I made a CASUAL comment about my sister-in-law's career… and she blew up! -r/AmITheAsshole | Reddit Stories | EP2359 - ok storytime

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, this is Sam, this is John, and we are
the founding hosts of Okay Storytime podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
But the thing is this foundation needs a little support
from these sponsors. So stick around two minutes and we'll
get into the episode.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
I made a casual comment about my sister in law's
career and.

Speaker 4 (00:20):
She blew up, like her career blew up.

Speaker 3 (00:23):
I twenty eight female, have been with my husband thirty
one male, for three years, married for two and we
have a two and a half year old child. I'm
currently two months pregnant with our second and last child.
When dear husband and I met, I was child free
by choice, and I was at the top of my career.
And by the way, this comes from Throwaway sixty eight baby,

(00:47):
And if you want us to meet your own stories,
go to the our slash Okay Storytime Subredda. I'm Carlee, I'm.

Speaker 5 (00:51):
Sophia, I'm Dakota, and we're here to give good advice.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
Goofy. But we don't have all the answers. We only
know what we would do, So let us know what
you would do, comments and op says. When we had
our child, I was devastated at the thought of going
back to work. Dear husband is a blue collar man,
also at the top of his field. We own our
vehicles and he bought his our home at twenty one

(01:17):
and has a fantastic interest rate. I lived frugally, well
beneath my means and had modest but relevant savings and
investment accounts. We made the decision that I would become
a stay at home mom until the second child enters kindergarten.
It was the best decision of my life.

Speaker 6 (01:35):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
My brother in law met and married my sister in
law during this time. When I made my decision to
be a stay at home mom. We were discussing it
at a family dinner and we actually had a small debate.
Her argument was essentially, I could never give up my
career for my child. I can't give up that part
of myself. My career is my passion and a big

(01:57):
part of my identity, and it's sad when women lose
themselves in motherhood. I'm very secure in myself and my choices.
And I said that I'm glad she knows what she
wants just as much as I do. And I left
it at that. That was about a year and a
half ago. Now they have a beautiful six six week
old child, her first his second, and I have tried

(02:19):
to help without overstepping as we are not particularly close.
This included a meal train and lots of babysitting my nephew,
brother in law's first child, who's four, while sister in
law and the newborn were settling in. Here's the actual
incident where I might be the a hole. We were
at a family event today and I asked her if

(02:39):
she was excited to get back to work, as I
know her maternity leave is only eight weeks. Brother in
law went back to work a week ago, as I
believe he only got two weeks. She looked at me,
super offended and shocked and told me she couldn't believe
I would ask that. I clarified and said I knew
how important her work is to her and that her
clients were surely missing her. She is a fantastic, highly

(03:02):
sought after beauty technician. Again, she looked at me highly
offended and said something to the effect of, well, I
have to go back to work. We aren't all spoiled brats, Okay.
That honestly just ruined the whole vibe. Yeah, I just
looked at her like WTF and walked away. Well, now
the whole family is in a disagreement because apparently I

(03:25):
was rubbing it in her face that I get to
stay home and she doesn't. Half the family remembers very
clearly that she herself chastise me for my choice and things.
She is being dramatic and hormonal. The other half things
that I am spoiled and that I shouldn't shove it
in people's faces. So there it is.

Speaker 6 (03:44):
Am I the a.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
Hole for asking her if she was excited to get
back to work being a stay at home mom myself?
Do I apologize or what ed it to add? Only
because I've had to clarify twice Now we were all
at the birthday party of my husband and her husband's
older brother's husband's sister.

Speaker 4 (04:03):
So this is this is ope's brother in law's husband
husband's sister.

Speaker 3 (04:09):
Yeah, so not a place you want to make drama.
I had just asked the sister in law of the
sister sister in law of the sister how their job
was because they got a promotion. At the last event,
I saw the map, which was my child's birthday party.
So we were very casually talking about work. Then my
sister in law walked up and I asked if she

(04:30):
was excited to return to work. I did not seek
her out explicitly to ask about work. Some comments commenter
one always breaks my heart to read that people can
only get eight weeks of maternity leave. Where I am,
people get nine months to a year.

Speaker 6 (04:45):
Okay, are you commentor.

Speaker 4 (04:48):
My least favorite thing is when people come onto these
comments and like, Wow, that sucks for you guys. Where
I am, I get fifty thousand years of much don't
tell you. Don't tell me that I don't want to know.

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Asking her that does sound a little tone deaf. Yeah, Edit,
you're at the top of your career at twenty five,
your husband bought a house at twenty one. I mean
it's screaming family money to me. It doesn't sound like
you understand the difference between yours and your sister in
law situation, dude, which are likely more than just that
she's a career girl and you're not. Probably you're the

(05:25):
a hole, But that's from reading between some lines here.
OPI responds, you could definitely claim family money for my
husband and his brothers. There are three of them each
were gifted with a down payment on a home at
twenty one.

Speaker 4 (05:39):
Y'all are rich, ridge, rich rouge.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
So for the record, sister in law has that same
advantage as they are living in his their home. He
is three years younger than my husband, so obviously they
have three years less equity. And yes, I was at
the top of my career in my chosen field. There
was no position higher than mine that wasn't technically a
feel to change. I might be the a hole, but

(06:04):
no one is gonna take my hard earned success from me.
Commentary two Info, Do you not understand that career driven
woman can still want more than eight weeks of maternity leave?
Just because someone cares a lot about their job doesn't
mean they wouldn't appreciate having a maternity leave policy that
doesn't suck. Opie says, I do understand that, and personally,
I left my own job partially because I was disgusted

(06:28):
by the maternity policy. That being said, uh, and I
left this out of my post because I felt it
was somewhat related but too far off to be fully relevant.
When I gave birth to my child, I was not
married yet, and I had to leave my job early
due to medical issues and being placed on bed rest.
Long story short, there was a period of about three

(06:49):
months where I had no insurance when I was freshly postpartum,
and they found a polyp when I was supposed to
get an IUD and I had to ultimately go back
for a coal post. Unfortunately, my husband's insurance considered this
a pre existing condition. We were very concerned with how
this might impact us, but thankfully, in my state, all

(07:09):
children from birth to age five and mother's up to
one year postpartum qualify for state Medicaid. This ended up
saving us and covered my IUD. When discussing this at
a family dinner, my brother in law and sister in
law at the time his new girlfriend were adamant that
that was living off the government and that it was

(07:31):
why taxes were so high. Okay, so I know exactly
the type of people that your brother and sister in
law and these.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
Way, these are what they suck.

Speaker 6 (07:39):
Yeah, they suck. Yi.

Speaker 3 (07:42):
They also claimed that mother should definitely not be covered
postpartum because it encourages welfare queens to keep getting pregnant
so they could always have insurance.

Speaker 4 (07:53):
And you guys suck wow wow.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Yeah opimann be so really should have included that in your.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
Yeah, yeah, it probably would have way more people on
your side. Yeah, I'd be like, oh, oh, you're gonna
you're gonna stay on dude. If they said that and
then they went on alternity, I'd be like, Oh, you're
going on maternity leave, you're not working or you're getting paid. Yikes.
I thought you didn't agree with that. Yeah, I believe
that should happen, but I thought you didn't believe in that.

Speaker 6 (08:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (08:21):
They're like, you're just gonna take that free money from
your company because because you had a baby.

Speaker 4 (08:26):
Mmmm, seems like seems like you should work harder.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
They are very staunchily against social welfare, as they believe
it's just people taking advantage of the system. My husband's
family is rather fiscally conservative, socially liberal and leaning, and
he almost wanted to wait and get the IUD under
his insurance and pay for it. But I put a
stop to that conversation because it's my body and I

(08:50):
was terrified of falling pregnant again too soon, so I
wanted the IUD asap. So when I asked the question
are you excited to get back to work, it was
less in a philosophical debate kind of tone and more
of a small talk tone. For the record, we were
all at the birthday party of my husband and her
husband's older brother's husband sister, so not a place where

(09:11):
you want to make drama or have big debates. I
had also just asked the sister in law of the
sister how their job was because they got a promotion
at the last event. I saw them at my child's
birthday party, so we were very casually talking about work.
Someone replies, the more I read about your in laws,
the worse they sound. If any of this is true,

(09:33):
they are judgy, whiny a holes and you should just
stop associating with them in general. Verdict a whole, verdict? Ahole?

Speaker 4 (09:42):
What id' y'all are playing? Y'all are playing today? No?

Speaker 3 (09:49):
No, we have an update.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
But who is in your comments? Who are these people?
Rage baiting me?

Speaker 6 (09:58):
Update?

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Shortly after this was post said, I visited my sister
in law. I was babysitting both kiddos so she could
get a spa salonde before going back to work. I
decided to apologize. It's really important to me that we
have a good relationship for our children's sake. Also, all
of you here helped me realize that she is a
lot younger than me and to give her grace for that.

