Woman Refuses to Help Homeless Sister Due To Petty 'High School' Drama -- Why Does Internet Agree With Her?

A secret pact, and broken sister code, has come to haunt the two women well-into adulthood

A woman has taken to the internet for advice after refusing to help her homeless sister.

The story, posted to an anonymous forum on Reddit, detailed a broken pact from years before that still haunts the two siblings to the point that they have been estranged ever since.

While many of the themes in the story were highly relatable, it was the extremes things were taken to that seemed to captivate readers on the AITA (Am I The A--hole) forum.

Read on to see how OP (a.k.a. the "original poster") became estranged from her sister and how the past she left behind was brought right back into her life.

Original AITA Post on Reddit

"Before we got married my husband used to live in a nice little house that he kept and added my name to the deed and we use as a vacation home now," OP wrote, kicking off the post. "We only use it two or three times a year and so we do sometimes let friends or family stay there for a few days or a week if they want to get away."

"This has never been a problem for us," she went on to explain. "But now we were asked to let my estranged sister and her husband stay and I said no. My husband is in 100% agreement with me on that. My sister and her husband are at this present time homeless. They were renting for several years and in the same place a long time but got kicked out due to issues with their landlord and they're in desperate need of a place to stay until they can find a more permanent place."

OP then gave some background on her history with said sibling.

"My sister and I were very close growing up. My best friend for my entire childhood was a guy. The guy who is now married to my sister for those who can probably guess. I always had a huge crush on him and honestly I was in love with him by the time we were 20."

She went on to detail how a secret pact was made between her and her sibling.

"My sister also had a guy she liked but not super well. When I was 20 we were all at a party and the guy my sister liked flirted with me. My sister was pissed even though I didn't flirt back and told him I wasn't interested. She told me we don't do anything with guys the other liked. I agreed. I never would have done that to her anyway."

Of course, this would not be an AITA post if the pact was upheld by both parties.

"A year or two later my relationship with my best friend changed. He was flirting with me and I was flirting back. He was more physically affectionate and he started kissing me and it felt like we were slowly becoming more than best friends."

However, "Things were progressing like that and then suddenly I discover that him and my sister were a couple and had started sleeping together. He told me he wanted to keep his options open and my sister told me she really liked him and she wanted me to understand."

"I called her a hypocrite for doing that when she turned on me for the guy she had liked flirting with me after I turned him down and then promising and making me promise we'd never do this to each other. She told me it was different. I told her I would never trust her or look at her the same way again. They told me I didn't own him. I told him he was f--ked up for leading me on when he wanted my sister. Our family took my side afterward, especially my other two siblings. I haven't seen or spoken to my sister or her husband since."

OP then returned to the present.

"It's our parents who helped set up the request for a place to stay. And they were disappointed when I said no," she wrote. "My other sister and brother are firmly on my side and they were disgusted my sister and her husband would even dare ask me. My sister said at least I get to live out my dream because I'm married with kids and she can't have any. And the least I can do is put aside petty childhood drama to help them not be homeless. My sister and her husband called me a bitch for refusing and even my parents said I was going too far with the estrangement by refusing to help."

Internet (Mostly) Agreed with OP -- But Why?

As noted above, OP mostly received support on the Reddit forum with the highest rated comment offering a piece of practical advice.

"NTA but are you concerned that they might go to your cabin anyway? I would make sure to secure the property and locks," they wrote, getting thousands of upvotes.

"Not too worried because we had the locks changed recently so nobody else could let them in," she wrote in reply.

When another tried to bright side OP by saying, "You owe your sister a big thanks. She got the guy and is now homeless. You got a runner up and he gave you a holiday house," she replied "I really don't. Even though my ex-best friend turned out to be a huge dick. My sister still treated me like shit."

Another commenter weighed in, explaining why OP's decision was a good one in the first place: "They will be homeless due to 'landlord issues' means they are being kicked out. They will become squatters in your home. Never let someone who is homeless due to irresponsibility (financial or otherwise) move in. Never let someone who is jealous of what you have move in. She will take, take, take and justify it in her mind thinking that the universe owes her."

When someone else asked, "[Do] your parents host two separate holidays with you two being estranged?" OP replied, "They don't. My siblings and I (the actual siblings I talk to still) take turns hosting and our parents can choose if they go to us or to my estranged sister."

"Don't ya just love it when people say YOU are going too far, it's family, blah blah...but THEY don't step up to help because it might put them out," another Redditor observed. "Parents can help out or why don't parents ask the other siblings or hubby's family. People who have had issues with their landlord (for a long time) are NOT people you want in your home. Stay firm."

When another asked why her sister and ex-best friend didn't just stay with their parents, OP wrote, "I have no idea. They probably just don't want to."

When it came to criticism, it mostly consisted of commenters believing, as one put it, "Sounds like you never got over this guy-- that must be super uncomfortable for your poor husband."

To which OP replied: "I got over him. Never got over how my sister treated me."

"The amount of people that think the guy is the problem in this situation is blowing my f--king mind," insisted one Redditor, going on to assert, "What she cares about and will (entirely rightly) never forgive is a sister that treated her like garbage as revenge for something OP didn't even do. The issue is that OP's sister is a shit person. How is that not clicking??"

This inspired OP to write back: "I think some people just see it as jealousy that she got him. But the way she treated me was not sisterly, it wasn't how you treat family and it's not how you'd treat a friend either. And she knew. This was not her being unaware. She knew what it would do and she didn't care and acted like my hurt at the time was so unreasonable and selfish."

Some were taken with the junior high / high school nature of the drama that neither party ever got over -- as one wrote: "Why does this read like tween age fanfiction drama?"

However, when another noted, "the whole back story reads like jealous teens who try to one up each other," OP wrote back, "I never tried to one up her. I loved and supported her and never did anything to hurt her. But she treated me horribly."

Elsewhere, she also explained that the estrangement had been going on for roughly "11 or 12 years".

When someone else noted that "20 year olds do stupid shit when it comes to relationships," she continued to defend the years-old grudge, saying she was "happy I don't have her in my life after she treated me like she did."

What do you think?