Fellow Redditors, I urgently need some advice on this heavy family matter.

This is a long story, so I if you could give me your time, I truly appreciate it.

Here’s the rub…

Early 2025, my wife and I were getting ready to move out of our apartment and buy a home. Suddenly, my wife’s uncle (we’ll call him Booty) had a stroke. This was in February. Booty at the time had been living with my wife’s grandparents for over 20 years. My wife’s grandparents have dementia, which had been affecting their memory greatly, aside from their decision making. After the stroke, my wife worried greatly for her grandparents’ wellbeing; we thought they’d be all alone. My MIL, Booty’s only sibling, had been taking charge of their grandparents’ appointments and Dr.’s visits for some time now, even well before the stroke. The problem stays being that my MIL lives an hour away from the grandparents. I myself decided to ask my wife if she thought moving in with her grandparents would be a good idea. We could be there for a while taking care of them and making sure they’re okay while my MIL tried figuring out something more permanent for them care wise. Now some trouble. See Booty has a son and daughter who took it upon themselves to remove some of his valuable things from the grandparents home. This included his 3D printer, computer stuff, his gaming console, Booty’s jeep (which he was still paying off and had under grandpas name), etc… This starts an odd ripple between the family bc my MIL finds it weird that they’re doing such things. We all respect Booty and his things and never would’ve thought to appropriate them. Still, MIL and Booty’s daughter have a heated situation which ended with them putting a wall between the two sides of the family. Meanwhile, Booty miraculously survives his massive stroke. I say miraculously because the doctors had no idea how. It’s not as if it came out of nowhere. Booty was living good, but not living well. Constant drinking, fast or greasy street food on a daily basis, he even confessed to snorting blow a few times a week for a while. The man was constantly stressed and depressed, but he was only coming and going freely from his home to try and distract himself from his misery. All that aside, his survival was happy news to the entire family. Although, it was short lived. He was left physically disabled, and now struggled to walk and speak appropriately. The good news here is that he seemed to have kept his cognitive function. Still, he is disabled and his children decided to take him in to try and care for him.

Then, the grandparents accepted us in their home and we began our mission to move in and take care of them. Before my wife and I move in, we decide to take a space they have set up for storage in the backyard. It’s enough space to stay in comfortably. Problem is it’s full of things, including belongings, memorabilia, tools and above all, a lot of junk piled up throughout the years. Now about 50% of all this stuff belonged to Booty. So with my MIL’s help, we begin clearing out the space, getting rid of junk and things that can be donated. The things that belonged to Booty, we decided to keep them and place them in a shed for him, one my MIL paid for. So my wife’s family and my family come together to turn this tiny hoarder room into a livable space. We spend the next month getting rid of junk and moving things around, while also renovating and fixing things around that room. It all comes together, my wife and I are finally able to move in, and we can begin our mission to take care of the grandparents. We moved in at the beginning of May, 2025.

For 3 solid months the living situation was perfect. We had established a routine with the grandparents, we were buying them healthy foods, making good filling dinners for them, making sure their meds were taken and overall ensuring their comfort. The problem really begins when Booty decides that he wants to move back in. He claims “it’s his home and he wants to be there.” We gracefully welcome him back to “his house” with open arms. We make him apart of our routine. At least we tried. See Booty made his own routine aside from ours. This included him waking up, making his coffee, sitting in front of the tv and watching it all day, going to his 3D printer and back, having dinner then going to bed. Almost every day, the exact same thing. It was going okay for a bit, that is until Booty starts to show his true colors, then the problems start. Now, Booty doesn’t like being wrong. He likes to argue his point and gets it across no matter what. He thinks his way is correct and he has little interest for other peoples opinions on things if he feels he’s right, which was a lot of the time. This causes him to get mad and yell at the people around him. He would ask the grandparents for help with things and when they couldn’t do it right, he yelled at them. If grandma, who has worse dementia, would misplace something’s he needed to use, Booty berates her. He obviously has issues. He also is massively lonely and depressed. He often complained about having no one, not being able to go anywhere and live his life, being stuck at home wasting away. Wife and I see this and thought he really just needs someone there with encouragement. We try. We console him. We hear him out. We try to be there for him. We take him out now and then. We encourage him to not give up because of his disability and to try and live the life he has left to the fullest. I make it a point to help him however I can if he needs it. Which he did. This included mainly him buying things that needed to be put together or stuff around the house, cleaning up his room, bathroom and 3D printer area. Things I’m good at and like doing. I would do it because I truly feel joy in helping my family when I can. He appreciated it and that’s all I ever asked for.