(10:20):
We unexpectedly had a really deep heart to heart where
she expressed to me that she only snapped at me
because she is so excited to get back to work.
She feels bad that she doesn't want to stay home
with her baby, and that she's been feeling stifled being
home with the two kids. She was also feeling very
worried about some of her regular clients jumping ship if

(10:41):
she was off any longer.

Speaker 4 (10:43):
Okay, she's in the clear. All of your in laws
still suck.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, any of the ones that were immediately got after you.
She I get she just had a baby. She's probably like,
oh my god. I'm sure a lot of moms feel
guiltful things they should not feel guilt for.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
But the all of the freaking other in laws were like,
gets you out?

Speaker 3 (11:00):
You're the ahot dare are.

Speaker 4 (11:02):
You making up all these things her? And she's like,
oh no, this is why.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
I told her. I totally understood, and that I could
barely handle my puppy when I was her age, much
less two kids.

Speaker 4 (11:13):
Any other thoughts just that your in laws or stinky
and uh law is seemingly making amends. Yep, but I
hope that she, like is very apologetic in a sam
that she's sorry for the comments that she made about you. Yea,
because she made other comments a while ago.

Speaker 3 (11:29):
Yeah, she made comments about you for not wanting to
go back to work.

Speaker 4 (11:32):
And I hope that she understands now yeah, now that
she's had children. Uh that that feeling because you are
not the a litle or You're not a bad person
for wanting to stay home with you guys. You're not
a bad person for being like, I want to work
and i want to pursue my career because I'm still
a person outside of my motherhood.

Speaker 3 (11:51):
Thanks to the commenter here, I was careful to specifically
clarify that I think she's doing a fantastic job as
a mom and in her career. There with some other
stuff about comments from the family and her husband, but
it's not important to the update anyway. She offered me
a free service when she gets back to work, which
was yesterday. Anne has been more friendly with me at

(12:12):
family dinner. She's been texting me and calling me just
a chat more too. Yay. I think maybe she just
needed a friend. And I'm glad y'all pointed it out
to me because I think me apologizing was the catalyst
for our newfound closeness. Sometimes it's hard to hear that
you're the A hole, but it is case. Even though
I felt defensive, I'm glad I listened. Thanks.

Speaker 4 (12:32):
I still do not think that you are the A hole.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
Oh p still not the A whole.

Speaker 4 (12:36):
However, I am glad that your apology led to this.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
I hope she lets up on things that you say.

Speaker 4 (12:42):
Yeah, like, there was nowhere in this where you were
the a hole, not at all. I don't know how
anyone could have understand, you know, seen that from what
we just read, but I'm glad that. If anything, I
think the comments could have been like, hey, you know,
maybe talk to her, maybe she's having a lot of feelings,
see what's bothering her. That would be the answer that

(13:02):
I would.

Speaker 6 (13:03):
Give one hundum.

Speaker 4 (13:05):
You're not the able. But that's the end of that story.

Speaker 6 (13:07):
Folks.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
My mother in law try to hijack my baby shower,
but I won't let it happen.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
My baby shower.

Speaker 4 (13:15):
So although I thirty three female have a great relationship
with my husband's family. I've always kept ten steps away
because my husband always clashes with his mom. I also
hate drama and am a pick your battles kind of person.
In my culture, you must remain kind and obey elders.
I don't come from a controlling family, so obeying my

(13:35):
parents has been easy growing up. By the way, this
comes from Delicious Menu seven seven four four And if
you want to submit your own stories, go to the
r slash Okay Storytime. Suped it.

Speaker 5 (13:43):
I'm Sophia, I'm Carly, and I'm Keon, and we're here
to give good advice goofully, But we don't have all
the answers. We only know what we'd do, so let
us know what you would do in the comments and
Opie says mother in law sixty two. Female tries to
babysit her two sons and treats her husband like crap
and public, which always annoys me, but again not my problem,
so I'm not involved.

Speaker 4 (14:03):
My husband hates her babysitting and controlling behavior and tries
to keep her out of our lives. I don't like
attention that much. We didn't have a wedding, for instance.
It was only me and my husband and family and
friends on zoom during lockdown. We are really simple people
who like to stay low key. When mother in law
offer to do my baby shower, I said, I wasn't

(14:24):
planning to have one because in my culture, people don't
buy things for your child. It's fully your responsibility. But
if this is part of what Americans do, I'll do it.
I told her I'll let her know if I need
her help. She kept nagging if I thought about it,
so I told her that I'll do one at home
and invite only close friends and family. She said she
wants to pay for it, so I told her that

(14:45):
I don't want her to pay for things, and that
is something i'll and that this is something i'll plan.
I said this in a kind manner, but mother in
law kept saying no, that the house will be chaotic
and I have to clean. I didn't really answer, and
then I traveled home for two weeks with my husban.
I came back and she kept calling me NonStop every
day to go out to see venues. I didn't want
to be rude, so I went. Turns out she's been

(15:07):
looking at venues for the past few weeks. She's narrowed
it down to two to three ones she liked and
wanted me to pick. I hated all of them. They
were all too dark and in random places. She said,
her budget is nine hundred dollars or less, so we
need to stay under it. At this point, I was like,
why am I being pushed into this? And why am
I supposed to be within your budget? I have money.

(15:28):
Everything with her was conclusive and decided I didn't want
drama because ultimately I did not care to have a
baby shower. I picked the venue I liked out of
the ones she offered. I also thought, it's her first grandchild,
and why be annoying about it. We didn't have a wedding,
so let's at least have this. In this way, I
follow their culture. But she got more and more obsessive.

(15:48):
She started calling me every single day about the baby registry,
every single day twice and thrice. She wanted to come
over every Saturday at ten am and work on this
registry geez, and she wanted access to my registries so
she could update it. I said, you, she was so
obsessive while I was still suffering from morning sickness and

(16:10):
couldn't get a full night's sleep. Mind that some Saturdays,
five to six family members came over, so I have
to host the guests and prepare lunch. But mother in
law would try to force me to work on the
registry until guests arrived, and then I had to get
food together so quickly and ended up not even eating myself.
At some point I had enough. I told my husband

(16:31):
not to accept for them to come at ten am anymore.
My reasoning was simple, I want to sleep. Yeah, it's Saturday,
you pregnant. We worked all week and I really don't
feel like getting up so early to cook breakfast for
my family and mother in law and father in law,
and then cook lunch for the other guests too. She
got mad that I didn't want them to come at

(16:52):
ten am, but rather in the afternoon with the rest
of the guests. Her attitude disgust me. It's my effing house.
When they came over, she nagged about the registry again,
even though it was done. I said, I won't be
working on the registre it's done. More guests are coming
over and I need to host them and also be
able to eat. She continued emailing me three to four

(17:14):
times a day with what she wants me to add,
calling me et cetera. I ignored them, and then she
would come on Saturday and say, I sent you an
email on January thirteenth at two pm. Add those in
your lists. I said, I saw it, and I'll add
them if I see fits. She made a weird face.
This is when I started getting triggered and had enough.
One Saturday, she picked on my last name and asked

(17:35):
why I don't change it to my husband's and our
family and friends won't know me. While looking up the registry,
I said, I'm not planning to change my name and
they can access it through the e invite link. She
made a weird, annoyed face. I then looked at the
invite list. There were fifty people. My husband and I
were shocked. We don't even know fifty people. Out of

(17:56):
fifty people, fifteen were our friends, the rest were She
invited everyone, and even their grandmother's. She invited her second
and third cousins and their children that my husband doesn't
even know. So I told her that I thought we
had a budget, so I didn't invite some friends. She said,
as people are SVP, no, I can invite more people.

(18:18):
So when people are svp'd.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
No.

Speaker 4 (18:19):
I told her I would invite two friends, mind that
I don't have any family. She said she will be
inviting her distant cousins instead, and I should be waiting
a bit more. And then you say no because this
is my baby shower and I don't know your friends.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
Mother, lad, do you remember how this started?

Speaker 4 (18:35):
You forced this upon me. Mind you that nobody knows
these cousins, and she's always talked crap about these people
for having kids out of wedlock and for being poor.
Mother in law's behavior just got worse after I told
her that I don't think a Kroger cake is appropriate
for an important event like this. Don't get me wrong,
I love a Proger cake, but for a baby shower.
Then she made a problem out of it. I said,

(18:58):
I want to bring my own cake, perfect and she
said no, and then I'll get a crow goo cake.
She then tried to give me her used dress to
wear to the shower, like is this normal? My husband
was like, absolutely not, and that we should go to
the mall and get me a nice dress. I didn't
have a say in anything, even about the invitation design.
My husband agreed with me as he saw how things

(19:19):
were unfolding, and was like, just say what you want
and then let me know when to get involved.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Yeavlved get involved involved, husband, So I created.

