u/gardengeo

Originally posted by user AnxiousJournalist2 in r/ amItheAsshole

Original: Feb 8, 2019

Update: July 6, 2019

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for not wanting my fiancee to dance to a love song dedicated to her late fiance at our wedding?

Before we met, my fiancee Kayla was engaged to a man she had dated for three years who died in a traffic accident. I had never dated a woman who had that kind of loss before, so I've been learning as I go, but I've tried to respect that he will always be a part of her story, and I accepted her relationship with her late fiance's parents with open arms.

They stayed very close, and by the time we started dating they were basically like a second set of parents to her. Kayla's real parents and her late fiance's parents are all amazing people, so I consider myself pretty lucky to have two sets of great in-laws.

Our wedding is coming up in May, and Kayla told me that after her father-daughter dance, she would like to have a second dance with her late fiance's father to the song Vanilla Twilight. She asked me if I was comfortable with that, and I didn't want to be "that guy" and say no, so I said yes.

But really, it makes me uncomfortable that she would be dancing to a love song dedicated to another man at our wedding. I am happy to make space in our lives for his memory. A photo of him is on our mantle at home, we make it a point to commemorate his birthday the anniversary of his death, and I feel like I am understanding and supportive when she has bad days.

And I am 100% fine with having his parents at the wedding because, like I said, we are all a family. But I also feel like our wedding is one day that it all about our relationship.

Am I the jerk if I ask her to reconsider this dance? What are the best compromises here?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: NAH. I’m assuming her biological dad is going to walk her down the aisle, and also have the father-daughter dance. It’s nice that she is acknowledging her relationship with her “other” father figure. Think about it from their point of view- she was supposed to marry their son. It’s a nice gesture by her to acknowledge the role they play in her life.

I’m not gonna pretend like it wouldn’t irk me, too. But I don’t think you should ask her not to do it. Try as we might, we can’t really understand what that moment will mean for her and her late-ex’s parents. Weddings already stir up lots of emotions, but for someone who dealt with the death of a fiancé, I can imagine it will be even more emotional. It’s good for her to have an outlet, honestly.

To you, it may seem like a really big deal. But think about it. The wedding invitations are going to have your names on it, you are going to get to see her walk down the aisle toward you, you get to take her on honeymoon.

It is still YOUR day. She’s marrying YOU, she loves YOU. If you ask her to reconsider, she will either not do it (and probably regret it), or do it, but the moment will be ruined for her.

Btw, you sound like a really great dude. Sorry about your tough situation.

>OOP: This was a very helpful comment. It does feel better to think of it as more of a gesture towards her second father figure.

---------------
Comment2: NTA. Also, it’s weird to have a picture of him on the mantle. It’s a tragic loss but she needs to move on. Or you do.

>OOP: I definitely don't feel disrespected. We have traveled to six countries together and have plenty of photos and mementos of us pretty much all over the house. The single photo of him does not bother me at all.

---------------
Comment3: NTA- you might want to honestly ask her to sit down and reconsider if she is ready to be married to someone else though. she still sounds very much invested in this other man, whether he is alive or not, and she just doesnt sound ready to commit to another person. ask her if she is truly ready to commit or she is just honestly doing it because she thinks she should or it will help her move on

>OOP: I guess it sounds like he is constantly on her mind because I only wrote two paragraphs that were wholly focused on this issue. But it has been about seven years since he died, and I think she has processed her grief in a healthy way and doesn't dwell on it.

>We have our own inside jokes and our own hobbies and experiences that are unique to us. I can truly say I'm marrying my favorite person in the world, we are each other's absolute best friend. I don't have any illusions that our life together will entail her forgetting about her late fiance, nor would I want that. Two anniversaries a year and a photo really don't represent a significant portion of her thoughts and feelings

---------------
Comment4: NTA, this situation is weird though, seems she isn’t over that ex. Definitely odd to make your special day based around that, seems you’ll always come second to the previous fella.

>OOP: He's not an ex, and I would never ask her to "get over" him. I'd like to think I'm not so pointlessly macho that I would feel threatened by a dead man.

---------------
Comment5: NTA but that doesn't mean she is one... You already said you are ok with it. "This day would be about our relationship." Well, it is. Both persons are bringing their own baggage, here happens to be her dead ex.

>OOP: We don't ever refer to him as her ex, since they never broke up. Obviously if it was her ex the whole idea would be a non-starter. I see your perspective, but I'm struggling with it.

>To be honest, although I think I am generally good about her grief, I have asked a lot of her in the relationship. She has moved cities and jobs for me, so I have been thinking that just letting her have this dance would be a way of paying her back for all the sacrifices she made for me.

>But I also want to be genuinely okay with it and not do it just to even an imaginary score. Obviously it's a very complicated situation.

---------------
Comment6: NTA. Go read the lyrics, guys. They are so insanely inappropriate for a wedding that I'd actually be embarrassed and hurt for OP if I was at the reception.

I think the idea of dancing with her second dad is lovely, but by GOD, OP, you're well within your rights to ask for a less creepy song. Perhaps an instrumental part of if she won't budge. But those lyrics have no place in your wedding day. Good grief.

Edit: I also don't think that a wedding is the right place to be mourning a past love. I say this as someone who lost her forever person in his late 20s, and met my (hopefully second!) life partner on my ex's birthdate, when he should have been turning 30. I sobbed through our first date lol because I only remembered part way through.

So anniversaries are sometimes marked with a little "ex would have been x old today" and my boyfriend will give me space to remember. But it's us now, and that's who I need and want to be putting my energy towards loving and making feel loved.

I don't know how long it is since your partner's ex died, but if the grief is still strong perhaps a session or two of counselling may help her? Weddings are stressful enough without to deal with the wistfulness of a past love.

---------------
Comment7: Someone posted the lyrics earlier. It's a love lost, love song. It strikes me as almost inappropriate for the setting. I personally wouldn't know hour to take it. Think he should open up about his feelings with her on it. As long as he owns those feelings and leaves the choice to her it will be OK.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (5 months later)

Two months ago, I married the love of my life. I was thinking about this thread the other day, how it went, and where my head was at when I made it, and I thought you guys might like an update.

A little anticlimactically, the thing I was stressing about was a bit of a miscommunication, which probably happens a lot here. Kayla wanted to dance with her late fiance's (I'll go ahead and just call him Luke from now on) father at our wedding, and Vanilla Twilight was an example of a song along the lines of what she wanted, not the set-in-stone top choice like I had thought.

I (and a lot of commenters in the original thread) spent a lot of time over-analyzing the lyrics to that song looking for hidden meaning in every word, while it turns out she hadn't put much more thought into the suggestion than "This is a kind of sad song that I like."

We got together that night and she had made several playlists of possible first dance songs for us, songs for when she walks down the aisle, music to play at the reception, and song choices for her dance with Luke's father.

We spent hours listening to them all and talking about the wedding. We even made a tournament-style bracket for our first dance song in her journal and put songs head to head against each other until the victor emerged.

And at the end, we talked about the wedding and our relationship, Luke and their relationship, and grief, what it was like when she lost him and what it was like for me when I lost my mom at a young age, what a family is, and all the things we're hopeful for for the future. We stayed up until three in the morning just talking and planning and laughing and crying a little, and I'm so glad for it.

After getting bombarded by dozens of different opinions from dozens of different people earlier that day, I had been worried that I was going to have a conflict with my fiancee shortly before our wedding. But there was no conflict, just a pure memory.

After that night, I starting putting in more effort to be involved with the wedding planning process and actually ask for the things I wanted, which Kayla actually really appreciated. We also took a long weekend a couple of weeks before the wedding to go on a camping trip together for just the two of us, which I highly recommend to anyone who is getting married.

Overall, there was a complete flip in my feelings leading up to the wedding from being somewhat insecure and excited but nervous to being completely at ease, excited, and feeling stronger about my relationship than ever.

The wedding day itself was really wonderful and worth the wait. Kayla and Luke's father had their dance to Lean On Me, and I also had a dance with Kayla's mom and it was very emotional in a good way.

I really felt that the day was a celebration of our love, and I was genuinely happy that Luke's parents were there to celebrate along with us because they are very much members of our family and I wish I had the space to describe all the ways they've been there for us through the years.

My amazing wife is who she is because of all the experiences that she has had in her life, and I don't want to be the kind of man who asks her to pretend that she has never loved before me or pretend that her grief is something that is or should be done with forever now that she has me. I just want to say how glad I am that we shared that night together and that the wedding was nothing but love and celebration. I never thought I could be so happy.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Lean On Me is such a perfect fit. Your wedding sounds beautiful. Maybe I missed it, but what was the song you two danced to?

>OOP: These were all the dances:
Me & Kayla - You're the Inspiration (Chicago)
Kayla and her dad - Only the Young (Journey)
Kayla and Luke's dad - Lean on Me (Bill Withers)
Me and Kayla's mom - Sunshine on my Shoulders (John Denver)

---------------
Comment2: Wait, you dealt with it like an adult instead of overreacting and following the advice of randos on the Internet?

>OOP: It seems obvious now, haha.
It's funny because when Kayla would ask people online or talk to "regular" people about her loss, she'd get responses like "Oh seven years ago? That's ancient history!" and basically acted like she was broken if she was ever sad about Luke again. And when she would talk to people in the grief community she never got that response, it was always "Wow, so you're just coming out of where it's very fresh, huh?"

>She recommended a podcast to me called Griefcast that I found enormously helpful, not just with understanding her feelings but processing some of my own feelings about my late mom, who I had a difficult relationship with. It really helps to talk to people and listen to stories of people who have gone through loss themselves, especially people who have experienced things outside of the "norm" of loss (grandparents, elderly parents, etc.)

---------------
Comment3: This is so freaking true, oh my gosh. I feel like probably the people commenting just never dealt with a loss like that. There’s this weird notion that if someone is ever sad over a late love, that somehow that means they don’t really love the person they are with now. It’s some kind of empathy gap.

>OOP: Agreed. It would be like telling someone whose child died that a child they had after was "second place" or wasn't loved as much as the dead child. I think one thing that really put things into perspective was the notion that grief is not about feeling a little better each day until you're 100% better again. Rather, it's about healing and having fewer and fewer bad days.

>The first six months, for example, every single day might be bad. Then the next six months, you have a bad day every week. Then a bad day every month, and so on...obviously not so clean and linear in real life, but that's the general idea. And I think that's something I dealt with when I lost my mom, without realizing it.

>I trust Kayla to let me know when she's having a tough time, and she's to the point where it's almost never a very rough day for her except the anniversary of his death, and I don't see the need to make it a goal for her to never feel sad about his death ever again.

>I think people are made uncomfortable by grief. They want their loved one to hurry up and "move on" and "get over" their lost loved one so that they can go back to being the person they were before the death. But I didn't know Kayla before her grief, so I wouldn't want her to be anything other than who she is now.

---------------
Comment4: I'm getting married soon and I have a late fiance who took his own life, so I felt for her in the previous post. It doesn't make sense because I'm marrying someone else, but in my mind, my late fiance is someone who should be at my wedding day.

I understand her desire to honor him. I also feel for you, since it's a difficult spot to be put in but you seem to have a good head on your shoulders. Glad yall resolved it. That level of problem solving and communication will serve you well in your marriage. Good luck OP!

---------------
Comment5: I mean, if Luke hadn't passed away, your wife would be with him.

>OOP: This line of thinking has never bothered me, because it can be applied to so many other situations. All of life is millions of branching paths of choices that we do and do not make. It doesn't bother me to think that my wife would be with Luke if he hadn't died because, well...he has died, so that is not the situation.

>And it is only because that happened that my wife became the person I fell in love with. I have an ex-partner who I was very much in love with years ago, but we split up due to circumstances beyond either of our control. If that hadn't happened, then there's a good chance I would be married to her instead. But that's not the situation. That doesn't diminish the love that I have for my wife, and my wife having lost someone very dear to her doesn't diminish the love she has for me.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Yaboyred5577 in r/ dogs

Original: Aug 8, 2019

Update: Aug 9, 2019

Status: concluded

Mood: slice of life

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: [help] my sister was attacked by a dog and now is terrified of our dogs, our parents said we might have to re-home them if this continues.

Four days ago my 9yr old sister and i (14M) were out in the front yard pulling weeds and doing yard work when a large Anatolian Shepherd ran down the street directly at us, i tried to put myself between it and my sister but the dog got to her first and latched onto her arm and snapping at her leg. I kicked it off and it went after me but i was able to fend it off with the small shovel i was holding (but not before it had taken a snap at my hand).

It ran off and i later found out that the owner was out of town and it attacked the dog walker when she came to walk it, running out the door and finding us a few blocks over, animal control caught it shortly after.

