Man gives his sister's husband toy utensils because of the way he treats her

A man turned to Reddit with his own petty form of payback: act like a child, get treated like one.

The 17-year-old explained that he'd been living with his sister and her husband for a while. His sister is heavily pregnant and "looking after a two-year-old niece, so the Redditor tends to "help out here and there."

However, his sister's husband "does nothing" and puts it down to being "the breadwinner."

"In my opinion, he's taken it a bit too far," the Redditor penned, adding that this often leads to arguments because "he'd tell her to start his laundry once he takes off his clothes, put dinner on the table once he's home, get the shower ready and so on."

While the brother tends to "mind his own business and put his headphones in", one instance prompted him to act.

His brother-in-law was "complaining about dinner", and despite being already cooked, he wanted his wife to put it out. Subsequently, the Redditor insisted he'd do it.

He explained: "Instead of using their kitchen utensils, I used my niece's toy utensils like toy cup, toy plate, toy fork and knife and a tiny napkin. I put the food on the toy plate and the drink in the toy cup."

The brother-in-law "stared at the plate for a few seconds", assuming it was a joke – to which the Redditor responded if he "wanted to act like a helpless child, then he might as well get treated like one."

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

His sister found it hilarious, but her husband quite literally threw his toys out of the pram.

He "threw the napkin and stormed off upon saying that I'd disrespected him and that he'll let my parents know about what I did," the Redditor explained before asking the platform whether he was unreasonable.

Hundreds of users inundated the post with their own takes, which certainly sparked a debate.

Some Redditors believed that it wasn't "his place" to get involved, with one saying: "Ok, so this is funny as hell and he TOTALLY had it coming, but we all know you should have stayed waaaayyyy out of this." They added that he "might have actually made them fight more. Abusive people like your BIL often take these things out on people like your sister."

Another agreed, commenting: "I agree that while it was DEFINIETLY well-deserved, it probably wasn't the smartest thing to do -- for OP, since he needs to make sure he still has a place to live, and for the sister for the reasons you said."

Others, however, disagreed. "I say 'not the a**hole' firmly - in doing what he did, OP proved to his sister that she does not deserve this treatment in ways that a simple talk with her might not have."

While another Redditor called the brother-in-law "a controlling narcissist."

"The stigma of 'staying' out of a certain situation is the same as 'pretending' the situation doesn't exist," they said.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.