Speaker 4 (19:28):
A group chat with her and sister in law. She
is super nice, and told them I changed the invitation
design to the one I want. I'll get my own
cake and we'll also be in charge of all decoration
and theme. Nice mother in law got mad and kept
picking on things and apparently throwing subtle shade behind my back.
She kept saying she didn't like the new invitation and
said she chose it with sister in law after hours

(19:50):
of searching. I then told them that we needed to
update the invitation time because we didn't have time to
set the venue up. She started shouting, and I told
her that I needed only thirty minutes extra and then
my friends are coming in from a different country and
that they need time to get there. Mind you that
she chose a venue that was near to her and
her friends but was fifty minutes away from everyone.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
I know.

Speaker 4 (20:12):
We just gotta put our foot down. Put her foot down?

Speaker 3 (20:16):
How how planned is this?

Speaker 2 (20:18):
Like?

Speaker 3 (20:19):
Is this like in a week and now we're telling
my stuff Like why because it's tough because it was
like op was like, I don't want to be involved,
then you plan this, but now is like, well, actually,
I've decided that I know exactly what I've wanted this
whole time.

Speaker 4 (20:32):
My friends need to cross the border and drive all
the way. We didn't send the invitation yet, so what's
the problem. Yeah, I was assertive and I said that
it will be okay. It's just the thirty minute buffer.
Her husband father in law supported me and said what
I said made sense. My husband called her the next
day and told her, if you want to plan a
baby shower for my wife, then my end butt must

(20:53):
be taken. Otherwise we will cancel everything. She of course
screamed at him and got so mad, but he defended.
Then came the week of the shower finally here and
again everything about me is an issue. Some of my
friends are vegan for lent, which I believe is totally
normal in America, And she said, oh, that's the problem.

(21:14):
We have to check if that's okay with a restaurant.
I'm like, what the f I already mentioned this before
and added salad to the menu and they could remove
non vegan stuff. My husband was there and he said
he didn't understand what her problem is. People are vegan
all the time. Just remove the meat. She then shut up.
Then one friend changed her RSVP to no because she

(21:34):
had an emergency surgery. Mother in law got upset because
she gave the count to the restaurant already that same day.
She then picked on the centerpieces I bought because they
were toe bag. But she is the only one that thinks.
So then the venue wants to charge her X amount
for extra tablecloths because now more of her people are coming.
But she doesn't want to pay for extra tablecloths, so
she bought one dollar hot pink tablecloths from the Dollar Store,

(21:57):
so all tables will be white fabric tablecloths and three
will be hot pink.

Speaker 3 (22:02):
Sick.

Speaker 4 (22:03):
I said, I'll pay the venue and to please keep
things uniform. But no, she said, she already bought hot
pin ones and it's done.

Speaker 3 (22:10):
Three dollars.

Speaker 4 (22:11):
You can return them three dollars. You probably use them again.
Then some money. Yeah, you paid, You've paid nine dollars total.

Speaker 3 (22:18):
No, I think the tablecloths were each a dollar.

Speaker 4 (22:19):
She oh, you're right, you're right, dollars. You paid three
dollars and also you could return them. Yeah, I already
told her I will do the arrangement for venue decre
but she went behind my back and arranged with them
what she wanted. She picked on seating, and she had
the audacity to tell me that she wanted her family
and friends to be seated at the main table and
my friends to be seated at the side tables. And

(22:41):
I just lost it. This is a nightmare. This is
a nightmare, I said, I don't think so, and I
need to think about it. My friends are coming from
a different country. Then here's the kicker that I do
not understand. She won't tell me what takeaway gifts guests
will take home and completely rejects any extra gifts. In
addition to it, she says, I'm not supposed to now

(23:03):
and there has to be a surprise for me. I
don't like that. How come I don't know what my
friends are going to be taking home. She won't tell me,
and she won't let me nor the sister in law
add an extra gift to balance things. After she bought
those one dollar tablecloths, I would not trust her to
make those gift baskets.

Speaker 3 (23:20):
Oh, I'm not trusted enough for anything.

Speaker 6 (23:23):
She seems like she's doing everything really cheaply.

Speaker 3 (23:26):
Yeah, but then like I don't even know she's just.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
Doing all of this. She's getting the cheapest option for everything.
When the sister in law found out that I don't
know the gift, she told me what it is behind
mother in law's back because she thinks it's rude that
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (23:39):
Yeah, sister in law a plus.

Speaker 4 (23:41):
When I found out what the gift is. Although I
personally think it's a cute gift, I don't think people
from my church would appreciate receiving a gift like that.
What is it?

Speaker 3 (23:49):
What is it you need?

Speaker 4 (23:50):
There has to be something next to it?

Speaker 6 (23:52):
What do you mean?

Speaker 2 (23:53):
Is it?

Speaker 3 (23:53):
What gift? Could it be that these church goers will reject?

Speaker 4 (23:57):
I am planning to suck it up because we don't
have time any and get some flowers to take away.
She also wanted me to make a list of everyone
that came but sent gifts to the house and thank
them individually, listing the items they bought, which I said
absolutely not. What if someone bought five gifts and another
only afforded one small gift, wouldn't they feel bad? I

(24:19):
want to thank people individually and intimately. I will also
be sending them personalized cards, and I have been thanking
people as they send home stuff already. After this conversation,
brother in law messaged in our group chat and said
mother in law was so angry and drinking too much.

Speaker 3 (24:35):
Yeah, like you already caved to every shower because you
are not even used to doing baby showers in your culture,
so you already were like, yeah, you know what, like
I'll give you this, let's do a baby shower. And
then she was like okay, like I got you, and
you're like, but noble, let no, no, I can help out,
Like it's my baby shower. I'd like to be involved,
and she's like no, no, no, no, no, because it's

(24:56):
just a baby shower for her to brag to her friends.

Speaker 4 (24:59):
Get your husband in there and say stop stop, no, stop.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
It, which it sounded like when he came in the
one time, he was very like to the point like
I leave my wife alone.

Speaker 4 (25:08):
Let's keep up that energy.

Speaker 2 (25:10):
I'm also on the train of maybe mother in law
didn't have a baby shower.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Maybe yeah, I could see it because this is also
her first grandchild. It's probably the first time she's getting.

Speaker 2 (25:19):
To throw on but again there's a cultural differences and
everything like that, and that I think that's playing a
huge role. And maybe baby showers weren't like a big
thing when she had her kid the mother in law,
you know, Opie's husband, So I don't know. Maybe there
was a baby shower, but maybe it.

Speaker 3 (25:33):
Wasn't because if they weren't a big thing then but.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
I don't know.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
Yeah, there was some things that I definitely was like,
heyop maybe like this isn't the biggest deal, or like
maybe you fixed it so like let's just move on
kind of thing. But it's also then like, well then
why is she nagging you so much?

Speaker 4 (25:49):
But there is a little bit left to the story.
I used to love my mother in law a lot,
but this experience changed a lot of dynamics. I just
cannot imagine how she will be after the baby is
and I already had to warn my husband that I
won't accept her involvement with my children. He told me
that he is glad I now see why he doesn't
get along with her and why he left at sixteen,

(26:10):
and that we must have a united friend to keep
her out. I feel bad for being so angry and
kind of disgusted. To be honest, I cannot stop thinking
about all of this and how shocked I am. This
was more of event, but I honestly don't know if
I am overacting. But at the same time, it kind
of explains by nobody from her husband's family really speaks
to her or includes her in things. Everyone seems to

(26:32):
have an issue with her, And now I'm finally realizing it.
Did I make a mistake by imposing what I want?
Is this really the American tradition that you try to
keep the parent to be so out of the loop.
I was so naive and just didn't care enough, I feel.

Speaker 3 (26:46):
And that's the end of that story. But we're gonna
go to the next one. My mother in law acts
entitled to my newborn and thinks I am the problem.

Speaker 6 (26:55):
Well, maybe it's the baby that's the problem.

Speaker 3 (26:58):
So me, twenty five female, and my husband twenty six male,
have been together for a year and things are great.
We rarely bicker and have basically been attached to the hip.
It's the best relationship I've ever had. The only issue has,
unfortunately been my mother in law. By the way, this
comes from Nestwolf and if you want us to make
your own stories. Go to the arslash Okay story time Supreddit.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
I'm Carly, I'm Dakota, I'm Keon, and we're here.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
To give good advice goofully, But we don't have all
the answers. We only know what we would do, so
let us know what you would do in the comments,
and Opie says to clarify, we haven't gone full no
contact and we have not stated explicitly to her that
this arrangement is forever. We have clearly laid out what
it would take to fix the situation before I met

(27:46):
her in person. We got along wonderfully. His parents travel
as they are snowbirds, so I didn't meet them until
we went to visit them a few months into my pregnancy.
I was cordial and respectful, as I'm Southern and a
bit shy with new people, so I default to the
whole respect your elders thing and usually don't speak unless
spoken to. But I noticed pretty quickly she was making

(28:09):
small jabs here and there, comments on my outfits, getting
angry and defensive when I mentioned my husband's ex had
been rude and slandered me at work, and more offhand
and off color things that seemed a little hostile, but
I brushed it off as I didn't want to rock
the boat, especially because I was having her grandchild. Soon,

(28:30):
finances got tight and we decided to move out of
state to live in the other state. The in law
stayed in in the hopes it would be cheaper. Things
got progressively worse as time went on. It seemed more
and more like she wasn't fond of my presence, to
the point even my brother in law took notice. Nearly
every time I was around her, she would be rude,

(28:51):
make snide jokes, condescend to me, or just make me
feel generally stupid or bad about myself. A few examples.
At a restaurant, I had to take a phone call
and turned to tell my husband, if the waitress comes,
he could just order a burger for me, but make
sure no vegetables. She, very loudly, causing multiple people to

(29:12):
stare over, said oh, getting rid of the healthy things
on the burger. At another lunch, ME and her were
having some inconsequential conversation, and as I was mid sentenced,
she turned and just started talking over me to my
brother in law. Despite my husband trying to steer her
back by telling her I was speaking it was extremely rude.