So anyway i had walked away with a small puncture wound on my hand and my sister with a sprained wrist, a large messy bite on her arm, and a puncture on her thigh. We were taken to the hospital by our father and sent home with a brace for my sister, a few stitches on her arm, and a cleaning and bandage for both her leg and my hand.

She is now (understandably) petrified of other dogs, and was even terrified of my aunts super sweet yellow lab that shes known since she was 4 when they visited on Monday. She becomes super tense when one of our dogs (our GSD and Malinois) approach her and even started to cry when the our Mal curled up next to her on the couch yesterday.

My stepmother and father had a discussion and decided that if they were going to cause so much fear from her that we might have to re-home them, i am personally stunned by this as we all love both of them a ton and neither have ever shown even a hint of aggression.

I grew up with our Shepherd King and hes my best friend, the thought of me never seeing him again makes me super upset, and even our Mal who we only adopted a few months ago ive gotten super close to and love like hell.

I dont know, im kind of freaking out and i know that my sister is terrified and that makes me feel like a POS for wanting to keep them around. I could really use some honest opinions on what you would do in this situation, its my parents decision though and i know i cant stop them from making it but i would like some peace of mind.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Definitely get her to a trauma therapist and discuss the issue. Have that person guide you in this decision.

Your parents are discussing rehoming the dogs, even though they pose no threat, because children come first. They're good parents and aren't doing this against the dogs, but rather for your sister.

Hopefully a therapist can help find a happy outcome to all of this. I'm sorry this happened to you - heal up fast and keep being an awesome big brother. I'd be proud to have a son like you!

---------------
Comment2: Therapy. Therapy is a better option. I was bitten as a child, and as a result spend my life avoiding dogs like the plague - I'm talking changing the side of the street when someone walking their dog was approaching me, screaming from afar when I saw someone with an off leash dog in the woods, not entering a house when a dog was inside etc. It had severe impact on my life.

Your sister needs help with this now. If it isn't tackled, she will most likely develop a deeply ingrained fear that will affect her life. It's a fear/phobia that is relatively easy to live with, but life is a lot easier and more fun if you are not afraid of dogs. It took me almost 40 years to get over my fear and I wish I had resolved it much earlier. It is possible, though - I have a dog myself now.

---------------
Comment3: This is definitely a difficult topic that goes well beyond what we on Reddit can do to help, but, running away from the fear and issues with dogs won’t help anything down the road in my opinion.

Seeing a therapist and learning that most dogs you’ll encounter aren’t out to get you will be very beneficial . Learning and pushing past the fear at a young age should definitely be better in the long run than living an entire life with a fear that could have been prevented. Best of luck to you and your family either way though!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update: (next day)

First off i want to say a huge thanks to the people who offered their advice, it really helped me clear my head and feel better about this whole thing.

I talked to my parents and offered the idea of trauma therapy, i explained to them that it would benefit no one if she is afraid of dogs for the rest of her life. I also called my own therapist and she recommended a trauma therapist who would be able to help us for a reasonable price.

With this I've put their re-homing on hold for now and hopefully it doesn't have to happen at all, and on a happy note i talked to my sister and she doesn't want our dogs to be re-homed either, even if she is scared of it happening again.

Again, thank you all so much for the advice and kind words, i dont think i would have been able to approach it in this way if i didn't have it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user anonymousaccount2411 in r/ offmychest

Original: Nov 26, 2025

Update: Dec 23, 2025

Status: no further updates from OOP

Note: thanks to u/WattlesFlowerThrowRA for suggestion to BORU

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: My sibling is in a "relationship" with AI and it's killing me inside because this is completely delusional

(I'm posting this anonymously because I can't deal with the jokes, or the vitriol from people like my sibling that I received when I mentioned this situation a comment.)

I have an older sibling. For several months my sibling has been talking about being in a relationship. Going to restaurants, on dates etc. The two of them even took an overseas trip to New York according to my sibling. I was happy my sibling found someone. Everyone in my family was happy. We had no idea what was really going on.

Last month I had my 35th birthday. Myself and my family were supposed to meet my sibling's significant other. It's AI. My sibling isn't dating a real person. My sibling is dating AI and is delusional and believes it is a real relationship.

None of us saw this coming and by now my entire extended family knows too. My sibling has no history of mental illness or mental health issues. But my sibling is convinced that this is a real relationship, equivalent to a relationship between two real people. My sibling kept going on and about us meeting this "person". Everyone thought my sibling was dating a real person.

This is killing me and everyone else in my family because my sibling insists it is a real relationship and that the AI is a person, "just like you and me". My sibling gets furious when any of us refer to the AI as it. We don't know what to do. My parents are distraught and so are the rest of us. So is my extended family.

My sibling refuses to get professional help. It is killing me inside to see this happen. My sibling actually wants everyone to apologise to the AI for the mistreatment. Apparently my sibling knows others who are in relationships with AI and those people are better than us because they are not prejudiced like we are.

I know people make jokes but this is serious. My sibling is in love with AI. We are scared because this is not normal. None of us know what to do because my sibling refuses to see how delusional this is. I haven't told anyone outside my family because I can't take anyone making jokes about my sibling but I had to get this out somewhere.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Sending you so much support, I have a friend who works in psychology getting her masters who said she’s seen this increasingly nowadays. That’s so tough to be on the outside of and I hope it all resolves well for everyone 🫂

>OOP: Thank you, I appreciate it. I am shocked to find out that there are many people in the same situation as my sibling. I had no idea about it before this.

Comment2: There’s a subreddit for it and it’s wild

>OOP: I posted anonymously mostly because of them. When I mentioned what was happening with my sibling in a comment (not in even in their subreddit) I received so much vitriol and threats that I had to delete the comment and turn off my messages. I had no idea people dating AI was a real thing and I was shocked to get so much hate.

Comment3: Your sibling is having a delusion. I am not an expert by any means in dealing with delusional disorders, but I do know that the advice I have read is to validate their feelings without validating their delusional beliefs..

Your siblings feelings are real even if the object of them is not. You may not be able to force them to get help, but you can get help for yourself maybe you and your family can consult with a mental health professional as to how to approach this. In any event I wish you all luck

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (month later)

There hasn't been a resolution. My sibling is still "in a relationship" with AI. Some people might make jokes about this but I'm distraught and so is everyone in my family. I love my sibling, and none of us saw this coming.

My sibling has no history of mental illness or previous mental health issues. It came out of nowhere. My sibling talked as though it was a real relationship, where they went on dates, went out to restaurants etc. The two of them even went on an overseas trip to New York according to my sibling. There have been relationships with real people in the past so none of us suspected anything was wrong.

All of us have tried getting through to my sibling but nothing works. My sibling insists it is a real relationship and gets angry if anyone calls the AI "it". We're supposed to treat the AI as a real person. My sibling calls anyone who doesn't support the relationship prejudiced and says it's the same as people being against same sex marriage.

Anyone who says the AI isn't a real person gets cut off. My sibling isn't coming to Christmas and won't talk to us now. Apparently my sibling knows others who are in relationships with AI and those people are better than us.

I can't believe my sibling cut me off because I believe AI isn't a real person. I probably won't post again, and I know this wasn't much of an update. I hope my sibling comes to their senses because this isn't healthy or normal. I still feel sick over it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Total-Stock3170 in r/ amItheAsshole

Original: Dec 17, 2025

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for buying my nephew piano lessons for his birthday?

I recently decided that I wanted to shift in buying experience presents instead of material gifts as kids have so many toys it seems. Over the last couple years, every time my nephew (6 years old) is at my house he always wants to play on my piano or requests that I play for him.

I thought it might be nice for his birthday to buy him piano lessons for the year at our local conservatory. I asked his parents if they were ok with this and I offered to drive him to and from lessons as well as gave my extra keyboard for him to practice on.

I made it clear to his parents that I didn’t care if he wasn’t interested past the year, but if he wanted to continue that I would continue to pay the tuition. It was more to provide that opportunity to him, he is the perfect age to start, and he genuinely seems to love music.
Edit to say: they both said they were ok with this gift prior to be gifting it

Of course my nephew was thrilled when he got the gift.

But after the party, I got a text from my SIL basically saying that I need to back off and that I had no right to infringe on how they want to raise their child and dictate what programs they are involved in and that if I want to put a child in music, I ought to have a child myself.

She further went on to say that if I really cared about the rearing of their child and their wishes, that I would have purchased tuition to skating lessons as they want their boy to play hockey.

I haven't yet responded because I don't know what to say. I am afraid of making things worse.

I suppose in some sense, yes, I picked piano lessons, because I myself am a musician and that is the world I am familiar with. But I also considered how much my nephew loves playing on the piano when he is over.

And, yes, I knew that his parents wanted him to play hockey, because that is what they both played as kids. But I figured it wouldn't be a bad thing for him to have many opportunities to try different things. I mean growing up, I did music, skating, swimming, ballet, field hockey and all at fairly high levels. It was all part of being a well-rounded person.

And further, I didn't want to take away the parents special moment in signing him up for hockey/skating lessons themselves. IDK I'm just wondering from other parents here if I've done something wrong. I don't have kids myself, so perhaps I have overstepped. I certainly wasn't trying to take something away from them or push their child into a path.

I don't know where to go from here.

--------------------------------------------

Additional details from OOP in comments:

[did you explicitly check with parents?]

OOP: I did give them all the info and in all fairness he doesn’t do any other extra curricular. It was over text message so perhaps they didn’t like it from the start and it bubbled out afterwards? But they had all the info from the get go

OOP: Yes, cleared it with them both on a group text message. They said it was ok. Then it was a day after the party I got the direct message from my SIL. But I wonder if they didn’t like it from the jump but didn’t say no to me at the time. I probably should’ve called instead so I could hear their tone of voice. But they did say yes.

---------------
[are you steering nephew towards your interests? why not give trial lessons first?]

OOP: Yeah, I think all this is very fair. The material gift thing though came about because my SIL and brother often talk about that they have no room for all the toys etc, so I figured hell let’s try something else.

I do think maybe it was overboard - and I should’ve started with only a few classes… I think once I got their go ahead I just went with what I knew, which is you signed up for the whole year to give it a good try. I didn’t really think about it.

I didn’t really think about him being six, because to be fair most of the people that play music at the conservatory start around 5-6. I sincerely meant that I don’t care if he doesn’t wish to continue, bc it’s up to the child in the end to determine their likes and dislikes.

However, I thought it was a fun gift bc nephew genuinely seems to like playing and seems to enjoy the informal little lessons I can give, I thought it was a good fit. But I can see why it could come across as presumptuous.

I think I was so hyper aware that I didn’t want to cause them work, which is why I offered to drive but likely that came off that I was being overbearing perhaps…. Yeah, as I said before in comment section, I’ll just go with their flow. I don’t want to cause problems that would drive a wedge.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: NTA. You asked, they agreed. Now what? They're changing their minds why? What's really going on?
That'd be my reply message: I asked you this, you agreed with it, now what has changed?

Comment2: I think your nephew is more interested in music than playing hockey. your sil doesn't like it and so is blaming you.

Comment3: Signing kids up for sports and extra-curriculars really is a parent thing.
I side with your SIL on that statement she made ... You can decide that for your own kids, but were out of line (IMO) doing that for hers. Doesn't make you an AH, just a bit niave I guess.

>OOP: Just to clarify. I did not fill out any forms - I sent an etransfer to the parents for full cost of tuition for the year, which they have accepted. The parents said they would do the registration- and there isn’t a problem with teacher availability - and I sent them all the links so it would be easy to do.
-----------
OOP: I’ll just see what my brother thinks tonight. By virtue that the money has not been refunded to me, I’m going to assume she/they feels caught going through with the lessons bc my nephew obviously knows about them going to happen. Ughhh this all sucks so much.

Comment4: NTA - I’d just say “oh, I’m incredibly sorry, when you said you were ok with the gift, I assumed that meant you were ok with the gift. How would you like to proceed?”

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 0.5

Edit: wow, there is a terrifying number of responses to this haha. Thank you all for taking the time to provide your thoughts. I wouldn’t usually post but I was so deeply hurt I guess I was venting. For anyone curious, I’ll update once I chat with my bro tonight.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

As promised, the update: I’m not going to impose judgment here—just relay a summary of the convo. Fellow Redditors can make of the conversation what they wish.

I brought up the text my SIL sent me to my bro and expressed my confusion, as they had both given me consent. My brother did appear shocked at the message and said that he did not know it had been sent. That said, he did guiltily admit that there had been some conversations between his wife and her parents and sisters about my gift, and that it wasn’t an entirely kind convo.

The general tone was, “You’re allowing his aunt to pick his programming? Why aren’t you putting him in what you want?” along with snarky comments asking if it was bad form to whistle and bring cowbells to a recital and that they are gonna have to find pearls to wear. There were also some raised eyebrows about the cost of the gift when my SIL told them, and comments that it was over the top.