Wife and I start to realize that he’s really relying on us bc his children don’t come around. It’s a major cause for his depression. We keep this up with high hopes, but they were quickly taken away. See what we didn’t realize was that Booty was manipulating his situation by playing two sides. He was still in good contact with his children, they just wouldn’t come around much, not even to see their grandparents. They would each come about once a week. They would come and take Booty out for a few hours and then drop him back off. Anyway, when he was having problems with them, he would turn to us. When he felt he was having problems with us, he would turn to them. This was causing even more disdain from all of us because we are all trying to be on Booty’s side.

Then, the money thing. Because of the gov. shutdown last year, Booty was struggling to make payments on bills and couldn’t buy the things that he wanted. It was okay though, because he’s never had to pay rent, he doesn’t have any huge bills to pay aside debt and my wife and I were both working at the time. Couple that with the grandparents being comfortable from retirement, things were okay for him. BUT, for months Booty complained about not having enough money, nearly every day. Suddenly one day, the complaints stop. The packages begin to arrive. Many orders coming to Booty’s name. We finally catch on about a month later and bring it up to my MIL. She confronts him about it and he finally decides to tell us he’s getting money again. Meanwhile he was not contributing or worrying about finances at all, at least for the house. We can tell, but he begrudgingly begins to offer support now and then for some fast food meals and small groceries. Sadly, the man loves his junk food. The healthy snacks eventually started turning into bags of chips, loafs of butter bread and frozen meals. It’s almost as if he was undoing what we tried establishing. We try to keep up the healthy food, but the amount of waste was ridiculous. We decided to keep the snacks light. Thankfully, like I mentioned, part of the routine would be the grandparents eating light during the day, and we have at least a good filling dinner for them. This included feeding Booty. He was never ostracized. Wife and I made it a point to serve him every day for dinner at least. That’s aside the random lunches I would prepare and include him in. I wouldn’t keep a tab, but I know that I’m trying.

Now, the attitude and behavior problem. We noticed that Booty would get a lot of interest in things if they benefited him. If wife and I were going out, we let grandparents and Booty know. This prompted questions from Booty. “Where are you going?” “What are you going to do?” “When will you be back?” “What were we going to do for dinner?” Also, the comments, which included “I guess I’ll just be here.” “I’m just going to stay here and watch TV I guess.” “Okay bye.” “Well I guess I’ll figure out dinner.” Mind you, dinner was never a hassle. I need everyone to understand the man is not lost. The man before the stroke is still very much in that disabled body. His restriction though, did not stop him from being who he was. It started getting to a point where we felt guilty. Guilty for going out. Guilty for wanting to spend time together alone in the back. Guilty for starting dinner too late. Guilty for not being readily available for him. Guilty for forgetting a few belongings inside the house. I honestly felt guilty many times for even living there. Wife and I are a young married couple in their mid twenties. We want alone time. We want to go out and do things. We want to have dates still. From being a completely free young couple and having no one to take care of, to becoming half/full time caretakers was a bit of change.

Things remained the same, and it got to the point where we felt we had to sneak out the house or leave while he’s not aware so we don’t feel bad for trying to live our lives while still being there for them. It was ridiculous. This was how we lived now. He was making us feel out of place and uncomfortable. Aside of this, it was about a year and a half of bad attitude, negative comments, berating from someone we’re trying to support and all together just attitudes and behaviors from Booty that would put the people around him down. This mainly affected my wife. My wife basically grew up with him. It was terrible. I love my wife and am ready to defend her at a whim. The amount of times she came to me sad, frustrated, aggravated, flustered or straight up crying was countless throughout that year and a half. I tried my best to put it above me and be there for my wife, reminding her that it would be okay, that she’s strong and that he just needs some patience. Patience ran thin, though. Specifically because I had to keep seeing my wife in distress. You can call her, or us, sensitive, but anyone doing something out of the kindness of their heart will likely hurt over a situation like this. Constant negativity starts to wear you down, and wore down we were.