(29:33):
One time I wore a shirt and pants that had
clashing patterns, she crinkled her nose and said, you're really
wearing that to go out? You know those don't match right,
in a very condescending tone, But later backtracked and said
she said that because she was so shocked how well
the outfit worked on me. Now that I've had my daughter,

(29:54):
things have gotten downright ridiculous. She asked us if she
could be in the room for my delivery, and as
I had been having these issues, I wanted to decline,
but during her asking she said, and I just want
you to know if you say no, I'll be really,
really upset. So, of course, scared to say anything because
I was heavily pregnant, I agreed, but said the answer

(30:15):
may change. What she said would be fine, she would
just be very upset. About a month before I was due,
my husband went to her and explained we had changed
our mind and decided it would just be us two
to what. She responded by essentially giving us the silent
treatment and pouting for a day.

Speaker 2 (30:33):
Let me guess she was upset.

Speaker 3 (30:34):
Thank god, as I ended up needing an emergency sea section,
and my laboring experience was extremely difficult and stressful. Once
the baby was born, I was in recovery as the
baby was in the nikki with my husband. My mother
in law asked if she could come sit with me,
to which I agreed as I was ill and fevered
and didn't want to be alone. My mom lives in

(30:55):
another state and I have no family or friends here.
At first, it seemed okay until a nurse decided to
try and convince my mother in law to go see
my baby in the nick you mind you. I hadn't
even gotten to see my baby yet. I hoped I
would get in indignant. Absolutely not, but instead my mother
in law said, oh, maybe I'll just go talk to

(31:15):
my son and look at her through the window. Of course,
I felt helpless as I couldn't walk or do anything.
At this point. The nurse said the nick you didn't
have a window anymore, to which my mother in law
sadly went, oh, man, I guess I'll wait if I
have to. Mom should hold her first, while looking at
me with puppy dog eyes, hoping I would give her permission.
I did not good for you, Opie, My mother in

(31:37):
law hardly helped with anything regarding our baby, but for
some reason has decided that any help at all means
we owe her time with our baby. She even told
me I should be letting other people enjoy her like
she's a toy to be shared and played with. She
has disrespected me around every corner and has even gone
as far as to refer to the baby as her baby,

(32:00):
and has called herself mama on multiple occasions. She has
even hesitated to hand me my child while my husband
and brother in law are constantly offered her with absolutely
no trouble. She questions every boundary we set, complained incessantly
until we allowed her to kiss the top of our
baby's head. No, no, you don't kiss newborn They don't

(32:23):
have immune systems.

Speaker 6 (32:25):
Come on, come on.

Speaker 3 (32:29):
She just loves the baby so much that she has
to give the baby all her little drugs on her
lips because she just can't stand to give it the flu,
and was livid that we didn't want to drop our
three week old baby off at her RV to babysit.
Now things are coming to a head. She has been
spamming my husband's phone, lamenting about how awful this is

(32:49):
for her, how she's going to just leave town since
we're withholding her grandchild from her. Anne has refused to
give any real apology. It's always I never said that,
or I didn't mean it that way, or I'm sorry
she took it like that, or you know, I'm not
like that, mind you. We have talked to her about
this behavior before and thought it would be squashed, Yet

(33:12):
she continued. My father in law called today and proceeded
to make it out like both of us are wrong
and that it's essentially up to me to concede and
accept that she's just allowed to be rude and unkind
to me because that's how she is, and she's not
going to apologize. He then ended it by saying I
should just essentially beerate her to make her listen. At

(33:33):
this point, I'm at a loss. This woman has made
me feel like a second class citizen compared to her
family and essentially treats me like I incubated her daughter
and I'm just the nurse maid, and then proceeds to
degrade me every time she comes over. But I'm being
told I have to bridge the gap my husband and
I don't know how to fix this because it's not

(33:54):
like we want our daughter to not be around her grandparents.
But I don't want to be treated like crap in
front of my daughter or in general. Important note, my
husband has been wonderful in defending me and holding strong
on this boundary. Both over the phone and in person.
We have an update. How you feeling.

Speaker 4 (34:13):
I think we gotta make strict boundaries.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, I don't know, man, It's like.

Speaker 3 (34:18):
Sounds like you're already limited contact and sounds like that's
a great call.

Speaker 4 (34:22):
Sometimes she gotta Sometimes people gotta know you mean business.

Speaker 2 (34:26):
Yeah, you know, because it doesn't sound like she respects you.

Speaker 4 (34:31):
She just continue to treat you really poorly.

Speaker 7 (34:33):
You'd be like, hey, I'm in no way gonna let
you treat me like this, or you know, forbid, gad
forbid you treat my child like this.

Speaker 3 (34:42):
Yeah, I like what hunting be eighty five says. Every
time she says my baby, oh, PI should direct her
to her husband my baby, Oh you mean the adult
one over there? The twenty five year old's yours.

Speaker 2 (34:54):
Emma Wilkins in the chat says, I call my grandson's
my boy. Thankfully, the whole family understands and we all
run with it.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Yeah, I think there's you can call you know, there's
like a yeah, there's a point where that makes it all.

Speaker 3 (35:05):
So my boys fair, my boys is way more generalized
than my baby, my baby.

Speaker 4 (35:11):
And also calling yourself.

Speaker 3 (35:13):
Mama, it's like I call my cat's back home, my.

Speaker 6 (35:16):
Boys, my boys, the boys, yeah, the boys.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
No, she's like claiming possession of the ChIL update.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
So I had a phone call with her today and
what she screamed at me overspoke me and sobbed for
the majority of the conversation. I was honest about my
feelings and did not back down on my opinions on
her behavior. But the best we got was I'm said,
I'm sorry. You interpreted it like that. I didn't mean to,
So I can't apologize for hurting your feeling.

Speaker 2 (35:47):
That's crazy that she said I'm sorry, but I'm not
going to say i'm sorry. She is hello, but I'm
not sorry, but she said. She started off with I'm sorry,
I'm sorry.

Speaker 3 (35:56):
That you feel bad.

Speaker 4 (35:58):
I don't hello, I'm not sorry.

Speaker 3 (36:00):
Essentially putting the blame on me for receiving her actions
in a negative way. The call ended with me crying
and finally yelling, in which my husband gently took the
phone away and hung up to give me a break,
as I was genuinely not being heard by her at all.
About thirty minutes later, she texted my phone a long message,

(36:21):
giving a semblance of a real apology, although not really
admitting fault, and seemingly understood my perspective to some degree.
I decided to give her the chance she's begging for
and accepted her apology and explained once again that she
is absolutely not entitled to our baby, but I am
willing to let her see my daughter. I told her

(36:41):
to give everyone a few days to cool off and
she could come see us on Wednesday, to which she
curtly agreed. I'm sure it's going to be extremely uncomfortable
and tense. The ball is fully in her court to
behave and follow our rules and boundaries, as I feel
like I've made it very clear, I'm not going to
allow crossing them. I really do want her in my

(37:03):
daughter's life if I can help it. I didn't grow
up with a positive family and I don't want that
for her. But if this behavior continues after things were
made crystal clear, I will not tolerate it, as I
have given the benefit of the doubt too many times
now update too well. I didn't think i'd be making
this kind of update. Last night, my husband went over

(37:24):
to the place the in laws are staying to work
out with his dad. This is a nightly thing they
usually do, and he got caught in a conversation with
mother in law. It was clear from the start she
had planned to get him alone without me in order
to god my husband into contradicting everything I said and
essentially talk crap about me. She said, my mental health

(37:46):
or trauma must be why I'm treating her this way,
reiterated that she definitely doesn't understand how she isn't entitled
to be around my daughter, and a whole lot of gaslighting.
She sent a text to both of us today saying
she read a Reddit post last night that felt like
us maybe mine, and she understands where we're coming from

(38:07):
in the boundary of not wanting too many interactions with
our daughter in the first few months for health reasons,
but really nothing else. It was a lot of redirecting,
saying we didn't communicate with her. We did constantly, We
explained every choice even when we didn't need to, and
now she wants us to look at her side. She

(38:28):
then texted my husband when she didn't receive an answer,
and asked if she was forgiven. Unfortunately, I am done.
Someone who clearly would rather be right than see their
grandchild has no place with my daughter the end of
the day. I am her mother and my job is
to keep her life happy and positive, and my mother
in law is sadly far from it. Not to mention,

(38:50):
the pure stress of dealing with someone who is trying
anything and everything to make my husband think I'm crazy
and make me feel stupid and small is too much
to handle anymore. I plan now to remove myself and
my daughter from the equation. I don't expect no contact
from my husband with his mom, as that was never
my intent, but me and my child will be no

(39:12):
matter how witchy or unstable she may try to make
me out to be. For this, no one can tell
me what's best for me and my daughter except me.
Me and my little one are happy and healthy and
thriving with just us and her dad, and that's more
than enough for me. That's the end of that story.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Hey it's Sam. We'll get back to the stories, but
here's three minutes of ads from our sponsors.

