After hosting his fiancée's brother for nine months, this man withdrew an offer to house his fiancée's sister too when he discovered conflicting accounts of how long she intended to stay.
Should you be held to your word to a family member when the terms of the agreement change?
My dad has a saying he repeats often: "Fish are like family. They both stink after three days."
I never really thought about where this saying came from until now, but a quick search reveals that this version approximately originates from Benjamin Franklin. Franklin's own version was "Fish and Visitors stink in 3 days", and he took it from older sayings. The 16th-century writer John Lyly wrote, "Fish and guests in three days are stale." And the idea generally appears to go back to the Roman playwright Plautus.
Either way, the meaning is the same, and I have often found it to be true. As an adult, spending 3 days constantly around anyone, even your closest friends and most beloved family members, after 3 days together, you're going to start to get on each other's nerves.
There's no two ways around it. That's just the way it is. Go ahead and prove me wrong if you'd like; that's my challenge to you.