In every relationship, romantic and otherwise, we all have dealbreakers that we uphold for ourselves.
But someone else’s dealbreakers might surprise us, agreed the “Am I the A**hole?” (AITA) subReddit.
Redditor Dry_Leg_9006 was looking forward to introducing his girlfriend to his dads, though he’d never really clarified that they were a married couple.
When she cut the dinner short and accused him of keeping important information from her, the Original Poster (OP) was truly taken aback by the turn in their relationship.
He asked the sub:
“AITA for not telling my girlfriend that my parents are gay?”
The OP had a special relationship with his parents.
“I’m 25 (Male), and I have two parents: my birth dad, John (48 Male), and my other dad, Dwayne (45 Male). I call my birth dad, John, ‘Dad,’ and I call my other dad, Dwayne, ‘Pops.'”
“My birth dad was married to my mom for a few years, and then she left my dad, and yeah. They ended up divorcing, and now she’s somewhere in California. I don’t know where or what she’s doing. I haven’t talked to her in ages.”
“So I’m super close with Dad and Pops. They are the best parents any child could ask for. I love both of them, and they’ve always been with me.”
The OP loved how happy his parents made each other.
“My dad introduced me to Pops when I was a little boy, and they had told me they were in a relationship.”
“I was all for it because I had seen my dad sad and lonely he was single. Seeing my dad love someone and have a life partner made me super happy.”
“Pops and Dad got married, and we’ve been living an amazing life. I’m probably more close to Pops than my own dad, haha, due to the fact that Pops is really cool and he’s laid back.”
“I love both of them equally, and they love me as well, and I’m blessed to have them as parents.”
The OP was looking forward to his girlfriend coming over to meet his dads.
“For a few months, I’ve been dating this girl, Bella, who’s my age. I thought she was pretty cute, and I liked her.”
“So we kicked it, and recently she told me, ‘My parents want to meet your parents and want to come over for dinner.'”
“I said, ‘Sure, I’ll tell my family.'”
But the dinner didn’t go the way the OP was expecting.
“So yesterday, Friday night, Bella came in.”
“Pops greeted her and said, ‘Come on in, sweetheart, dinner is ready.'”
“She said, ‘You must be (my) dad. It’s so good to meet you,’ and she shook his hand.”
“Then she saw Dad come out of the kitchen, holding the mac and cheese tray with mittens and putting it on the table. Then Bella said, ‘Who’s he?'”
“I said, ‘Oh, that’s my dad.'”
“She said, ‘I thought he was your dad,’ referring to Pops.”
“I said, ‘Yeah, that’s my Pops. And that’s my dad.'”
“She pulled me to the side and said, ‘I didn’t know your parents were gay. Oh my god. Why didn’t you tell me?'”
“I told her, ‘I genuinely didn’t know why that’d be an issue or so. Because you’re dating me, not my parents and all. So it shouldn’t matter?'”
Dinner was cut very, very short.
“But I guess it was a concern for her. Her parents came to the door after they parked the car, and Bella told her parents, ‘Let’s leave,’ as they came in, and they left.”
“I told my parents I was sorry, and they said, ‘Son, don’t worry, this is nothing new.'”
“Then we all sat down and enjoyed dinner and went to sleep.”
“AITA for not telling her?”
Fellow Redditors weighed in:
- NTA: Not the A**hole
- YTA: You’re the A**hole
- ESH: Everybody Sucks Here
- NAH: No A**holes Here
Some were left side-eyeing the girlfriend over her comments to the OP.
“When I was in high school, I had a boyfriend whose mom was gay, and he lived with her and her partner. I was never told his mom was gay. I found out when I first met them.”
“I had a sweeping thought of, ‘Oh, his mom is gay. That’s cool.’ I ended up becoming very close to his mom’s partner. She was like a second mom.”
“Later in our relationship, he told me, ‘It meant a lot that when you met my mom, you were cool about her being gay.’ There wasn’t a reason not to be cool with it.”
“This was over 20 years ago. My conservative, republican parents were ok with it.”
“There was no reason the girlfriend and her parents reacted this way.” – Traveling_Phan
“NTA, did she ever tell you her parents are straight?” – Djorgal
“Did she ever tell him her parents are bigots?” – Embarrassed_Injury45
“I came here to say he should have replied with, ‘What, your parents are straight? You should have told me!'”