Speaker 7 (39:35):
My friend joked about me losing a large amount of money,
so I left.

Speaker 2 (39:40):
That's what friends are for.

Speaker 7 (39:42):
For context, I've been friends with Matt ten years, John
for eight years, and Lily for seven years, on and off.
For clarification, Lily and I have had a rough relationship
throughout the years, as of recently since twenty twenty two
due to other issues. By the way, this comes from
Mini min X MoU and if you'll just submit your
own stories, go to the r slash Okay storytime, sepread

(40:03):
it and.

Speaker 6 (40:03):
I'm Angie, I'm key On, and we're here to give
good advice goofy. But we don't have all the answers.
We're just going to guess what we would do in
this situation. So let us know what you would do
down in the comments.

Speaker 7 (40:12):
I female, twenty four, recently had a birthday which included
three friends, Matt twenty four male, John twenty four male,
and Lily twenty three female. It wasn't anything big. It
was all four of us going into the city and shopping,
which I enjoyed. In our friend group, I'm probably known
as the sensitive one. I get upset easily intend to
act on my emotions in the moment, which I've been
working on with my therapist. I've been very open with

(40:34):
my friends about how it's going and what I've been doing.
At first, everyone seems supportive, though I've noticed Lily has
been less and less responsive to our conversations.

Speaker 6 (40:43):
In general, I at first assumed that this was okay.

Speaker 7 (40:45):
People have lives, things get busy, and she'll get back
to me whenever she can. The day itself was fun
in the beginning. Nothing seemed off. We were shopping and chatting,
and things felt fine. Around midday, though, as I was
transferring money into my bank account, I noticed some of
my money went missing. To clarify, I'm very cautious with
my spending. I track what I spent to make sure

(41:07):
that I don't overspend on things. I don't have a
lot for my age, and all of my friends know
that I'm cautious with money. I started checking my accounts
and stressing because it wasn't a small amount. It was
over seven hundred dollars. Everybody noticed that I was getting
worked up and upset. Matt suggested that we stop inside
my bank branch to sort the issue out, since there
was one down the street.

Speaker 6 (41:26):
I agreed, since I didn't want.

Speaker 7 (41:28):
To continue while actively noticing money was missing, and I
assumed that my account might have been hacked or something.
John said that it was fine, but Lily was annoyed
since we hadn't finished our shopping yet. She sat down
on the bench with John. At first, I didn't hear
her or what she was saying because I was too
worried over my account, though as I was looking for
directions to the bank, she piped up about her in
John's account. Oh look, John, we might have been hacked too.

(41:50):
See our money for the day is missing too. She laughed,
but nobody else did. It was clearly not funny, and
we all stood in the silence. All I said was
that the poor joke was distasteful and nobody found it funny.

Speaker 6 (42:03):
But her.

Speaker 7 (42:03):
Lily snapped, saying that I was ruining the day by
stressing everybody out about money. When she and John had
traveled to see me, I told her I appreciated the
travel to see me, but this was something that I
couldn't skip over since I'd already seen it. So I
left for the bank and ignored her. After I finished,
I found Matt waiting for me to inform me that
Lily and John went home. In the morning, I found

(42:24):
a bunch of missed texts from Lily saying that I
ruined the day and that I was being overly sensitive
about a clear joke that she made and too emotional
for reacting the way that I did. I didn't snap
or yell at her. I left the situation since my
worry was my account. But she won't listen to my reasoning.
So am I the a hole? And there isn't edit.

(42:44):
Sorry forgot to add. Yes, I lost my money. I've
been at the bank for the past few days now,
waiting to see what they can do to help me.
It happened on a busy day, so the bank hours
were shorter than normal. They explained it like sometimes when
you shop online, some companies will sell your information. I'm
not sure how true it is, but I'm dealing with
the situation at hand. I will update in the next
couple of days with any information that I get. And

(43:05):
there is an update.

Speaker 6 (43:07):
Oh boy, but do you think that ope, he's the
a hole?

Speaker 2 (43:11):
No, not at all.

Speaker 6 (43:12):
No.

Speaker 2 (43:13):
I think that's the most logical and reasonable way to react.
You lost, even if it was like fifty bucks I
would be like, yo, I lost fifty bucks. That's annoying.

Speaker 6 (43:22):
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, yeah, especially if it's her birthday too.

Speaker 2 (43:26):
It's like, that's right, her birthday.

Speaker 7 (43:28):
Yeah, it's my party, and I'll cry if I want to.
Did you never hear that song?

Speaker 2 (43:33):
I mean I think I think Lily is like the
class clown or you know which tries to be or
she is a pick me girl.

Speaker 5 (43:43):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
And she tried to make a joke that obviously wasn't
That was just poorly timed and just not a good joke. Right,
Nobody laughed and she got really like pouting, like, oh
you know how dare Like, I was just trying to
be funny and no one's laughing at me. Everyone yeucked.

Speaker 7 (43:59):
About the main issue, I've frozen and locked my account
and card connecting to each other at the bank. With
some help from the employee, she explained the process of
getting a new card and suggested that it might be
better to make a completely new account, which I agreed
to do because I'd rather be safe with it. Before
closing the account, I was able to transfer over my
remaining funds and take some cash out since the worker

(44:19):
I mentioned it might take a week or two for
the new car to arrive. About getting the stolen money back,
she was very kind at explaining the process on what
to do, and thankfully she had helped me with the
process a little bit, since this has never happened to
me before. She put it in the system as a
fraudulent transaction, and I'm still in the process of getting
the money back, she stated, it.

Speaker 6 (44:38):
Won't take too long, maybe a few weeks.

Speaker 7 (44:40):
I'm still keeping all the info we've gathered until its resolved.
I've also made a report to the government fraud buster
website as another safety precaution. I wanted to add this
because some people were curious, and I will only give
small details. Regarding my therapist and therapy, It's more about
regulating suppressed feelings and emotions. As a TEENA wasn't exactly
allowed to talk about feelings and emotions besides just being happy.

(45:02):
I didn't have a proper support system emotionally to express
any negative feelings like sadness or anger.

Speaker 6 (45:07):
As my therapist has put it, you.

Speaker 7 (45:09):
Seem to let people walk on you like a dormat,
and you seem like a people pleaser.

Speaker 6 (45:14):
And I've accepted both statements as true.

Speaker 7 (45:16):
She is helping me express feelings properly without trying to
feel guilty about them. The situation wasn't me getting mad
and screaming or shouting. It was me trying to say
my feelings and speak my mind and hopes that people
will respect that.

Speaker 2 (45:28):
Oh he watched inside out was like, wait, there's more
than joy, right.

Speaker 6 (45:32):
It's okay to feel these other events.

Speaker 2 (45:34):
There's sadness and no anger. Yeah, I can feel those.
I'm allowed to feel those wild that wow.

Speaker 7 (45:41):
A couple of months ago, I told the group beforehand
that I'm trying to regulate my emotions a lot more
than I normally would, which would not be saying anything.
And I feel like after the shift and trying to
speak my mind more often and express my feelings more
than usual, it might seem as if I'm being more
sensitive or over sensitive since they haven't seen this before.
To the comments about just leaving Lily and closing the friendship,

(46:02):
I wish it was that simple. She's been married to
John for.

Speaker 6 (46:05):
Three years, so we're all very close. At this point.

Speaker 7 (46:08):
I don't have many friends besides our small group, and
it seems harder to make friends now as an adult.
I've been to all their celebrations, their wedding parties.

Speaker 6 (46:15):
Hangouts, etc.

