'I Insulted My Wife': Man Asks If He Was Right To Stand Up For Mother And Offend Wife

Nov 11, 2021 by apost team

Balancing life with your family can be tricky at times, especially when family members don’t get along. This is something that one man explained on Nov. 3, 2021, after he had a family get-together that consisted of both his immediate family and some extended family members.

The man grew up with a very dedicated, hard-working mother. She didn’t have the chance to finish her education and actually had to drop out of school when she was just 14 years old. Fortunately, her siblings took care of her until she ended up getting married later in life. Unfortunately, her husband died just a few years after this, resulting in the now-single mom taking on two jobs while raising her son.

Fast forward to today, and that son has grown up, has been married for eight years and has kids of his own. The man is very family-oriented, which is why the get-together seemed so fun at first. Unfortunately, when his wife wanted to leave, their kids didn’t want to. Since they had sports practice and their studies to attend to, the wife told them that they had to go.

Their grandmother stood up for them, asking if they could stay longer. The wife responded by insulting her. The man was extremely upset that his wife was so rude to his mother and proceeded to insult her to stand up for his mom. Since then, the couple has been fighting, and so the man took to Reddit to ask users for advice on how to move forward.

In his Reddit post, the original poster (OP) said that he and his wife have been married for eight years. Early on, his wife said she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom because she didn’t like her job, and the OP supported her choice since he made enough money to support them.

Talking about his mom, the OP revealed that she dropped out of school when she was just 14 years old. Her parents died, and she needed to do manual labor to send her siblings to school in India. “The Indian government then did not have any concessions for orphaned kids,” OP explained. 

His mom’s siblings got good jobs and were able to take care of her until she got married. Sadly, the OP’s dad passed away just two years later, resulting in his mom raising him on her own. She had some help from her siblings, but she still needed to work two jobs in order to support both herself and the OP.

In November 2021, the family had a get-together, consisting of the OP, his wife and their kids, as well as his mom, her siblings and their kids, and other cousins and grandchildren. The OP wrote, “After having dinner, my wife said we needed to leave early because our kids have to go to basketball, swimming and also private tuitions tomorrow. My kids were begging her to let them stay for a little longer.” 

The OP’s mom asked if the kids could miss one day of practice to spend time with their family since they hadn’t seen them in almost a year. His wife was not happy about this.

apost.com

The OP explained, “My wife retaliated saying an illiterate woman wouldn’t know the importance of education and extracurricular activities. My mom was clearly hurt and apologized for overstepping.” This didn’t sit well with the OP, however, and so he stood up for his mother. 

“I told my wife that literacy clearly hasn’t taught her (my wife) basic manners,” he said. “My wife got mad at me for insulting her in front of everyone and went back home with the kids. She’s not even picking my calls or replying to my texts.”

Wanting to fix the situation, the OP asked Redditors for their help. Many users agreed that OP was right to call out his wife’s rude behavior toward his mother. One user commented, “Your wife sounds awful and should show your mom all the respect in the world. As many people say on this site, this is a massive red flag, your wife clearly looks down on others and doesn’t have respect for you, or your family.”

Another person said, “Thing is, your wife made this comment in front of everyone. She thought it OK to humiliate your mom in front of the people she’d dropped out of school to support, their spouses and kids, entirely unprovoked. Since your wife is giving you the silent treatment, you may want to give her time to cool off, then ask her why she thought that was an appropriate thing to say.”

Most people agreed that the OP should talk to his wife about what she said and that they could probably find a way to work it out and move forward together.

Do you think this man was right to stand up against his wife to defend his mother? Does everyone in your family get along? Let us know, and be sure to pass this along to your loved ones, too.