To help out my friend?

[MarilynMoanroe]

A close friend of mine has moved back to the marital home after leaving 2 years ago. She and her ex husband have been fighting through solicitors and never seem to get anywhere.

She had to leave the rented house and decided to change the locks on the old house and move all her ex's belongings into the garage. This happened without him knowing whilst he was at work.

The children they have are caught in the middle, so I'm having them to allow the dust to settle. The police are also involved as he tried to break the front door down.

My husband doesn't want me to get involved and he doesn't agree with what she has done. But I'm just trying to help with the children and get them out the cross fire.

We had a bit of a disagreement over this, so aibu?

I don't think you should get involved in respect of siding with one or the other so your DH is NBU about that - but equally YANBU to remove the children from a potentially violent situation and support them.

It's really none of your business.

how are you intending to 'get the children out of the cross fire'?

YABU - stay out of it. To be honest, I should think if he has been locked out of his own house and she has sneaked in and changed the locks....I am not surprised he tried to break down the front door.

Your mate is BU - obv we don't know the story but really, you jut can't take the law into your own hands. Why did she leave the home in the first place.

I would stay out of it.

Holly - she says she is having the children so I imagine that is what she means.
I agree with Doris.

YANBU... Surely both of them would prefer the children to be out of the way and not witnessing all the crap you've described? Don't get involved beyond that, but be a safe haven for the children.

The "none of your business" crowd are always well represented here.

It is really nice that you are having the children for a while, to get them out of a distressing situation. I think that's really kind, and helpful.

Obviously, it's not up to you to intervene in any way with the dispute between the couple, unless you think someone is in danger (there's no indication of that in your post)

But perfectly reasonable to provide an nice, calm environment for the children. Though obviously their father has a right to say no to this if he's not happy with his children being looked after by you.

As long as you're not taking sides or getting involved any further than helping out with the kids, YANBU

Some friends of ours are separating at the moment and it's turned really nasty, I refuse to take sides but am happy to help out with the kids

As a child who was caught in very similar circumstances (situation escalated to my mum and dad having a very public embarrassing row in the street culminating in mum running dad over!) ywnbu at all. I would have given anything to be removed from that situation and not having to see what I saw, but our neighbours preferred to stand and ogle rather than offer us a kind word. As long as you stick to offering help to the children as opposed to getting involved in the adult fight I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. I would suggest though that by having the children at your house for any substantial length of time that there is no way you'll be able to stay neutral and not show a clear preference to your friend!

Providing both parents welcome your help then YANBU at all. I think it would be best if the kids didn't witness their behaviour.

They really are disgraceful letting it get to this though.

I'm not taking sides. It was my offer made when my friend told me how distressed the children were last evening. I thought it would protect them from witnessing the initial fall out.

I've known the children since birth and they are the same ages as my children so they are busy playing and have eaten a good lunch.

I think you did the right thing by protecting the children from witnessing their parents fall out.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, the children do deserve to be kept out of it.

My only cautionary advice would be to only deal with this aspect and keep out of the legal/housing issues that are bound to arise in the next few days/weeks.

Well both the grown ups involved are unreasonable but I think removing the children and giving them a safe haven is a good idea.