Content Warning: Grief, Grieving Process, Deceased Partners
It would be a tremendous understatement to say that the death of a life-long partner would be devastating.
But sometimes we forget how devastating it can be for parents to grieve the loss of their adult child, even if they had been married and started a life of their own, empathized the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITAH) subReddit.
Redditor throwaway_4833k was understanding of this grief and knew that his wife still loved her late husband.
But when her late husband’s parents started comparing him to her late husband, and also imagined how much better their biological granddaughter would be, the Original Poster (OP) was pushed too far outside of his comfort zone.
He asked the sub:
“WIBTAH (Would I Be the A**hole) if I told my wife’s dead husband’s parents to stop coming to see our biological daughter?”
The OP loved his wife and their one-year-old daughter.
“I have been married my wife for about two years now and we had our daughter a year ago.”
“Now, my wife was married before, she got married pretty young, but her husband died.”
“I knew all of this and have been just fine with it.”
But his wife’s late husband’s parents were starting to impede on their happiness.
“Until now.”
“See, she’s still pretty close to her dead husband’s parents.”
“And they were excited for the birth of our child. They only had one son, no other children at all.”
“They have been coming over to our place about once a week. It was fine at first, but it’s gotten kind of suffocating. They have visited us more times than either of her parents or my parents.”
“They have even stayed over our house at times, which is something I wouldn’t even like even if they were my own parents.”
“Another thing… they talk about their dead son… a lot. Which is usually fine, but they have made some comments that make me uncomfortable.”
“They even said my daughter kind of looks like him, and his mom even said, ‘Oh, if she’s this cute, imagine how cute your kids would have been, if only…’ when talking to my wife. She was gonna say more, but I think she realized what she was about to say, I was right there.”
The OP felt incredibly conflicted.
“I want to be amicable, and I knew that there were gonna be some moments like this, but it’s starting to make me feel uncomfortable.”
“I don’t know how much more I can take of this.”
“Would I be the a**hole for setting new boundaries?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
The conversation surrounding this issue was uniquely nuanced.
Everyone understood why the OP was upset, between the frequency of the visits and the kinds of comments and conversations that were occurring during those visits.
However, they also understood that the wife’s parents-in-law were struggling with their grief, and while their attachment to their daughter-in-law’s new family was misplaced, it was understandable.
But clearly, the situation needed to change.
Some empathized with what the grieving parents were going through but insisted on boundaries.
“NTA… They are clinging to you guys in the wake of losing their son, but there needs to be boundaries in place. It begins with a conversation with your wife and working in unison, and this really needs to be a conversation she has with them, rather than you initiating it.” – leaving4me
“NAH.”
“You are understandably uncomfortable with the situation. Your wife loves these people like her own parents, which often blinds us to boundary stomping. The late husband’s parents are grieving and need more therapy to help them have a healthy relationship with your wife and child.”
“Next time you bring it up to your wife, focus on how it makes you feel, and how you think that it can be detrimental to your child.”
“It might help you to reframe the discussion to ask her to imagine how intrusive this would be if these were your in-laws.”
“Because regardless of the relationship, they are intruding on your life, your home, and potentially your child’s mental well-being.”
“Every time your wife tells you it’s ok, remind her that it’s not ok with you. And don’t stop reminding her until the two of you are able to come to an agreement that is workable for BOTH of you.”
“I say this from the POV of having seen my late SIL’s mother lose her mind after my SIL died. She tried to take custody of the kids away from my brother. Everything about her grieving process was incredibly toxic to those around her.”
“You are much better off here than my brother was, but that doesn’t mean you have to give up your peace of mind in your own home. You’re the dad and you get to have a say in how your kid is raised/treated/spoken to.” – Background_Camp_7712
“NAH. The parents are overstepping, but they’re not being cruel, they are just hurting.”
“Bonus grandparents are amazing. This will only be beneficial, but you all need to talk, sweetly and kindly all around, about what this relationship is going to look like right now, because right now it’s not working for you.” – altdultosaurs
“I would specifically mention to the wife the emotional toll of being compared to her late husband as if OP is just the person standing in since he’s gone.”
“Maybe even ask if she’d be uncomfortable if he and his family compared her to his exes (not exactly the same situation, but still valid I think) AND compared their biological daughter to any children his exes may have had by this point.” – Oblivious_Squid19
“Her not being over the loss of her husband is okay. Her remaining close with his family is okay.”
“Her inviting them over more than either of their own parents is excessive. If OP were fine with it, then it’d be okay. Since it’s not, weekly is not okay.”
“Them reminiscing over the late husband is okay. The parents giving backhanded compliments to their daughter is not okay.”
“The wife engaging in that conversation and not shutting it down is abhorrent. Her boundary enforcement in general seems to be lacking.”