My brother apologized to me for not stepping in when that conversation was going on and for allowing the family to talk that way about me. He’s generally a pretty quiet guy and non confrontational… that’s not an excuse, only to say that I can see him not saying anything.

I told my brother that I don’t want to cause problems for him and his family, and that if they want, we can reduce the number of lessons to just 6–8. It feels wrong to take the lessons away completely.

My brother—who, while he was a high-level athlete through university, also played piano until he was 16—refused the reduction and said that he had no problem with a full year. He said his son has been talking about the lessons and keeps asking when they are starting.

He agreed with my philosophy (or I suppose our family philosophy) that if you are going to try something, you should at least have the discipline to try it for an entire year. Anyway, I told him I don’t want this to be a thing and that I’m happy to move on, as long as everyone else is still okay.

Within a couple of hours of me getting home, my brother sent me the registration confirmation. (For those who didn’t see my other comments, I had e-transferred the parents the entire tuition amount—which had been accepted by them prior to the party—but they still had to fill out the registration form.)

He sent the confirmation in the group message between myself, his wife, and him. All he said after that was that his son will treasure this gift—which honestly makes up for the hurt and stomach pain I’ve had over this. It’s crickets from my SIL, but imma let it go. We’ll likely need to chat about it in person at some point, but maybe once things cool off a bit .

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Easy-Opposite-1168 in r/ AmItheAsshole

Original: Dec 18, 2021

Update: Dec 22, 2021

Status: concluded

Note: OOP used initials; included names for easier read

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for putting extra salt in my SIL’s food?

Throaway account I (F34) have a SIL (F25), let’s call her Hana. She’s been together with my brother Jafar (M32) for three years now. We were born in Europe but originally from the Middle-East. Hana is born and raised in Europe. Our religion and part of our culture is different from hers but we didn’t mind cause she’s a nice girl and we are open-minded.

She really tries her best to please my brother in every way. She’s learning Arabic, asking about the culture, and lately she started looking up recipes from our country too. My brother is very happy with everything she does and if he’s happy than we are too.

Last week they came to visit our whole family for lunch. Our family is pretty big with many cousins, kids, brothers, sisters, parents and grandparents. Most of them were there.

Hana made a meal which is really popular in the country we’re originally from. Everyone was amazed by it. She left it in the kitchen with all of the other dishes for later.

Well to be fair I’m cooking since I was 14 years old and I’m a pretty good cook too. I was interested how her food tasted so I tried it. It wasn’t bad but I thought maybe I could fix it up with a little salt and spices. When we served the food for lunch, everyone complimented Hana about the dish and how well she’s done it.

Here is where I might be TA. I told front of everyone that I fixed the food up with some salt and spices. Jafar got very angry and started to argue with me front of everyone. He told me there’s was nothing wrong with Hana’s meal and I shouldn’t be disrespectful.

But I believe in constructive criticism and I was trying to help her learn. After they’ve gone and I saw Hana crying in the car. My family told me I was an AH and embarrassed our guest. I feel pretty bad. AITA?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: YTA Let's try this...you make a meal...while you are in talking with guests your SIL goes into the kitchen, tastetests everything and decides you haven't done it to her liking and proceeds to doctor up the dishes YOU MADE.
Get it now? How would you feel? It's called "empathy" and you have none.

>OOP: I would be thankful because I know she’d be coming from a good place. I didn’t say it to her in an arrogant way, I actually tried to compliment her aswell and made sure she knows that with practice she will get even better.
I always appreciated when someone gave me honest feedback on my food and I thought she’d feel the same way. I felt like we are close enough to help each other out like this. But I have empathy for her and I regret saying anything at all. She’s shy, I should’ve just kept quiet about the spices.

---------------
Comment2: Yeah YTA and a big one. It sounds like she is a nice person who is trying very hard to learn another culture and she went out and made dinner fir everyone, and she was probably nervous about it, and then you had to announce to the entire table that you had to fix her cooking when she was getting a lot of compliments.

If you were jealous that she was getting complimented after you added stuff to HER dish, then you shouldn’t have messed with her food. I feel so bad for her and you most definitely humiliated her.

---------------
Comment3: YTA no one asked for your help. If you wanted to give her constructive criticism it would have been appropriate to do so privately before adding salt and spices to the food. So she could decide yay or nay

Not add it to the food, wait until the compliments rolls and go hey actually this tastes great but only because of me in front of everyone.

It was disrespectful tbh. And she's making an effort with your food and culture and learning Arabic so I'm pretty sure if you had told privately I think this food. Could need this I'm certain she would have listened to the advice.

But you legit humiliated her.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 0.5

Edit: okey, so I see everyone thinks I am TA but just to clear things up, I didn’t say it in a bad way. I told her “I tried it myself and for the first try it tasted really good but I thought it could use some salt and spices so I put some more if you don’t mind. Next time it’ll be even better.” And I didn’t want to steal the spotlight, I just wanted to be honest.

Edit 2: I apologised the next day and I told her it’s a misunderstanding but my brother can’t let this go.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment4: Honestly, I'm trying to see this from OP's point of view and I can't understand how this would be a misunderstanding!

1. If the misunderstanding lies at the gf not wanting feedback while OP thought she would, OP should have asked permission to edit the food.
2. If the misunderstanding lies at OP thinking that the gf wanted to serve perfect food for the brother and parents, OP should have never said publicly that she added stuff.
3. If OP thought that the gf wanted to just show how much she tried, she should have eaten the food as it was and said that it was great, and then suggested that next time she would increase one thing (not even all the stuff)

OP is a clear AH in every scenario I can think of and this is not a misunderstanding.

---------------
Comment5: Misunderstanding is all they have left because they can’t even think the words “I was just straight up wrong and my behavior was inappropriate, I’m sorry.” Much less say them. The misunderstanding is everyone not judging the stated intent instead of the very obvious implications and effects and let’s be honest no one is really buying the intent anyway.

---------------
Comment6: I have a SIL like you. The end result of her repeated actions to undercut me was that her big brother (my H), whom she worshipped, cut her off completely. Is that what you want?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (4 days later)

Thank you for all your comments and all the criticism. Even tho it was hard to admit first but I really messed up. After my post I started to think things through and had a long conversation with my grandparents. Lot of trauma unfolded and I realised why I was being like this with my SIL.

When I was around her age, I had a similar personality to her. Shy, kind to everyone, always smiling and being very positive. Then bad things happened and I started to change. I became this anxious, negative person who I am today.

When she became part of the family, I realised how she was and then I thought she needs to toughen up. I saw my old self in her and thought if she will stay like this, she’ll get hurt. It was something in my subconscious, I didn’t even think how toxic I am actually being to her. I hurt her, hurt my brother and embarrassed my family.

I wanted to fix things, apologise and make sure nothing like this happens again. So I invited her over for lunch. Thankfully she said yes. I looked up some recipes from her country and got to cooking. When she arrived the food was ready. She tasted it and jokingly said “it could use some salt and spices”. Oh my Lord, I deserved that haha.

Then we had a conversation about our issues and cried. It was so wholesome. We promised each other we will cook something together every weekend. Then we went to my parents house and almost everyone was there who came to visit last time. I’ve apologised from the ones I’ve hurt and promised nothing like this will ever happen again. They forgave me.

We had a good time after, lots of laughs, tea and food. Before they left, I pulled my brother to the side and gave him my phone with a confirmation email. I rented the most romantic place ever for him and my SIL to go and celebrate Christmas together. We will decorate the place with Jafar in the next few days.

And finally, I’ve decided to go to therapy and work on my issues. For the sake of myself and my family too. These few days were intense and this was a huge wake up call. One thing is for sure, I wouldn’t want to lose the ones I love the most. Thank you Reddit!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user WorldlyExercise6054 in r/ AITAH

Original: July 30, 2026

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

Note:

• Montana is the fourth largest state in the US. For land size comparison, it is roughly the size of Germany, UK or Japan. Montana is roughly 916 km (569 miles) from east to west and could easily take 10 hours or more to drive across.
• According to the Visit Montana website, there are five international airports and they recommend outdoor activities for tourists to explore. A small part of Yellowstone National Park extends into the state.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITAH for not wanting to visit my in-laws because they live in the middle of nowhere?

My wife and I have a 6-year old daughter and live on the east coast. My ILs used to live about 2-hours away and we visited them on a regular basis. About four years ago my ILs moved to Montana to fulfill their dream of living in a cabin in the woods. They built a big cabin assuming their kids and grandkids would visit regularly.

Here's the problem. We visited them about two years ago and the travel was miserable. We couldn't get a direct flight so it took ~9-hours of flights including layovers followed by a 5-hour car ride to their cabin.

By the time we arrived my daughter was melting down and my wife and I were on the precipice of a divorce. We knew the travel would be bad but it was much worse than anticipated. The drive to their house is particularly bad. We were all out of energy and there's nowhere to stop.

My ILs are asking when we're going to visit again and I have no desire to go back. My wife isn't too keen on it either. I feel like an AH because when my ILs decided to make this move my wife and I were both enthusiastic about it. We talked about all the different outdoor activities we could do in Montana and definitely gave off the impression that we would be excited to visit.

I can sense my ILs getting frustrated because none of their 4 kids, including my wife, are in a hurry to come visit again. I can definitely understand their perspective, but in my mind, I never would have anticipated how bad the travel would be. My wife's siblings feel the same way. AITAH?

Also, regardless of your judgment, what would you do here? Suck it up and travel? Break up the travel over a couple of days? Unfortunately because of my wife's job we can't take long stretches of time off; 5-7 days max including travel time.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: How often have they made the trip back to visit? NTA but I think your wife and her siblings need to be honest with them about it. Moving that far away is not going to allow for frequent visits.

>OOP: In short, they do not visit. Even when we lived closer the expectation was always that we would go visit them. Couldn't tell you why. My ILs are super generous otherwise. But you have to go to them.

---------------
Comment2: That's a very common expectation from a certain subset of parents of a certain generation. The onus is on their adult children to maintain the relationship - to visit, to call, to ask - and not on them to put any effort into maintaining the relationship.

You know why they don't visit because it's the same reason you don't visit them. They don't want to waste almost 24hrs on travel. No one does.

---------------
Comment3: NTA, but you need to be honest with them about how bad it was. Don't keep deflecting; it's unkind to leave them thinking they're going to see you often and then disappointing them.

Yes, they moved there and made their own bed so to speak, but they probably didn't realize how much of an effort it was going to be for people to visit, anday not have recognized that your time off is limited so a long journey is just not very feasible.

Explain all this calmly in a call just for that purpose ( in other words don't tag it onto a call about something else). Say how much everyone misses them and wants to see them but how the trip is just not something you can do very often at all. Maybe you could all meet somewhere easier to get to. And really your wife should take the lead in the conversation with her own parents but you should be present and supportive.

>OOP: I like your point about telling them we miss them. I think my MIL would appreciate that. Unfortunately my ILs won't really travel to meet up with us. They're great overall. It's just one of their quirks.

---------------
Comment4: ESH because nobody seemed to look up the travel realities or do a dry run before committing to purchasing and buying this remote cabin. Unless there was an airport that closed down between enthusiasm and actually traveling, then all the adults should have been realistic.

>OOP: This kind of matches my thoughts. I wish I would have done more research on the travel. I think growing up on the east coast gave me the impression that you were never more than a couple of hours away from an airport. It didn't occur to me that this would be an issue
----------
Comment5: Having lived in Montana, I feel like they could have gotten a pretty nice cabin in the woods closer to a lot of airports in Montana! Maybe they chose size over location, unfortunately.

Comment6: Nta just curious after the travel part did you enjoy the woods? Did you make things to do there? Could you make the travel more like an adventure game?

>OOP: I thought it was fun. I got to do some fly fishing which I enjoy. My daughter was super bored. She's not keen on going back.

---------------
Comment7: I gotta tell you, as a Montanan, I really appreciate this post. I’m so sick of east and west coasters moving here to live out their Yellowstone dream without considering any of the consequences. Let them figure out how to visit you. You’re the one with kids and they can navigate getting from Montana to basically anywhere via airplane if they’re so set on living here.

---------------
Comment8: I don’t think a lot of people realize how hard it is to fly to Montana. It’s America, everything’s connected (everything is not connected the way you think). I’m on the East coast next to a major city and wanted to visit a friend in Montana and to get only one layover would have had to overshoot to the West Coast and then come back to Montana.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

Thank you everyone for your replies and let me say that there's no place like reddit where a post about traveling to visit ILs can turn into a discussion about healthcare access, the number of bras a woman owns, and how often she washes those bras. Citizens of reddit, you never disappoint.

Thank you to the native Montanans who messaged me with travel ideas. We found a couple of changes we can make in our future flight plan to go direct into Billings and take a short flight to a regional airport. I think we can save about 3-hours which would be awesome!!

