What would you do if a younger cousin who you don’t really know needed a place to stay? Would you let the cousin move in with you?
That’s the situation in today’s story, and the two cousins still don’t know each other very well. Instead, the younger cousin spends most of her time at a neighbor’s house, and the older cousin thinks this might be a problem.
Let’s see how the story plays out…
I’m (30f) taking care of my little cousin (17f) because her grandparents (she lived with them before me) couldn’t take care of her anymore.
We barely knew each other before she moved in and at first she’d stay in her room all day, she’d sometimes come out for meals but would usually just eat in her room or not eat at all.
She also tried running away 5 times in the first 3 weeks that she was here.
The cousin really likes an older neighbor.
At the beginning of the month my neighbor (82f) invited me and my cousin over for dinner (her husband died and her kids live in different states so she invites me and the other neighbors over pretty often for some company) and my cousin hit it off with her immediately.
She’s at my neighbor’s house for hours every day now and helps her with her dog and runs errands with her and they cook and bake together and watch movies every weekend.
My neighbor says she loves having my cousin over and says my cousin is like “the granddaughter she always wanted” (she doesn’t have any grandkids).
And my cousin says spending time with my neighbor makes her feel less homesick.
The cousin is even doing better in school.
And since she started hanging out with my neighbor, she hasn’t tried to run away and her attendance and grades at school have improved a lot.
But she spends hours a day there and doesn’t even try to spend time with me.
I even heard her say she wishes she could live with the neighbor instead of me.
She is considering limiting how much time her cousin spends with the neighbor.
She’s been here since the beginning of February and I still barely know anything about her except that she likes theatre and dance.
I’m thinking of limiting the amount of time my cousin spends at my neighbor’s house to an hour a day on school days and 2 hours on weekends but I’m not sure if I should because it seems to be helping my cousin and neighbor a lot.
It sounds like she’s jealous of the neighbor’s relationship with the cousin. I don’t think she should limit their time together. Instead, maybe she should try to spend time with the two of them.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…
This person summarizes the situation.
She’s being pretty selfish.
She’s obviously jealous.
She definitely shouldn’t limit the time they spend together.
She needs to talk to her cousin.
She should be happy for her cousin instead of trying to cut off her happiness.
If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.
