Ex wife shames son in speech at daughter's birthday party, 'you have no future.' AITA?
"AITA for telling my ex wife that she was the one who ruined our daughters birthday not our son?"
Sea_Solid_7788
I have 2 kids with my ex-wife, a son (16M) and a daughter (20F). They’re entirely different when it comes to academics. Our daughter did well in school, straight A student, she did sports, and wants to be a lawyer. Our son struggles more when it comes to school, doesn’t do sports, doesn’t know what he wants to do once he graduates. The two of them aren’t close at all.
It was my daughter’s birthday yesterday, and we had a fairly large party for her. My side of the family, my exs side of the family, my daughters friends. When it was time to cut the cake my ex made a speech, talking about our daughter’s accomplishments, and how she’ll be successful in the future.
At the end of the speech, she said something along the lines of, “Hopefully 'son's name' gets his act together and gets better grades” which made our son visibly upset. My ex noticed that our son was upset. She continued to push the issue, saying that she was worried and that he wouldn’t have a future if he kept this up.
By then, the party was already tense. Some of the family chimed in and took my ex’s side. My son was arguing back, and insulted his sister in the process. The party was ruined at this point, which upset our daughter.
After the mess ended, my ex wife came to me saying that we needed to get our son's jealousy issues under control because he shouldn’t have ruined his sister’s birthday like that. I reminded her that the party wouldn’t have been ruined if she didn’t bring up our son during her speech about our daughter. She claims i’m making things worse.
Most of my side, and her side of the family, side with my ex, saying my ex didn’t ruin it by being a concerned mother. I don’t see what they’re concerned about. Our son is on track to graduate, his grades are just average. But I have all these texts saying my son needs to apologize, or that he needs therapy for the insults he said to his sister. AITA?
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
SassyPieHole03
Your poor son. Your poor daughter. Poor you. Your ex is a bloody liability and a sh*t parent. Thank goodness those kids have got you as a father. NTA.
Traditional_Oil6801
NTA and neither is your son, your wife is though. Teenagers need time to figure out what they want to be or do and shouldn't be expected to know already. It's great your daughter has figured that out, but each kid should be looked at as individuals, not compared to one another, or else you risk driving a wedge between them.
He already seems to feel like he's under his sister's shadow, why continue to heap on or put him down to elevate the sister? She could have just focused on your daughter's accomplishments without putting your son down, she made the choice to denigrate him.
hbgbees
Why the heck is everyone in the family siding with the ex? What am I missing?
here4thedramz
Must be her flying monkeys.
apiratelooksatthirty
You’re NTA but your ex wife definitely is. There was absolutely no need for her to publicly take a shot at your son. Of course he would get upset when she calls him out in front of all of his extended family. You should talk to your son and let him know that you’re there for him and support him.
TheRealMeetMountain
Nta. Ex was a huge asshole. Not the time and place. Publicly embarrassed your son and is surprised he was unhappy about it?
Maybe she thinks public embarrassment will whip him into shape, and it might at the cost of her not having a relationship with him later on.
Vegetable-Cod-2340
What she doesn't realize is this is the incident, that her son will mention when he goes no contact with her and his sister.