'AITA for apologizing to my mom on behalf of my wife so we could have a smooth Family Day?' UPDATED

"AITA for apologizing to my mom on behalf of my wife so we could have a smooth Family Day meet up?"

My wife and I have been married for a year and a half and we have a seven month old toddler. We've both gotten along with our respective in-laws really well and have never really had any issues.

Last week my wife and my mom had gotten into a verbal spat regarding not sending photos of our son to her, (apparently my MIL had forwarded some photos of a while back) and my mom was bothered that she hadn't received them. I wasn't there when the call happened, and heard two very different sides of the story.

According to my wife, my mom had said that it's her right as a grandmother to be kept in the loop and my wife's duty to do so. According to my mom, she said she just would like to be included and would also like to be sent photos if possible. We had a Family Day weekend (got cut short due to the weather) hangout planned with my sister and her family.

My sister took my mom's side, we talked and it was clear she thought my wife was in the wrong. On Wednesday I was talking to my mom, the whole argument got rehashed and it just slipped out from my mouth that my wife was really sorry about what was said. I then pressed my mom to bury the hatchet too. My sister learned about it and was cool with it too.

Our get-together at my sister's went well, and everyone was cordial. When we got back my wife said she was pleasantly surprised at how welcoming my sister was, all things considered. She then asked me if I had said anything. I said I'd pressed everyone to get over it. She asked if I'd apologized on her behalf, I said yes that it slipped out but I ran with it.

She got extremely angry, said she regrets going, and now wants me to either make it clear that she's not sorry, or she won't be meeting my mom or sister anymore. I think now that everyone has gotten over it, what good could that do?

I do get her POV that she feels I shouldn't have spoken on her behalf but I just thought this was I'm the one who actually ended up apologizing and everyone got past it. AITA?

The internet did not hold back one bit.

Salty_Citrus_Sweet wrote:

YTA because by the sounds of things you wouldn’t have even told your wife if she didn’t explicitly ask you.

Apologising on your wife’s behalf undermines her position and right after doing so you could have easily corrected yourself, but you didn’t and went with the easiest option to satiate your mother and sister. You also could have been upfront with your wife about the conversation before the gathering, but you didn’t.

By the sounds your mother is being very entitled about wanting to be involved and instead of having your wife’s back, you just undermined her instead of fostering a dynamic where she is not expected to pander to demands that she is duty-bound to be including her MIL. Obviously it’s nice if your mother is included and in the loop, but in a natural way and not under duress or through point scoring.

It’s normal to expect that your wife has a closeness with her own mother and as such she will share more. Your mother could have gone about improving the relationship / connection / communication without all of the entitlement and pressure, to be more privy in a way that is actually pleasant.

By apologising you’ve co-signed the entitlement, undermined your wife and swept an opportunity for learning and boundary setting under the rug. All for what, avoidance of your own discomfort during the family get together? I’d be pissed too if I was your wife tbh.

Sask_Mask_User wrote:

INFO why is it up to your wife to send your mother photos and updates on your child? If you now know that your mother wants this, why haven’t you been doing it? I know that it would be easy for your wife to do it at the same time, but why is it your wife’s responsibility and not yours?

OP responded:

I'll be taking the charge in sending my mom photos of him hereon. I just don't take photos of these things and my wife is great about recording everything digitally so whenever she'd take a picture of him I'd ask her to send it to my mom too and she'd be perfectly happy with doing that. I don't know what happened and why but I'll just start becoming better at this myself.

[deleted] wrote:

I mean, that solves the easiest of the problems, but what about the rest? Because as it stands, your wife won’t be coming with you to any more “family days.” YTA. You’re very obviously used to placating your mother, which leads me to believe your wife’s version of events is what really happened.

You know you’re supposed to be on your wife’s team now, right? If you can’t stand up to your mother on your wife’s behalf, your marriage won’t survive long term.

OP responded:

It's not about placating my mother. She lives far away we see her only a few times a year. I'd just like those few occasions to go smoothly. If we were seeing her regularly then I'd be all for hashing out the issue. My wife has been my partner for over 3 years. She's the person I am closest to.

This morning I told her I had just wanted to get this issue done with so that the few times we see my family can be happy occasions. And I can ask her to do me a favor to this end because she's my wife but I can't ask my mom that. She said my apology humiliated her, but the way I see it, she came out the bigger person, but it was wrong of me to apologize on her behalf and I again apologized to her for that.

She insists she was in the right and wants to let my mom know that and I agree she is but I asked her to just let this slide and be the more reasonable one. We've dropped the subject for now.

Four days later, OP shared an update.

Update: I ended up talking to my mom about it. I had thought that with a bit of time my wife would come around to the fact that it was best to just move past it, but it didn't. My mom asked me how my wife was doing and I told her she was still pissed about the whole thing.

My mom was surprised since she thought we had all agreed to move on, but I confessed that I had lied because no one else was willing to take the initiative. I also told her that my wife is her DIL, not daughter, she can't have any expectations from her, as her son I'll be the one sending pictures from now on. She apologized for what I had had to put up with and the position I was in.

After I had spoken with my mom, I let my wife know that I confessed. She said she was sorry that I had to do this, and has been very kind to me. I wish that either her or my mother had been adults and chosen to be the bigger person about this.

Knowing both, my mom probably said something entitled, and my wife retorted with something incisive. My mom is set in her ways and will be unreasonable, the reason I was asking my wife wasn't because I thought she was wrong but because I thought she was the more reasonable one.

The commenters continued to share their responses.

[deleted] wrote:

INFO: Is there a reason your wife doesn't like to send photos to your mom? Is it that your mom puts them on social media without your wife's consent? Is it that your mom has a history of disrespect for your wife? Is it that your mom wants to be seen as a great grandma without helping at all?

OP responded:

No, she had never had an issue with sending my mom photos. It is understandable she'd send more to her own mom than mine. Anyway I'll be the one sending my mom photos from now.

bananaqueen26 wrote:

You’re f#$king pathetic. You haven’t had to put up with anything. Your wife has had to put up with you and your entitled disrespectful mother. You did humiliate her when you should have had her back. This is enraging.

FloppiPanda wrote:

"Because I thought she was the more reasonable one."

Cool. So. You believe your wife should placate your unreasonable mother because that's what you've always done.

So much so that taking away your wife's agency and lying to everyone around you was your path of least resistance. Must be weird for you to cohabitate with a vertebrate after all this time.

killnotunalive wrote:

“My mom probably said something entitled” so you know your mom was probably in the wrong but you still tried to get your wife to apologize. Yeah YTA. Definitely are a mama's boy used to giving in to her demands. Learn to stick up for your wife or you might not have one for much longer.