Our family is available to help us when we need it, but we can’t expect them to significantly adjust their lifestyles only to accommodate what we want all of the time. We must accept responsibility for how we conduct our lives at some point, and we must make adjustments if we are continuously fatigued and stressed out. However, life is rarely as simple as that. Read this story and let us know if you agree with this sister’s request to her younger sister.
Source: Reddit
Okay just writing the title like that made me feel super guilty, but please hear me out before judging too harshly.
I (38 F) have 4 kids ages 11 months, 3, 5, and 10. I love them all more than anything, but I’ll be the first to admit that our house is in constant chaos and it can get very exhausting. My sister (33F) is child free, but loves my kids and was happy to watch the older 2 or sometimes 3 to help me keep my sanity. This has been extremely helpful and I tell her all the time how grateful we are for her help.
The thing is that the kids used to go over to her house, but right now they couldn’t because my sister was fostering an elderly chihuahua. My sister claims she couldn’t have them over for the time being because they would stress out the dog. Her dog was extremely frail and timid so I think this was a fair assessment. This was the 4th dog she has fostered, all of which couldn’t be around my kids. This most recent dog took 8 months to find a home for, but most of her other dogs took even longer. When she told me she found an adopter I knew I could finally breathe a sigh of relief and joked about how I was so glad she could babysit again.
My sister proceeded to tell me that there was a second dog that desperately needed a new foster, so she planned to take in that one as soon as her current dog was gone. So, she couldn’t do any more babysitting than she already is (sometimes she comes over to my house in the morning to help out). I could literally feel my stress levels spike. I haven’t ever done this before, but I opened up to her about how much I have been struggling since she got the dog. How little sleep I get each night, how my husband hasn’t been helping as much as he should, and some other deeply personal issues that I’ve been struggling with. Then I asked her, point blank, to not get another dog.
She comforted me, but ultimately didn’t agree on anything and said she needed some time to think. I know I am asking a lot of her since rescuing dogs is her passion and that is why I feel so guilty. But I don’t have anyone else to help me. I can’t afford a babysitter long term, and my friends all have their own kids to look after. Above all, my kids will always come before a dog and that’s the reason I was willing to request it. I’ve told a few different people about the situation and gotten a wide range of heavily biased opinions. Was this unreasonable? I would never demand her to do this if she didn’t want to, but is it really so wrong to just be honest about my situation and earnestly ask?
What do you think about this situation? Here are a few comments on the story where it was originally posted:
