'AITA for telling my MIL she shouldn’t have any more children?' UPDATED 2X
When this man criticizes his MIL, he asks Reddit:
"AITA for telling my MIL she shouldn’t have any more children?"
I’m (30M) married and my partner (30F) and I decided to have children. Growing up her mom would say she didn’t want her to adopt because she just wanted a “regular” family.
Wife can’t conceive so we decided to adopt, and it’s no big deal for us, we see it as the same as having bio children. We’ve shared the news with the family and MIL received the news by deciding to adopt too.
I was frustrated and she says I should be happy for her. Btw she has an unhappy relationship, and they are BOTH unemployed right now. The job market is not looking good for them because they’re both 55+ and it’s even harder to find jobs.
I told her the timing is really weird since we’ve just shared our news and that even if we weren’t adopting right now she shouldn’t have any more children because her relationship is unstable, they’re unemployed and she wants to go on a new career every 2 months.
She says I’m an AH. I feel she’s trying really hard to steal the spotlight. Idk what else to say please ask for more info if you feel something’s missing. Oh I forgot to say my wife left earlier and I haven’t even told her yet, I think she’ll be pretty upset that her mom decided to adopt instead of just letting us have our moment and supporting us. AITA?
UPDATE 1:
BIL was the first to say she’s acting jealous, then I agreed. Later we were alone and I tried to talk her out of it, that’s when the main discussion happened.
UPDATE 2:
My wife has always had a difficult relationship with her mother. She clearly is the least favorite child and it clearly hurts her. So I understand I might be overprotective but I stand by it! AITA though?
Let's see what readers thought.
disasterpanda writes:
NTA. Sounds like MIL is trying to steal the spotlight. I don’t know much about the system but chances are she wouldn’t be approved to adopt anyways. I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction of entertaining it.
rbancher2 writes:
YTA None of your business what your MIL does/decides to do/says she's going to do. Let your wife deal with her mother if she feels she needs to but for the most part, you both should just concentrate on your own journey and let others do theirs as they will.
stroppo writes:
YTA. Was it necessary for you to say anything about her decision to adopt? No. By offering your unsolicited advice you only made what already sounds like a tense relationship with MIL worse. All you had to do was say nothing.
If I was your wife, I wouldn't be very happy about your attacking my mother like that, when there was no need to. Besides, it sounds like all she did was say she's "decided to adopt" and who knows if she'll even make the application to do so, and who knows if she'll even be approved. You made a big fuss over nothing. YTA.