'AITA for asking my wife to choose our family over hers?' **NEW UPDATE**

Three weeks earlier, OP shared:

"AITAH for snapping at my mom and hurting her feelings after she referred to my wife as a 'single parent'?"

I (35M) went on a family outing over the weekend with my wife, kids, MIL, FIL, and my parents and my mother said something that didn’t sit right with me and I’m not sure I handled it well.

OK, I know I didn’t handle it well since I snapped at her in the zoo food court and took my son and walked off, but I’m not sure if “not well” equals “being the AH.” My wife, in-laws, and parents all seem to think so but I hope some unbiased opinions might see it differently.

There’s a lot I’m dealing with at the moment in terms of my marriage and a divorce is a possibility. Long story short: I lost my job when my wife was pregnant, leaving her as the sole breadwinner, she kicked me out for six months, I moved back in after getting three jobs (all of which I still have), but I’m living in the basement, no intimacy or physical contact of any kind, and we’re starting marriage counseling this week.

I posted for some anonymous feedback, most of which was solidly in the ‘she’s being abusive’ and I’m being ‘a simp/martyr’ category and, as a result, I’ve been taking a long, hard look at all the relationships in my life, especially with my family.

Which brings us to last weekend when my wife made plans to take both our kids (5M and infant daughter) to a pool party event at our local zoo with her parents and mine, but not me. I mentioned my exclusion and she had several reasons for not inviting me which aren’t really relevant here, but when I pushed and asked to be included, she relented and invited me along.

That was the start of the issue. Her parents aren’t that fond of me right now (or ever) and my own parents are more concerned with keeping the peace with my wife, so as to not risk losing contact with my kids if divorce comes to pass.

So, my joining the zoo trip upped the tension immediately as my in-laws assumed I pressured my wife into letting me come along and were barely civil and my parents were clearly worried that I was going to cause some sort of argument or blow up which, in hindsight, was probably a valid concern.

It started off with little things. My wife was carrying the baby and my mother insisted on holding my son’s hand and walking as far on the other side of the group from me as possible. My son was playing in the animal themed bouncy house, and had long exceeded the “allowed” time, but when I tried to get him, my mom told me to let him have his fun and stop wrecking the mood.

When we all went for a ride on the little train that goes all around the zoo, I was the one in the last car by myself while the grandmas each had a kid. The only time anyone actually talked to me was to ask me for something out of the diaper bag, send me off to buy waters and sodas, or tell me to lighten up.

Everything came to a head when we went to the food court to enjoy the AC (it was like 100 degrees outside) and some snacks. My wife is usually very anti-sugar, so no candy or cookies, but my mother bought my son two bags of Skittles anyway and when I tried to tell her not to, she gave me some line about grandma knowing best and getting special privileges.

But the problem really came when we all sat down and my mother started talking with my wife about what it was like to have two kids, both so young.

For context: I am an only child and my parents have said repeatedly over the years that that’s by design. They only ever wanted one kid. They’ve also mentioned, more than once, that my mom had a miscarriage before she had me, so there’s a layer of I was the “second choice” crap in there for me to deal with.

I understand that they didn’t actually make a choice and all that, but there’s been more than a few incidents in my life where they took someone else’s side over mine, including when my wife kicked me out and they refused to let me stay with them, that feeling second best is sort of baked into my DNA.

My mom told my wife that’s always impressed by parents who can handle multiple kids because she knew right from the beginning that she couldn’t do it. And she said it was especially impressive when those kids are both so young and such a handful. All good, all true, no issue so far. And then my mother said to my wife that “it must be even more difficult doing it as a single parent.”

Remember that I am not my wife’s favorite person right now (and her parents really don’t like me.) But I swear to you, every one of their heads snapped up when my mom said it, staring at her with almost coordinated ‘WTF’ looks on their faces.

To her credit, my wife tried to save my mom from herself by pointing out that she wasn’t in any way “single” and no matter what’s been going on with us, I’ve always contributed to taking care of the kids which was the most credit she’s given me for anything in a year and a half.

