Woman leaves her own baby shower after MIL commented on her weight. AITA?
Here's an idea: Never comment on someone's weight. It's not that complicated. But sometimes family thinks they're being helpful or playful, and they use that as a guise for making rude comments.
In this post on Reddit, a pregnant woman wanted to know if she overreacted by walking out on her own baby shower after being insulted by her mother-in-law. On the one hand, people put a lot of time and effort into planning this event. On the other hand, she's being insulted and then gaslight by being asked to ignore the insults.
Here's her story...
"AITA for walking out of my baby shower after MIL denied me food?"
Before I start I'd like to say that I'm a bit of a big girl. No shame in that, I love myself just the way I am and I have been living by the motto 'be you, everybody else's taken' 😅.
MIL (DH's mom) always made comments about my weight, ever since I got pregnant, she started making more comments while low key shaming me for what I eat. Whenever I visit, she'd give me smaller plate, portion, cup even spoons. She also buys me 'small size' clothes even though I'm in my 2nd trimester and those clothes don't fit.
My SIL decided to throw me a baby shower after my DH denied when my sister offered to throw me one. The whole side of my in-laws are invited. Mom refused to come after what DH said to my sister (another story for later).
I got there and MIL was in charge of serving food to the guests. All that was served was cakes and juice. I got hungry from talking and I got up to eat some cake. The second I put my hand on the cake. MIL grabbed my arm and said that I'd gained enough weight already and that if 'I keep this' up her son will not be happy living with 'a large Walrus'.
I was shocked I didn't know how to react especially since she said this out loud. She looked at me in a 'sorry-not-sorry' kind of way. I put the cake down and grabbed my stuff and started walking. Her daughter stopped me saying I can't leave mid party and embarrass her like that.
I told her to tell her mom to leave if she wanted me to stay but she went off and said 'Are you crazy? She's my mom! you want me to kick her out in front of everybody?' I turned around and kept walking. I called mom to come pick me up and went home.
DH came home looking furious. He asked me to explain what I did at the baby shower and why. I mentioned what his mom did and he started ranting about how I fucked this up over something so minor. I told him it wasn't minor in my opinion since she literally cut me off food and didn't let me eat when I was hungry.
He said that his mom meant well and that I needed to get rid of this 'easily offended' mindset immediately before I pass it down to our son. He said that cakes are essential foods, and that this was not a good enough reason to walk out the baby shower that his mom and sister put a ton of money, time and effort into.
He said that I had hours to call and fix things up but I refused. I went to stay with my mom because he wouldn't stop pressuring me to call and apologize for what happened. He kept talking about how pissed and let down his mom and sister feel and called me ungrateful and spiteful for doing what I did. Am I overreacting here?
More info from OP:
Lot of of you asked what my DH said to my sister and what was the argument about. The answer is, My sister is infertile. has been for years. DH claimed that she's become 'obsessed' with the baby simply just because she bought me stuff for the baby as gifts and wanted to throw me a baby shower.
My sister is a great person and I have no doubt that she only did all that just because of how great she is/will be as an aunt. My DH keeps insisting there was 'something wrong' with her which led to a fight between them and he ended up calling her 'possessive b&/$'.
My mom kicked him out and my sister cut contact with him. The issue got worse with my BIL (her husband) arguing with DH as well.
Here's what people thought:
OP needs to be careful, because that's exactly how it sounds. Please take caution OP, your situation with these people sounds extremely toxic and dangerous. Don't let your 'DH' manipulate you into isolation from your family, because that's exactly what he's attempting to do. This is not a man you want to raise a child with.
NTA. This is a husband problem, not a MIL problem. Husband is using flimsy excuses (like sister bringing gifts) to isolate OP from her family, and then leaves OP to be bullied and harassed by his family of origin.
NTA. Any man that would allow his mother to verbally abuse and deny his wife food and then gaslight and berate his wife for standing up for herself, is a massively abusive asshole. This is divorce territory now. Stay somewhere safe. Better yet make HIM leave the house while divorce proceedings happen. All the best with the baby.
A bunch of people did some victim blaming, which we'll leave out of here, but most people felt a lot of sympathy for OP. It's tough when you've gone so far down the path that you've started a family with a group of people who are toxic for you.