'AITA for not wanting to expose my toddler to cigarette loving family members?' UPDATED 2X

"AITA for not wanting to expose my toddler to cigarette sm*ke?"

Are we the AHs for wanting to ask my husband’s family to go outside to sm*ke? My husband (28M) and I (27F) have been invited to his Aunt and Uncles house for Thanksgiving this year, along with my Father-in-Law’s (FIL) immediate family. The uncle is FIL’s brother, to help connect things.

My husband’s parents are divorced so the holidays consist of mostly stress, running around to everyone’s celebration and, without a doubt, someone being upset they didn’t get, “enough time”. Add that to now having our first child (16mo) that everyone wants to see and celebrate with and we’ve got ourselves a pretty large s-t show.

That being said, we’ve been invited to go to his Uncle’s for Thanksgiving this year and they live out of state. This eliminates the requirement of running around, which my husband really hates, so that alone makes him want to go. However, his Aunt and Uncle take cigarette breaks in their house. We went for Thanksgiving two years ago, while I was pregnant, and they had cigs while sitting right next to me.

To those who may be thinking “maybe they didn’t know”, we told them in September when we found out and I was almost 20 weeks and showing at Thanksgiving. So they knew. Anyway, we’ve previously mentioned the smoking to FIL, who has been the one communicating between us and the Uncle, and he said that they, “wouldn’t smoke around” said child.

For those who know, and maybe those that don’t, being in a different room doesn’t negate being affected by the sm-ke. It makes everything smell like cigarettes, you can still be inhaling it, I personally get heinous migraines from it and the science is in, we know it’s extremely harmful for children. So it’s not great and we don’t want to put our child in that kind of environment.

We don’t feel like we can ask them to go outside though. It will likely cause an issue given that any previous request for accommodations, such as asking to be able to spend time with my family and miss some of their celebration, resulted in toxic conflict. We also feel it may be disrespectful to ask them to change how they operate in their own home.

I’ve always been taught that you should accommodate the guests you invite into your space and therefore feel that we should be able to ask this of them. Especially since we’re asking with the health of our child in mind and not because we just want to be difficult.I feel I should also add that, respectfully declining the invitation in the interest of the health of our child will likely also not go over smoothly.

Any invitation, big or small, that we have declined previously, regardless of the reason, has been met with hostility. It usually consists of both aggressive verbal conflicts and emotional manipulation. So it feels a bit like, unless we just shut up and go, we’re screwed no matter what we do.

I apologize for the lengthy post, I wanted to make sure I gave enough detail for others to understand. Please help, we’re stressed and don’t know what to do or how to handle the situation. Are we the AHs if we ask them to step outside or in the garage while we’re there? Are we the AHs if we decline and stay home? Send help.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

TheQuietType84 wrote:

You're going to go get a migraine and all come home smelling like cigarettes for days, just to avoid turning off your phones? You're adults, parents even. You can turn your phone off when they're ab-sing you. You can refuse to answer your front door. You. Are. An. Adult. They can't punish you unless you let them.

peachesfordinner wrote:

I'm sorry but you need to set a boundary of not staying in a house with people actively sm-king in it. A toddler still puts everything in their mouth and that whole house is probably orange with tar. And don't fall for the family guilt.

Thanksgiving with one family. Christmas Eve with another. And Christmas Day. That's enough to visit both divorced parents and your own family with much less running around. It wasn't right for you to go while pregnant, do your child right and don't put them in that environment again.

Tekno_420 wrote:

First off you’re asking people not To not smoke in their own house. Good luck, even if they stop when you are there the house is going to smell like smoke. I would stay a hotel or a non smokers house. You should consider nt even going because of them smoking in the house.

BishlovesSquish wrote:

If they smoke in there, not doing it for a few hours really won’t matter. It seeps into everything. You can’t get away from it unless you stay away. My mom doesn’t have cigs inside when I’m there, but everything still smells positively awful when I leave.

Second hand smoke is so much more toxic too because there is no filtration like there is when a smoker inhaled through the butt which is the filter. A filthy habit, and unfortunately, extremely add-ctive.

The next day, OP shared an update.

A few things. First, thank you to everyone who commented. We’ve found it really helpful and some have even been educational. Sometimes going to your friends who will always take your side just isn’t enough so it’s nice to know that there are many strangers who think we’re not insane.

