'AITA for telling my mom she is a terrible person for explicitly excluding my wife from her wedding?'
"AITA for telling my mom she is a terrible person for explicitly excluding my wife from her wedding?"
For reference, my wife is the sweetest, most hardworking, kindest person in the world. She’s been trying to get closer to my mom because she wants a good MIL/DIL relationship but my mom doesn’t like her. My wife does things to be helpful and supportive but my mom doesn’t like any of it.
My wife is a little silly and has a childlike sense of wonder and my mom frequently makes comments behind her back of how weird she is and when she would grow up. My mom rebuffed anything to make her closer to my wife.
My mother needed a liver transplant a few months ago. I wasn’t a match but my wife luckily was. She volunteered to get tested and she was the one who donated part of her liver to save my mom.
You would think my mom would be grateful? No, my mom remained cold and exclusionary to her. My mom is getting remarried. She made my brother’s wife and my sister into bridesmaids. My wife didn’t say anything but I knew she was disappointed. My mom pulled her aside to explicitly say she wouldn’t be a bridesmaid, which I thought was demeaning and unfair.
I was fed up and I didn’t understand why my mom was being so cruel. I told her she was a terrible person for deliberately excluding my wife especially for the wedding and especially after my wife had done so much for her. I told she wouldn’t even be alive for her wedding if my wife wasn’t there.
I’ve been bombarded with calls and family members have scolded me for calling my own mother a terrible person. My wife was entitled for wanting a good relationship with her MIL and I was a henpecked husband. AITA?
Here's what top commenters had to say about this one:
ReviewOk929 said:
NTA - So your wife saved your mother, who is consistently awful to your wife and the family don't see that she is consistently awful to your wife? WTF?
hadMcDofordinner said:
NTA but what possessed your wife to donate to someone who hates her? Yes, it was generous but if she/you thought that would change anything, well, that was naive. Your wife should probably avoid your mother and just get on with her life. Be happy together and don't (you or your wife) give your mother any further opportunities to be unkind to your wife.
Toni164 said:
NTA. But here’s my take. Your wife saving your mother’s life made their relationship worse. Your mom hates that it was your wife that saved her and is directing that hate to your wife
Auntie-Mam69 said:
NTA, Doesn't sound like you are henpecked at all, you are just a caring husband who sees when his wife is hurt. Sadly, you have a cruel mother and some of your family members are right there with her. There are people who like to have a whipping boy or girl in the family, someone to talk about behind their backs.
This is a miserable way to be, and you and your wife aren't like them, so take her out of this—go NC or LC with your mother and anyone who defends her, and make your own life together. If you have children you do not want them to grow up thinking that cruelty to a family member is acceptable, and especially not to watch that play out against their own mother.
I_like_tigers_1986 said:
So NTA and your mother is a bad person. whether she likes your wife or not doesnt matter. You chose her and she is your family. If she chooses to act cold, ignore her or make her unwelcome then that is insulting both her and you. You come as a pair now. I know it’s more difficult with family because they always try and play the guilt card and how grateful you should be to have them but you don’t pick them.
You chose your wife. If someone tried the same with my Wife, related or not, they are trying it with me. Don’t invite her then I’m not invited either. Insult her you insult me etc. You did the right thing and I wouldn’t attend the wedding either. Even if she did relent. Shes made it clear she doesn’t want you there.
thesaltyjellyfish said:
NTA. You're nicer than I would be. I'd be thinking aloud about how much better life would be if my wife wasn't a match. I'd also make certain everyone at that wedding knows just how mommy dearest snubbed the woman who SAVED HER LIFE. Public shaming is the only way to deal with these kind of people.