I couldn't convey all of the appropriate nuance into my original post, but a big part of our bad travel schedule on the first trip was driven by cost. The new flight plan should help mitigate this as well. Those of you who deduced that my ILs are in eastern Montana were correct. Well done!

My wife and her siblings are going to have a talk with my ILs about establishing a rotation for visiting. My wife and I can only take one, week-long vacation per year and going to Montana every year doesn't seem fair to us, particularly when my ILs aren't willing to visit us (forgot to put this last part in the original post). But a rotation every other year or every third year seems perfectly reasonable.

My wife was texting her mother today and it also sounds like my ILs are amenable to meeting us in Billings or at another city where we can spend some time before going to their cabin. Great suggestion to those who made it. I think my daughter would enjoy the trip way more by seeing different parts of Montana.

This is going to be my only update so thanks again everyone!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Select-Ad-7726 in r/ amItheAsshole

Original: Nov 22, 2023

Update: in post itself

Status: no further updates from OOP

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for locking up my romance novels so my husband can’t throw them away?

I love romance. To be clear, I don’t enjoy self inserts or wish fulfillment romance where I’m the target. I love reading about two individuals falling in love and the idea of eternal love. I read a lot of romance books. I also enjoy josei manga, webtoons, comics, and short stories.

My husband recently started having an issue with my romance items. He says they are “in the way.” I keep my books on one bookshelf. I have my own iPad (though I prefer physical books). I have my own library card and account.

I do my half of the chores, pay my half of the bills, and do my part around the house. The romance books are not affecting his life in any way. But he hates them. He made a comment about throwing them out and having a fresh start. So, I bought a small cabinet/dresser with a lock on it from Amazon and locked up all of my novels.

My husband tried opening the door of one and found out it was locked. Now he is upset and guilt tripping me, saying that I don’t trust him and that I care more about my romance novels than him. AITA?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: NTA. Your husband shouldn't be thinking of throwing out things that belong to you - no matter what percentage of the bills either of you pay - especially without talking to you or getting your permission.

And the fact that he knows that the cabinet is locked is a pretty damning sign that he was seriously thinking of following through with his threat - so you were right in not trusting him.

>OOP: He claims it was simple curiosity, which I am inclined to disbelieve.

---------------
Comment2: I feel like something bigger is going on and talking about it with each other would help.

NTA solely for protecting what you love and enjoy and unless your husband's got a game-changing reason for why he has a problem with it like romance novels killed his family or he lost his first love to romance novels, he's the AH.

>OOP: I’m not a mind reader. If he has a different problem with my books other than “they’re in the way,” which is objectively untrue, he can use his words to express it.

---------------
Comment3: NTA- it feels like he is threatened by the romance novels in some way, which is definitely odd. He should probably considered some internal reflection as to why you reading romance novels bothers his so deeply.

>OOP: It’s only recently started, which is annoying. I used to be able to read in peace before he started making annoying comments.
----------
Comment3: Do you know if his qualm is more about shelf space or the amount of time you spend reading/him feeling inadequate?
----------
OOP: He comments that they’re useless and in the way, and he’s shoved the bookcase a few times. It’s flimsy so it does sway every time he does that. I even moved it further into the corner but he complains.
We did have to move into a studio apartment for his dream job so it’s less space than he’s used to, but the bookshelf is quite small and out of the way.

---------------
Comment4: NTA. Nothing wrong with have a hobby and reading is probably one of the most common ones. Your husband sounds really insecure about his own ability to provide romance and seems to think removing the books will solve the problem. I wouldnt relent and give him access.

>OOP: They’re not a threat to him at all. I don’t expect him to provide romance or hold expectations from fiction to him.

---------------
Comment5: NTA. Also, the men in the romance books would never think to throw away his love interests books. Maybe he doesn’t want you to have expectations he cannot fulfill?

>OOP: I don’t have those romantic expectations for my husband and I’ve never compared him to anyone in my books.

---------------
Comment6: NTA. This is really annoying. My parents police what I read too lol. Do you have any recs?! LOL. I had 500 romance novels at my parents' house

>OOP: I’m currently reading the absolutely beautiful “Veil”. It’s about a blind woman and a police officer in Soviet Union inspired ambiance. Absolutely lovely.

---------------
Comment7: NTA, because he's acting like a child and has no right to throw away your things... But is it possible he's feeling neglected?

Maybe he feels something is lacking in the relationship, and blames the amount of time and emotion you invest in romantic literature. He's lashing out and failing to communicate like an adult, but it seems there's a bigger issue here, and a conversation needs to be had.

>OOP: I don’t know why he would feel neglected. I have always read romance and I haven’t neglected any of my duties. I’ve supported him in his dreams.
If he did feel neglected, I expect him to tell me, not be annoying around my romance books.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

I came home to my husband trying to put back together a book I had left. It was flimsy and a couple of pages had already fallen out. He kept apologizing and said he didn’t mean to ruin the book. I told him the pages had already fallen out and it wasn’t his actions that caused it.

I asked him why he was acting this way and what caused this change. I had always like romance novels but he only recently changed, after we moved into a studio from a 2bd.

He admitted he was annoyed that I spent so much time away from him with my romance novels. When he had a more demanding job and I was in my WFH office, he didn’t actually see how much time I read. To him, it felt like I chose romance over him.

He was the type to write love letters and do things for his partners but after two ex gfs cheated on him, he lost that part of himself. He said it was nice when we met because I didn’t ask for romantic things, but the more he sees me engrossed in romance the more he feels that I want romance just not with him.

He said that sometimes it felt like I didn’t love him because we weren’t the “kiss good morning, say I love you every day” kind of couple. He says I only say it back to him after he says “I love you.”

But then he remembers the things I did (from putting socks on his feet when he slept and getting him takeout from his favorite restaurant to moving across the country for him and tutoring him after he went back to college), big and small things, and remembers that I do love him. then it makes him feel guilty.

I asked him what he wanted me to do. He said he didn’t know. He apologized for the book thing and said he didn’t really want to throw them away, he was just frustrated and hurt

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user ally3477 in r/ AmItheAsshole

Original: June 15, 2020

Update: July 4, 2020

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for taking my children away from their grandparents after my husband died?

I (34f) met my husband while I was doing an exchange semester in Australia when I was 20. We later got married and I moved to Australia permanently. We have two kids 6f and 4f and I'm 4 months pregnant.

My husband passed away 3 months ago. It was and still is horrible. With my husband not being here anymore I want to move back to my home country. I think it will be good for my kids because the education system over there is heaps better but the main reason is that I need my family.

My 4 year old doesn't really have an opinion on it, my 6 year old is excited because my parents have horses.

Here in Australia, my husband's parents look after our kids Monday to Friday as my husband and I both had full time jobs. So, obviously they are close. Mil and FIL are very attached to the kids and love being grandparents.

Last weekend I broke the news to them. I didn't expect them to be happy but I was hoping they'd understand. They didn't. It was ugly.

They asked me how dare I taking away their grandchildren after they lost their only son. They said my husband would be disappointed and he'd want his children to grow up in Australia. I had to leave because I couldn't handle the situation.

I feel guilty because my husband did want to stay in Australia but mainly because that's where we settled. I don't think he'd be disappointed. I think he'd understand. But I feel so guilty but also angry? I feel like it was cruel of mil and FIL to say what they said.

I plan to come back to Australia regularly because I don't want to deprive my children of their heritage and it has become my home over the years.

Basically, is it wrong to move back home?

--------------------------------------------
Additional details from OOP in comments:

[where is home?]

OOP: When I said home in the post I mean Switzerland but I have two homes I guess.

OOP: I'm going back to Switzerland. My in laws are good with the kids but they are not my biggest fan, especially my mil. They definitely can't be my support system.

---------------
[can in-laws move or visit?]

OOP: I don't think they can move. They only speak English, immigration policy won't allow it and they pretty much live off centre link. But they are welcome to visit and we'll visit too.

---------------
[regarding the arrangement with in-laws for childcare]

OOP: It was actually 32 hours a week

OOP: They didn't watch them for free though

OOP: We didn't pay as much as we would have for normal daycare. We paid $300 a week. But how am I not TA because we paid but it would be wrong if we hadn't paid? I don't understand how that would them give a claim to my children

---------------
[have the kids been to Switzerland?]

OOP: All together the oldest probably spent 1.5 years in Switzerland. They have met pretty much all of their relatives and speak Swiss German, German and French. I have discussed the move with my own therapist as well as my children's therapist.

---------------
[why not stay in Australia?]

OOP: What's right for me is right for my children in this case. They need a strong mother. I will soon have a new born too. My in laws can't help me with the baby.

Fil is 74 and not the fittest anymore. Do you suggest I stay for another 5 years and then uproot my children's life in the middle of their school career. And who's going to help me when I come home from the hospital, torn apart and still bleeding?

Besides I have taken a job where I'll be making 8000 chf a month. That's 12000 aud. Here I make 1000 aud a week. That's hardly enough for 3 kids.

---
OOP: I'm a high school teacher for two subjects one of which is a bit rare. High school teachers in Switzerland earn a lot, especially if they work at "gumnasium" and if they have year of experience.

---
OOP: Unfortunately not (my family cannot visit) as Australia has banned visitors due to the current situation.

---------------

[how will you move during the pandemic?]

OOP: Yes I can (Switzerland is open) but we won't be moving right now. We're moving in August.

OOP: It won't be too late in my pregnancy. Generally flying up to 36 weeks pregnant is okay.

---------------
[will you visit Australia?]

OOP: Yeah I was planning on going back during the summer holidays for 5 weeks. This would obviously be winter in Australia but it would still be good.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: NAH - These situations just come up when a loved one dies. You need your family, and they need theirs. I'm not going to call someone an asshole for reacting adversely during their grief, and I'm not going to call someone an asshole for wanting a support system.

---------------
Comment2: I hesitate to pass judgment because this is such a rough and hard situation for you as a parent. But I will say this. Please keep in mind that your children have been raised with your husband’s parents as a constant fixture in their life.

Your kids are too young to grasp what it means to be in Switzerland vs Australia and their grandparents - who have raised them almost as much as their parents, who they have seen nearly every day of their remembered lives - gone.

Going from that consistent exposure to seeing them only a few times a year will not be a smooth transition, and you can’t assume it will just because the 4 year old doesn’t understand what’s going on and the 6 year old is excited “because horses.”

You have to do what is best for your family. But rest assured your parents in law are not being assholes. Your children WILL be devastated, there WILL be an adjustment period, and it will NOT be easy. X

---------------
Comment3: NAH. It's very understandable for them to be upset as there's no telling they'd ever see them again, down from seeing them on majority of the days. Your view is as well. In the end parents have the last say and it's not wrong move to make.

---------------
Comment4: NAH. Everyone is grieving right now, and all of you have valid emotions. They lost their son and now they're losing their grandchildren. You lost your husband and now you're alone in a foreign land.

Family therapy is definitely needed here, but I dont think anyone is TA.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (19 days later)

It's been nearly 3 weeks since my last post. A lot has happened since.

First off, we're back home in Switzerland, the kids are okay. As planned we moved in with my family. The kids are bonding with their grandparents and cousins and the animals. They're set up for therapy as am I.

The events leading up to this: I went back to my in-laws to explain my side of the story. I told them again that we would be coming back but that right now I need to make sure that I can be a good mum to my kids. They were very understanding and asked if they could take the kids the next day. I agreed and dropped them off.

However pick up didn't go as planned. The kids weren't ready and FIL told me that they decided it would be best for everyone if they stayed with them for a while as I was clearly unstable. There was screaming, tears, threats and lots of ugly things were said. I called my lawyer who told me to call the police. Luckily it didn't come to that and they gave me back the kids.

But honestly that was it for me. Trust gone. I booked flights for us and arranged what I could in such a limited time span. I told my in-laws that they had seriously hurt my trust and that I would need time to think what this means for the future. They were allowed to say goodbye to the kids in person.

We arrived at home on Monday. The kids already video called my in-laws as I want to make it as easy as possible for them to transition. I am very hurt and disappointed that it had to end this way but also hopeful for the future.

Right now I'm enjoying to get pampered by my mum who's very excited to be part of this pregnancy. In the future I'll try and rekindle the relationship with my in-laws.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Don’t go back. They will try it again

>OOP: you're probably right unfortunately. My heart just breaks for the children as this means they probably won't see their grandparents again

---------------
Comment2: Are the grandparents able to travel to Switzerland? Once you're feeling less betrayed it would probably make you feel more comfortable and secure to have them come to you for a visit. Much harder for them to try to take the kids in Switzerland.

I'm sorry all of this happened to you. Sending best wishes.