So thank you.

Second, I asked my parent’s opinion on the situation in the interest of ensuring I didn’t misunderstand the lesson I learned in childhood. i.e. “Accommodate the guests you invite into your space”.

Essentially, they said the same thing the rest of you did. We can’t DEMAND that they do anything within their own home and we definitely can’t ask upon arriving on their doorstep. Which was never the plan. Some of you commented that we were well within our right to ask, as long as we did so in advance. I should have clarified that that was our intention, which is why we’re asking now.

Third, I asked my brother’s opinion as well because he’s really good at looking at situations from all sides and providing an unbiased opinion. Again, he said the same things you all did. So that makes us feel better as well. Lastly, there were many of you who said we need to grow backbones or be adults, etc. While you are correct and we agree, the development of backbones is a current work in progress.

The toxicity and manipulation that occurs with this side of his family in particular is a fairly recent revelation for the both of us. Our eyes were not “opened” to this behavior until I was pregnant and our priorities shifted from appeasing they to said child. So we’re still in the process of learning to identify the manipulation, as it is ever changing as we continue to be resistant, and how to handle the situation.

While I am well versed in dealing with toxic family members and their tantrums (thanks mom), my husband is not. We (unfortunately) cannot just turn off all 25+ years of training he received to appease and pacify them and instantly be good at putting our foot down. We’re getting there, hubby’s in therapy and it’s helping a lot, but the holidays are especially difficult so we needed a little extra help.

As of right now, I think our plan is to decline the invitation and see the families we have here while doing our best to keep our kiddo on schedule. The more I read your comments about 2nd and 3rd hand smoke, the less inclined we are to going. We’re still stressed but feel a bit better knowing we have people on our side. Update to come on their reaction to the declined invitation.

The internet was invested in the update.

Think_Effectively wrote:

Definitely NTA. All the years I was a sm0ker I never sm0ked in front of children. Not just because of the smoke. I just did not want to be that kind of influence on them. Same with everyone in my family/friends. Of my generation anyway.

Don't know if it is because my Dad and his friends were heavy smokers. lol it was no fun being a passenger in his car during the winter. The windows had to stay rolled up, the heat had to stay blasted, and he would chain smoke. Different times ha ha.

Four days later, OP shared yet another update.

Again, thank you to everyone who commented and supported us. It really helps to know that our choices are correct when we’re constantly told we’re in the wrong. Second, hubby called them on Tuesday. It was supposed to have been a team effort.

Him tackling these things alone has lead them to believe that he’s just parroting my words and not that we make these decisions together. Thus aiding in painting me as the bad guy. This was discussed and remedied.

Anywho, hubby called and stated “We would love to come and see you for the holidays, but we don’t want to put our kid in that kind of environment and expose him to those kinds of things. We know that that’s how you choose to live your life so we’re going to respect that and politely say no thank you.”

They then returned with an offer not to s--ke in the house and to deep clean before we arrived. Honestly, we’re absolutely FLOORED. Never in a million years did we think they would offer that, let alone do so without conflict or resistance.

While I’m sure there will be things said behind our backs or dirty looks shared while we’re not in the room, we don’t really care. If it’s not important enough to say to my face, I don’t need to know about it. At least dirty looks won’t give my kid diseases. We’ll see if that actually do like they said. So maybe it’s not the last update…

The internet was still invested.

ChrisInBliss wrote:

We'll see how that turns out.. one thing before ya'll travel there "ask" (aka remind) them if they cleaned. Also be prepared to just...get a hotel for the night and likely head back home because they didn't follow through.

OP responded:

That’s the plan. Plus I plan to recruit sister in law, stepmom and the grandmother who all hate the sm-king as well and will be glad to not be around it. They’ll say something if they “forget” to go outside.

sometimessnarky wrote:

Or smoke in the car. Second hand smoke exposure is a leading cause of pediatric ear infections.

OP responded:

We won’t be in the same car as them, we’re taking our own as our kiddo still needs a car seat and we have no interest in taking it out of a bunch of different cars.

swbarnes2 wrote:

It's a gesture, but it's not possible to deep clean out the residue of years of smoking. Even the next owners of the house will be smelling it.

OP responded:

Luckily, they’ve only lived there a few months. That’s part of why we’re willing to go because it will and can be cleaned and they won’t smoke in the house.