Hi, I have been friends with Jeremy(39m) for almost 30 years, basically my whole life, we are the same age and have been like brothers the whole time. About 10 years ago he got married to Liz(35f) and I had my reservations. I noticed a lot of red flags early on and talked to him about them as carefully as I could. She was often lazy and borderline abusive to him but she played it off as being "quirky", she is also an absolute drama queen. I got to know her and she came from a family that farms drama like you couldn't believe so i have empathy that is all learned behaviors and I just tried my best to keep the peace because he seems to genuinely love her and I dont want to ruin his happiness. She has 2 daughters age 13 and 16, they are great kids but I see her influence on them and I worry if the cycle of generational bullshit will continue with them, not my place I know but I still worry.

Liz also has a niece(21f) and the niece's friend brad(21m) living with them. Niece and Brad have nowhere else to go and are trying to get on their feet and get out on their own, a challenge nowadays to say the least, they want to find a place for the both of them because living alone is just too expensive. Jeremy originally let them stay to help them out but its been 2 years and he just wants his house back, which I can understand seeing as their place is too small for that many people. Niece has to sleep on the couch and Brad has a room but they both work nights and the house is a cacophony of noise during the day.

For months Liz and Jeremy would come to hang out at our place and she would complain for hours at how disobedient the niece and brad were and she just wanted them gone but didnt want them to live on the streets. I have a semi paternal relationship with all the kids because I talk to them like people and I agreed to sit down with them and make a budget and a exit plan to be on their own and thats when I started seeing the whole picture.

Liz charges each of them 500 a month to stay there, she claims its to help with bills and get them accustomed to paying rent, and i think thats a pretty good idea but we'll get to that. I got them jobs at the plant I work at making very stable money for the area( around 2600 a month net) and helped them set up a budget. Everytime I talked to them Liz was around and I got the feeling they had more to say but didnt want to make trouble so eventually I invited them over alone to talk. they told me she would verbally berate them over every little thing, tell them they were stupid kids, call the niece "bloated" anytime she wanted to wear crop tops (I assure you she is very much not fat but even if she was thats not okay to do), wake Niece up as she was trying to sleep on the couch and make her move so she could sit there, tell them if they gave her 100 extra a month she would do their laundry but never do it, and demand money even when rent wasnt due. Liz hasnt worked in 7 years even though she is fully capable of doing so. She confuses words all the time and expects everyone else to figure it out and if the kids don't she gets angry, Jeremy is out of town for work every other week or so and I wonder if he even sees this side of her.

I talked with my wife and we are fortunate enough to own our own home with 2 spare rooms, I offered to let Niece and Brad stay with us for a year, we would buy them beds and charge 300 a month. They would each get their own room, could come and go as they wished as long as they followed our rules, and with the economy in the shitter if they needed to stay longer we could work something out. They are planning on telling Liz this weekend and I dont want the drama I just wanna help these kids onboard to adulthood and give them a head start with savings. AITAH for not talking with Liz and Jermey first?