My husband and his family are from Romania. Ive been secretly learning Romanian. The reason why I started doing this is because I know that my mother-in-law is talking about me in Romanian to my husband.
She says all kinds of things that I can’t cook, and that he should’ve married a Romanian woman instead of a Latina. Yesterday, was the last straw. She started talking about my mother saying that she did a horrible job raising me and at that moment I had had enough. I proceeded to respond to her in Romanian by saying how dare you speak of my mother like that and keep her mouth shut if she has nothing nice to say at all.
This shocked the hell out of both my husband and mother-in-law. My husband is not upset at all in fact, he’s impressed that I kept it a secret a long time. My mother-in-law, however, does not want me to come to the holidays because she said “I’m a liar and I hide things”
AITA for not telling them?
Comments
Kinda weird you didn’t at least tell your husband but if he’s cool with it, I guess that’s good for you
I find this largely implausible but let’s just run with it…
Your husband is impressed that you kept a secret but allowed his mother to try to exclude you from the holidays? Because if he stood with you and told her he wasn’t going either, she would change her tune immediately.
Your husband doesn’t defend you at all?
You might have a bigger problem
Is she not hiding things by badmouthing you and your mother in a language she thinks you don’t understand?
>I hide things
And the fact that they hid things speaking in Romanian is no issue at all?
NTA
Sort yta.
Keep it from mil. Sure. It doesn’t matter.
But to keep things from your husband like that? You need to do better.
YTA. You learned Romanian so you can fight back your MIL. you didn’t trust your husband to handle it. Your husband does t stand up for you so you had to.
Weak husband. When you get married, your spouse comes first now.
You marry the person, you marry the family. Your husband is impressed? Remember that when your kids talk back to you or their significant other.
Why are you letting the MIL affect you? Aren’t you an adult?
NTA, but your husband should have told her in Romanian to shut her trap long ago.
Learning Romanian to shut down her insults shows serious guts, you handled that perfectly.
NTA, but your husband should have told her to stop long ago.
NTA
“I’m a liar and I hid things” says the woman who talks trash in a language the other person doesn’t understand. Then again, who wants to go to celebrate Christmas with a woman like that?
Your MIL hides things as well, namely her condescension towards your mother. So THERE!!
How about you & your hubby both avoid MIL over the holidays? Let her know that her behavior has consequences.
NTA
Good on you for learning the language.
Does your MIL hate you like you say in this post, or is she lovely like you say in this post?
https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/iRGnwbBXr6
Part of me thinks this is fake
Nta
My daughter learned Russian through full immersion.
Karma
OK, so don’t go to holidays anymore. NTA
Now your husband can choose between his immediately family and his old extended family. All because he let his mom keep doing that for so long and now she has been exposed.
I hope he chooses you, but either way never attending their events again will be better for you no matter what he chooses.
She doesn’t want to see you, and I’m thinking you don’t want to see her much, either. So win-win. NTA, it’s not a requirement to tell anyone that you understand the insults they’re hurling at you. Monster-in-law is just mad at being caught being a terrible person.
if you’re Latina and speak a Latin language, you should be able to understand some Romanian, as it is a Latin based language.
im skeptical of the validity of this post
NTA! Your MIL hid how she really felt about you and disrespected your mom in a language she thought you didn’t understand! And thats Ok? MIL is the AH.
NTA but why the fuck hasn’t your husband been defending you this whole time? He just lets his family slag you off and only pipes up once you learn the language? Nah he can fuck off with the rest of them.
My man’s mom wouldn’t dare look at me funny in his presence. Why have you degraded yourself by being with a man who doesnt defend you?
Have your own enjoyable Christmas. Your husband will likely disappoint you. But don’t back down to the witch of a mother in law. She is a mean angry never to be pleased with you anyway, woman. You don’t need to be nice to her but you should be polite.
Your husband should have shut her down from the beginning. He can close his marriage or his nasty mommy.
NTA Your MIL is an evil person talking about you right in front of you. What makes it evil is she thought she was doing it behind your back. That is wrong in any language. If she didn’t want you to hear it she shouldn’t have said it in front of you. Really, she shouldn’t have said it at all, but some people just are not good people.
NTAH.
