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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/unwantedvisit on 2024-01-22 11:56:46+00:00.
About three years ago, my stepsister Daphne got pregnant. She and her husband Jim were thrilled, but found out at the 20 week scan that the baby had a congenital condition and would be born severely disabled (apologies if these are insensitive terms, I am not sure how people prefer to say it?). Daphne decided to keep going with the pregnancy despite Jim’s protests and they split up, but got back together by the time their son Liam was born. He is now 2 years old.
Over the last two years, Daphne’s (and Jim’s) mental health has declined significantly. Daphne used to be a positive and pleasant person, but now it’s impossible to have a conversation with her. She is malicious, envious, and flies off the handle at any perceived slight. When I was having my child, I didn’t speak to her for most of the pregnancy because of how bitter and narcissistic she was. We don’t live close to Daphne so rarely see her in person, but I heard she was getting worse from our parents. In early November, Daphne had a mental breakdown. She trashed Liam’s room completely and vandalised Jim’s car in a fit of rage. This was enough to finally get her moved up the waiting list for mental health services and she started therapy. She reached out to me during this time and we had a few conversations and I invited her and Jim to visit my husband and I for a vacation at our beach house in March.
Then we saw Daphne and Jim over Christmas and it was awful. Daphne could keep herself in check for a couple of hours, but then she would revert back to her old self. She would swear constantly, and while I know Liam can’t understand her, I think swearing at kids isn’t okay. Whenever I expressed concern for her she would just snap that I need to get off my high horse about having a “perfect” child. Jim was snapping at her constantly. He would also constantly ask to hold or play with my child, to the point it got annoying. Overall, the whole Christmas break was just the whole family being anxious over the situation.
My husband finally said a week ago that he didn’t want Daphne and Jim visiting, and I agreed. I called Daphne and said that something had come up with my husband’s work and we needed to cancel the trip. Daphne was furious. Apparently her therapist had been saying how good this break would be for her (they haven’t been on vacation since having Liam) and I owed her this one thing to help her. Eventually she gave up and said I was a horrible person for pulling the rug out from under her and hung up.
I feel bad if I’m derailing her recovery, and even my parents think I shouldn’t have cancelled, which is making me rethink things. They saw how absolutely horrible she was to me over Christmas, they saw how obsessed Jim became with my child, and they still think I should have put that aside, and they’re not normally the “keep the peace” people, so maybe I really am in the wrong. AITA here?