Speaker 7 (46:16):
I feel like we're a family emotionally, it feels harder
to let go and walk away. Each argument or fight
we've had over the years always did end up resolving itself,
though on my end, I would always apologize. We haven't
spoken since this incident, so I'm not sure where we
are exactly on understanding each other. After the incident, I
sent a final message to Lily, very calmly, explaining how
hurtful the comment was in a situation that was clearly

(46:39):
stressing me out and was not needed. I've been left
on red and still haven't gotten a word back. Someone
asks do you think Lily had taken the money? Op
He says, no, I don't. She doesn't have access to
any of my banking details, she's never used my card,
and I genuinely don't believe that she would do something
that cruel. I truly believe that she had nothing to
do with it, and I was unfortunately just caught in

(46:59):
a Someone else asks, why aren't you mad at John
for leaving as well? Opie says, I'm not mad at
John because he didn't make the comment. Each time Lily
and I would fight. She would always have a comment
to add, which I would feel bad about. On my end,
John isn't the type to instigate or start drama. He's
normally very chill and we've always gotten along. I've never
had any issues with John. And there is a little

(47:21):
bit more to this story.

Speaker 6 (47:22):
But yeah, that like just that just icky, the icky situation.

Speaker 7 (47:28):
Yeah, this might be just like a wake up call
for OP, like maybe don't take it as like, okay,
I need to end this friendship, but maybe just a
wake up call of like how you go about it
in the dynamic, it's.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Again the people pleasing. Yeah, you know, I think this
is this is a perfect example or perfect time for
you OP to you know what. I know it's very uncomfortable,
especially for someone who's been used to this their entire life,
But this is you to like stand up for yourself
or like, you know what, I am not okay with
this and this is not a resolution. I want to
figure this out where you know, I get to say

(47:59):
and I think, you know, Lily, that's not cool kind
of thing, or like yeah, hey, everybody, this is how
I feel. I don't care what you think. Come on,
let's be adults.

Speaker 7 (48:07):
Here right, Yeah, I think you handled it well because
the way I would think to go about this is
to just kind of like reassess, Like the way that
you go about things like this, Hyeah comes up like
maybe in those fights, whatever happens in those fights, like maybe,
I'm sure there's a way that you can act differently
and that you can.

Speaker 6 (48:24):
Stop yourself from apologizing.

Speaker 7 (48:26):
And I'm glad that in this situation you reacted how
you would and you didn't snap at her or anything
like that, and you also didn't like let it happen
and you weren't just like, oh, yeah, it's just a joke.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
You're right.

Speaker 7 (48:37):
Since John and Lily traveled together, I didn't want her
taking public transport alone later in the afternoon or night.

Speaker 6 (48:42):
The area we were in at the time isn't.

Speaker 7 (48:45):
Always the best place to be alone, especially traveling alone
as a woman. Plus, I wouldn't want them leaving at
separate times.

Speaker 6 (48:50):
Anyway.

Speaker 7 (48:51):
I'm not sure if I have any other updates to come,
but I sincerely appreciate all the nice comments and getting
an opinion that wasn't biased in the situation, and it
helped me. It has helped me figure out what type
of people I should have in my life and what
I need from friends in the sense of not having
one sided friendships.

Speaker 6 (49:07):
And there are some comments coming. Number one says, not
the a hole.

Speaker 7 (49:11):
Whenever I hear the I was just joking, excuse, the
first thing that comes to my mind is to ask
the person what part of that was supposed to be funny.
If I find out that I'm seven hundred dollars short,
I'm stopping on the train and figure out what the
f is going on. And if I found out that
a friend had that problem, I'm too concerned to make
jokes and suggest that she wait a day or so
to figure it out. Sounds like Lily isn't your friend anymore,

(49:34):
and that's okay for both of you.

Speaker 6 (49:35):
Someone else responds.

Speaker 7 (49:36):
Until I read the edit, I was honestly going to
say that maybe Lily is the one who robbed her
for the seven hundred dollars. She sounds like the type. Honestly,
I'm glad Ope is on the verge of figuring it out.
Though that's crazy. Lily is not your friend, op cut
her out of your life. I know the word toxic
gets thrown around on here a lot, but I think
that it's appropriate. In this case, she sounds very selfish

(49:57):
and spoiled, with no concern for anyone but herself.

Speaker 6 (50:00):
And that's the end of that story. Yes, that makes
it great.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
For those comments. Great, Yeah, yeah, I ruined years worth
of friendship after I confessed what did you do? I
male twenty six, met this girl, female twenty five more
than ten years ago, and we developed a great friendship
over the years. We would tease each other all the
time and would sometimes act a bit more than friendly.
Though I dated other people and she dated other people.

(50:23):
After all, we were simply friends. By the way, this
comes from user Levitt's carnal and if you want to
submit your own stories, go to the r slash Okay
storytime Separate. I'm Keon and I'm Angie, and we're here
to give good advice googly, But we don't have all
the answers. We only know what we'd do, So let
us know what you would do in the comments. This
all changed in twenty eighteen when we started dating. Things

(50:45):
didn't end well for a multitude of reasons, so we
went our separate ways. It was a hard breakup and
we didn't speak for two years. She recontacted me during
the VID saying how she missed me and how she
wasn't good, that she had some issues and wanted me
back in her life. I obliged. In friendship terms. The
truth is I never forgot this girl. I've had other relationships,

(51:07):
but nothing has come close since. I knew it was
a mistake bringing her back into my life, but I did. Though,
like I said before, as friends, that's probably f up
number one. She was always inviting me to go out
with her or to meet up at her house, though
it never actually happened. We were back to our old
ways and kept flirting playfully with one another like we

(51:28):
used to before we dated. Eventually, I visited her one
night one year ago. Nothing happened, but I held her
in my arms. That's when I truly realized I hadn't
forgotten this girl at all. I tried to kiss her,
but she rejected me. That night, things got awkward for
a bit and I left. By then, it was around
five to six am. She had smoked something while I
was there, though I didn't partake. I was kind of

(51:48):
devastated but felt it might have been for the best.
The next day she messaged me and we got to talking.
She asked if I tried to kiss her. I lied
and I said no, No, I felt embarrassed. Thing went
on as nothing happened. She kept being sweet with me
for a while, but things went colder than usual. Fast
forward till late last year. She had actually found someone.
They dated for a while and broke it off. We

(52:09):
didn't talk much during this time, but after she was single,
we started talking a bit more. She invited me to
meet up with her when she was having a camp
by the beach side with some girlfriends, but I didn't go.
That's major f up number two. Overall, twenty twenty three
hasn't been easy for me, and it wasn't easy for
her either. I thought to myself that maybe I should
tell her how I felt all these years, but she

(52:31):
had just gotten out of a relationship. Was it the
correct time. She was healing and was fragile. So I
decided to wait. So I did until last month, which
is where I truly leffed up. I decided one day
to stop by unannounced and bought her a pack of
sweets as a gift. I had no courage at all
to knock on her door and tell her how I felt,
so I bought some wine and drank in the car.

(52:51):
I picked her up after drinking a bit and we
got to talking. I was fine until I wasn't and
told her everything, and I mean everything, I told her.
Maybe I shouldn't have. I told her some personal things,
and I cried, and she cried. I kept repeating myself,
telling her just how much she meant to me after
all these years, and how I find her to be
magnificent in every way. I left and had a horrible night,

(53:14):
where looking back, it's super foggy to me, I can't
even remember some specific things. Well, things went cold for
a while. She actually dated someone the same week I
told her all of this, and that hurt me deeply.
I was not expecting that at all, though they ended
it after just a few days. I think everyone needs
to slow their role here and figure out themselves.

Speaker 6 (53:32):
Be single, guys, be.

Speaker 2 (53:33):
Single before you start going to other people. When I
found out, I unfollowed her socials there are certain things
I didn't want to see. Well, she blocked me, then
unblocked me, block me again, unblock me, and followed me again.
I know, seems ridiculous. I haven't seen her since that day,
but we've spoken since I sent her a long, truly
deep message, and she didn't know how to react. Right now,

(53:54):
She's not mentally fine and well, to be honest, neither
am I. I believe she appreciated it, but said she
felt toobol and was no good company to anybody and
wanted to be alone, which I understand and I respect well.
A few days go by, and I thought I'd be
kind and buy her a gift, similar to one I
bought when we dated all those years ago. I showed up,
knocked and nobody answered, stayed for a bit, knocked again,

(54:16):
and I left. I spent the day at the beach
with a friend, and when I got home, she sent
me a voice message asking if I knocked on her
door that day. I said I did, that I had
something I wanted to give her, and that if a
lot of days go by without giving it to her,
it would spoil well read it. She goes ballistic on me.
She sent multiple audio messages saying how I'm being harmful,
how her house is in some meet up place, and

(54:38):
that I have no right, how I have left her
absolutely anxious by doing that, and that her whole body
hurts as a result. She said a few more things,
and they weren't kind. But then I realized, yeah, this
is over. I apologized, told her she could have peace
of mind it would not happen again, and that she
would not hear from me again. And I thought that
was that. That was until a girlfriend of mine post

(54:59):
a story with a pack of sweets in my car.
I shared that post. She my friend saw it and
replied saying something like, well, mine is probably still under
the passenger seat smiley face, referring to the pack I
bought her that day. I didn't reply, had no idea
what to say or what she was expecting me to say.
Two days go by and she texts me at seven

(55:19):
am saying that now I'm ignoring her, and how she
hopes I never ever stopped by her place again, and
oh that I'm an effing stupid idiot. I've been blocked
ever since, and I don't think we'll ever speak again.
As the last gesture, I spoke with a friend of
hers to be there for her because I feared for her,
and that was it. I haven't heard from her since,

(55:41):
and we have an update three days later. Oh boy, Angie,
I mean we've been saying this entire time. Yeah, that
she's very wishy washy on what she wants from you.
I think she only wants you at specific times in
her life where she feels alone or empty, and it's
only on her terms of like I think I can
have you in my life. I mean, you guys did date,
but for the most part, that's what it seems like.
But now going to UOPI, I think what you were

(56:02):
trying to do was, like you thought, this is really sweet.
I'm being a good person. I'm being a good friend.
I'm being a good you know, I've revealed my feelings,
my true feelings for her. That wasn't your place to do.
I think you shun up at her place multiple times.
This wasn't the first time, but the second time, and
maybe you didn't tell her. Maybe you didn't tell her
that's not okay. She said, I want space, I want
to be respected, and you said, I respect that, I'm

(56:24):
not going to bother you. And then you literally show
at her door with a gift that's going to remind
you of your old relationship. What are you doing. You're
not being fair. That's I think it's a little selfish
of you to do that. When you said one thing
and she said one thing, and you're like, Okay, I'll
respect that.