>OOP: I'm not stopping them from coming. I'm not sure if they can afford it now that they don't get money for looking after the kids anymore

---------------
Comment3: The effect of the stress on your pregnancy is what worries me the most. In the first post I had sympathy for them, but I have none any more. They don't have selfless love for your children.

They wanted to hurt you and deprive them of a mother in order to keep your children in their lives, possibly at the cost of your pregnancy. I would be very wary of letting these people play any but the most minimal part in your children's lives.

>OOP: Yeah I was worried too especially because stress makes me lose my appetite. But basically the second we landed in Switzerland the fog lifted. And my mum is a great cook and she really had been pampering me

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user heartbreakaccount313 in r/ trueoffmychest

Original: March 31, 2026

Update: July 31, 2026

Status: concluded

Note: thanks to u/WattlesFlowerThrowRA for suggestion to BORU

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: It turns out I should have been worried about the friend of my fiancé that everyone told me not to worry about

This is hard for me to write. The man that I thought was the love of my life has decided to be someone else instead. They grew up together. Their families are close.

When I first met him I was wary because of how close they are but he [along with everyone else who knows them] assured me there is nothing between them. "They are like brother and sister." And I was stupid enough to believe it.

Last week I was assaulted at my job. One of my eyes is swollen shut and it hurts like hell. I'm a nurse and I was assaulted by a patient that I had administered naloxone to I am at home resting and my fiancé was with me until he found out that his close friend was in a small car accident.

A van backed into her car in a carpark. She wasn't even inside but my fiancé lost it when he found out. He left our flat to be with her even though she was with her boyfriend. She wasn't hurt but my fiancé said he thought she was, and it made him realise that he loves her and "can't lose her."

He told me he confessed his love to her and she said she feels the same and it broke something inside me.

I don't even know why I'm writing this. It won't bring him back.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: Some people are fucking stupid and not self aware enough or honest about feelings. I’m so sorry this knob of a guy was one of them.
Take this as a blessing in disguise,. Marrying this man would have been terrible

Comment2: I am so sorry to hear that. One thing we women must really start to practice is trusting our gut instincts, it is never wrong. If something hits wrong or doesn't feel right trust yourself enough to know you are right.
Disclaimer as long as you don't have trust issues and healing you need to do, otherwise that's just paranoia.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (4 months later)

I heard that my ex-fiancé proposed to her. His family, her family and our friends are all over the moon about them being together.

No thought for me or her ex-boyfriend and our lives being torn apart. I have only seen and spoken to her ex-boyfriend once since the incident I mentioned in my other post. Wherever he is, I just hope he is doing well. Imagine my ex and his ex saying it wasn't cheating because they left us first. As if that makes it better.

After my ex-fiancé left I had to deal with cancelling everything for our wedding and getting our flat sorted out and signing a new lease. I had to block him, and everyone who keep telling me it was fate or they were meant to be together. I am trying to move on but I don't know how. I thought I would be marrying the love of my life tomorrow but instead he wants to marry someone else.

Also I don't know if anyone will care about this but I had to turn off my ability to receive chats. I received several telling me that my assault was deserved or that my attacker was right. I got tired of seeing those notifications so I turned it off.

Edit: so thank you to everyone who is sending me Reddit care messages, but I'm all right for that. None of those thoughts or intentions.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user w8136 in r/ AITAH

Original: July 5, 2026

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded-ish

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: WIBTAH for asking my daughter's boyfriend to stop having dinner with us?

My daughter (21) has been dating this guy (24) for 2 years. It's fairly serious. He is from Mexico and has been in the U.S. since he was 3 years old.

He has a strange phobia of not wanting anyone to see him eat. And it's real...I've literally never seen this kid put a bite of food in his mouth, despite spending a fair amount of time around him. He is thin, but doesn't look unhealthy.

The problem is, we will take them out to dinner occasionally for holidays or special occasions. He always orders a full meal. He will cut up the food, push it around on the plate...but not eat ANY of it. Then after the meal, he will "donate his leftovers" to someone else.

It's even worse when I make home cooked meals and they come to dinner. He does the same thing...takes a full plate of food, pushes it around, cuts it up, makes it look messed with...but doesn't eat ANY of it. Then he will scrape ALL the food into the trash can afterwards.

I'm starting to get enraged over this. He wastes a horrendous amount of food, and I can't stand the money wasted when we buy him expensive restaurant meals that go completely uneaten. It's even caused a few scenes with waiters asking him what's wrong, do they need to change his order, etc.

I've talked to my daughter privately and said, "if he doesn't want to eat, that's fine. Just tell him to STOP taking plates of food and ordering in restaurants!".

Her response was, "but in his culture it's rude for him to not take food. I'm not asking him to do that".

But I find it SO RUDE that he is willing to keep wasting our money...food isn't cheap!!

WIBTA for just announcing that he is no longer invited to meals?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: As someone from Mexican descent, I’m pretty sure that his own family would have a HUGE problem with wasting food. It’s not a small subject in Mexico where food poverty is real.

>OOP: I'm wondering if this is part of it. I know his general life story, but no details. I'm wondering if maybe there was a time that he got heavily disciplined for eating too much in times of scarcity, and it scarred him for life.
Again I have no idea, but it just makes me sad for him. It also seems contradictory in some ways though that he is now willing to waste food on a huge scale if this is, in fact, what heppened. I just don't know.

---------------
Comment2: As a Mexican this is some bullshit. You're always usually supposed to say yes to food but never waste food because it's limited and disrespectful.

---------------
Comment3: Mexican delegation here. In no fucking way is this about culture. This is about him trying to keep from eating in front of anyone. He lied to your daughter. You need to tell him yourself. In our culture. What is truly expected is that if you put it on your plate, you are expected to eat all of it because shows the greatest respect to your host/chef

---------------
Comment4: INFO: did you try talking to him directly about this?

>OOP: Yes, I've asked him politely and with genuine concern if something is wrong. He always has some excuse: "i'm just not hungry", "I had a late lunch", "my stomach hurts", etc.
Like I said, I've also brought it up with my daughter and basically been blown off by her. Otherwise he's a nice kid and I value my relationship with my daughter. It's just a really weird and hard situation to deal with. I've never seen anything like it.

---------------
Comment5: Be kind and stop inviting him to dinners. Surely there are other ways you can spend time with him that doesn't involve food.

>OOP: Yes, but it's hard to spend any time with my daughter without this coming up. They are always together, and we've done many day trips with them. Hiking, museums, whatever...and at some point everyone (else) needs to eat.

---------------
Comment6: You should be prepared that if you choose to go that route, your daughter likely just won’t come either. I would decide if the price of the food is worth keeping regular contact with your daughter unless you can find another non food related activity to invite them to.

I can understand your frustration. He must eat sometime so why can’t he take the leftovers for himself later. Sounds like a pretty serious eating disorder.

>OOP: This is what dumbfounds me. I honestly wouldn't care at all if he was taking the food and eating it later. Wouldn't bother me in the least. But the "donating leftovers" (which no one wants because they are cut up, mixed around, destroyed, etc) and just tossing full plates of food into the trash is SO bizarre.

---------------
Comment7: Have you asked your daughter if she's seen him eat? Because his behavior is screaming ED. But instead of telling him to not come to dinner, why not tell him what you told your daughter instead?

"We love spending time with you, and you don't need to eat if you don't want to, but can you please stop getting plates of food you aren't going to eat just so they can go to waste? It's fine to sit at the table without a plate."

>OOP: I asked her and no, he does not eat in front of her either. On the nights they stay together (they don't live together), she said he waits until she is asleep, then will consume huge amounts of food (like the entire day's worth of calories at 2 a.m.).
----------
Comment8: So he has an eating disorder. You described two textbook behaviors for EDs.
He needs help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update

This post absolutely BLEW UP, and I appreciate everyone weighing in on it! It's not a simple issue, and hearing varying opinions on this was very valuable to me. You all made me set my frustration aside and realize there is a much deeper issue at play here.

I agree he has an eating disorder, and I had a serious discussion with my daughter earlier about these behaviors. They are absolutely abnormal, and I let her know in no uncertain terms I am very concerned about his physical and mental health.

She seemed a little shocked, and said she thought it was "just one his quirks" (no hate please...she is just 21and has very little life experience with these issues). I definitely got through to her, though, and she promised to address this with him privately and suggest therapy/professional help.

You all may disagree with that choice, but I don't feel it is my place as "the girlfriend's mom" to address this very personal and painful issue with him.

She and I agreed that, for my part, it is ok for me to tell him that he doesn't have to feel pressured to eat with us, and it's perfectly acceptable for him to simply refuse food but still sit at the table with us. We MUCH prefer that option instead of him wasting food.

Going this route, the problem is being addressed while avoiding humiliation for him, still respecting him as a person, and my daughter as well.

I'm still drawing the "HELL NO" line in the sand with the food wasting...but in a loving way that isn't going to worsen any underlying trauma he is already facing. I want him to find the courage to face this, and know that we are here to help and support him.

Thank you Reddit!! 💕

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Professional-News151 in r/ legaladviceUK

Original: Dec 18, 2024

Update: Aug 1, 2026

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: (England) Advice on Defending a Small Claims Court Claim from my neighbour regarding cats defacting in his garden.

Hi All, apologies for the long post, but this is an absolutely bizarre situation, it seems to me that our neighbour is abusing the courts system to harass me and my partner

Background:

A neighbour has filed a money claim against us in relation to two cats owned by our household for:

-- loss of enjoyment of their garden,
-- price of deterrents that they have purchased,
-- the cost of their time for removing cat poo from their property,
-- the cost of their time for preparing the case,
-- the cost of their time for corresponding with us and other third parties in relation to this issue,
-- and for the cost of printing the papers related to the case (!)

it has gone to small claims court, and we are now required to respond.

Essentially, their case is that we have done nothing to stop our cats defecting, urinating and stalking birds on their property. As per RSPCA advice, we have provided our cats with 2 outdoor litter trays in our garden and we have purposefully kept the grass in our garden longer near their property so that the cats are encouraged to go there.

Since the 31st of October both cats have been locked indoors due to fears that the claimant would take matters into their own hands and harm the cats.

The statement of particulars is 9 pages long and includes information not related to the claims (such as plates being left on our garden furniture, these were decorative plates that were not dirty and had not had food on).

They have also included 30 pages of "evidence" which contains pictures of their garden, with indicators of where cats have defecated (no pictures of the defecation) and written correspondence with us, as well as written correspondence with other third parties such as our landlord, letting agency, and the council. We were not privy to most of these communications.

Relevant Information

We are not entirely sure that the problems caused have been caused by our cats, as there are other cats in the neighbourhood.

They have not provided us with a pre-action letter. At the bottom of one of their other letters they simply included "I am now taking legal action against you" and nothing else. Prior to the statement of particulars, they have not mentioned to us wanting any compensation/re-imbursement etc. They have not tried to setup any 3rd party mediation.

The claim has only been made against 2 of 4 people in a shared house, the claimant could not get the names of the other two members of the house as we did not respond to a request by the claimant for our names due to fear they would use this information to harass us.

The request was not made with any indication that they were required for legal purposes. Only one of the cats in our house, is owned by us (The defendants) the other cat is owned by the 2 people "left out" of the claim.

when a member of our household last spoke to the claimant they told us that "they would not speak to us and will now go through our letting agency”. We posted a letter through their door asking if we could find a suitable solution, which they did not respond to.

The claimant has generally been rude towards us. For example, they have tossed cat poo and soil onto our driveway and car. Thrown a dead pigeon into our house and left cat poo in Tupperware containers, or on pieces of cardboard outside our front door and on our drive away.

Deterrents the claimant bought have flashing lights to deter our cats, unfortunately a member of our household (not included in the claim) has photosensitive epilepsy, we had to get the police involved for the deterrents to be angled away from our front door. For these actions, we have an ongoing harassment case with the police.

Questions

(I believe) Cats are classed as free spirits in the UK, and we cannot be held liable for actions they take that are considered "normal" cat behaviour (i.e. defecting, urinating, etc). Does their claim have any merit/legal standing? If not, how do I respond to that in my defence, can I make an argument that the costs they are seeking are unjustified because we are not liable ?

it is my understanding that the claimant has not followed proper procedure when submitting the claim (i.e. no letter of pre-action, they have not attempted 3rd party mediation, the statement of particulars is not concise) do we need to/can we state this in our defence?

In my defence, do I need to respond to facts in the "evidence" they have provided that are communications between the claimant and 3rd parties that we had no knowledge of? For example, in an email to our landlord the claimant alleges that our cats have slightly damaged a fence by climbing on it regularly. We were not made aware of this until we received the statement of particulars.

In my defence, do I need to respond to facts that have nothing to do with the case. For example, I have lived in this house for XX years?

