I (29F) married my husband (32M) last year. We had a destination wedding in Myrtle Beach with a small package—30 chairs, basic decor, and minimal planning. We found a restaurant for the reception. My mom insisted on adding more decorations, despite me saying it wasn’t necessary. She claimed it was out of the “goodness of her heart.”
The only major request we had was that everyone arrive on time. It was a sunset wedding—everyone needed to be seated by 5:45 PM to start at 6. Right before we began, we learned my husband’s dad was still 15 minutes away. The pastor said we could wait and my husband decided to wait. By 6:30, the wedding was starting because he went to the wrong location.
After the ceremony, photos were chaotic. The photographer kept asking people to follow basic directions, but they weren’t cooperating. I got frustrated and asked everyone but the wedding party and close family to leave. My husband’s dad finally showed up at 7:15. By 7:30, we had to leave for the next wedding.
Once we arrived at the restaurant, my husband and I stepped aside to talk. He’s long felt that his dad favors his siblings. My mom interrupted repeatedly and made rude comments about his father. I asked her to stop. His dad came up saying the GPS led him to the wrong place. I checked later: three locations came up: Had he left at 5:30, he’d have likely still made it, but he left close to 6.
My husband broke down crying and asked to leave. I found my mom to give her money for the meal and tell her our plan. Before I could explain, she ran toward his dad and started yelling. His cousin stepped in, then my dad arrived and also argued. It turned into a mess. For an hour, people tried to convince us to stay, but we left.
The next morning, I asked my aunt to tell my mom to get her stuff from our car. She never did. For context, my mom rode with my husband to set up decorations, so her things ended up in our vehicle. We offered to switch cars before the wedding to avoid packing issues, but my dad refused. Our car was packed, and when they didn’t come get the stuff, we threw it out. My mom then demanded money and threatened to throw out our baby things we had stored in her basement.
She refused to admit fault. I feel no one had the right to confront my husband’s dad but him, and my mom overstepped. She always feels things should be handled her way, regardless of timing. She’s done this for other major events in my life—graduations, birthdays, etc. I told her I was done with the relationship. My parents haven’t seen our son in over a year, except briefly at a family birthday party in June. I was civil but kept my distance.
Now, I’m pregnant again, my parents want a relationship with my kids and my husband believes our kids should know my parents and decide for themselves later. He says we’ll protect them and they should know family in case something happens to us. My concern is that I don’t want more “firsts” ruined.
AITA for keeping my children away?
Comments
^^^^AUTOMOD Thanks for posting! READ THIS COMMENT – DO NOT SKIM. This comment is a copy of your post so readers can see the original text if your post is edited or removed. This comment is NOT accusing you of copying anything. Read this before contacting the mod team.
I (29F) married my husband (32M) last year. We had a destination wedding in Myrtle Beach with a small package—30 chairs, basic decor, and minimal planning. We found a restaurant for the reception. My mom insisted on adding more decorations, despite me saying it wasn’t necessary. She claimed it was out of the “goodness of her heart.”
The only major request we had was that everyone arrive on time. It was a sunset wedding—everyone needed to be seated by 5:45 PM to start at 6. Right before we began, we learned my husband’s dad was still 15 minutes away. The pastor said we could wait and my husband decided to wait. By 6:30, the wedding was starting because he went to the wrong location.
After the ceremony, photos were chaotic. The photographer kept asking people to follow basic directions, but they weren’t cooperating. I got frustrated and asked everyone but the wedding party and close family to leave. My husband’s dad finally showed up at 7:15. By 7:30, we had to leave for the next wedding.
Once we arrived at the restaurant, my husband and I stepped aside to talk. He’s long felt that his dad favors his siblings. My mom interrupted repeatedly and made rude comments about his father. I asked her to stop. His dad came up saying the GPS led him to the wrong place. I checked later: three locations came up: Had he left at 5:30, he’d have likely still made it, but he left close to 6.
My husband broke down crying and asked to leave. I found my mom to give her money for the meal and tell her our plan. Before I could explain, she ran toward his dad and started yelling. His cousin stepped in, then my dad arrived and also argued. It turned into a mess. For an hour, people tried to convince us to stay, but we left.
The next morning, I asked my aunt to tell my mom to get her stuff from our car. She never did. For context, my mom rode with my husband to set up decorations, so her things ended up in our vehicle. We offered to switch cars before the wedding to avoid packing issues, but my dad refused. Our car was packed, and when they didn’t come get the stuff, we threw it out. My mom then demanded money and threatened to throw out our baby things we had stored in her basement.
She refused to admit fault. I feel no one had the right to confront my husband’s dad but him, and my mom overstepped. She always feels things should be handled her way, regardless of timing. She’s done this for other major events in my life—graduations, birthdays, etc. I told her I was done with the relationship. My parents haven’t seen our son in over a year, except briefly at a family birthday party in June. I was civil but kept my distance.
Now, I’m pregnant again, my parents want a relationship with my kids and my husband believes our kids should know my parents and decide for themselves later. He says we’ll protect them and they should know family in case something happens to us. My concern is that I don’t want more “firsts” ruined.
