AITA posts can be an unintentional source of entertainment with stories that get so bizarre that you question whether or not they’re real. However, every now and then, you run across a story that’s legitimately upsetting. You hope to the Reddit powers that be that it’s an over-exaggeration, but you know in your heart of hearts that it’s true because you’ve either witnessed or personally experienced similar situations.
Such is the case with this particular post where a mixed-race woman wonders if she’s the asshole for, um, eating at the same restaurant as her white husband and his family. We don’t find out the racial situation until the commenters come out and ask, suspecting that there’s more to the story. It all makes sense when she reveals that she’s half Black, half white, and her husband and in-laws are white. However, the truly heartbreaking moment is when she says, and I quote, “But I don’t know that that’s why they act cold toward me.”
WELP pic.twitter.com/QuUTnlxp72
— Elle Em (@ellle_em) March 30, 2022
Oh, honey, I just… come here. Let me hug you.
All significant others are invited… except for her
Going into an AITA post, the reason why someone is being excluded from family get-togethers can lead to some wild discoveries. As I read this post, I waited for some kind of quirky reveal that would explain why this wife was being excluded, but the moment never came. In hindsight, I probably should’ve known when the OP said, “I want to start this off by saying that he really is a good guy in other areas.” Yeah. That’s what you lead with when you know you’re about to say something that makes us go:
My husband’s parents, his 2 brothers (ages 38 and 40ish), and his brothers’ girlfriends/fiancées have a tradition of going out to dinner once a month. I am invited about 50% of the time. I’ve talked to my husband’s brother’s fiancée, and she says she is invited every time.
When I say I’m not invited, I mean that my husband tells me “I’m going to the family dinner. It’s probably best if you sit this one out.” When I expressed that I wanted to come, he told me that it would be for the best if I didn’t. It has caused several fights.
I waited to get some kind of, well, reason as to why she wasn’t being invited when everyone else was being included each time. Maybe she and her mother-in-law had some kind of weird tension? We never get an answer, at least, not in the original post.
Fed up with the constant exclusion, she decides to book a reservation at the same restaurant so she could eat there at the same time. Real talk, that’s an impressive as hell power move. “I ended up seated at a table where I couldn’t see his family. So I got up as if I was going to the bathroom and walked right past them.” She goes on to say, “My husband looked completely shocked and asked me what I was doing there. I told him that I had just been dying for a steak, so I came and got one at the restaurant.”
“My mother-in-law said it was very rude of me to interrupt their family dinner. I pointed out that I wasn’t trying to join them, I was just going to the bathroom. I told them to have a good meal and I left. I went and finished my steak by myself.” I obviously don’t know who this woman is, but I would like to be her friend. When I grow up, I wish to exude this much fuck you energy.
Her husband, however, doesn’t agree with me.
Her husband’s terrible response
“My husband was really pissed when he came home, and he told me that he couldn’t believe how much of an asshole I had been. I said that he was an asshole for not inviting me to his dinners when his brothers’ SOs got to go. My husband said that the decision to invite was between him and his family, and I should respect it.”
This is already terrible before we get the reveal about everyone’s race. If your family is cool with inviting everyone else’s spouses, wouldn’t you be bothered if yours was being left out? I guess not, in this case, since this woman’s husband discussed the situation with his family, decided that NOT inviting his wife would be best, and told her to respect the decision. Naturally, this woman is going to wonder WHY they don’t want her around when everyone else is being included.
My question is, since she’s apparently invited half of the time, what are they doing and/or saying when she’s not around? What is her husband allowing them to say about his wife, and what is he, himself, saying when he’s with them? As terrible as his family is, I’m angrier at him for not having his wife’s back about this, especially when she reveals that everyone is white except for her.
OP is mixed race, family are white, OP is NTA and should get the hell away from the racist family pic.twitter.com/16wVLYYI80
— Alex 🏳️🌈 (@Alex_Autistic) March 30, 2022
Here’s the thing. As someone in an interracial relationship, no one wants to think that race is the reason why their in-laws are being sour toward them. Racism is already a hard enough thing to face in the world, no one wants to think that they have to deal with it within a familial space. Part of me thinks that she could very well be aware of the discrimination that’s happening, but she’s trying her best to deny it because it’s an extremely hard truth pill to swallow, especially when she has a husband who gets mad if she doesn’t “sit this one out.”
The part about her husband is what hurts the most to me. My in-laws weren’t exactly the most welcoming, but I, at least, had a partner who had my back. That made a difficult situation easier to deal with because I knew that my partner hadn’t, oh I dunno, talked with her family behind my back, decided that exclusion was fine, then came home to tell me I was an asshole for feeling some kind of way about it.
Listen. If you’re reading this, OP, your in-laws are the assholes, and your husband is the BIGGEST asshole, not just for going along with it, but for telling you that you’re the asshole for being upset about it and to respect the fact that they’re all excluding you.
— Emotionally exhausted and morally bankrupt 🖖 (@maerlyn99) March 30, 2022
(Image: Getty images/mozcann)
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Published: Mar 31, 2022 05:10 pm