We all like to feel important.
Especially when so much of the world is rushing by us every day without a care for our well-being, sometimes it can be nice to be noticed.
The trouble is that sometimes the need to feel noticed outweighs our need to be civil.
That was the issue facing Redditor and Original Poster (OP) Lukeproblem135 when she came to the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for judgment.
She asked:
“AITA for telling my parents I won’t attend their christmas celebration until they send my husband a separate invitation?.”
OP began with background.
“I’ll preface this by saying that my husband (Luke) M32 does not get along with my parents.”
“You can’t tell who’s right or who’s wrong, there’s always this ongoing tension between them but can be civil enough to sit together at one table.”
Then she got right to the problem at hand.
“I recently got an invitation for christmas celebration from my parents.”
“The invitation including me and Luke but Luke thought this was somewhat rude and a disrespectful because he believes he should get his own invitation and not have his name mentioned as an ‘extention’ to mine.”
“We talked and he said he wouldn’t go unless they send him a proper invitation.”
“I called mom and asked if she could do it.”
“She thought it was ridiculous and said that she and dad did the same with my sister and her husband.”
“I told her it was fine but Luke can be sensitive like that and so a simple invitation in a form of a text directly to him will fix it.”
“She got defensive and said that Luke is being ridiculous.”
“Dad claimed that Luke is trying to pull some power move to humiliate them but I thought this was a small issue.”
“They still thought it was ridiculous so I told them I won’t attend if they don’t send him a separate invitation because he won’t attend if he doesn’t get it.”
“This blew up and my sister started arguing saying Luke needs to get over himself and shamed me for trying to ‘force’ our parents to send him an invitation by saying I won’t come if they don’t.”
“We haven’t talked after that and we’re waiting as of now.”
OP did return to give some clarity.
“Edit!”
“The invitation I recieved was in a text.”
“Luke is saying that a simple text to him will finish the conflict but my parents still think it’s ridiculous and that they won’t invite him since they already have.”
Having explained the situation and given as much clarity as possible, OP turned to Reddit for judgment.
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided: YTA
Some were confused.
“YTA you’re a couple, why on earth would they send individual invites?!?”
“This is crazy, your husband needs to get over himself.” ~ MB1428
“For real. I’d be super confused if my in-laws suddenly started to send us individual invites.” ~ Lucky_Ebisu
“I also wanted to point out OPs edit. She’s now been disinvited for taking Luke’s side and now Luke is blaming HER.”
“For what?!”
“’Hey babe I’m so mad your family didn’t send me a personal invite! You should tell them to do that or else I won’t go!”’
“Tells them to send a personal invite and is uninvited as a result”
‘“Wow this is all your fault that we’ve been uninvited!”’
“OP.”
“He doesn’t care about being invited, he cares about controlling you, isolating you from your support network, and making you feel bad about yourself so that he can control you more easily.”
“You didn’t give very much info about the fallout, but look up DARVO and really think about just how often this pattern of behaviour happens.” ~ usernameemma
Others saw this as being a deeper issue.
“What kind of sick control game is your husband playing ?!”
“YTA.”
“If your husband can’t be civil with your parents, and you take his side, don’t bother going. Clearly, he will look at anything thing to be able to avoid them or stir up some trouble.” ~ MaybeAWalrus
“YTA, and you and your husband ARE being ridiculous”
“You were both invited as a couple, you do not need to be asked separately, this is a power play on your husbands part, does he do this often?”
“I’m not surprised your parents aren’t keen on him, he sounds selfish and childish” ~ TermAggravating8043
Luke was definitely the problem per commenters.
“YTA holy crap that’s not how invitations work.”
“Couples always get invited together.”
“He wouldn’t be invited if he wasn’t your husband. Why didn’t you shut that sh*t down immediately?”
“Your husband is a bigger a**hole but you enable him.”
“‘You can’t tell who’s right or who’s wrong”‘
“I kinda feel like I can.” ~ thewhiterosequeen
“It’s funny how OP can’t tell who’s right or who’s wrong….. but the whole of Reddit can.”
“I’m guessing that Luke has been pulling crap like this for years and OP is numb to it.” ~ fuzzydogpaws
“YTA, although it’s really more that you’re letting Luke make you be an asshole to yourself, because he is being ridiculous.”
“There is no etiquette book on earth that recommends sending married couples two separate invitations.”
“In fact, I guarantee if they had done it his way for some reason, he’d be spinning that as an unforgivable insult and still demanding you stay home, because that’s really the point here.”
“Put your foot down that this is his problem, and buy yourself The Gift of Fear/Why Does He Do That? for the holidays, because the red flags are strong with this one.” ~ mm172
“YTA, but more so is your partner.”
“When I first read the title, I was fully expecting this to be a case where they just straight up didn’t invite him at all.”
“But instead what I read was one of the most ASININE reasons to cause a ruckus.”
“And what’s more astonounding is you’re actually siding with him? “Oh but Luke is SeNsItIvE” give me a f*cking break.”
“‘My sister started arguing saying Luke needs to get over himself…'”
“It seems your sister inherited the common sense.”
“Word of advice, when your entire family is looking at you like ‘wtf’, MAYBE it’s worth looking at yourself for a moment and give some honest thought to whether or not they might be onto something.” ~ Capital-Literature-9
There were personal stories as well.
“My 17 yo daughter’s father used to do this to her. He would just talk and not stop talking until she agreed, especially when he was trying to get her to do something she didn’t want to do but he really wanted her to do (even things like going out for a specific sport in school).”
“Thankfully, we got her into therapy and her therapist taught her that she CAN stand her ground and it’s okay to say no and mean no, even to your parents.”
“It helped her to hear that from someone other than me. He’s stopped doing this so much to her because it stopped working.”
“Thank God. And now I don’t have to worry about her putting up with future a boyfriend/husband trying to do this!”
“OP needs to pay attention. I bet it’s actually easy to see who is right/wrong in these situations.” ~ SpudTicket
Then there was talk of ulterior motives.
“Seems like your husband is getting what he really wanted, which is to not go to this christmas celebration. Has your husband always been trying to isolate you from your family?” ~ ryoryo72
“My thought exactly.”
“I put myself in the parents’ shoes for a minute and my first thought was, well, I’d tell Luke to get stuffed even if it means missing out on one Christmas with my kid, but then the next though was that this would be a major milestone in Luke’s attempts to separate OP from her family.”
“As a parent, would you suck it up so you don’t lose your daughter and hope she sees sense before it’s too late or do you stick to your guns and risk her distancing herself from you?”
“What a miserable choice they have to make” ~ Fionsomnia
OP came back one final time with some final thoughts.
“UPDATE!”
“I just got off the phone with my sister.”
“She told me our parents have just disinvited me (Luke was probably already disinvited since the argument occured) from the celebration.”
“I feel horrible but I can’t argue anymore, just like I can’t argue about what everybody else in the comments is saying.”
“I admit it! Luke is the problem. He just caused me to be disinvited from the event and is blaming ME for it.”
There is a difference, of course, between having attention and demanding attention.
The difference should have been explained more clearly to OP’s husband.
Please remember to be kind whenever possible but never let someone else’s behavior rob you of opportunities that you enjoy.