"AITA for telling my in-laws to not pick on my wife?"
My wife (25f) and me (27m) are trying to make plans for the holidays and this year, my wife wants to do Christmas with her family. Wife’s family are not very nice to her. They pick on her a lot. Like backhanded comments that are supposed to be jokes. Particularly her brothers, but occasionally her dad too.
So I texted her mom (52f), dad (51m), and brothers (22m, 28m, 30m) without telling her and said that we are excited to be with them for Christmas, but asked them to please keep their snarky comments to themselves.
I told them that the comments calling her immature, dumb, and annoying are unnecessary and rude and they really hurt her feelings. Her dad responded that my wife has always been a bit sensitive and this is just the way things are with siblings.
This got back to my wife because her mom sent her screenshots of the text messages and she said to please don’t create anymore drama during the holidays.
Here’s my justification for this text:
- She got a porch goose for Christmas which she asked for and she was really excited and telling all the clothes she wanted to make for it. Her brother rolled his eyes and said she was immature. Then she got really embarrassed and just seemed sad. This happened several more times when she was opening gifts.
When I asked her to show me some of the patterns for the clothes she was going to make the porch goose later, she just got embarrassed again and said she didn’t want to talk about it. (I would like to point out that she is a full time nanny and housekeeper to 3 kids so even if it were immature, she has an excuse.)
- Sometimes her brothers will just randomly call her dumb. Like at her family’s 4th of July get together, she and one of her brothers were going back and forth about roundabouts and he just shut down the conversation by saying he doesn’t argue with people who didn’t go to college and she said almost nothing the rest of the night, even after we got home.
- My wife lost a good deal of weight a few years back, but her family is constantly commenting on her food choices and how much or little she eats and few months to “keep her on track” they remind her that most people who lose weight gain it all back.
In spite of all this, most of the time her family is pleasant to be around but it’s like they just can’t help themselves and need to make these digs at her.
When I try to or she tries to say, don’t say that, it’s always “just a joke” or “you’re reading too much into it.” It’s just hard for me to see this happen. When I try to bring it up to her, she closes down or says that it’s just how her family is. I just don’t want to spend another holiday watching her try to brush it off.
Now according to my wife, my MIL, FIL, and BILs are all mad at me and according to them I have already ruined Christmas in October. Maybe I should have left this up to my wife but I know she wouldn’t do it.
AITA for telling my in laws to not pick on my wife?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
that_log_9853 wrote:
When you are there, after these rude remarks, ask the if that was supposed to be a joke. When they say yes, then ask them to explain what is funny about it. Keep doing this until they stop.
OP responded:
This is great advice! Clearly me saying "hey, stop, that's mean" isn't effective.
Mcflythrowaway01 wrote:
Your poor wife has been conditioned to this (I'm sure it was way worse long before you came along) that she cant even accept or welcome anyone coming to her defense, let alone defend herself.
Why? Because they get mad at her, and now you.
Look at your MIL. Her first reaction was to screenshot this, not even check on her own daughter to make sure she is ok. Her dad called her sensitive and minimized it as just siblings.
They have been calling her sensitive, excusing it as jokes, and punishing her for ever speaking up. Now Christmas has been ruined and i bet they will tell her that either you arent invited and she will be forced to go and deal with the abuse alone.
Or they will ban both of you from Christmas to punish her and try to force you to apologize and respect their "culture" cause thats how its always been. I'm a sister with 2 brothers, and while we joke, "such a loser for drafting that player in fantasy football," we never speak to each other like they do to your wife.
If it were me, id go into marriage counseling with her. Having an independent professional listen, may help her see that just because your family, it doesn't mean they are allowed to treat her like that. Therapy could help you both with communication strategies on how to handle things going forward. Keep being an amazing husband. NTA.
OP responded:
I've been thinking about looking into counseling. Reading through some of the comments, I realized that I need to make sure we're on the same page going forward and should be better at communicating with her on this issue. I'd also really like her to be able to talk about it without just shutting down.
bubbly_management144 wrote:
Your heart was in the right place, but you should not have gone behind her back. Doing that took away even more of her control. This should have been a conversation between the two of you. Does she know it bothers you?
How does she want the situation handled going forward? Does she want you to step in? If so, what is the plan when it happens again? How does she want to set boundaries with her family?
She already lacks power in this family dynamic and you just took even more power away from her. Instead of empowering her, you went behind her back and tried to handle it for her, which is a very patriarchal thing to do. It is absolutely understandable to be infuriated by her family name calling her, and I would have a hard time keeping my mouth shut if my partners siblings did that.
But you handled it wrong. Her family sounds horrible. There is no way I would stand by and allow either one of my kids to demean the other. It sounds like it has really hurt her self esteem. I think therapy might be a good choice for her so she can learn to set boundaries with her family.
OP responded:
I didn't even think about the control aspect, but you make a lot of good points. Someone else brought up marriage counseling and I think I'll look into it and talk to her more tomorrow. I feel like it would only make the situation worse to say "I think your family has hurt your self esteem and you should go to therapy" and marriage counseling could kind of ease her into the idea? Happy cake day btw!
venemousdolphin wrote:
NTA - you're the hero of this story, and they are mad that you are protecting her from her original bullies. Your wife probably doesn't know how it feels to be looked out for in this way, and is just accepting her usual role as the bad guy/scapegoat. Hopefully she will come around, because this is just ugly behavior, the way they are treating her.