GF furious with BF for telling his 'boring' parents that her Irish family are 'drunks'.

Everyone's family is different, and sometimes that will cause whiplash when meeting your partner's fam for the first time.

When a young man expressed his surprise at the cultural differences to his own family, he really upset his girlfriend, who found it judgmental and unnecessary. So, she came to Reddit to ask:

'AITA (Am I the a-hole) for wanting an apology from my boyfriend and more after he made my family seem like drunks to his parents?'

u/Hot_Touch3482 writes:

22F my boyfriend came by our family party for Easter yesterday. We are your stereotypical large irish family that does enjoy drinking when we get together. Nobody gets sloshed but people are anticipating a pretty good time when we all get together.

My bf’s family is almost the opposite. There’s rarely alcohol at his family events and if there is it’s usually like a glass of wine that someone may have and that’s it. It doesn’t matter to me. I can have fun drinking and not drinking.

I was with my bf after the party and he was on the phone with his mom in front of me. She must have asked him about the party because he was describing it. The things he was saying really embarrassed me and I thought made us look like drunks.

Some quotes were:

“Yeah mom it was wild. Like 10 minutes after we get back from church Oh here comes aunt Suzy with a tray of whiskey shots for everyone!

“I was asked by 3 different cousins to shotgun a beer.”

“It literally felt like I was at a college party but with drunk old people and little kids running around.”

He was laughing it off and hung up the phone with his mom. I’m not sure if he knew I heard the convo but I just told him how bad that made me feel.

I told him he painted my whole family as alcoholics and now his parents probably think less of me. He assured me that’s not the case and his parents aren’t judgmental. I have met them, and while they’re nice, I’m sure they will gossip about this.

I still think he was wrong. There was a lot that we did for fun other than drink. He didn’t mention any of that. Didn’t talk about the food we ate or the games we played. He just got all high and mighty over the alcohol.

I told him that I want an apology, and I want to hear him call his mom back and tell him he was exaggerating and that wasn’t true (even though what he said was true about the shots and the beer). AITA for wanting this?

What do you think? Was the boyfriend way too comfortable sharing the least flattering details of the party with his mom? Or is OP overreacting because it clearly hit a nerve?

While OP's boyfriend may have not outright called them drunks, Reddit certainly did. They ruled YTA (you're the a-hole) and were not subtle about it.

Annalirra says:

YTA for expecting him to call back and lie to his mother. You just said what he told her about the whiskey shots and beers is true. If your worried that makes your family look like a bunch of drunks, maybe what you’re really embarrassed about is that’s not so far off.

DanniTheGrrl agrees:

This right here. I think you need to consider that maybe his remarks were a bit too true for your ears, not his mom’s.

OP defends herself:

We aren’t (a bunch of drunks). We just like to have fun. I think the way he described it paints a different picture. It’s also not something you talk about. Frankly, I find his family kinda boring. I’d never say that though.

WearyRelationship729 replies:

It doesn't paint a different picture, you admitted yourself it's 100% accurate. If you don't like how it makes you look, well, you all are the ones who choose to behave that way, so you have no one to blame but yourselves. YTA.

And OP elaborates:

The way he said it made us sound like what we were doing is abnormal. I don’t call my mom and say we sat around playing uno what a bore of a family. I found that he even needed to talk about it as judgmental.

bina101 shares:

Lmao my family is full of drinkers and not one of them have asked if I wanted to shotgun a beer. Y’all are wild.

OP, starting to lose f*cks to give:

Shotgunning is fun you should ask your family to do it more.

Leah-theRed doesn't hold back:

YTA. Those things happened. If people want to think that you're family is alcoholic because of that, well, what's to prove them wrong? If your family cannot have a function without alcohol being served like water, then yeah your family is alcoholic.

OP, again:

Yes but I don’t think his mother needed to know that. It was totally unnecessary. That’s like if I told my parents about his trumper uncle using the n word a ton. It doesn’t help anybody by talking about that.

Then forgottenflee asks:

So you believe that your family’s alcohol consumption shouldn’t be spoken about the same way one wouldn’t speak about a racist family member but you also believe there's nothing wrong with what they’re doing? Don’t you feel like that’s a bit of a contradiction?

OP responds:

I wouldn’t think I need to tell my parents about his racist family member because I only want my parents to hear positive things. I understand some people view alcohol different than others, and knowing his parents I think they’re the type to get all pretentious about it.

He doesn’t hangout with that uncle. But he is there and says terrible things. I know he’s not proud of this. So I don’t go tell that detail to my family because I want them to think the highest of them.

Which prompts RedditStaffCantCode to comment:

I think more people could do with being shamed for being racist and passively allowing racism.

And Key-Finance-9102 adds:

Actually Irish here. Born and raised. 'Shot-gunning' beer is an American thing, don't blame us for that. We drink our drinks from glasses, unless you're at a festival or college party.

Whiskey shouldn't be taken as a shot. It should be sipped and enjoyed. YTA for both asking your boyfriend to lie and for blaming your family's drinking culture on xenophobic stereotypes.

DoorSubstantial2104 is a little kinder:

YTA. You’re a family that likes a drink. Own it. My in-laws are similar to your family, only difference being they’re not ashamed of it. They love a big family get together with a load of booze and games and dancing, and everyone has a blast.

And they got through to OP:

You’re right it’s nothing to be ashamed about. We get together like that a few times a year. There’s nothing wrong with having fun.

And then she edited her original post to add:

Thank you to everyone who gave thoughtful insights and didn’t come at me with a holier than thou attitude like you’ve never been drunk before.

I understand that my defensiveness comes from a place of not understanding that others may do things differently. I must respect the opinions of others but at the same time I enjoy my family and we have fun. I’m proud to be part of it. I will no longer be so defensive.