Man fights back when wife won't let his mom's 'weird' boyfriend come to Thanksgiving.
When this man is annoyed with his wife, he asks Reddit:
'AITA for telling my wife to suck it up and invite my mom's boyfriend to Thanksgiving, and implying maybe my mom doesn't like inviting her to things?'
My wife has wanted to host a holiday for years, but has never had the opportunity due to other people hosting and lack of space, but since it is our first year married and in our new house, she is getting her chance to host.
We were recently discussing the guest list and she said my mom is invited, but she doesn't want to invite her boyfriend 'John' because she dislikes him and finds it uncomfortable to be around him.
I think John is fine, extremely quite to the point it is weird, kind of sulky, but nothing that would make me blacklist him from Thanksgiving.
John just does not like people, can't be bothered to talk to anyone but my mom. He will say hi and bye, or talk/whisper with my mom but he doesn't say anything beyond that.
My mom will sometimes joke about it and stroke him which is a bit weird but I'm a live and let live type. He once said the words 'I'm smart enough to make the money I want, and good looking enough to get the women I want, so I have no motivation not to act like this.'
I told my wife that it would be rude to invite my mom without John, it would really hurt my mom and there is no way in hell she would accept. She said that would be my mom's choice. I said to just invite him and let him sit in his corner.
He makes my mom really happy. My wife refused, so I pointed out that my mom has always included her in everything despite maybe not wanting to.
when my wife asked what that meant I pointed out my mom is nice enough to her but they really aren't each other's type of people and she would probably not interact with her if she wasn't my wife.
My wife got annoyed and said that was different. She thinks I'm being an asshole for having a suck it up attitude when it comes to something this important to her. AITA?
So, is OP being an AH?
freedistance45 writes:
NTA, like you said let a man live , maybe John is just an introvert who goes to his gfs events to be polite, your wife sounds like a person who wants to be and stay the center of attention so the indifference of john will bother her because its not the result she wants . Your wife is the jerk here . Good job in humbling her!
perkylurkey writes:
NTA it’s Thanksgiving, not your wife’s wedding (where the plates are,$200 or more a head and the guest list is closely curated, it’s Thanksgiving where getting together with your strange family members is part of the fun.
I would ask your wife, why for her very first Thanksgiving does she want to start off by creating a family war?
The job of a hostess, is to invite the family (as long as the invitees haven’t done something truly heinous) and serve good food in generous portions, with enough variety to be inclusive to all.
A good hostess also provides options for entertainment, (games, football on the TV, maybe a streamed movie) for everyone to enjoy as a family. These are the rules for the hosts, make it possible for everyone to have a good time.
If she can’t do that because she is “uncomfortable” she can’t host Thanksgiving this year, because she’s not ready.