Kate Hackett
Even the title of this just screams “assh*le”, doesn’t it?
Here we have a story from u/Inner_Information_22 who recently asked on Reddit, “AITA for implying it was partially my fiancee’s fault that my mom went through her phone, and saying we should at least consider returning the money she gifted us or the wedding?” Redditors weighed in, which I’ll share at the end, but first: OP’s story.
OP’s mom isn’t a bad MIL but nobody is super close. She’s not OP’s favorite either.
My mom isn’t a bad MIL (fiancee agrees) though we aren’t particularly close and my fiancee isn’t crazy about her. She treats us ok, but I’ve been told she is an asshole to work for. My mom is an executive in an industry where people tend to be assholes to begin with, and she is extremely money driven. I can imagine she is not pleasant at work.
OP’s fiancé works at the same company as OP’s mother, who is evidently hard to work for. The fiancé is part of a group chat that lets off steam talking about her future MIL.
My fiancee works there as well as an administrative assistant (not my mom’s) My mom got her the job to help her out as she needed something with set hours so she could attend online school in the evenings. She has a lot of friends from work and apparently there is a group chat where they heavily shit talk my mom. That actually doesn’t even bother me as I view it as just letting off steam, but here is the issue.
On a family vacation, OP’s mother got sick and OP’s fiancé let the mom watch Netflix on her phone.
We recently went on a family trip and my mom got really sick. My fiancee gave her her phone so she could watch Netflix and then we went out for the day.
While she was watching, MIL saw a text badmouthing her pop up… from there, she read everything.
Apparently someone texted my fiancee something bad about my mom (so it popped up while she was watching Netflix) and my mom opened the chat and read everything they say about her.
A family fight ensued — it was really bad.
When we came home she was sobbing. She showed everyone the chat and her fiance cussed us out badly. My sister ended up saying such nasty things she got uninvited from our wedding (we have a bad relationship anyway and she was just an obligation invite, what she said really was bad) To be fair some of it was really sexist and gross, like saying she must give really good head because how else did she get a man and he is too good for her.
OP’s fiancé tried to apologize, but Mom just yelled. The fiancé returned anger with anger.
My fiancee tried to apologize to my mom, but my mom just screamed at her. She says she isn’t coming to our wedding and if we had any decency we would give her the money back. My fiancee got mad about my mom shouldn’t have gone through her phone.
Once he and his fiancé were in a quieter spot, OP asked why she gave MIL the phone if she knew there was a possible problem.
When we went in our room I asked why she would give my mom the phone if she knew she had those messages and could get more. She demanded to know if I was defending my mom violating her privacy.
OP said they weren’t defending their mom, but thought it did seem fairly natural to snoop when you see your name.
I said no, but she never should have given her the phone, and I do think it is human nature to snoop if you see something about yourself.
OP pretty much took his mom’s side – giving money for the wedding back. The fiancé was devastated because that would mean canceling the wedding.
I said we should at least consider giving her the money back, and my fiancee became very upset as we could not do that without canceling our wedding. She accused me of only caring about my mom’s feelings, and blaming her for everything.
“NTA. Snooping is wrong. But like… we are all human. If someone had lent me there phone, and a message popped up saying shit about me… I don’t think I could NOT look at it either. That’s just reality,” wrote one Redditor.
“Cancel the wedding and refund your mom. You stir the shit pot then you’re left licking the shit spoon,” advised another.