“OP shouldn’t try to shut them out completely just because they’re the parents of another man she was with in the past. With that said, the parents are giving him every reason imaginable to not like them and not want them around.” – the_saltlord
Others pointed out that this would eventually negatively impact the OP’s child, as well.
“The kid’s mental health is going to be important in the long run for sure if this keeps up. The baby is already being compared to children that can never be. The baby is being judged on her relation to a dead man… which is none.”
“Imagine growing up being constantly compared to somebody that doesn’t exist, constantly being a disappointment to the people judging you because they have an ideal in their head that could never possibly be reality.” – FreeFallingUp13
“‘Imagine growing up being constantly compared to somebody that doesn’t exist.'”
“Yup, I lived that life. It f**king sucks. I didn’t even think about that while reading and you’re 100% right. The OP needs to nip this in the bud before the kid is old enough to remember it.” – Jirvey341
“I could never be the child my dad would have loved if I’d been the son he dreamed of. The first time I ever heard him speak my name out loud was when I was 17 and his EX came back pregnant with a boy and let him ‘adopt’ him by being named on the birth certificate as the father.”
“Until then, he’d always introduce me to people as ‘kid’ or ‘the kid,’ but when he finally got the baby boy, he proudly told everyone the full name whenever he got the chance.”
“AND THEN neither that child or the younger brother who came after could live up to the son he’d always imagined having and in my 20s, my dad declared I was his favorite because I came closest to being what he’d hoped for.”
“But I still can’t imagine being compared to the idealogical, hypothetical baby born of my mother and a man I never met who had died. There would be no living up to that, no reconciliation, ever.” – Oblivious_Squid19
“How the child will be impacted by all of this is important, and I hope that OP communicates this to his wife: I get that she’s trying to console people who she sees as family, but she needs to understand that this could cause psychological damage for a poor, still-developing baby.”
“The ex-inlaws need therapy. Clearly. The wife does, too, if she can’t see what’s wrong with this. I don’t think they dealt with their grief correctly.” – Used-Violinist-6244
After receiving feedback, the OP shared a hopefully promising update in another post.
“So, I had a talk with my wife about her dead husband’s parents, and like clockwork, they actually came this week too. I am writing this after they left and had a talk with my wife.”
“I told my wife that the frequency of these visits is becoming too much, and their comments are bothering me.”
“My wife really didn’t realize how the comments sounded until I explained them to her.”
“I told her I don’t mind them coming over now and then but that I want to spend time with her and our daughter when I am not tired from work.”
“She promised me she would talk to them and would make sure they gave us our space and that they would stop with the comments.”
“She also apologized for not saying anything and said that while she still loves her dead husband, she loves me and would never treat me as anything less than her husband and father of her daughter.”
“So yeah, I think things turned out okay.”
Some were concerned the parents would need therapy before the boundaries would work.
“Anyone else concerned that the people who keep visiting their dead son’s widow and her child with another man WEEKLY might not be terribly receptive to being talked to about boundaries and nuclear family time?”
“They didn’t get a chance to have grandchildren, and that is so sad. But it doesn’t give them the right to disrupt OP’s family time.”
“OP, you need to discuss the actual frequency you are comfortable with, blackout days and times, and what to do when they inevitably show up uninvited. Your wife needs to be comfortable telling them it’s not a good time for a visit and turn them away.” – compassionfever
“I think it’s pretty clear they have a lot of unresolved grief surrounding the death of their son, which, while understandable, is definitely crossing reasonable boundaries, and they need help healing.”
“It’s worse when the mom says, ‘She’s cute, but could you imagine how cute she would be if… (my son wasn’t dead and he was father and she looked like him instead)?'”
“OP’s a champ for lasting this long. If I heard this, I would have lost my s**t and kicked them both out (former in-laws) while reminding them they were talking about MY daughter, not their granddaughter. But I have issues and don’t care if I hurt feelings.” – HeyPrettyLadyMaam
“Even if they were the biological grandparents to this baby, OP would still be within his rights to say that they were visiting too often and making it difficult for him to enjoy time with his family.”
“If they are over more often than anyone else in the family, then it’s perfectly reasonable for him to want some space. With them also grieving and acting this way, it just adds fuel to the fire.”
“I hope they get the help they need and they can maintain a meaningful, much healthier, relationship with the OP, his wife, and their daughter.” – theroha
“Your wife’s dead former husband’s parents need some serious therapy. The fact that they’re saying things that are flat-out child abuse is wildly inappropriate.”
“OP, you need to protect your family from this bulls**t.”
“You’re on the right path, and I congratulate you. You’ve got this, brother!” – jlaw1791
Not only did the subReddit sympathize with the OP and what he was going through, but they were concerned about how much emotional work the family had in front of them.
It was clear the family needed to establish new boundaries, but in order for the grieving parents to respect those boundaries, they might need to process some of their grief and understand the pain they were causing first.