A man is facing major backlash after storming out on a family holiday after his mother-in-law accused him of invading the family's privacy.
In a post published on Reddit's popular subreddit “AITA” (Am I The A——?) on Thursday, August 8, a 38-year-old man wrote that he and his wife, 35, were planning to take their 5-year-old daughter on vacation to Venice, Italy. “Venice has always been my wife's idea of a romantic city, so it's been her dream to go there,” he wrote.
But his wife's mother soon found out about the trip and said it had been her dream to visit, so he invited her to come along. “My wife was very supportive of the idea, but I was reluctant,” he said.
To his “disappointment”, his wife had booked just one room with two queen-size beds for their group of four, leading to a series of conflicts.
“Couldn't you have booked a separate room for your mother-in-law without leaving your wife and kids behind?” was one reply.
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The Reddit user claimed that because of the layout of the room, my mother-in-law is “always in my space” by sharing my wife's “expensive” products, like cleanser, shampoo and lotion, with him and sitting on the bed.
“Very unhygienic and I'm a very private person so I didn't like that she was sitting on my wife and I's shared bed,” the user wrote. “She was rummaging through our suitcase looking for hair ties and it really pissed me off that she did it without asking me. I locked it because I wouldn't want to see her going through our stuff when we weren't there.”
The user called the “final straw” moment when he discovered his mother-in-law had been using his and his wife's toothpaste, which he claimed made him “feel sick.”
“I hate the idea of her putting her toothbrush near (or on) the toothpaste nozzle,” he continued. “I asked my mother-in-law if she was just staying with my wife and I. She didn't pay for the hotel, amenities, or meals, only her own flight. I told her that I had politely asked her multiple times not to use my wife's belongings, especially since I share them with her and it would be highly inappropriate.”
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According to the user, when his mother-in-law told his wife what had happened, she started yelling at him, and he said he was “super angry” because he had paid for the trip “with his own money” and it had been “ruined.”
“I changed the date on my flight ticket and flew straight home. My wife called me multiple times afterwards yelling at me that our daughter was upset,” he concluded, noting that she had her own bank card and could pay for her own expenses to either fly home or stay in Italy. He added that he had been ignoring her calls “to give my mental state some rest.”
“I am sorry that my daughter was caught up in this situation, but her mother-in-law's actions are truly unacceptable and a boundary needed to be drawn before things escalated,” he concluded.
The “AITA” community was quick to declare the user a total “idiot,” claiming that he was unclear about what he wanted from both his mother-in-law and wife, and had unrealistic expectations when it came to cleanliness.
“Wow,” one commenter wrote in response. “Your wife booked the wrong hotel room and you left her on her dream vacation to deal with a pesky preschooler on her own? Couldn't you have just booked a separate room for your mother-in-law instead of leaving your wife and kids behind?”
“Some of the things people are upset about are just awful,” one reply noted.
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Another person echoed the sentiment, saying some of her husband's complaints were “just awful.”
“Does sharing toothpaste cause lice? And isn't it okay for your mother-in-law to sit on your bed because it's unhygienic? Why do you care if she shares your wife's face wash, shampoo, etc?”
Another user replied to the post, arguing that the husband's communication skills could be improved and that ignoring his wife's calls was damaging their relationship rather than improving his mental health.
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“You're actively damaging your marriage by continuing to ignore her calls, all because you failed to communicate like an adult (i.e., how hard is it to say, 'Let's go buy some different toothpaste so you don't have to use ours'?). And now you're doing the exact opposite of damage control by purposely avoiding her and claiming it's for your mental health,” a commenter wrote.
After the post gained traction on Reddit, garnering over 650 replies and 800 upvotes, the original poster wrote a response to his critics, thanking them for their advice and saying he “realized his mistake.”
“I will be writing a sincere apology tonight and calling my wife first thing tomorrow morning. Thank you again,” he concluded. “I love my wife more than anything and I want to make amends.”