I did this after marrying my husband. His family is Greek (as in his father came here on an actual boat) and mine is partly Greek, but I didn’t grow up in that culture.
Anyway, I learned in secret. I understand better than I speak it. Husband speaks it but can’t read it. FIL figures it out when I pointed out where we were in the service on the Greek part of the program instead of the English part.
MIL still doesn’t know.
Today, in things that never happened…
NTA your mother in law on the other hand is a hypercite and an asshole.
When my white mother married my Mexican father, she learned Spanish. Her sister-in-laws didn’t like her but once Mom learned Spanish their friendship flourished.
No one likes being caught and she got caught almost akin to you using a spy camera, you should have kept shut at that moment and brought it up in a different way
👏👏👏👏👏👏 Good for you!
NTA – your mother in law has no shame. She’s now projecting because she was using the language to hide her vile opinions.
I don’t know Romanian for NTA but at least you might 🤣
Well done x
UpdateMe!
Win win! You get out of holidays and you put her in her place. Nicely done.
Pe cuvantul tau ca vorbesti romaneste! Daca e adevarat, jos palaria, tot respectul. Oricum, bine i-ai facut soacrei, e o nesimtita, si imi pare rau ca se poarta asa rau cu tine. Dar sa fim seriosi, problema ta este cu sotul, acesta trebuia sa ia atitudine impotriva mamei lui din prima si nu trebuia sa accepte asta.
Well played ! That mother in law is as toxic as fuck …stay well clear ! Sounds like a real medler !
NTA; you could have said to MIL: I was learning your native language out of respect for you and the family, but I see it was a wasted effort.
This would be a great entry for r/duolingo.
Romanians are Latins too. What is MIL problem?
“I’m a liar”
“How did I lie? I never said, ‘Hey, MIL, I promise to not learn Romanian.’ “
“…and hide things.”
“And talking about people behind their backs in a language you assume they can’t speak isn’t hiding things? Be honest, since you claim to hate liars so much: You’re not upset because I ‘hid things.’ You’re upset because you got caught being shitty, and now you’re squirming inside knowing I’ve known all along what you’re saying about me.”
I’m glad your husband is not mad at you, BUT, he should have shut her down/gone low contact. This is the woman he claims to love that he’s letting her verbally abuse.
“My MIL does not want me to come to the holidays.”
Don’t threaten me with a good time. “That’s fine, husband and I will do something at home then.” NTA.
She doesn’t want to come to holidays. Sounds like a win-win to me.
LoL – NTA
This was the best aita I read in a long time.
NTA
So your MIL doesn’t have a problem badmouthing you in your face, but she has a problem when you understand her? She’s that upset because you caught her
The problem I see now is with your husband. Is he going to support you?
She doesn’t want you to come to the holidays because she thinks ” you re liar and hide things.”
Nope :
She doesn’t want you to come because she ‘s been caught off guard and being called out on her behaviour. And because she won’t be able to badmouth about you ever again.
Why your husband tolerate her to speak badly about you ?
So your husband just cheerfully listened to his mother insult you all this time? What a pathetic excuse for a man.
This is obviously fake. There is no way you learned enough Romanian in secret to be able to both understand a native and respond conversationally
Bine ai făcut! NTA.
Because speaking in a language another person dosen’t understand is not keeping secrets
You should tell mil, that you do not want to go to he house for Christmas because how she talked about you in a language that she thought you did not know.
My mother married a German (my dad) her mil would talk to my dad in German. She said she knew she was talking about her. Mil wanted my dad to marry a German girl. To solve the mil problem, they moved hundreds of miles away.
Nope… your b!tch MIL, is the one who was hiding things, by taking in Romanian. She did it deliberately. You leveled the playing field. Tell her do stupid thing and expect stupid consequences.
Also, your husband is an AH, for allowing it.
Personally, I think the problem starts with your husband and carriers over to his family.
Might be time to have a serious conversation with him. I’d never allow that to happen to my wife/girlfriend.
Definitely NTA… good for you putting her in her place. Don’t take her crap.
Its interesting to me. I just read an AIO where the overwhelming response to the question of is omission the same as lying was- yes. All omissions are lies and wrong between partners.
I think its wrong. It’s deceptive. And its dangerous because you could have misinterpreted things. On the other hand, its wrong for her to speak about you in Romanian in your presence.