Speaker 7 (56:38):
Yeah, because obviously we're seeing a lot of things that
she's doing wrong in this situation.

Speaker 6 (56:42):
But I feel like in a toxic.

Speaker 7 (56:44):
Relationship like this one, you seems like you're both contributing
to that.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
We do have an update three days later. So I've
been reading everyone's comments for the past few days. I
have noticed some people calling out the toxic behavior between
the both of us, and most of you are indeed right.
I could have done things diff been thinking about it
almost every day for the past month. Actually, I forgot
to mention one thing that I think is important and
that I admit it. When she recontacted me during the VID,

(57:09):
she wanted us to get back together. I put an
emphasis on us only being friends. So the reason I'm
making this post to day is, well, she called me tonight.
I had her phone number deleted, but I recognized it
mostly because of the last three digits. As I picked up,
I noticed she seemed to be sobbing slightly. Well. She
goes on to tell me that she doesn't want things
to end with me, that I was one of the

(57:29):
best things that happened to her, but that she's angry
with me for showing up and letting that bombshell on her.
I apologized again for it, especially for being wasted before
meeting up with her. I am not someone who drinks,
so I am especially vulnerable when doing so, though I
did want a slight emotional push. Anyways, she told me
that she's confused by everything that happened, even though she
says I'm very important to her. Whichever way she meant,

(57:50):
I don't know. She told me some more private things
that made me actually feel for her, but honestly, the
reaction to that post kind of changed my life, and
I want to thank most of you for it. I
cut things off off completely. I told her I'll probably
love her for many more years. Being with other people
hasn't worked so far. But like I told her, eyes
that don't see, heart that doesn't feel I said, I'll
miss her. I told her just how much everything she

(58:11):
did hurt me, including our first relationship, and that I
believe that I didn't deserve to be treated that way
that she treated me because it hurt me and made
me question my worth. After all, one thing that assures
me is that I did everything to always treat her
the best I could. I always did what I could
for her. I told her to be strong, but that
this would probably be the last time we'd interact. I'd
asked her to delete my number, which is the last

(58:31):
thing we still have to be in contact each other.
We've blocked each other on social media. Of course, while
I was telling her those things, she started crying, which
made me question everything I was saying over the phone.
But I pulled through, mostly because, like everyone said, this
was doomed to fail and I was doomed to get
hurt again. Time to think of my well being for once,
and not someone else's. She calmed down a bit and

(58:52):
took it fairly well. She said she'll respect my decision.
I wish her the best, hung up the phone and
blocked her number. This was not easy at all ready,
let me tell her, after all, I still love this
girl with every ounce of my being. I feel relieved
in a way. I feel we ended things fairly reasonable
with no toxic feelings closure per se. Thanks to everyone.
It's a breakup. You finally like you finally got your closure.

(59:13):
You finally broke up. I mean, you guys, were no
matter if it's a friendship, relationship, whatever, ship. You guys
didn't fully break up until now, and breakup suck. Yes,
you guys were dating. You guys stopped talking, but you
got you guys kind of rekindled. It wasn't fully broken
up until that door, wasn't fully closed until now, and
now you can you know exactly the saying of if

(59:35):
you love someone, let them go kind of thing. Yeah
and yeah, I kind of hate that saying, but it's
in this case. Sure you could love them, but you
can move on. What you need to do is love
yourself first, exactly, focus on yourself. Op.

Speaker 7 (59:47):
Yeah, be single for a while, reflect and process this situation.
Let's just you know, realize what we didn't like about
the situation, and you'll feel stronger afterwards because you'll know
that you never would have up with that again.

Speaker 2 (01:00:00):
It's a learning experience. It's called life.

Speaker 6 (01:00:03):
You know.

Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
It's okay, And that's.

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
The end of the story.

Speaker 6 (01:00:06):
We're gonna go on to the next one.

Speaker 2 (01:00:08):
John here og host. We're gonna get back to these stories.
But a quick three minute break from ass for more sponsors.

Speaker 7 (01:00:13):
My friend's wife mocked me because I don't have a
wedding gift for them.

Speaker 2 (01:00:17):
Your presence was a gift.

Speaker 7 (01:00:19):
I recently attended my best friend's wedding last weekend, and
I guess he finally got around to opening all the gifts.
My friend and I have been best friends since two
thousand and seven, when we met in grade school. Since then,
we've been over at each other's houses so often it's
basically more like a familial brother bond than an actual friendship.

Speaker 6 (01:00:36):
By the way, this comes.

Speaker 7 (01:00:37):
From SGAI snsvds and if you want to submit your
own stories, go to the r slash Okay Storytime, sepread
it and I'm Angie.

Speaker 6 (01:00:45):
I'm Keon, and we're here to give good advice goofily.
But that means that we don't have all the answers.
We just are gonna guess what we would do in
this situation. But let us know what you would do
in the comments.

Speaker 7 (01:00:54):
In May of this year, he came to me with
his head down and asked me if he could borrow
money for his wedding. He knew he was getting married.
They had sent out invites for a wedding on September
twenty seventh, my birthday. Hello, happy birthday, What a great
day to have.

Speaker 2 (01:01:07):
We were also the first day at Carly ah yeah, cute,
big important days for both of us.

Speaker 6 (01:01:13):
Yay, and we were all so excited.

Speaker 7 (01:01:15):
He told me he was able to pay most of
the deposits, but was running low on cash for full
payment of services rendered. He had saved about thirty K
and was short about fifteen K, but he was sure
he could live off of ramen and spend very little
and save the five K in the next six months,
so he wanted me to loan him ten K. I

(01:01:36):
told him very clearly that I had no problem loaning
him the money, but I would need to do it
with a clearly stated contract about repayment terms, and he agreed.
A few days after he came to me, I showed
about his house with the contract and money. I told
him the contract clearly states that I'm only loaning him
seven thousand dollars and not ten thousand dollars. The additional
three thousand was a gift from me to him and

(01:01:57):
his future wife.

Speaker 6 (01:01:58):
Oh wow, wow wow, that's very generous.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
I want to be my friend too, right.

Speaker 7 (01:02:03):
The contract stated that he would repay me within one
year of the actual marriage, so officially his debt would
come ode on September twenty seventh of twenty twenty six.
This Monday, my friend asked me to meet him at
a local coffee shop so we could talk about something.
He told me that he and his wife had gone
through all of the envelopes and she was very upset
to find that there was nothing from his best friend.

Speaker 6 (01:02:24):
He told me that he kept the.

Speaker 7 (01:02:25):
Load of secret from her and wanted to keep it
that way, but she might reach out to figure out
if there was an issue on why I didn't send
a gift. I told him he could just tell her
that I gave a gift earlier and that my gift
was used as payment to vendors or something for the wedding, which.

Speaker 6 (01:02:39):
Is the truth. He doesn't want to say that.

Speaker 7 (01:02:40):
He thinks it's too shameful from his perspective to say
something like that, especially since some of the vendors at
the wedding, like the mocktail mixologist, were her request and.

Speaker 6 (01:02:49):
She had to have a specific videographer, et cetera.

Speaker 7 (01:02:52):
Yesterday, my friend and his wife invited me over to
their new apartment. I knew I wasn't expecting to be invited,
but my parents taught me to know I ever show
up to someone's home empty handed. I bought a box
of specialized baclava from a Lebonese bakery at work, Jump
Yummy Yummy, in a small bouquet of flowers, and a
nice piece of vinyl art that sticks to the wall

(01:03:13):
and also peels off easily. Since they are renting, I
didn't think much of it, but these gifts caught me
about forty five dollars in total. It wasn't very thoughtful,
but it also wasn't anything crappy. They both got upset
for different reasons. My friend was upset that I showed
up with gifts in the first place, especially after the
conversation we just had. His wife was upset that I
showed up with gifts for visiting their home but not

(01:03:33):
their wedding. She was pretty blunt and said, wow, you know,
these gifts almost make up for not getting us.