My mom nodded along and said that “of course, you’re not actually single” (and everyone tensed because we knew the ‘but’ was coming) but I’d left her alone for six months and that even I’ve admitted that I’d failed her as a partner so even though I was back in the house now, she could only imagine that my wife probably “felt” like she was still doing it all on her own.

No one spoke up for me that time. My emotions have been right below the surface for months and I couldn’t tell if I was going to cry or throw one of the bags of Skittles at my mom or both. I usually favor a ‘shut down completely’ kind of conflict avoidance but I just couldn’t do it.

I stood up, probably more forcefully than I needed to as my chair almost tipped over, stepped around my mom, collected my son from his seat (with his bag of candy) and started walking away.

Someone asked me where I was going and I snapped, without even looking back, that I was taking my son to see the penguins and we’d meet everyone back at the cars. It would be good for me, I said, to get “some practice as a single parent, so I don’t fail at that too.”

It sounds way more badass than it was, since I had started crying by then and my voice cracked and made me sound like a whiny teenage boy but it made the point. My parents left while my son and I were at the penguin habitat, leaving it to my in-laws to drive the rest of us home.

My FIL pulled me aside when they dropped us off to talk to me privately. He told me that my mother had left in tears and that clearly she hadn’t meant what she said in that way and I shouldn’t be so sensitive about things like that since I was the one who messed up in the first place and even opened the “single parent” door.

My wife said much the same thing after we got the kids to bed, before I went to the basement to work my online job. And I’ve gotten four or five “I’m sorry you feel that way but” texts from my mother - and one “apologies heal” text from my dad - since. I drop the kids off at their house every morning before I head to work and yesterday and today, my dad was the only one who came out to greet me.

My mom’s still texting my wife pictures of the kids throughout the day but she never sent them to me anyway, so it’s not like I would have noticed it as some sort of silent treatment. So, have at it. Am I the AH for snapping at my mother and clearly hurting her feelings?

TL;DR: Family went to the zoo. My mom referred to my wife as a single parent since I'd temporarily moved out of our home for six months. I snapped at her and took my son and walked off.

EDIT: I thought I wrote it clearly enough, but I guess not. My wife kicked me out because I lost my job and didn't get a new one immediately. That left the financial burden on her and she felt betrayed and wanted space.

AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

TypicalAddendum5799 said:

It sounds like you might benefit from a divorce. You can work on yourself & have time alone with your children. I’d let your wife decide how much time she wants to devote to your parents. It sounds like you have a lot to unwrap from your childhood. Addressing all that will make you a better parent. Also look for one good job.

Less-Pirate-7619 said:

Should’ve told mom you wanted a little more practice raising the kid solo because you didn’t wanna screw him up like she did hers. I kno, i kno… im a monster. But sometimes the world needs monsters to scare over-confident, brazen people back into their tiny little corners of existence.

And Maleficent_Pay_4154 said:

I don’t think your relationship is going to make it. I’m sorry but I think you should see a lawyer to know your options. Don’t let her quit her job now. I hope counselling works out but keep your options open. Your parents are AH

Two weeks later, OP shared:

"AITA for asking my wife to choose our family over hers?"

I posted on here a bit ago about a situation when I sort of forced my way into a zoo trip my wife had planned with the kids, my parents, and my in-laws. Now, I’ve found myself in a similar situation and tried doing the opposite and it doesn’t seem to be working out any better.

So, my wife has already told me that I am the AH in this situation, even if she didn’t use those exact words. And I know nothing the internet has to say about it would change her mind (especially since I won’t/can’t tell her that I’m even posting about it) but I’m starting to question my own judgement a bit here, so maybe you all can set me straight.

My wife and I are in the middle of a really rough patch in our marriage. We separated for six months and even when we ended the separation, the issues that caused it weren’t fixed.

Long story short: I lost my job when she was pregnant, she asked me to move out, when I moved back in I was sleeping in the basement for quite a while, she’s refused any sort of physical contact, and we’ve just started marriage counseling (second session was last night.) And in MC, I’ve come to learn that her family more or less hates me. Or, at the very least, doesn’t trust me. Like not at all.

During our MC session last night, our therapist said that it was important for us to start spending more time together, both as a family (two kids) and as a couple. My wife was resistant to the idea of ‘date nights’ so the counselor reframed it as ‘exposure therapy’.

