Kate Hackett
In law relations seem to be a relationship of extremes: you either have great in-laws and love each other or it’s fraught and strained. While perusing Reddit’s AITA sub, you get tons of stories like this one… but people are super split on a recent post.
Redditor u/CherryBlossom7997 recently wondered on Reddit’s famed Am I The Assh*le sub:
“AITA for refusing to make my husband apologize for what he said to my mom at dinner table?”
Let’s check out her story.
So, I f31 recently got married to my husband Scott m36. Before I met him I was engaged to my former fiance Martin, but we broke it off because this relationship was sort of pushed by my family because he’s a doctor and comes from a wealthy family. When our relationship ended mom was devastated.
OP explains that she’s married to her husband, but before they were together she had been previously engaged. When that didn’t work out, OP’s mom was crushed and tried repeatedly to get them back together.
She did her best to bring us back together, For example she lied to Martin about me being pregnant to save “us”. That was years ago now we’re all on good terms including Martin. Mom has a bit of tension towards Scott, she treats him well but constantly makes passive, nagging comments about him. She compares him to Martin all the time which bothers both of us but we try to let it slide.
She explains that her mom has mostly quit it but there’s still tension regarding her husband. They both just try to leave it alone and keep the peace.
Mom kept telling Scott about the diamond ring, new car, and bank account Martin got for his fiancee and kept sending him photos saying how generous Martin is to his fiancee than compared him to Scott and what he had done for me. I told her stop doing this and she apologized.
OP explains some comments her mom had made previously, so this is an ongoing issue.
Last week, we were over at my parents house for a social gathering, lot of relatives came and we had dinner. At dinner table mom asked Scott if he saw the text she sent him the other day, he said he was sorry and that he didn’t notice. She told him to check it right then and read it out loud so everyone at the table could hear. He took his phone and started reading the text out loud.
And then, at dinner, her mother told Scott to read a text out loud at the table. This is just cruel and WEIRD.
Her text mentioned how Martin got his fiancee a new house and how generous he was, then said that Martin is younger than Scott, yet was able to buy a house. Basically shaming Scott for his inability to buy a house. She wrapped up by saying that Martin maybe wasn’t so bad for me afterall.
The text was, as you can imagine, horrible. It was all about how much better the old fiancé was than Scott, the current husband. And so Scott let one rip…
I was shocked and Scott was pissed obviously, however, he didn’t lash out or anything he looked at the text, smiled and said “you know, what gets me about this entire text is how you were a public educator for 30 years, yet you can’t differentiate between the passive “you” and the contraction “you’re”, Good God! The thought of all the children that must’ve been left behind!”
He insulted his Mother In Law’s spelling, everyone laughed, and the mom was furious. She and OP’s sister yelled at her and OP defended her husband. They eventually left after OP said no, she wouldn’t make him apologize.
Everyone at the table busted into laughter and mom’s face went pale. She decided to leave the table then she and my sister started yelling at me saying Scott was being awfully rude and I need to get him to apologize immediately for embarrassing mom at the table. I refused to tell him to apologize then pointed out how she was being judgemental towards him, she defended herself saying she was just letting him know and he had no confidence and took it personally. I left but kept getting told to talk to him and get him to apologize for what he did.
Phew! So like, totally not the asshole, right? I can’t fathom why Reddit is split on this, but here we go:
Ahhh, I see it. Fair, right? She shouldn’t let this keep going… but it’s also the husband’s battle to fight if he wants, isn’t it?
“Give your mother clear guidelines: example — ‘If you ever speak about Martin, or text, email whatever to my husband, I will go NC. It is rude, bullying, and upsets him,'” u/HelpStatistician wrote.
