Should Someone Else's Phobia Dictate How You Live in Your Own Home?

Relationships can be tricky to navigate for everyone, but when it comes to family, well – complicated sometimes doesn’t seem to cover it. We want to be gracious and loving, but sometimes people ask us to do that at the expense of our own comfort, so…what then?

This woman and her boyfriend are super into snakes and other reptiles, and they own one snake that OP refers to as their “baby.”

The problem? OP’s sister is deathly afraid of snakes. Thus far, they have mitigated this by either going to the sister’s house to visit or having a family member who loves snakes taking their “baby” for the day.

My (22M) sister (17F) is afraid of snakes, she hates them, can’t be near them. my bf (21M) is the opposite, he loves them, and we actually have one (2F).

Because of this we normally go see her or if she comes to our place my bf’s sister will take our girl for the day.

Things went wonky, though, when the sister came over for a pool party with some other family members. The snake was out of the house, but she took issue with the boyfriend’s tattoo of a snake.

So, we have a pool, and it’s been really hot where we live so we invited my sister and my parent round.

Like normal my bf’s sister came and took our snake. when they arrived everything was fine until we got into the pool.

My bf has a tattoo of a snake, it’s a blacked-out silhouette that wraps around both of his arms and his back.

She demanded he put on a shirt. DEMANDED.

When my sister saw it she freaked out and told me to tell him to cover it. (she knew about his tattoo, she just expected him to cover it, which he can’t do without putting on a long sleeve t-shirt) I told her no.

She then went over to him and asked him to leave because he knows about her fear.

OP said that if she was bothered she should leave, because this was her boyfriend’s house and he shouldn’t be made uncomfortable in his own skin.

This annoyed me and I told her that if she has an issue with it she should leave, this is his house, not hers.

She got upset and just sat inside the whole time. when they left my mom told me that I was rude to my sister and we knew about her fear and that we ruined her day.

Now I’m starting to think that I could have handled the situation better.

So AITA?

Was she wrong? Should they be more considerate of a bad phobia?

Reddit has some thoughts!

One of them is that the sister’s phobia isn’t their issue, it’s hers.