mother lives alone in another part of the country, and our parents aren’t able to do a whole lot of babysitting as our Mother still works and our Dad has bad problems with his back.

She acknowledges that her behaviour was totally uncalled for, but that hearing about me being in a position to be able to cut my hours when she’s worrying about even having a job in a couple of weeks really triggered her, and that she’s been on medication for her mood for several weeks now as it is.

I told her that of course I understood how her position could be stressful and upsetting, but if she had trusted me with this info and confided in me as a Sister, of course I would have been there for her in any way I could have. Her Husband cut in at this point and assured me that they were both incredibly grateful for every time I and my own Husband had helped them out over the years, and he didn’t want this to be something that caused our families to drift apart.

My Sister agreed and again she acknowledged her mistake and admitted that she feels like recently things have been really difficult for her while my life seems to be falling into place. She said that even when I was at my lowest, I still did everything with an air of confidence that she has always lacked, and that even when I didn’t know where my life was going I always held my head high and saw the positives. Something she is really struggling to do right now.

She also told me that she told our parents about speaking to a doctor and being on medication for depression, but had asked them not to say anything to anyone, which is probably why they wanted me to go easy on her.

Overall, I’m not mad anymore and I know that deep down my Sister is happy for me, she’s just in an uncertain situation right now and it got the best of her.