Cut to this week. My wife is now 6 months pregnant. She had been trying to secure a work from home position from her job for about 8 months. It was a struggle because they kept pushing her timeline back. She finally starts this week. There’s a spare room, which used to belong to my MIL, next to Booty’s room. This is the perfect room to set up a little office for her. Booty has the 3 wifi routers set up in the home all in his room. Might as well use this room next to him. Problem is, it’s another hoarder room. No problem. I start my decluttering process. Again, 50% of all things in the room are Booty’s. Things he doesn’t even know are there or hasn’t seen in months/years. With everything I grab that’s his, I make sure to ask if he wants it or not. The others things, my MIL helps me decide whether it’s donated or kept. Monday, we get it done and I set up the desk and all that for my wife. Small problem is there’s no ethernet port in that room. I simply decide to run a long wire from one of the routers in Booty’s room to my wife’s setup. I make sure to line it up to the room and the doors trim, keeping it out of the way so it’s not trouble for Booty. My wife gets set up and we find out she can use wifi, so no need for the Ethernet cable. I decide, let’s keep it here just in case, I’ll tell Booty about it. Booty, before the day is out, decided to get on the phone with his daughter to start and complain about the cord. This makes her daughter “worry about him.” Worried we’re encroaching on his space. He explains we’re not. Still damage is done and wife is annoyed bc he’s complaining, again, about a small thing. I go and take the cord out, no questions asked. I walk in and take the obstruction out of his way. Tuesday starts, wife is working from home. She overhears a conversation between Booty and his daughter about her being there working. Still claiming we’re trying to take over space. She’s annoyed and I’m getting annoyed. We set it aside. Wednesday, wife doesn’t work because, we have a birthing class and a prenatal appointment. It’s also my parent’s wedding anniversary, I decide I want to go make them dinner. MIL takes care of food for the grandparents and Booty.

If you have made it this far, I truly appreciate your time. This is where it gets good.

Thursday: Wife starts her work at 8:30. Wife takes calls for work. She doesn’t even get a whole lot during the day. It’s about 10am. Booty’s caregiver shows up (yup, he has a personal caregiver that goes to take care of him only, and he berates her too) and he starts screaming at the top of his lungs at her. He is completely hollering, making a ruckus first thing in the morning. All the while, wife is on a work call trying not to get reported for background yelling. He’s not realizing how he can jeopardize her position. She could be written up, reprimanded, or worse (in her eyes lol), be forced to return to office full time. It’s only her second day working from home. She gets validly annoyed. Grandpa gets worried. Grandma is probably woken up from the commotion. This was all apparently Booty joking around with his caregiver. Wife goes to tell him something, obviously stressed, and the man’s response is “too bad.” Wife becomes distraught, but tries her hardest not to come to me. She can’t do it and eventually comes to me. I had a late night before. Had just woken up and was using the restroom when wife comes in crying about the situation. I had enough. I absolutely had enough of my wife coming to me in this state because of Booty stressing her out. Now he’s jeopardizing her job?? I go right up to Booty and start absolutely going off on him. I’m not holding back. I’m expressing myself very angrily, but I’m being clear. I’m yelling right at him and explaining why. He starts yelling back saying “what are you talking about?” “All you do is be in the back” “why are you yelling at me??” He claims to have been “joking.” The screaming at the top of his lungs was him “just joking,” and so was the “too bad.” Funnily enough, he always seems to be joking when showing a lack of decency or respect. I’m still going off trying to speak my mind when wife walks in. At some point, the grandparents come in and start trying to yell at me for how I’m acting. Grandpa yells at me to get the hell out. I yell that Booty is doing this to us and I’m standing up to him. Booty starts trying to blow me off and wheels himself (he’s in a wheelchair that he can move himself around the house with) to the kitchen counter to get his coffee cup. I’m still going off. I’m also standing right next to the fridge, which has a bottom and top door. He goes up to the fridge still trying to blow me off. He swings the freezer door right in my face. I slam it shut. He tries to open it again and I slam it shut. He tries to push me away by shoving at my chest from his chair. All I do is move his hand away from me because I don’t want him touching me. He tries the door once more and I slam it shut. He yells at me and rolls away to the living room. I’m not done. I go after him because I need him to see how mad I am at him for being this way. He argues I don’t do anything around the house, claiming I’m “always in the back.” I guess him not seeing me every hour is enough to convince him that I’m sitting in the back all day with a finger up my butt, or something. I keep trying to explain myself, very angrily, and he finally just yells out “what are you talking about?!” I just couldn’t do it anymore. I say “forget this then.” I walk up to my wife and tell her we’re out of here. And that was the last time I spoke to him.