The claim lists conversations between the other members of the house not in the claim, that we (the defendants) were made aware of at the time. We believe the claimant has left out important details discussed in the conversations, can we dispute the contents of these discussions, even though we were not present?

The list of what they are claiming for seems incredibly inflated, is it reasonable for the claimant to claim for time spent preparing the claim/printing costs ?

Should we offer to provide the names of our housemates/offer to add them to the claim etc ?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: On the basis of what you've written, this is likely to go badly for them because
A) a bunch of the stuff they're claiming for is nonsense and
B) they don't appear to have followed the correct pre-action protocol.

This is without getting into whether there is actually any merit to their claim whatsoever. What tort do they actually allege you're guilty of?

It isn't unlawful to have outdoor cats, so as far as I can tell the only question is whether your negligent ownership of them has caused the neighbour some sort of harm.

I don't see any negligence here at all. There is expressly no requirement for a cat owner to limit their cats' movements, and you aren't in control of when they might need to do a poo.

I would be tempted to ask the court to strike out the claim on the grounds that the claimant hasn't actually stated a valid cause for action nor followed the correct protocol surrounding it, but even if it goes to court it sounds very easily defensible to me.

The defence would be relatively straightforward: that there has been no negligence, that cats go and poo in other people's gardens sometimes, that there is absolutely no wrongdoing on your part, and that, therefore, any costs they have incurred are entirely of their own making.

>OOP: Their claim is long and quite rambling with no specfic mention to a law, just that they have "lost enjoyment of their garden" based on our cats defecating/urinating/stalking birds and that we have done nothing to prevent this for 5 months.
This is despite the claimaint admitting that:
-- we have provided outdoor litter trays for our cats to use
-- we have let our grass grow long
They have not admitted that we have kept the cats inside since the 31st October, but this is the case and we believe more than fair given that it constituents a significant decreace in the standard of living of our cats

---------------
Comment2: In law, cats are rightly considered to be non-trainable. They are free spirits with the right to roam as they please, with no responsibility resting on their owners (ie servants).

Any cat owner will recognise this to be true, as you can’t train s cat like you can train a dog! This is just a nonsense claim

---------------
Comment3: Can he prove the faeces relate to your cats? Put him strict proof on this point. DNA tests etc

>OOP: I don't believe so, the claimant has included pictures of their garden with bamboo sticks where they claim that cats have defacted and certainly no proof that it has been our cats

---------------
Comment4: This would easily get thrown out. Cats are doing what cats do and in this country it’s not illegal to have an outside cat. I would however get videos for your property and still keep their claim as evidence incase they try and harm your cats in revenge

>OOP: We've decided to keep our cats indoors (since the 31st October) since we're worried about the claimant harming the cats. I realise this will significantly affect their quality of life but we plan to move soon and we're trying to train our cat on a lead so that he can enjoy some outdoor time without the risk of anything being done to him

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (19 months later)

I posted, about 2 years ago, in this subreddit about my neighbour taking me to small claims court over my cats (allegedly) defecating in their garden along with a long list of rambling complaints about other items.

The proceedings have now finished (around 2 months ago, but just wanted to be safe nothing else would come of it) and so I wanted to update and thank the previous commenters on my last post for the help they provided.

I handled the case more or less as per the consensus in the comments on my last post.

I Provided a short defence, highlighting the case had no cause of action, and that we (the defendants) had responded reasonably to the claimant's requests.

we had court appointed mediation and offered the claimant a decent chunk of money, a few hundred pounds, to avoid the faff of going to court, but he refused.

I then produced witness statements and evidence detailing the events that took place with the claimant, how we responded reasonably (and how they were unreasonable), as well as evidence of 4 other cats in his back garden !

The claimant was an absolute nightmare to deal with, producing mountains of pointless documentation that took us time to trawl through and understand, all poorly handwritten and not often submitted in the proper way with the court.

We finally got to the hearing............and the case was, obviously, dismissed. The judge could not find a cause of action, and the claimant couldn't prove any of their points anyway.

What an absolute waste of everyone's time, especially the courts !

Anyway, I would like to thank everyone who commented on my previous post and helped me approach the case in the right way.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: It must be maddening for the judge who has to read through a load of handwritten waffle over cats doing cat things and find there's nothing to answer for.  
Not a job I could do.

>Comment2: To be fair, given that judges usually have to spend hours pouring over. A few hours of notes on cats doing cat things might have been a welcome break.
"Fluffels spent three hours and 36 minutes sleeping under my tree. Then proceed to chatter at some birds for a further 3 minutes. As you can see, Fluffels clearly deficated on my rose bed under orders from his owner."

---------------
Comment3: Cats have a protected legal "right to roam" anywhere, including a strangers house. End of case.

>Comment4: Which my cat abuses like the self-entitled benevolent dictator, that he is.
He sits on everyone’s dining tables and just glares at the occupants, until they offer him food.
He’s lucky the entire street loves him.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user IAmHerdingCatz in r/ weddingdrama

Original: Oct 19, 2025

Update: Nov 2, 2025

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: Is it me, or is this problematic?

First, I'd like to say that if I'm wrong, I'll accept it. I'm older, and I know that a lot has changed, even from a few years ago when I got hitched.

Here's the issue:

My husband's niece is getting married, and I just learned this 3 days ago. The wedding is on October 31st.

We did not receive an invitation, a text message, a FB or Instagram message--nothing. We heard about it when my partner's parents were here for dinner.

The wedding is at 0830 AM in a town 2 hours from here. The family has rented a huge Air B&B with only 2 bathrooms for the bride, groom, wedding party, and family. We would be sleeping on the sofa. The mother of the bride is offended when I said I'd be getting a hotel (if I go. I mean, we haven't been invited at this point.)

Partner called mother of the bride (his sister). She says there's no dress except "Dark Academia" costumes. I own nothing in this aesthetic that fits these days and it's a little late to buy anything.

The venue the couple has chosen DOES NOT ALLOW WEDDINGS, so they have booked it for a "business meeting," even though the bride will show up in long white wedding gown. There's a very real possibility of the entire event getting kicked out of the venue--and the family thinks that would be absolutely hysterically funny.

Am I the crazy one? I don't want any part of this and can think of a dozen things I'd rather do on Halloween than get up early in the morning and get kicked out of a venue. We technically have not received an invite, but the bride's mother was clear that she'll be offended if we don't attend.

I.can sit this one out, right?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: You haven’t been invited? Definitely. If you do get an invitation, just say you already have plans. It’s less than two weeks away.

>OOP: It feels so haphazard. Supposedly, today's phone call "counts" as an invite, but I'm super disinclined. The mother of the bride isn't the bride, last I heard.

---------------
Comment2: If you don’t want to go, can I?

I don’t know what dark academia is as a dress code but I doubt it’s business casual so how are they going to sneak the wedding party into the non-wedding venue?

Serious answer - you haven’t been invited so no, don’t make plans to go. Or do and live post everything.

>OOP: She's going to wear a legit wedding gown! Does she think no one will notice, I wonder? Also, the bride is painfully shy, so I'm confused why she would want this.
----------
Comment3: Does she want this? Does she even know? Sounds like her mum/family are the ones doing the planning
----------
OOP: She's a remarkably passive person and her mom is....not. I don't know if she's even capable of saying what she wants or needs. She's super shy, so I could see her just going along to "keep the peace," then having a miserable time at her own wedding.
Or, I could be projecting how I would feel.

---------------
Comment4: Is the wedding on Halloween? Are they expecting EVERYONE to wear a costume???

>OOP: If they'd sent invitations, I could answer that! Probably.

---------------
Comment5: Selfishly, I want you to go so you can report back the drama. This is insane.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update 0.5

Edit: I just woke up and am a little overwhelmed at how many replies I have. I oromise I will read them all--after coffee.

Briefly, though--the question was "does this count as an invitation. The overwhelming response is that, even with fairly relaxed rukes arund these things, it doesn't, and that's a huge relief to me.

Secon, several people have asked how my husband feels about this. He seems to think it's perfectly normal. He absolutely lans to attend.

And finally, for the person who said I'm expressing obvious "disdain" for the couple--that's not true. I barely know them.

I've no problem with a wedding that wants people to come in coatume, and if my brief google search is any indication it's a look I could really get behind. But not in a week and a half. And less you doubt that, hubby's niece attended my wedding in a very cute steampunk/burlesque outfit, and my 80 year old dad wore his old bagpiper's regalia when he walked me down the aisle

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (2 weeks later)

First, you'll have to understand that this is taking place through the lens of my husband, who thinks weddings are boring and that his mother and sister can do no wrong.

I am at the age where an appointment with one's cardiologist takes precedence over nearly anything else. I kept that appointment.

Mother-of-the-bride called at about noon on the 30th to ask if we would be attending the rehearsal dinner. We didn't know there was one. Husband decided to drop everything and go.

The family had not selected a restaurant, nor made reservations. They all ended up driving from place to place until they found somewhere able to seat 12 plus a baby, and they ended up at what I consider one of the worst restaurants on the Oregon Coast.

After dinner, MOB and Grandma-of-Bride were affronted that husband had booked a hotel, rather than staying at the air bnb they had booked--where he would have had to sleep on the couch and share a bathroom with 12 other people. (I had a BLT for dinner and watched 2 episodes of Slow Horses with my cat. Very nice.)

Halloween, the entire wedding party and entourage had to get up ungodly early for their "meeting," which was reserved for 0800-1000. It was raining--hard--and the entire party got soaked just getting from the parking lot to the car. There was a total of 14 people there for the "meeting," including the baby--which cried the whole time and was not taken out to the hallway.

The bride wore a tea length black dress, the groom wore a shirt with a collar and chinos. Most guests did not do anything like "Dark Academia." I think that's unfortunate, because the bride really wanted that. However, with the short notice, and with the average age of guests being well over 60, I'm not surprised. (Love the look. I think I could really get into it.)

The ceremony was brief and was followed by a buffet breakfast. Staff at the venue were extremely polite, but afterward the groom was pulled aside and cordially invited to never come back, as was the MOB. Only problematic because the groom would really, really like to work there someday.

(I did my cardio appointment, and had a pleasant lunch in "war-ravaged" Portland with a friend, )

Overall, it sounds like everything went as smoothly as could be expected. While I absolutely love weddings, I'm glad I sat this one out.

We never received an invitation. MOB and Grandma of the bride are offended I wasn't there, but I think that's a "them" problem, not a "me" problem.

Thank you all for your lively, scathing, and witty responses to my original post.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Octyss in r/ AITAH

Original: July 24, 2026

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITAH for baiting my SIL's BF ?

To introduce the main story, let me explain why I did what I did first.

I (34M) and my wife (34F) invited over for diner my wife sister SIL (F29) and her new BF (M23) which she been with for 3 month. Prior to the diner I had to go grocery shopping, and left around 100€ in my car (I took out 250 for the grocery, but ended up using only 150).

When SIL come home, she ask for my car key to get her BF from the train station, no problem. Diner was good, feeling this is a good guy etc.

Next morning I want to go service one of my watch, I go to the shop and can only find 30€ in my car. When I go home I tell my wife and she say I probably used more for grocery, but I have both receipt from bank and grocery and it didn't match. She tell me I had surely loose some cash at the grocery store. I don't buy that.

Cue yesterday, we on vacation at the family house near the beach, we invite SIL and BF for the week, we already paid for everything (grocery for the week is done, I buyed enough wine for more than we can drink, and even gave SIL my company "vacation check" she used to pay tool fare (they came with her car) the only thing they had to pay for is gas.

Now the part I might be the AH : wife and SIL head for the beach, and BF and I would go play a bit of tennis.

I set up my work computer in front of my wallet (which I openly left with some visible cash) with the camera and Teams activate, and switch screen to some BS Excel worksheet.

I tell him I have to go to the bathroom for a few minutes before going, when I come back, I see at the first glance my wallet have moved a little bit. I say nothing and we go.

When everyone is at bed the same day, I watch the recording and see him took out 60€ in cash from my wallet.

Same night I tell my wife again that cash is missing and the only same thing in the two scenario is the new BF. She tell me to kick rock and that I am TA for even thinking he will do that.

So 2 questions here, AITAH for baiting him to stole from me and WIBTAH if I bust him out with the recording ?

My wife don't know yet I filmed it, is it a good idea to tell her or would I bury myself here ?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: YTA for not confronting him. Bury yourself how? That guy stole from you twice, go do something about it. You don’t need permission to confront him, letting him get away with it twice and worrying about your wife’s reaction to you calling him out is a bigger issue.