“Sounds like OP dodged a homophobic bullet. NTA.” – Jazzlike-Elephant131
Others thought the OP could have done a better job of monitoring those beliefs sooner.
“To be honest, I also think he should have felt her out instead of subjecting his parents to being walked out on. OP could have discovered the homophobia well before that point if so. Like, it’s good his dads didn’t seem to mind, but I can’t picture deliberately putting someone I loved through that when a little more legwork on my part could filter out the trash for them.” – maggienetism
“By the time my parents go anywhere near a relationship, I’m basically ready to marry the person. Of all the people I dated, my parents met the ones I married and one accidentally, let alone throw parents into the mix.”
“If my family is going to meet another family, there’s a lot of background information I’m going to need…”
“She also should have mentioned, ‘Hey, my parents like to antique, play cards, and are homophobic jerks.'” – Radiant-Abrocoma-687
“I recently went out to lunch with a colleague whom I’ve become friendly with. I intentionally brought up drag story hours during this lunch to express my disappointment in what the US has been doing.”
“I made a choice to do this as she’d mentioned being religious, and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t starting a friendship with a bigot.”
“Luckily for me, she responded positively to that conversation, and we’ve gotten lunch a few times since then.”
“My point being though, it’s smart to bring it up at some point to protect yourself from more heartache down the line.” – lonelyspren
“You can sort this kind of social issue in other ways. Honestly, given everything going on in the world these days, I’m kinda surprised this topic didn’t come up in conversation in the first few months of a relationship.”
“But honestly, normalize asking, ‘You’re not a bigot?” on first dates.” – Plasticity93
“I met my now husband in 2002. I told him, ‘If you’re racist, tell me now. I’ll walk away.'”
“He said no, and that was that.”
“My ex-husband was racist, and that’s one of many reasons he’s my ex-husband.” – GTFOakaFOD
“I had that moment with a friend. He kept mentioning his mom and never his dad. And then he suddenly talked about his moms. That was when it clicked. Some people are slow. It happens, but it is still weird timing.”
“But yeah, this is the way to test if people are homophobic. Just look at their reaction. I personally just mention my interest in women as casually as possible (I’m a woman), or I mention my ex-girlfriend once, and when the person I am dating is reacting negatively, it is bye-bye. It’s worked so far.” – EggplantHuman6493
And some were surprised the OP hadn’t talked about his family sooner, too.
“NTA, although I’m surprised this hasn’t come up in conversation with her in the past few months. Discussion of the family (parents, siblings) is fairly common in early dating.” – badusername678
“You’ve dated this girl for months. How has the subject of parents never come up? After my parents divorced, Dad met Pops, and Pops raised me as his own.”
“Seriously, what did you two talk about?” – pineboxwaiting
“I’d have assumed Pops would be a grandfather, so I’d assume he was living/raised with his father and grandfather after his mother left.”
“If he didn’t clarify that his father was in a gay relationship, then I wouldn’t assume it based on the names.”
“I don’t think it is a big deal at all, but properly something you should mention to your SO (significant other) before introducing parents, just like any other unexpected obvious difference. it is just nicer to give your SO a heads up so they aren’t surprised.”
“Being surprised (even if you have zero problems at all with the situation) can make you nervous and uncomfortable when you are already feeling those things going in.” – Caymanmew
“NTA. But perhaps naive. Unfortunately, it’s probably better to let a girlfriend know you have two dads so you can weed out the homophobes BEFORE you accidentally bring them home for dinner.”
“He probably should let prospective girlfriends know so that he doesn’t accidentally expose his poor dads to hate. They might be used to it, but they don’t deserve it.” – lonelyspren
“It’s not about making a statement of, ‘Oh, by the way, I have two dads.’ But it’s very, very strange to get to that stage in a relationship without mentioning anything, in a normal, casual way, that involves your family. Basic stuff like where your parents are from, what they do, etc.” – Remote-Pool7787
“Here’s what surprises me. By the time my husband met my parents, he knew the entire rundown of my family. Same for his.”
“I would say that OP dodged a bullet, and he should know more about his partner and share more of his life history before meeting the parents. Did his ex not even know that OP’s mom left him and his dad remarried?” – baconcheesecakesauce
The subReddit was divided on this one, but not on the subject of whether the girlfriend was wrong to walk out or not. They could all agree the deeper problems remained with the girlfriend and her parents, but they were still surprised that the OP had not done more work to describe his family life to his girlfriend or to put feelers out for possible homophobia to protect his dads.