Basically, she said that neither of us will ever get past the barriers that have built up in our relationship if we continue to essentially live separate lives. My wife seemed to understand that and was fairly receptive to the idea, at least while we were in the counselor’s office.

Which brings us to this weekend. In America, it’s a holiday weekend and our family has a long-standing tradition of spending the three-day weekend at my in-law’s camp on a lake.

My SIL and her family come and most of my wife’s extended family pops in at least for an afternoon/evening or two, even if they don’t spend the night. Some of her and my SIL’s friends from high school usually drop by for a catch up, too and I know my wife has been trying to reconnect with friends in an effort to find an identity outside of just being a mom and a wife.

But, given our current marital strife, the knowledge that my MIL has actively and repeatedly tried to convince my wife that we should not be together (which I’ve known about for barely a week),

my new and growing worry that my mistakes are now a black cloud hanging over my relationships with all of my wife’s family and friends, and that due to space constraints, we’d not only have to share a room but also a bed, it seemed to me like heading to camp should be a no-go.

My wife didn’t agree. In fact, fifteen minutes after we got home from our MC session last night, she started packing up for the weekend. But she was only packing for her and the kids.

She didn’t come right out and say it, but it was pretty obvious (even to usually oblivious me) that the plan was for my family to go to the lake without me even though we’d just been told a little more than an hour before that we needed to spend time together. I tried pointing that out in as calm and as non-confrontational a way as I could, using the ‘I feel’ statements that our therapist suggested.

I said to my wife: “I feel like this weekend is a really good opportunity for us to spend time together as a family and I really feel like if three-fourths of us go to camp, that isn’t just living separate lives but making a point of living separate lives.”

At first, she thought I was trying to be included in the trip and go with her and the kids, much like I forced my way into the zoo trip. I quickly explained that no, that was one hundred percent not what I wanted (without even mentioning that being around my MIL for an entire weekend would have required my entire bottle of Xanax) and what I was hoping for was that she and the kids could stay home with me.

There’s a whole bunch of picnic and BBQ and block party events going on in and around our neighborhood and I thought we could go to some of those and spend time as a family.

In my head, starting off by doing something as a whole family instead of just as a couple would build in a buffer for her, would give me a chance to show that I can be a real partner in parenting, and would let her see me in what I know is my best light: as a dad.

That was what I thought in my head but, apparently, my head and my wife’s head were not on the same page as she said no to that idea by saying: “I want to spend the weekend with my family.”

One thing our therapist stressed repeatedly was that to have any chance at productive conversations, we both need to avoid any kind of escalation in our communication, which was probably because things escalated more than once during our latest session.

So, I took a deep breath and did not point out that spending the weekend with me and the kids would be spending it with her family. And despite what many many many commenters have said I should do, I didn’t lay out any ultimatums or ask her to cut back on contact with her family or suggest that she was planning some kind of lakeside hookup with some guy my MIL might better approve of.

But this is when I might have been the AH (or definitely was, according to my wife). I tried sticking to the ‘I feel’ idea and told her that I felt like if she took the kids and went to camp without me, esp if she went less than a day after our counselor said we needed more time together, that she was making a choice and that choice was clearly not us. So, in her mind, for all intents and purposes: I gave her an ultimatum.

Do you think she took that well and we were able to have a calm and productive and healthy conversation about it and maybe even come to some sort of compromise? Do you think I’d be posting this at almost midnight on the Friday of a holiday weekend because my blood pressure is through the roof and I can’t sleep if she did?

She told me, in no uncertain terms, that I was an AH for laying that all on her, reminded me that it was my choices that got us here in the first place, stopped packing, and after making sure both kids were asleep, she went into our bedroom (which has been only her bedroom for the last year), shut the door and locked it.

And now I have no idea if I’m going to wake up to my wife and kids waiting to hang out with me and spend the next three days together or if they’ll be on the road to camp before the sun is even up. I do know that she thinks I am absolutely the AH. And I kinda think she might be right. AITAH for telling my wife she was choosing her family over her family with me and the kids?