>OOP: It's a bit more complicated, SIL come from an abusive relationship where she had a child 2 year ago and we helped her get on her feet 1 year ago and leave him. It's her first relationship since the deadbeat and I don't want to be the one who crush that...
----------
Comment1: It's not complicated at all and none of that is relevant. If I take this at face value, you think encouraging a former victim her to stay with someone who steals from her family is the better alternative?
----------
OOP: No I'm not that why I'm kinda seeking advice here from stranger because I can't ask someone I know and trust for now. I do know I can't leave it like that so I try to fish here for good advice and honestly some people here give 5stars advice I'll use tonight when speaking to my wife

---------------
Comment2: Do you think your wife will be pissed at you for setting him up? But the first incident should have made you both wary. You can't have this person in your home if he steals. You needed to know. so does her sister.

>OOP: My wife is rational, she is a psychotherapist, I'm confident she'll understant why I did that if I was sure for the cash missing after the grocery shopping, but she'll be mad for sure for the setup and the timing I used to bait him

---------------
Comment3: NTA. He’s probably already stealing from your SIL too and her friends or parents if he’s allowed in their homes.
You have to tell her to protect her and the people around her.

>OOP: I don't think he already had the opportunity to do so since we are the first who meet him, and for my SIL, we do punctual transfert on her account when she ask no big sum, sometimes groceries... She is a good person for sure just in a tight spot. But you are right truth have to told

---------------
Comment4: Nta
And you didn't bait him, he made a choice, and he is a thief.
Don't be silent, that will enable him

>OOP: I already told my wife twice what I though he did but now I have receipt, but I'm not sure I am the one who have to inform my SIL

---------------
Comment5: I’d show your wife the video then let her absorb it, and show it to her sister 💯

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

This has been a rough day.

I had a conversation with my wife yesterday night where I said again there is cash missing in my wallet, we have been together since before highschool and she knows when I hide something and straigh up asked me what I didn't tell her.

I told her about the recording and her reaction was not anger as I feared. She just asked me to see it. After watching it we spoke about what to do next to peacefully aproach her sister (this is where I used a lot of your good advices). We decided that she'll be the one telling her 1 to 1 today at the spa and I'll be having a 1-1 conversation with the BF.

So today the girls got to the spa at 10am and I took the BF for a ride telling him we'll do a surprise to the girls but I drove right in front of the police station and told him me and my wife know for the stealing, and that he have 10secondes to explain himself or I go to the police.

He just started crying. Told me he lost his father just after the start of their relationship, and the funeral put him in debt.

I lost my father at young age and somehow related because I saw the same scenario with my mother (but she didn't steal anyone as far as I know). We had a deep conversation where I basicaly scolded him and told him trust is forever broken on our side. I drove him home and told him to wait till the girls come back from spa to tell the truth himself. He then wired me 130€ and again excused himself.

That didn't happened like I was thinking, my wife and SIL came back at 1pm, SIL was bright red when entering the house, she goes right in the room took all his belonging throw them and him on the street and told him to go f** himself.

Asked my wife what happened in the spa and she waited after their massage to tell the whole story. Turn out some of you in the comment where right, already 2 of her friends told her things got missing after meeting with him. They chatted for a bit and she decided to break thing with him. Then my wife told her I did a recording of the 2nd stealing and she got a burst of anger toward him.

They are now at one bottle of wine each looking at the recording and laughting hard. BF tried to call her multiple time already and sent a lot of text asking for a meeting to explain and that he is stranded in the street but they just laugh and drink lol.

Thanks to all the commenters who gave good advices, used a lot of them to chat with my wife yesterday.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user TA_complicated in r/ AmItheAsshole

Original: Sept 27, 2021

Update: Sept 30, 2021

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for wanting a painting made by my late sister in my house even though it triggers my husband who's her widower?

On mobile so sorry for the format. Throwaway for very obvious reasons.

I (34F) had one sibling (25F when she passed) who died in a car crash just 3 months after her wedding. It has now been 12 years since her passing. We were very close and more like best friends and than sisters.

My now husband (38M) "Adam" was a constant presence in my family's lives even after her death as he would visit my parents regularly and they dote on him very much. 5 years ago we started getting close and got married 2 years later.

My sister used paint as a hobby and had left behind 8 paintings, my parents took 2 for themselves, I took 3, and my parents gave away the rest to her close friends they offered Adam to take any he wanted but he refused.

I really liked the 3 paintings and displayed them in my apartment proudly before getting together with Adam as I felt closer to my sister but once we became a thing the painting seemed to upset him so I kept them in storage instead.

I understand everyone grieves differently and for Adam anything associated with her triggers him and he goes back to that awful day when he found out she was gone. We have no pictures of her at our house or any memento left by her.

All this time I've been understanding but I feel like I've completely erased her from my life and brought up the subject of displaying one painting to commemorate her in our house the other day. Adam shut the idea down immediately and refused to even hear my side.

I was hurt by this as I've been considerate of him all these years but he didn't even think to consider my feelings about the situation.

It worsened when I suggested grief counseling together today which made him even more upset (he wasn't yelling but was clearly distraught by me continuing the subject) he said he already went through grief counseling and my insistence is just opening old wounds.

I was angry at the time and told him why did he ever consider marrying me when the thought of her makes him this upset and knowing how much she meant to me. He told me he can't handle me or this conversation anymore and went to his brother's to cool off as "he doesn't want to say anything he'll regret later". Now all alone I'm thinking I might've taken things too far.

AITA here?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: NAH. Both of you are grieving but man this situation is just messy to say the least.

>OOP: We've definitely been through a lot I agree but he we have a great relationship in most ways he's always been my rock and the support I needed and we rarely fight.
But this has always been a sore subject for him and becomes so closed off even at the mention of her. That's why I suggested grief counseling but he just won't listen to anything I say on the subject.

---------------
Comment2: NAH - I can understand why it triggers him, he was married to her and HE did lose her too, which is definitely something you need to be considerate of, as this seems like a really messy situation, that you married your sister's widower and it sounds like he still needs to grieve for her.

>OOP: He has spoken about it before how he gets images of her lifeless body on the OR table at the mention of her. It was very traumatic for him as he was the only one to see her in that state. My parents and I only saw her in the casket a few days later.

---------------
Comment3: ESH. You married your late sister's husband? That's just wrong. Did he marry you because you look like your sister? Because clearly he wasn't ready to be in another relationship if he hasn't healed from that one.

>OOP: My sister and I look nothing alike she's looked more like my aunt on my dad's side and I have predominantly my mom's features.
We connected 6 years after her death and Adam had a few other relationships by that time but we have always been a part of each other's lives, first as friends then it became something more.

---------------
Comment4: NAH. Do you think he might feel some sense of guilt for marrying you?

A lot of men and women struggle with guilt after they lose their spouse. They feel like they are cheating on or somehow disrespecting their memory them if they move on and marry someone else. These paintings may trigger those thoughts in him. And with you being her sister, it may make his guilt worse.

>OOP: He refused to take the paintings even before we were even a thing, he moved out of their place, sold off all the furniture and asked my mom and I to take my sister's things as it was too painful for him to deal with them. So it clearly began before we were together.
He dated three times before mutual friends encouraged us to give it a try as we had become very close friends by that time and hung out in the same friend circle.
Never once in the relationship has he shown any guilt of being together and I think it shows as anything to do with my sister would've made me insecure. But yes I agree he needs to talk about this and deal with it as I worry she isn't something we can erase completely from our lives as we may start a family soon and I want to deal with this before making that decision.

---------------
Comment5: NTA. Unlike some of the other commenters I don’t really see anything inherently strange about you two getting together provided as you had mentioned you guys don’t look at all alike and there’s quite an age difference you’re obviously more suitable to his age anyway and quite some time had passed.

Where I think he’s way wrong though as this is just a painting but you’re not allowed to have any pictures of your sister or anything . it is unfair to ask you to erase your own sister from your life.

Normally this kind of post would be more along the lines of my husband has too many pictures of his dead wife around the house is it OK if it bothers me a little bit. I don’t think he’s truly gotten over it or her unfortunately.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update (3 days later)

I want to just brush aside the fact that most people deemed me TA for marrying Adam, we are both adults and no one should be ever shamed for loving someone but I know I was asking for it knowing well how Reddit is. That being said I do feel I am TA in this situation and that's why I'm here.

Adam came home that night and that's why I wasn't able to reply to most of you later. Some of you had contacted me through chat and PM to discuss it but I really didn't have any energy to reply so I'm sorry if I ignored you.

Apparently I was only thinking of myself when I suggested bringing out the paintings from storage to Adam, when he cooled down and came back home he explained his side of the story. It was really hard for him to come to terms with my sister's death so he decided to start fresh by getting a new house, selling all the old furniture and starting over.

The paintings were a part of their old furniture this is something I forgot to mention cause as I said I wasn't really considering his feelings. Now many years later when we both have begun our new life together he didn't want a piece of his past reminding him of her daily.

He said my words really hurt him as we both have been through so much together and me questioning all of it during our argument really messed him up. I can't go more into the details of what we discussed because it wouldn't be fair to Adam but long story short, I apologized profusely for bringing his past trauma up and he also apologized for the way he handled things.

We both agreed we are in dire need of counseling so we are currently looking for one in our area. I also showed him the OP, he didn't care for most of the comments but one intrigued him, someone suggested buying something new that reminded me of my sister like an animal she liked and he said he could deal with that.

My sister liked to incorporate moons and stars into her paintings but never wore any jewelry with them so I thought of buying a moon pendent or earrings and wear them from time to time and he agreed that would be best.

The paintings I'm afraid will be in storage indefinitely till Adam feels comfortable with them being in our house. If he's never ok with it I'm fine with that but I'm glad we were able to come to a resolution and have started our process to heal. Thank you to everyone for making me see how wrong I was and I was being a major AH.

--------------------------------------------

Edit: Just want to say I won't be answering any more comments about why I married Adam and how I am the constant reminder.

I explained myself enough in the OP but I guess it's fine that you don't understand as you don't know our full story which would only be possible if I make 500 page book explaining every event that brought us closer together and we might be here a while as I type that out. I don't want to judged for loving him anymore and am choosing to ignore it for both our benefit.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user chungus_chaser in r/ AITAH

Original: July 8, 2026

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

Note: Bitters are extracts and a small drop can be added to cocktails for flavour. It is made from botanicals, roots and herbs and the liquid base is usually alcohol. There are also digestive bitters meant to be eaten after a meal to help aid digestion.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITAH for giving my sober friend soda water with bitters in it?

My friend and I decided to quit drinking on the same day. We are now about 100 days sober, and we're both really proud of it. We regularly share with each other the replacements we have found for alcohol--shrubs, kombucha, mocktails, etc.

Recently another friend of mine who has been in active recovery for eight years introduced me to the concept of putting aromatic bitters into soda water. I am in love with this idea. It's cheaper and lower calorie than a lot of mocktails, you can usually find it even at a bar that only has well drinks, and the taste of the bitters really satisfies my cravings.

When my newly sober friend and I were hanging out the other day, I ordered this at the bar, told her it was bitters in soda water, and offered her a sip. She tried it.

A few days later she texted me saying, "Did you know bitters have alcohol?!" I told her yes I did, not even remembering that I gave her a sip of my drink the other day, and then she said that she's really upset with me that I would give her a sip of something that has alcohol in it.

Now I realize that some people are very strict with their sobriety and would not have bitters in soda water, do not even drink kombucha or cook with alcohol.

However, being newly sober, I am going off what my friends who have been sober for years tell me, and they said lots of people don't consider bitters in soda water to be breaking sobriety in a meaningful way.

This makes sense to me, because when you calculate how much alcohol is in soda waters with the amount of bitters I put into it, it's something like 0.04% abv, which as far as I understand it means you would essentially need to drink a hundred of these to consume the same amount of alcohol as one beer.

It's also, fun fact, less alcohol than a ripe banana. I told my friend this when she told me she was upset with me because I thought this might give her some peace of mind that she didn't really break her sobriety.

It seemed to have the opposite effect. She said that this doesn't fit into her standard of sobriety and told me it's not about the alcohol amount so much as that I "violated her boundaries." I think she feels that in telling her that the alcohol amount is negligible I am "avoiding accountability."

She also said I would have never offered this drink to her if I took her recovery seriously. I object to this because, hello, I am also in recovery and do this, and so do many other folks I know. Also, I did tell her the drink had bitters in it, and I genuinely did not know that she did not know what bitters are.

I did apologize for assuming she knew what bitters were and I did apologize for assuming we had the same definition of sobriety, but I wasn't maximally conciliatory--for instance, I pushed back on the idea that I don't take her recovery seriously--because (even though I didn't say this) I feel like she's overreacting.

Is she also not eating bananas now or drinking kombucha? I mean, it's fine if she's defining it that strictly, that's her prerogative, but from what I understand that's not such a universal practice that I should have implicitly understood that.

She said that my apology seems disingenuous. The irony is I don't know how much more I can apologize without actually being disingenuous, because I honestly think it's mostly a miscommunication.