AITA for keeping my children away?
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Welcome to /r/AmITheAsshole. Please view our voting guide here, and remember to use only one judgement in your comment.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> Everyone seems to believe that I should be talking to my parents because they are my parents. I believe my parents are toxic. I have no intention of letting my children around them especially unsupervised anymore. It’s been year and my husband just feels like they should know them. I think they will be better without them. We seem to not be able to agree because he things what happened is not that bad
Help keep the sub engaging!
Don’t downvote assholes!
Do upvote interesting posts!
Click Here For Our Rules and Click Here For Our FAQ
Subreddit Announcements
Follow the link above to learn more
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.
NTA
This is your mother and you know her well. She is incapable of self control and she has shown you that. I am very sorry this is your experience but it sounds like you have accepted your mother for who she is, even as much as it sucks. You have chosen to protect your children from your mother entirely, to make sure your and their firsts aren’t ruined, you could never be the AH for that.
As a kid whose mother is just like this, my heart breaks for you. I’ve been NC for years, most of my adult life. My sister is as well, but her kids have contact with our mother and mine don’t. My mother has repeatedly hurt my sister’s children, but doesn’t hurt mine because there is no access. Do with that information what you will.
Good luck and don’t let other people make you feel guilty for doing what you need to protect and love your children ♥️
If you invite chaotic people into your life, you will be swept up in their chaos.
The only way to prevent that is to keep them out.
That’s the choice. There’s no option three.
Question before judgement: what were the consequences for your fil who left the house at the time the wedding started?
INFO
This was a destination wedding but everyone drove?
ask your husband if he is happy for you to decide, from now on, what happens with his parents and how you both should react to him. Will he give you that power over him, will you make the decisions and not him?
Because that’s what he’s wanting you to do, defer to his judgment when it is your parents you are judging about. you didn’t mention his parents, are you close to them? whatever, one pair of grandparents would be enough, even one that can’t use GPS. Why exactly does he even believe he is allowed to override you on this? this isn’t some submissive-desiring toxic male crap is it? if so get that removed like it’s cancer.
Your husband is missing the main point here – that this is a COST, a burden, to you, and it will become one to him. He doesn’t understand this will cost you in stress, and fights, and ongoing arguments, and things like your wedding where he breaks down and cries. Is he wanting you to have additional stress that could push you out of the marriage, or make you constantly argue over your children all for the need to potentially put your kids with them if you die?
Shouldn’t you choose better damn people to put them with if you die though?! You don’t even think that they’re good enough to be around your kids when you’re present to supervise, how would they not be harmful to them if they were in charge of them?
your husband has completely the wrong idea about your parents – you are never going to agree to assign them your kids if you need to. never. Am I wrong? are there better people in your life than your parents to do that? you don’t trust them enough to do that so you’re never going to ask them, so you should not be having this argument. His thesis is false.
Try laying some boundaries to him too – you will never ever agree that your kids should go to your parents if something happens to you. Do that paperwork now, lay out your will and choose people that would take your kids in, get their consent, and make it formal. Then there’s no reason to see your parents because you don’t want your kids to go to them. this takes the pressure off having a relationship with them. The only thing you could be agreeing to is perhaps later when things are more stable to make an attempt at reconciliation with them. That is not the same as being required to jump into a relationship with them for non-viable reasons.
But he’s also missing what is a bit unstated in your letter, and still reads to me as the main point – you do not want contact. You do not want your parents in your life. Having them in your life for your kids, is making your life worse, and you don’t want that! But your kind of dumb bridegroom doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand either that this is your decision, they are your parents, and he truly does not understand how incredibly stressful and damaging they still are to you.
I think you need to write something up in which you explain how much damage you have taken from them, how much hurt you still go through with them, lay out clean examples from your wedding and other things of how it has cost you, it has hurt you,and it has damaged you and triggered old bad trauma, even having to deal with them now. MAKE him understand, he needs to be on the same page with you about this, you don’t need to change your opinion that was derived from massive amounts of experience with the same people.
To many, it will appear as though you haven’t taken enough damage to fully cut off your parents. But people don’t realize that chronic ongoing damage is cumulative and may knock you out completely if you don’t simply remove it.
Hope some of this is helpful – wishing you luck!
NTA sure you both will protect kids (as much as you can) but who will protect you?
You (and husband) were the ones hurt by your moms actions. You’re the one who needs protecting 1st. Sure cutting them off and by extension withholding the kids is an extreme consequence but that was extreme behavior and from what you’re saying it wasn’t even the 1st time.
And let’s say you do allow a relationship between the kids and their grandparents and allow them to choose later. That involves them getting hurt by your parents behavior anyway! They’ll just be older and wondering why you let this happen in the 1st place?
And again I cannot stress this enough. While you are “protecting” your children from their behavior while facilitating their relationship, who is protecting you? Because what your husband may not realize that he’s saying this but what he’s saying is it’s okay if you get hurt as long as the kids don’t. And it’s not.
Also the kids WILL notice and that in and of itself will hurt them.
Youre nta for not wanting to pass that hurt down like it’s okay.