What do you think? AITA? This is what commenters had to say:

SickandTired1218 said:

Sir, she doesn't want to be married to you anymore. Please get far away from this toxic situation and make sure you get a court ordered parenting plan in place.

Lovebooks44 said:

I agree with the other posters. NTA but your wife doesn’t want to be married to you anymore. She clearly wants to be with her family, which if it’s a tradition is understandable, but the fact that she doesn’t want you to come too says it all. I’m sorry.

Ancient-Actuator7443 said:

I read some of your other posts. It seems like there are too many people in your marriage for this ever to work. The SIL and MIL will make sure of that. You’re being tortured. I get losing the job was your fault but that’s life you

And Flat_Ad1094 said:

I have followed all your posts and say the same still...just end this marriage. It's over. Your wife does not want to resolve anything with you. She does not want to spend time with you, at home, away or anywhere. That is very clear and I don't know how much clearer she can make it to you.

Counseling is pointless. Just move on mate. Enough is enough. Seriously? are you a bit stupid? Are you Autistic or have some issues with seeing reality? Understanding and accepting reality? This entire situation is becoming utterly ridiculous.

A week later, OP shared this update:

I got a comment yesterday wondering if my silence was a positive or negative sign (it was a sign of a crazy week at work) so I thought I should take the chance to post an update today since I have a bit of time.

I mentioned in a comment reply to my last post that my wife actually woke me up early the morning after I had basically given her an ultimatum to choose between our family and her family. She wanted to talk before she and the kids left for my in-law’s camp. TBH, I was expecting it to be the ‘I’m not coming back’ or ‘we should get lawyers’ talk, but it wasn’t.

To my surprise, my wife (I called her ‘Carrie’ on the other sub, so I will do so here, too) actually apologized. She said the comment about wanting to spend the weekend with “her family” had been out of line and intended to hurt me. She was pissed, annoyed at me because she knew I was kinda right about what I was saying, and she lashed out.

It’s not the first time that’s happened so her explanation didn’t shock me that much. But she also said that she understood where I was coming from. If we want to fix things - and we’ve both said we do - then lashing out like that needs to stop and we do need to spend time together as a family.

And she completely got why choosing to spend the entire weekend with her family, whose dislike for me had just become public knowledge, instead of being with me might have been upsetting for me.

For a moment, I thought she was going to invite me to camp with her and I’m not gonna lie, I was panicking. I was worried that right after I’d more or less demanded she spend time with me, I was going to have to refuse an invitation to do exactly that. But there was no chance I was going to willingly spend three days with my MIL or SIL, particularly not after our last counseling session.

Carrie didn’t invite me. Instead, she offered a compromise: she and the kids would go to camp Saturday and stay until midday Sunday, then come home and spend the rest of the weekend with me. There were some family members of hers who live out in California who would be there on Saturday and she doesn’t get to see them very often, so…

That actually felt really fair to me and like Carrie was putting in an honest effort to try and meet me halfway, so I agreed. They left for camp that morning and came back on Sunday, as planned, and we had a really nice day and a half together.

There was a block party kind of thing on Monday and we took the kids to that and I made sure to handle baby duty with our daughter as much as possible, to give Carrie a break. She seemed pretty appreciative of that and got to spend some time with a few of our neighbors that she’s struck up friendships with and introduced me to some of them who I hadn’t met yet.

It was… nice. It felt normal, I guess. But as the day wore on and it got to be time to head back home, I started getting anxious. The kids were wiped and would clearly be heading straight to bed, which would leave me and Carrie alone for more than the hour or so we’d had on Sunday night. If we followed the counselor’s advice, we should spend that time together.

I was under no illusion that spending time was going to result in any sort of spousal relations or anything like that, but there would have to be talking and I was concerned about what topic of conversation wouldn’t lead us to some sort of trouble.

And it felt like maybe I was right when the first thing Carrie said was that she wanted to talk about the possibility of her having those “girls’ nights” with her mom and sister.

We’d essentially punted on that topic during our last counseling session. Other things had come up that had escalated tensions and the therapist said we probably weren’t in the best place to make a good decision about any of it at that moment. But since she’d spent a day and a half with my MIL and SIL, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised it came back up.

I was surprised that she offered another compromise: she didn’t have to cut her work hours down to part-time, she’d just have to adjust hours on other days so she could leave early on the girls’ nights days and come in late the following day. Apparently, she’d already cleared that with work and could start doing it whenever she wanted, even as soon as this week.

She hadn’t been at work since our last session so it was obvious that she’d gotten all this “clearance” before we had even talked about it with the therapist. On the one hand, I could see how it was a compromise and seemed pretty fair, which was good. On the other hand, I felt sort of misled (not sure that’s the right word.)

Like she had made the compromise about the weekend to soften me up for the possibility of agreeing to girls’ nights. I’ll say that that might be me being paranoid or overly suspicious and that’s probably a direct result of how many “she’s planning to cheat or already is” comments I’ve gotten here. But just because you’re paranoid, that doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you, right?

I did my best to ignore the paranoia but also get to what was starting to worry me. I asked her flat out why having a weekly girls’ night with her mom and sister (something she’d never done before) was so important to her now, especially since both MIL and SIL are very actively against our marriage.

I said I didn’t want to cut her off from them or prevent her from having some fun and an escape, but the idea of her spending an entire night out drinking and in situations where there’s a pretty high likelihood of venting/complaining about relationships with two people who might be inclined to encourage her worst instincts when it came to our relationship made me really anxious.

I didn’t suggest that she might be using it as an opportunity to cheat; I didn’t even let on that the thought that she might find someone else had crossed my mind (or the minds of a lot of anonymous Redditors.) I stayed as far away from any of that as possible and tried to keep the conversation focused on my worries about her spending that much time with my MIL and SIL.

Carrie said she understood. She said that was a reasonable concern, especially given all that she’d shared in our sessions about her mom’s feelings toward me. And she said that, normally, she’d probably give in and stay home and spend that time with me and the kids. But, she said: “My sister needs me, right now. Her husband left her.”

Apparently, BIL left SIL the day after the family’s annual 4th of July party (my in-laws have way too many holiday get togethers) and my SIL is not taking it well.

And when SIL doesn’t take something well, my MIL takes it worse and since BIL was the golden boy, the perfect son-in-law, the one I was always unfavorably compared to, there’s a lot of upset and anger and sadness and Carrie feels like she needs to spend time with her family to support her sister.

She wants to help SIL navigate suddenly being a single parent and help her figure out if she can find a way to reconcile with BIL, and basically act like SIL’s conscience and keep her from making any bad choices while there’s still the possibility of saving her marriage.

Bad choices like hooking up with some random dude at a bar during one of their girls’ nights. Which, as I found out last night in counseling, is exactly the reason BIL left her. She cheated on him. So, my wife is asking me to be OK with her spending nights out with her mother (who hates me) and her sister (who’s a cheater and hates me) and not feel any kind of way about all that.

And even if I do, it doesn’t really matter as SIL needs her and Carrie’s already made it “all good” with work and in doing that she was “compromising” on what she really wanted and had asked for and that’s a good thing and a sign of progress for our own reconciliation and both Carrie and our therapist think if I can just see it in those terms, I’ll realize that there’s nothing to be worried or upset about.

Which is how I got here. Writing an update to Reddit while my daughter is napping in her crib next to me and my wife is on her way to her mother’s house for girls’ night which got moved to Friday night thanks to the holiday, so she doesn’t even have to worry about work tomorrow.

And I am just fine with that. Really. I’m totally, one hundred percent fine with it. I even told Carrie that on her way out the door. Go ahead. Tell me I’m an idiot. An idiot trying to cling to any small steps in the right direction for his family, but still an idiot.

I may update later on the other sub about the last two MC sessions because they were both a lot but this post was already a freaking novel. And I’m still processing everything I’ve heard from Carrie and the therapist. I’m slow when it comes to stuff like that. Let me know if anyone cares to hear about it, after you get done yelling at me in the comments.

tl;dr: Wife and I compromised over holiday weekend plans. We spent time together as a family and it was good. She still wants girls' nights because her sister's husband just left her after she cheated on him during a night out.

We'll keep you posted on any future updates!