What follows: we spend the rest of the day frustrated, thinking if we should really leave. I call multiple family members for help and advice. I’m feeling like garbage for what I did and how I acted. Everyone is saying I did what I had to do and that they’re proud of me? I couldn’t believe it. I mean at the end of the day, I quite literally yelled my ass off at a disabled man in a wheelchair. I felt guilty and shitty about it all. My wife and I tearing up because now we’re going to have to leave the grandparents. The ones who I wanted my wife to spend as much time as she could with. Everything we had done, all we had established and worked towards. It felt like it was all for nothing. I felt at fault. Everyone is saying I’m in the right, though. Wife, MIL, FIL, brother, among others. How?? I quickly learn some hard truths. I call my MIL after deciding that we really should move out. The man won’t change and things would just be getting worse. On top of that, I’m not raising my child around him and his bad energy. My MIL begins to explain how irate she is at Booty. He apparently has always been this way. She had said this before, only now I really understood. He has been handed most of the things in his life, and been protected by his parents whenever things became difficult. Many times, my MIL was the one they defended him from! She had put up with that same behavior, attitude and energy for over 20 years, which got worse once my wife was born. She was so mad that it had happened to us. She was so angry that he had pushed us to that point. Me specifically. I felt less lost. Less confused. I still felt very bad, but I understood what kind of person I was dealing with. At this point, I am completely grateful and have a heart full of love because multiple family members were all willing to open their doors and take us in. We make the conscious decision to go stay with my parents, because they live only 15 minutes from the grandparents, allowing us to stay close if anything happened. We loaded up what we needed right away and left. Not easily. Grandpa didn’t want us to go. Grandma barely understood what was happening, but grandpa was taking it hard. He began tearing up, saying “the wrong person is leaving.” This really hit my wife and I hard. I mean the man has dementia, but is able to recognize that we’ve been there for them for over a year and a half. He somehow knew what he was losing. Although we knew he probably wouldn’t remembered well after, we still couldn’t believe his response. We left for the day.

Friday: my mother is admitted to the hospital for her 4th round of chemotherapy. I’m feeling grateful that I can be close to her again. We spend the morning at home trying to decompress. MIL goes over to grandparents house to clean up a bit, wash clothes, take them food and make sure grandma takes a shower. Wife and I go over to help a bit, pick up our dog’s food and some more clothes. Booty is gone with his caregiver all day. As soon as we’re about to leave, they show up. Only the caregiver gets down, she brings in food Booty bought for the grandparents. MIL tries telling her some truth about the situation. She explains now also that Booty needs to pick up all the crap he has around the house that’s in the way and stuff it in his room. He has a lot of crap all over the house. Caregiver seems understanding and she takes off alongside us after about 5-10 mins of being inside. Not without a few honks from Booty waiting in the car, though. Wife and I go back to my parents and plan on going to visit my in laws later. My wife eats and I make some tacos for my mom. We go see her and decide to go to my in laws after being there for a bit. Being with my mom was short lived and the next part is what this whole story has been leading up to.