Speaker 6 (01:03:38):
A wedding present.

Speaker 7 (01:03:39):
I pretended to laugh it off and saw my best
friend's expression that he wanted me to lie, so I
told them sorry about that. I just don't always feel
comfortable giving money as a gift, and I know your
invites said no boxed gifts. If I can get you
all something for the new place, I thought it would
be better After that little exchange, we had a slightly
awkward dinner, and I left and got messages from my

(01:04:00):
friend saying thank you for covering for him. And I
left and got messages from my friend thanking me for
covering for him. But now she's expecting a gift for
their home. He sent me a link to a few
Amazon products and asked if I would be comfortable ordering
one of those. I said sure, no, if he would
sell me at the amount for the gifts, yes, I
think that would be great.

Speaker 6 (01:04:20):
If if they want to go with this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:22):
Oh oh, the friend would sell zell op the amount.

Speaker 6 (01:04:24):
Okay, that's what we're asking. I don't think it's going
to happen, but that would be if they're.

Speaker 7 (01:04:30):
If they're truly going up with it, or like going
through with this cover up, that would need to be
what happens.

Speaker 6 (01:04:34):
Okay, you need to then buy.

Speaker 4 (01:04:38):
My gift for your home.

Speaker 6 (01:04:39):
Because I paid you three thousand dollars, I.

Speaker 2 (01:04:41):
Was gonna say, hey, so put that on my tab
that you owe me, you know, four thousand more dollars, right,
you remember that, right exactly?

Speaker 6 (01:04:48):
He was confused.

Speaker 7 (01:04:50):
I thought he would pay since I already gave him
a fairly generous gift and this was just to keep
up appearances. He said, no, but the cheapest thing he
sent me was Ay two one hundred dollar robot vacuum cleaner.
I told him I was not going to pay for
a gift after I had already given him a gift
and he just didn't want to tell his wife about it.
Now he hasn't spoken to me and won't respond to

(01:05:11):
any messages. Am Ida hole for not giving a gift
at a wedding and uh, the answer is.

Speaker 2 (01:05:16):
No, you gave a gift.

Speaker 6 (01:05:17):
What do you mean, Yeah, exactly, you did give a gift.

Speaker 2 (01:05:19):
You gave a gift.

Speaker 7 (01:05:20):
You also paid for like a third of that wedding,
so like, come on Friday night, my friend reached out
to me through his mom, As I said, we grew
up together, so his mom has a special place in
my heart always. She asked me kindly to come over
to her house so we could all discuss it. My
friend told his wife everything. Oh, and she apologized so
much to me in person. She said that in her culture,

(01:05:42):
which is Chinese slash East Asian, you use a gift
to denote your worth to the couple being married, So
not receiving a gift from people is very odd and
seen as heavily disrespectful. She didn't know much about me
before their marriage, other than the fact that her husband
always told her about how I was basically his brother
since he never actually had one. Her asking for a
gift was out of concern for our relationship, saying that

(01:06:05):
she was looking out for her husband's feelings because he
wouldn't want to lose the only brother he's ever had.
She said that me giving the generous gift that I
did was hugely appreciated, that she is super proud to
see me as her brother, and she was sorry our
first major interaction happened so poorly, but I have been
nothing but amazing to her and the family as a whole.
My friend started tearing up, saying that he wanted to

(01:06:25):
try to keep it a secret as a point of pride.
Borrowing money was something that should be taboo, and if
he didn't have the money for an extravagant wedding, he
should have done a smaller wedding. From the beginning, I
was a little frustrated with everyone there, but also saw
that everyone was being sincere, so I decided to forgive.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah, if this didn't a good that you didn't have to,
you know, make things explode on your end where he's like,
all right, dude, you don't want to up to it.
I'm I'm going to reveal the truth. It is so
good that he's like, hey, sorry, the fact that you
go through was mom though.

Speaker 6 (01:06:54):
The mom is the one that decided to like very weird.
It's very weird.

Speaker 2 (01:06:58):
But okay, I meant there. We got to the apology
and everyone's yeah, cool.

Speaker 6 (01:07:03):
Now Bud's got a problem with pride. It's gotta work
on that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:07):
Like, hey, by the way, since you you're sorry and everything, right,
when am I getting my money back?

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
Right?

Speaker 3 (01:07:12):
Yeah?

Speaker 6 (01:07:12):
Exactly?

Speaker 2 (01:07:13):
I want to payment plan. How are we doing this?

Speaker 6 (01:07:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 7 (01:07:15):
I told my friend's wife specifically that I don't like
my worth being questioned by the size of my gift
and that she acted poorly having me over at her house.
I told my friend that his actions put me in
a very awkward spot where I was forced to lie
when I don't like to lie. They decided to make
amends by offering to pay back the loan early by
giving me the cash gifts they received at the wedding,
plus a little bit of their own money to make

(01:07:36):
it even. That's a great idea of you got all
this money for the wedding, you have debts to pay.
They were able to pay me back the seven thousand
dollars in full and had also set aside three thousand
dollars asking me to take that back as well, but
I refused, saying from the beginning that my intention and
giving that was always as a gift and that they
should keep it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Yeah. Now, yeah, okay, don't don't civil math here. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah,
Let's just give me back the money that I want.
Don't put any interest on it. Yeah, take me out
to dinner or something.

Speaker 7 (01:08:06):
There are some comments coming to emberon. One says not
the a whole. You are not the a hole for
so many reasons. For one, you did get him a gift.
You loaned him a certain amount of money that he
had asked for, but part of that sum of money
was a gift to pay for vendors. He gave him
three thousand dollars as a gift. It is not your
problem that he feels the need to hide this from
his wife. That's honestly, such a red flag to hide
something financial like that in a marriage.

Speaker 6 (01:08:27):
That hasn't even been gun yet.

Speaker 2 (01:08:29):
I so yeah.

Speaker 6 (01:08:30):
And then to let her talk to you disrespectfully like.

Speaker 7 (01:08:33):
That when you not only loaned him money, but gifted
him three thousand dollars And then not only did you
loan him money, gift part of the loan that doesn't
have to be paid back, but he doesn't offer to
pay for the wedding gift his wife was asking for.

Speaker 6 (01:08:49):
He needs to get his crap together.

Speaker 7 (01:08:50):
He needs to be honest with his wife, or that
marriage isn't going to last long at all. I mean,
she should have been embarrassed of her behavior, regardless of
the secret gift or not. But to put you on
the spot for quote not getting a wedding gift from you,
is just bizarre. At this point, I don't know if
there is any redeeming of the friendship. He's shown as
true colors. And I'm not saying this is the best
thing to do, but I would straight up tell the
wife about the loan, about the money as a gift,

(01:09:12):
or to hint towards it so that he has to
explain himself better to her. This is insanity and that's
the end.

Speaker 6 (01:09:18):
Of that story. But yeah, I think that really summed
up our thoughts on it.

Speaker 2 (01:09:21):
No exactly. Op. You are a loyal friend. Yeah, from
what we've got, very loyal. You would lie for your friend,
you would take all the blame from uh man, you're
never the a hole here. Good thing. You put your
foot down and you're like, no, this is dumb. Hopefully
your friendship could you know, blossom back to normal. But
you did it, good for you.

Speaker 6 (01:09:41):
Yeah, I think that comment was obviously before the last update.

Speaker 2 (01:09:44):
I think it was right before the day.

Speaker 6 (01:09:46):
Everything in that update was good.

Speaker 7 (01:09:48):
I'm glad that you didn't keep that three thousand dollars,
even though I think you would have been fine to
do that.

Speaker 6 (01:09:53):
Yeah, but I think it was good.

Speaker 7 (01:09:55):
I think that was a good friendship move because then
now there can't be any resentment of like, oh, like
you know, you deserve money for like you deserve some
sort of punishment for that kind of stuff. It's it's
a very very nice, uh pardon that you the wife's apology.

Speaker 2 (01:10:10):
I mean maybe it was very sincere and she was like,
you know, in my culture kind of thing, but I
would have been like, oh my gosh, like I am
so embarrassed. I feel so bad, Like is there anything.

Speaker 7 (01:10:22):
And I'm glad that he spoke his mind on being Like, well,
I get that that's your culture, but at the same time, like,
I don't like being. I don't want to be defined
the amount of gift site bring you.

Speaker 6 (01:10:32):
You know what I mean. Yeah, that's very odd, but
glad that he spoke his mind.

Speaker 2 (01:10:36):
Yeah, very good for U.

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I made a CASUAL comment about my sister-in-law's career… and she blew up! -r/AmITheAsshole | Reddit Stories | EP2359

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;} I made a CASUAL comment about my sister-in-law's career… and she blew up! -r/AmITheAsshole | Reddit Stories | EP2359