This 24-year-old and her partner, 31, live in the house they purchased together. At the beginning of 2023, her in-laws sold their home and downsized to a smaller house that didn’t provide as much storage as their previous home.
When her in-laws asked to put a few items in their garage until they located a permanent storage space, she and her partner said they could use their garage for only a few months.
More than a year later, her in-laws store their belongings in the garage. She’s 37 weeks pregnant, and because of her hormones and to prepare for the baby, she has been organizing their home and garage. Over the last seven months, she’s expressed to her partner that his parents had to drop by to pick up their belongings from the garage.
“It’s been well over the few months that we agreed to, and I want the space free for when the baby is here if we need to store our own things in the garage,” she said.
Since then, her partner has been constantly telling his parents to stop by to pick up their items. Every time, one parent will assure him they’ll talk to the other parent, but they’ve never followed through. She grew tired of their refusal to take their belongings out of the garage, so last month, she told her partner that his parents had until April 17th to pick up their items.
Yesterday, she reached her limit and fought with her partner when he told her she needed to take it easy with him about the situation. He reminded her that the belongings in the garage were his parents, not his, and he was not to blame for his parents refusing to pick up their stuff.
“I told him that he needs to stop asking his parents to take their things, and he needs to tell them that if they don’t take their things, I will dump it all out by the road for whoever to take,” she explained.
After the argument, her partner called his parents and relayed her threat about throwing their stuff on the side of the street. Her in-laws got anxious and told her partner they’d drop by and pick everything up immediately.
Once her partner’s parents arrived, they only took six items with them and left everything else in the garage. As they left, they assured her they’d come back within a few days to pick up the remaining items, but she didn’t think they meant it. She wants to stand by the April 17th deadline she came up with.
“Maybe they think I’ll take back what I said because they grabbed a pathetic handful of items? My partner thinks I’m being crazy and very disrespectful. He tells me I have no right to throw out someone else’s things,” she shared.
In her view, she gave her in-laws plenty of time to stop by, and it was obvious that they would never have taken any of their items out of the garage if she hadn’t told her partner she’d throw everything on the side of the road.
Since she told her partner about this deadline, and he passed along the information to his parents, she realized she should honor it. She’s attempted to be kind and allowed her in-laws more than a year to get their stuff out of her garage.
Time is also of the essence since her due date is in only three weeks, which is, coincidentally, also when her in-laws are taking a vacation abroad. All of their belongings need to be out of the garage as soon as possible.
What advice would you give her?
You can read the original post on Reddit here.
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