The confrontation: my MIL has a ring doorbell camera set up at the grandparents. She also has a side camera, a camera I helped set up in the front living room and one in the back living room where the 3D printer, and a bunch of Booty’s junk is. The cameras aren’t to spy on Booty. The cameras were initially set up to keep an eye on the grandparents when no other able bodies were home. I’m at the hospital with my wife seeing my mom. I notice my wife start to become worried. I ask her what’s going on because I obviously see her getting frustrated and mad. Apparently, Booty, his daughter, his son and his ex wife decided to file an adult protective services report for the grandparents. They claimed neglect, mainly using MIL’s distance as an argument. There was also an incident the weekend before where grandpa had fallen outside in the backyard. Thankfully nothing crazy happened, a strain on his wrist was the diagnosis. A brace, some pain meds and we were on our way. These people decided to include this in their narrative, which is exactly what they went to do, at the expense of the grandparents, the ones who have dementia and don’t really know why this situation is occurring. The fall happened when my wife and I weren’t home. Booty had no idea grandpa had fallen. We learned of what happened when we got back and we decided to take him to the hospital to get checked. They failed to mention that. Side note: grandma was historically upset and crying out of worry when we took grandpa to the hospital that night; instead of consoling her and explaining what happened, booty sends my wife a message asking her to “call grandma because she’s really worried.” The police showed up at the house and they began filling out a report. They mentioned my yelling to Booty, using the caregiver as a witness. Their main argument there was me slamming the freezer door shut 3 times. They failed to mention he deliberately swung it open in my face 3 times, while also attempting to push me away, as in, he made things physical with me. My wife and I decide we need to get over there and check on the grandparents. By the time we show up the police officer is gone and they’re all back in the living room. Now the back living room camera was disconnected and taken away, we have video of them putting it down, but we have no idea who took it or where it is. Thankfully, the front living room camera was on and recording. Wife and I walk in. Game plan is, ignore. It goes exactly as I expected. As soon as we step through the door the daggers are shot at us. We don’t care. We’re there to make sure the grandparents are fine. I go straight to them and begin asking how they’re doing and if everything’s okay. I do this in Spanish. My native language is Spanish. The grandparents native language is Spanish. I literally always speak to them in Spanish. Something these people would know if they were around enough. The ex wife start saying “why don’t you speak in English so everyone can understand,” I ignore her and she eventually calls me a stupid Mexican. At this point I just start laughing. Things like that are comical to me. They spend the next hour to hour and a half trying to get a rise out of us. Trying to get us to react. My wife and I give them absolutely nothing. We just stare and make facial gestures at each other the whole time. It’s all being voice recorded, and my MIL is watching the whole thing. They eventually start getting ready to leave. The gall of it all? Booty’s ex wife starts joking with the grandma in Spanish. It’s was a true comedy scene for me. Booty rolls himself to his room. His people start to head out. My wife is heating up food for the grandparents. While they ate, we bring up what happened. Not even half an hour after that family left and the grandparents had already forgotten the police showed up and spoke with them. We stayed a while longer after they ate. We talk to them, making sure they’re okay, trying to decompress ourselves. They then say they’re gonna start getting ready for bed. Grandpa wasted no time and went to his room. Grandma followed a minute after, but Booty stops her and calls out to her. He starts asking her to go and get something from him in the living room. He doesn’t explain what correctly and grandpa is confused about what to look. She takes him a bag, it’s the wrong thing. She takes Booty a box, it’s the wrong thing. He starts getting frustrated. We’re sitting on the couch the whole time and we had started recording. Grandpa comes out to see what’s going on. He’s already brushed his teeth and is in boxers. He goes to Booty’s room to figure it out and we capture him getting a bit frustrated, but you can tell he holds back, he knows we’re there. Grandparents come back to the living room on a scavenger hunt and they don’t know what exactly they’re looking for. Booty starts claiming wife and I took it. What?? At that point I just couldn’t even be surprised. It’s all recorded. This is what he does. He’s disabled, so he sends his dementia ridden parents to go and do things for him, then gets angry and berates them when they can’t. Ridiculousness. They eventually find what he’s asking because we tell them what he’s looking for. They all go to their rooms and shut their doors. Wife and I stay on the couch for a bit talking to MIL. We decide it’s time to head back to my parents. At this point it was almost 11pm and things had thankfully settled down. We go to say bye to the grandparents, about an hour after Booty’s family left. They didn’t even remember their niece and nephew being there, let alone Booty’s ex wife. The funny part here, grandpa says, “we’re not missing out on much.”

This is my current situation. They want to follow through with this APS report, and go with what they told the police. All I need is some advice on how to continue handling this matter. Any insight on ramifications that might come my way. I’m not going to back down. The grandparents deserve better. I have come to love and appreciate them so much. I grew up living in a different country from all of my grandparents. I wished my whole childhood to have them near me. Being in that house and spending time with those grandparents healed something in me. What can I do? How can I defend myself/them better? Should we move back and not back down? Any help is amazing and will have my full gratitude. Thank you for your time.