Yes you’re the asshole BUT before you all downvote me– I would have done the exact same thing, asshole or not.
Before you let your husband off the hook, why was he not defending you all this time?
NTA
Sure. Written like a bot.
Que chismosa! Girl, you know you’re NTA. I’m sorry she’s awful, I hope your husband checks her tho. Good for you for educating yourself, de todo.
NTA brilliant
NTA, FAFO
As a half Romanian 🇷🇴 half Swedish 🇸🇪 Your husband sucks, Romanian men are just like most Latin men big time big mommas boys. (Not my parent though 🙏) sounds like he is one of the spineless ones 😤
If he keeps this up speak to him in a language he can speak 😏 Ask him to ”Pizda mă-tii de copil” aka crawl up into his mothers ho-ho and disappear. Or ask him to stop sucking his mommas titts!
Your husband is a pussy ass bitch
No, it’s fine not to tell her, but what a disgusting mother-in-law you have.
Holy shit this is amazing. Good on you for learning a new language and using it to bitchslap your MIL. NTA but I’d have a serious conversation with your ex husband why he allows his mother to speak about you like this. If my mother spoke about my wife in this way she’d be getting a verbal beat down.
NTA your MIL is just being $#@chy because she was caught and is embarrassed.
> he should’ve married a Romanian woman instead of a Latina
I love the way racism transcends rationality. Romanians are latin people! That’s literally what the name means, it’s the place in the middle of eastern Europe “where the Romans live”. And the reason you picked up the language easily is likely that you speak some Spanish, a closely related latin derivative.
Obviously she doesn’t mean “latina”, she means swarthy mestizo native american illegal immigrant poor laborer person. Not like Romanians who are cultured and Roman and all. Sigh.
NTA, obviously. They’re not mad you speak their language. They’re mad you exposed their racism.
Tell hubby you’re not going to the holidays and he gets to choose.
OMG that is the best story ever! Good for you, NTA. Do you know how much I wish I knew Spanish? My dad was a Spanish teacher and I am so mad he didn’t just make us speak it at the dinner table or something. I would be so much better off!
NTA, learning a new language isn’t a bad thing to do. learning it to be able to understand what they’re saying is a completely reasonable thing. If they want to hide something from you, they should have asked what languages you knew before s*it talking you behind your back.
soacra nebuna
I’m impressed by your improvisation mentality but your husband need to stand up against anyone who is against you, when you didn’t do anything wrong. Unless you wrong he can address you but since I know some in laws can be pretty unnecessary. As if they were not once in laws of others at some point.
Not having to attend the MIL’s holiday gathering is a big win.
Nta you beat her at her own game and she’s pouting
Says the person who talks about people in a different language. Lol what a hag.
NTA tell her you will gladly no longer attend family events along with any of your future kids. That respect goes both ways and then block her everywhere.
This wins the internet today. Love this.
> My mother-in-law, however, does not want me to come to the holidays
Excellent. Now you get to plan your ideal holiday every freaking year! If your husband wants to see her he can go alone, a few days after he has celebrated with you and whoever you invite.
I think you AND your husband should not attend the holiday. Send and open letter to his family and explain your side. He had better stick up for you in this.
Reminds me of this scene from The 13th Warrior: “My mother was a pure woman from a noble family. And I, at least, know who my father is, you pig-eating son of a wh-re!”
Why are you not angry with your husband? Hes allowed her behavior and disrespect. Let me guess “thats just how she is” and he doesn’t want to fight with her so its easier for him to leave his spine in storage while she insults you.
Read this a while ago.
Hahahaha! Excellent move!
I just hope this is real because the level of ‘productively petty’ is insane. Piss this lady off and she’ll learn your whole language to cuss you in it.
NTA – very impressive 👏
But why does your husband allow that sort of behavior from his mother?
Aww poor mommy got her fewwwlings huwwt
Nu ești, ea este!
Ai făcut foarte bine.
Felicitări 🙌
Tell your husband you are happy to not have anything to do with his mother…but make it clear, you are not going to spend holidays and special occasions alone. If he is going to prioritize his hateful mother, then you are going to prioritize your own family and friends and whatever happens to the marriage as a result of that is on him and him alone.
NTAH