'AITA for being affectionate with my wife and telling a couple to keep their kids in check?'
"AITA for being affectionate with my wife and telling a couple to keep their kids in check?"
Admittedly, neither I [41M] nor my wife [39F] thought I was the a^%$ole for this, though after telling our family members about this, they largely disagreed, so I would like a more objective opinion.
Very recently, my wife and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary. We adore each other and love to celebrate these sorts of things, so we had a very nice vacation planned to celebrate (and frankly, though this event was immensely annoying, it didn't ruin the experience by a longshot).
We were in a very nice hotel with a pool and hot tub for part of our vacation, and we made use of both of those facilities each night we were there. Although thankfully the hotel was quite quiet given the time of year, the very last two nights in that hotel there was a family at the hot tub and pool that my wife and I found rather annoying.
The parents seemed about our age and their 3 children all seemed to be under the age of 10 or 12. Their kids were very loud and rambunctious, while their parents did nothing to quiet them down.
The final night my wife and I were there, she and I were at the hot tub after a dip in the pool quite late. She was sitting on my lap (her back to my stomach), I had my arms around her, we were talking and occasionally giving each other a kiss.
Clearly a affectionate position, but nothing s%$#al going on in public and entirely appropriate for a hot tub at ~9 pm.
The family came into the hot tub room while we were there. The kids were in and out of the hot tub and were very, very loud. The parents sat decidedly apart from each other in the hot tub, and seemed more invested in huffing at us than paying attention to each other or controlling their children.
I kissed my wife on the lips at one point after she whispered a joke to me. Now, we weren't shoving our tongues down each other's throat, we just had a nice kiss.
This must have made the mother uncomfortable, because she asked that we not do that with their children present (not that they were paying us any attention). I told her that that was not going to happen, we were a married couple in a hot tub at night, there is nothing wrong with us giving each other a kiss.
The father then chimed in that we were "a bit inappropriate" because their kids were present and asked that we not be so "touchy" with each other while their kids were there.
I told him that we were not inclined to change our behaviour when they couldn't even keep their kids in check. They scowled at both of us and my wife and I soon decided to return to our room. AITA?
Then, OP provides this update:
I've been pretty upfront that I don't really like kids in the first place, so perhaps I'm especially sensitive to this, but given that it was 9 pm and they weren't even in the pool room, they were in the small (echo-prone) hot tub room, I found it pretty annoying.
But still, point taken. It doesn't make a lot of sense out of context, but she said "Next year, I'll give them a blank piece of paper and see how f-d their phylogenies are." We'd been chatting about the class she'd taught the previous semester and how bad some of the students did on the exam.
Let's see what some of the top responses were:
fictionalcontext writes:
I got mixed feelings. The touchy-feely stuff with your wife wasn't inappropriate. Nothing wrong with that.
But also, you're in a hotel hot tub near a pool. It's not unreasonable for some kids to be loud and rambunctious, splashing around having a good time. That's what kids do at a pool. "MARCO!" "POLO!" "TAG!" "I'm gonna whack you with the water noodle!" "Cannonball!" They're playing and having fun.
If you wanted some quiet hot tub time, should have gotten a room with a jacuzzi because public pools aren't quiet romantic getaways, lol.
childproof5 writes:
So…. You wanted them to change their behavior, and they wanted you to change your behavior. And you were in a public common space. I’m debating between ESH and NAH.
You keep harping on how appropriate your own behavior was - married! at night! in a hot tub! - while glossing over the fact you were in a shared recreational facility where, horror of horrors, other people were having fun. You don’t have to stop kissing your wife and the kids don’t have to be quiet while playing.
defiantkid writes:
YTA. Kids were being loud at a pool? You had your wife in your lap and were kissing and caressing in a public place but their kids are annoying for having fun in a pool at 9pm?
This isn’t your private place but you seem to want it to be. Last time we tried to use a hotel pool and there was a couple sitting on each other we all just turned and put our heads on our hands and watched. They got pissed. You are in public.
truestock7 writes:
YTA. Look, i know youre in love, but public displays of affection like lap sitting and kissing are just uncomfortable in small spaces like a hot tub, you really shouldnt do it and should have stopped when you were made aware they were uncomfortable, instead you doubled down that youre married, but that means nothing.
You were making people uncomfortable they asked you to stop, and you resorted to being rude to them about their parenting, if you want to be touchy go somewhere private, where you wont make people uncomfortable its not that hard, the hot tub wasnt yours, and honestly you would have made me uncomfortable to.