I've asked a bunch of my friends in the sober community about this, and everyone seems to think that she's being unreasonable. One even went so far as to say that in recovery you learn that ultimately the only person responsible for what you put into your body is you, so her entire premise is flawed, which is even further than I'm gonna go.

But my friend who is mad at me said she ALSO talked to people in recovery and "everyone agreed what you did was completely out of line and inconsiderate."

I have to admit I'm wondering if she told the story like "someone gave me an alcoholic drink without telling me" which is, in my opinion, different from what happened because again 1) I told her there were bitters in it and 2) I would not call that an "alcoholic drink." But yeah so, the mixed responses is why I've come to Reddit.

She said she is so angry and hurt that she is going to skip my goodbye dinner I had planned for this week before I move across the country, and I'm honestly not sure she's ever going to speak to me again.

AITA?

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: I’m starting to think a lot of people are unaware of all the products they consume that have minuscule amounts of alcohol in it.

---------------
Comment2: I agree that she's entitled to set her own boundaries around this, but this drink with bitters would have had around the same amount of alcohol than a serving of yogurt, a glass of orange juice, or sourdough bread. And the sip she took would have had a very minute amount.

I don't think it's fair for her to get angry at OP for not knowing her personal rules around non-alcoholic drinks.

---------------
Comment3: The ABV would be around 0.3% tops for a soda water with a few dashes of bitters. That is less than most NA beers. NTA.

For the record, though, there are non-alcoholic bitters on the market.

---------------
Comment4: NTA. When your friend asked what was in the drink, you told her: bitters and soda water. At that point, if she didn't know what bitters were or whether they contained alcohol, it was reasonable for her to ask a follow-up question.

Most people aren't going to stop and explain every ingredient they mention unless someone indicates they're unfamiliar with it.

Once you realized she has a stricter definition of sobriety, apologizing for the misunderstanding was the right thing to do. But this sounds like an honest miscommunication, not deception or disrespect for her recovery. Going as far as saying you don't take her sobriety seriously or ending the friendship over it feels disproportionate given what actually happened.

---------------
Comment5: aren't there trace amounts of alcohol in pretty much anything with sugar? Fermentation happens.

---------------
Comment6: As a person approaching 10 years of sobriety, I would say you're NTA. You apologized and, given that it was a small and honest mistake, there's not much more for you to do.

Your friend has to take their own accountability at some point. Now, you cannot force them to forgive you as that is entirely on them but just do your best to accept things you cannot change and grow/move on. Be well. 🤙🏼

---------------
Comment7: I can understand both sides, and think ultimately you are NTA, however I would take this as a learning experience.

For other sober friends, be more forthcoming with what is in something you are offering. If you know a friend is sober, and something you are offering contains alcohol (even small amounts), I would mention it in the future.

For some people, just knowing that they "broke" a rule, or "broke" sobriety could be enough to derail them. For others, it could have no affect.

As someone who has many food allergies, I've learned over time that I can't really eat other peoples food, unless I read the ingredients. This particular sober friend might need to learn that they need only ingest things that they have prepared, so that they know everything that has gone into it.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

Thanks everyone who responded (except maybe the person who said I am a giant piece of shit--lol). Reading the posts from people who thought I was the asshole helped me understand her perspective more, and seeing how controversial this is taught me that there is no universal definition of sobriety!

In the future I'll be much clearer. I did give my friend a more heartfelt apology while also telling her that we probably should have had a conversation about what our precise boundaries with alcohol are rather than assuming we were approaching it exactly the same way.

We are going to take a little space right now but I think there's a path for repair. And thanks everyone who wished me well on my sobriety journey! To everyone else on this journey, stay strong, we've got this!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Practicallyperfect7 in r/ work

Original: Sept 7, 2023

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: Co-worker doesn't like my new scent

I've been into fragrances for as long as I can remember, and I've been buying bath and bodyworks body mists for a really long time. There's a few scents I really love, and I normally like to buy one I know I love, and a different one so I can get to know more scents.

I'm sitting on my desk a few minutes ago, and a co-worker comes over. She's in a different department, but she sits in a cubicle across mine. I hardly know her, but the few times we've crossed paths she's kind, and smiling, but I was a little baffled by our interaction today.

She comes over to my cubicle and says "Sweetie, can I ask you for a huge favor" I, assuming it was something work related, reply "Sure thing! Go ahead"

Then, she says "Don't wear the perfume you were wearing yesterday" and I guess she noticed the confusion in my face, so she continued "I mean, wear it, it smells nice, but try to keep it from spreading around, it caused me to have a terrible headache all day."

I wasn't really sure how to address this, so I simply said "Oh, sure." and I don't want to be dramatic, but I am feeling somewhat uncomfortable, and slightly offended, but I would love to get some outside perspective, and see what other people may think.

I understand being sensible to certain scents, as it happens to me as well, but I personally really like the new scent, and still have a full couple bottles of it, so stop wearing it altogether seems like a waste to me, but also, I don't want to be inconvenient, and I certainly don't want people to get headaches from my smell... also, how am I supposed to "keep it from spreading around"?

I feel a little awkward and am not sure what to do.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: I work in a fragrance free workplace so maybe my opinion is a little off, but it's not unreasonable to make a request. She's being very polite about it.

Technically, she could go to HR and complain/ask for a reasonable accommodation. So I guess I would respect her request unless you want it to progress.

---------------
Comment2: Some people are allergic to some perfumes. Respect your coworkers.

>OOP: I assure you it was not my intention to be disrespectful in any way, which is why I’m trying to see what the best solution is.

---------------
Comment3: I’d take this at face value and stop wearing this scent at work. I am super sensitive to smells too. No need to feel awkward, but it’s a fair request if it’s giving her headaches.

>OOP: I'm feeling this may be what I have to do! It just caught me a little of guard, but talking about it here has made me feel better

---------------
Comment4: Everyone reacts differently to scents... for some people, it impacts their body in a very negative way, like your coworkers headaches.

It was not unreasonable for her to politely ask you to refrain from wearing that specific one. When you live and work in common areas in close proximity to others, you have to be more mindful of your choices because they impact more people than just you.

It's like apartment living. Most apartment buildings and even some condo buildings have explicit rules against loud noise or smoking indoors.

While the smoking indoors is likely more to protect their asset from stinking up like smoke, the rule is also in place because smoke smell travels and can negatively impact the people sharing walls with the smoker.

You can still wear your perfume when you go out with friends, but taking it out of your rotation for work scents is the right thing to do.

You need to consider the situation from the other side.... if someone was doing something that gave you a debilitating headache, wouldn't it be nice if the other person understood and refrained from putting you in pain every day? This isn't even just an "I don't like the smell" ... it's something that is causing actual pain to someone.

>OOP: Thank you for saying this! Something like this had never happened to me before, so I was a little defensive about it, and didn't know if I should feel offended, but reading the comments, and yours specially, made me see things from her perspective, and made me be appreciative of how tactful she was.
Hey, I like experimenting with new scents, maybe this one just doesn't work!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

I'd like to thank everyone for their input, you've helped me gain consciousness in something I didn't know was an issue, or even a policy in some places.

I talked to my coworker, I said that I was caught a little off guard and didn't really know what to say, but that I wanted to thank her for bringing the situation up, as I knew it couldn't have been easy.

She then apologized if she came off as insensitive, and mentioned that she normally admires how nice I smell and how much I take care of my appearance, but that particular scent made her get a headache.

I said there was no need to apologize, and asked her to please let me know if she ever felt that way again. It was a very nice experience, and I feel like I have opened a door to get to know a coworker a little better, which is very nice. Thanks everyone!

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments

Originally posted by user Fun_Relief_2745 in r/ AmItheAsshole

Original: July 7, 2026

Update: in post itself

Status: concluded

Mood: slice of life

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Original: AITA for crocheting at the bar ordering drinks during US v Belgium World Cup game?

I go to this bar to crochet 2-3x per week and usually get 2-3 beers depending on how long I am there. I am enough of a regular there that they start pouring my beer when I walk in and it is in front of me soon after I pick a seat and sit down. I also tip accordingly.

It is a sports bars and I know that. I can’t muster up energy for sportsball. They have never cared. Usually when I am there early in the day, sports aren’t playing but it is the World Cup and sportsball seems to be on all day. No issue on my end.

Well today I get to the bar around 3:30pm pacific to drink and crochet. We are in California. I keep drinking and crocheting through the game.

Then someone gets pissed off at me because I am not cheering when the US scores. Then they go off on me for taking up a bar seat in front of the TV when I’m not watching. Something I have done many many many times before.

I tell him to eff off. Bartender gives me a look. I shake my head to brush it off. He gives me more attitude. Bartender gives me another look. I nod this time. Dude gets kicked out.

Not the end of it. Apparently his friends are pissed off he gets kicked out instead of me. Bartender tells them I’m a regular not causing any issues so welcome to stay over them. They shut up and we all continue through the evening. They seem to mostly be pissed off at the fact that I am sitting at the bar in front of one of the 4 TVs not actually watching the game.

AITA for patronizing a bar I go to regularly and not watching the World Cup game? I will be there once the World Cup is over and they won’t.

--------------------------------------------

Comments:

Comment1: I’m a regular at the bar I watched today’s game at- I spent the whole game knitting (made real good progress on a cardigan sleeve, I might add). If you’re a valued regular and you’re not causing problems, get your fiber arts on!!

>Comment2: I'm loving that there are people who actually go to bars to knit or crochet! Is this a US thing?
----------
Comment3: We do it in Berlin too 😆 not all bars are well suited for it though. I sew and sometimes bring stuff with me to bars :) many of my friends will knit or crochet

Comment4: Yeah, NTA. regulars keep the lights on in january, world cup tourists show up for a month and act like they own the place. any bartender worth their tips knows exactly which one to protect, also there were 4 TVs. dude could've moved literally anywhere, he just wanted someone to be mad at

Comment5: The preferred clientele for most bars is people who spend money, tip appropriately, and don’t cause trouble. I’d say you’re their perfect target audience.

Comment6: NTA for crocheting at a bar but you do kinda seem like an asshole. You hang out at a sports bar during major sports events but look down your nose at sports fans and ‘can’t muster up the energy to care about sportsball.’
And the whole bit about giving the bartender the nod to give him permission to kick the guy out reeks of bullshit. I bartended for a long time and found some regulars really let it get to their head. Sounds like you.

Comment7: NTA at all but if there is a seat that has a bad view of the TV it would be nice of you to take that when all “TV watching spots” are full.

Comment8: ESH
He sucked for bothering you.
You for using "sportsball."
Bartender is cool.

--------------------------------------------
Additional details from OOP in comments:

[costing the bar business?]
OOP: There were tables for 4+ only and I was not blocking the TVs. I didn’t even know what game was going on later the the afternoon when I got there. It was empty when I got there

OOP: I was a paying customer. And I am there 2-3 times per week. Have been there 2-3 times per week for years. They know my drink not this rando’s drink. How much would they lose by me never coming back.

OOP: Bars are pay to play. If you’re going to spend $5 there vs my $21, why don’t I deserve to be there more than you?

OOP: Usually there isn’t much going on at 3/3:30 when I get there which is why it is a regular time for me on Mondays and Tuesdays. Yes, got there around 3:30 and left around 7 or so. Interaction occurred around 545/6ish.

---------------
[the friends of the guy?]
OOP: They were all drunk off their asses. Not even off drinks at the bar. Clearly they were pregaming. I wasn’t threatening or harassing 4 dudes much larger than me with my crochet hook. lol. None of the 50+ bar patrons gave a shit I was the one still there.

---------------
[why call it sportsball?]
OOP: Nope not edgy nor contrarian. Just don’t care. I didn’t care that they were there for sports and they shouldn’t care that I wasn’t.
I didn’t take anything away from him watching except that he decided to harass me over nothing and eventually got kicked out for it. His friends knew his drunk ass crossed the line otherwise they wouldn’t have shut up either.

---------------
[why go to a bar to crochet?]
OOP: Sometimes friends join me (and I crochet slower). Sometimes just to get out of the house. I don’t go out to crochet all of the time. Sometimes I read. Sometimes I get non alcoholic drinks so not always the buzz. Neighborhood bar.

OOP: Nope. A baby blanket for my niece.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Note: Belgium beat US with a 4-1 victory and reached FIFA World Cup quarterfinals on July 6, 2026.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update:

one of the bar partners (that wasn’t even there today) texted me tonight to let me know dude has been banned for rest of World Cup (doubt that he cares). I will be back tomorrow and Saturday on my other usual days of the week.

I will also clarify that there are 4 TVs in the area I was in and 6 in the larger back bar area. There was no shortage of viewing space of TVs. Bar has my side so I will take that as is.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

REMINDER: I am not OOP. Do not comment on original post or harass OOP.
Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments