'AITA for bringing up that my wife treats our daughter differently than our sons?' UPDATED

"AITA for bringing up that my wife treats out daughter differently than our sons?"

First of all, I have always encouraged and advocated for healthy and close mother\daughter relationships, and have never discouraged neither my wife or daughter from each other.

But I've been noticing things for years now, and after beating around the bush for such a long time, I decided to bring it up to my wife. For maybe around three years now, she's been treating my daughter way differently than our sons, whether it be about fairly innocuous things like serving her first at mealtimes or by hugging her goodnight but not our sons.

On birthdays and christmas, my wife gets our daughter enough presents to nearly send us into bankruptcy, but refuses to allow me to do the same with the boys. There have been times where our sons come up to her, asking for her to come and see a picture one of them drew or a toy they'd discovered under the couch and my wife will ignore them until they give up.

My daughter will come up, asking for her to play, and my wife agrees immediately. I've tried to pick up the slack with our sons, while still spending time with our daughter, but my wife accuses me of favoritism.

Two days ago, my oldest son came up to me and asked why 'mommy didn't love us anymore ' and that was the last straw. After they went to bed, I asked my wife to come and sit down with me and said that I love she had a great relationship with our daughter, but that she barely pays any attention to our sons and that it was putting a strain on the whole family.

She said that I was being ridiculous and nitpicking, that there was no such thing going on, and after accusing me, once again, of favoritism, she made me sleep on the couch.

We've been playing nice for the kids' sake, but I still see how special she treats our daughter and how horribly she treats our sons while also wondering if I'm at fault for any of this and if I went about it the wrong way. Any input is welcome.

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

RandoInABando said:

Hard NTA. If your child, unprompted, says something like "why doesn't mommy love us anymore" something is wrong. That's outside of what could be purely your perception

lilsting10 said:

Mate, at several times in this message, you sound like a complete pushover. What your wife is doing to you is gaslighting you. What she's doing to your sons is emotional neglect.

Used2BPromQueen said:

Oh wow NTA but your wife sure is. So my mother did this in reverse. My brothers mean the world to her. Literally her entire universe revolves around them and it always has. I figured out really early on that my mother didn't love me for whatever reason and it messed me up.

I need you to really listen to what I'm about to say OP..... my father ONLY saw the favoritism because she was careful around him BUT when he was at work she was down right cruel to me. Whether you want to believe it or not, stop and think..... if she's showing that much favoritism IN FRONT OF YOU how do you think she's behaving when you're not there to see???

I'd ask him the same thing as your boys "why doesn't mom love me" and he'd make excuses for her. Tell me "deep down she really does love you". I came to hate him for that. Hated him for defending her. Hated him for never seeing the 'real' her. Hated him for allowing me to grow up like that. I hated him for not saving me.

She said that I was being ridiculous and nitpicking, that there was no such thing going on, and after accusing me, once again, of favoritism, she made me sleep on the couch. Boy talk about deja vu. Check out narcissistic parenting - scapegoats and golden child. I hope you do better than my father did.

And Reisevi3ber said:

You are definitely NTA. Your wife is heavily favoring your daughter and neglecting your sons, which is a deeply unhealthy dynamic that will harm each of your children greatly. You need to get that under control now, to prevent even more psychological damage to your kids.

It’s absolutely heartbreaking how she treats your sons, and if she doesn’t rectify her behavior, you need to get your children out of there. I think your best bet at the moment is putting your foot down, telling her that you will not tolerate this any longer and that she either does individual and couples or family counseling, or you will have to reevaluate your marriage.

Good luck OP. Keep standing up for your sons!

frsotsybab said:

NTA. Your wife should love each kid equally. It sounds like she loves your daughter more than your sons. That can be extremely damaging for your sons, especially if they already asked yiu about it. I know it's a personal question, but did you wife express preferences while she was pregnant? (did she say that she would prefer a daughter?)

OP:

She never outright stated it, but when she found out it was a girl, she was much more excited.

UPDATE:

Since my wife and I are both working at home, I took the opportunity, when the kids went downstairs to play, to broach the subject again. I told her about our sons had been feeling, and that this could and would be severely damaging towards how they might function as adults.

I also said that not only is she hurting them, but she's damaging our daughter as well with the favoritism and that I was not going to be as passive as I was a few days ago.

She replied that I was the one favoring the boys and that I did not nearly spend enough time with our daughter. I replied that I had just spent an hour painting her nails yesterday, and that she was deflecting. She asked me if I wanted a divorce, because that's where we were headed if I kept coming at her with 'baseless accusations '.

I told her about my previous post, and that there had been a number of comments that had brought up great points regarding not only her, but myself, and that there was a chance to rectify what had been done. I asked if she maybe wanted to see the comments, but she refused, repeating her threat again.

Eventually, she stormed off, and I went back downstairs with the kids to have a talk with them. I pulled my daughter aside and asked if she had maybe noticed her mom possibly acting mean or ignoring her brothers, and she said yes. I asked how she felt about it, and she replied that she didn't like it.

We talked for a few more minutes before I asked if she could maybe start playing with her brothers a little bit more, and she readily agreed. I told her that it wasn't her fault that these things were happening, too.

Then, I went to my sons and asked about their feelings and such. My oldest son said, "I know mommy loves me, but I don't think she loves me as much as she loves (his sister)" I said that it wasn't true, but that it was okay to feel what he was feeling and that it was his right. I also tried to talk with my youngest, but he didn't understand half of what I was trying to say.

I repeated to them at the end of the conversation that it's not their fault. My wife is now effectively ignoring me, even with my attempts to get her to talk with the children so that she could say how they felt.