AITAH for telling DH I am not interested in a half apology from FIL for leaving our wedding early?
I (33F) and dear husband (34M) have been married a little over two years now. A little background on us. My husband and I met in church in middle school. He comes from a very religious family, my mom is very religious, I’m somewhat religious. We were each others first EVERYTHING but as young kids do we broke up after a couple years.
My husband eventually married another person and I went on with life as well moving far away and almost getting married myself.
My husband and I had always casually stayed in touch and both knew there was an unspoken longing of wanting to be together but we never acted on it. Until he blew up his marriage. I was his first phone call and flight when him and his ex wife agreed on divorce. I was literally halfway around the world living my life. I am not the reason for the divorce but I did not wait for things to cool down which in hindsight was a little distasteful.
As things progressed, he kept coming to visit, but he wanted me to move back to my hometown since I was so far away and dating in different time zones is difficult! I only agreed to quit my very lucrative job and leave a great life I had built for myself if he would agree to get married again. This was something I had always wanted and was important to me. I also said I don’t want to wait 5 or 10 years. I want to get married rather quickly. This did not seem to be an issue and was a very mutual agreement if things went well dating.
Fast forward a year and we’re engaged. Plan to have a wedding in another year and a half. So about 2.5 years from me coming back home. Well three months after the engagement suprise we’re pregnant. Another two months later SUPRISE it’s twins.
I don’t want to have children with a different last name than me. Husband knows I wouldn’t want to be showing in my wedding photos. So 2.5 months pregnant, puking my brains out, exhausted AF, emotional AF, throw a beautiful 22 person afternoon wedding together in 3 weeks. My parents contrite 6k, husband 3k, and I cover the last 3k myself. It’s beautiful, everything was great, or so I thought, and I’m home in bed by 4:30 taking a nap.
I wake up from my nap and this is where the important details start to come into play. My FIL attended our ceremony but left right after photos because he was so “sick to his stomach” that his son was marrying me. So did not come to the reception where we had our twins gender reveal! During the reception my mom and sister made it a point to make sure I didn’t notice he was not there by sitting my MIL the farthest away from me at the table and making sure everyone kept their mouths shut.
A couple days go by, I’m upset, DH is upset, and my MIL is giving FIL the silent treatment. My parents are hurt as well since it was my first and only wedding that they helped pay for. They felt disrespected but also sad for me.
FIL ends up apologizing to DH. From what I hear it’s very sincere. His reasoning is that coming from a very religious family and views, DH should not have got divorced and definitely should not have got married. He should still be with ex wife.
I never receive an apology and either do my parents. I mention this to DH and MIL and I’m basically told FIL will never apologize and to stop beating a dead horse and get over it. I really did try to get over it. But that resentment always remained.
There were other instances that really hurt too that added to this blowup and need for apology. My MIL was in the living room after we got our wedding photo album. Photos FIL looks absolutely miserable. As she has it in her hands flipping through pages she tells me how hard it is for them, her and FIL, because they “just love ex wife so much”. Excuse me!? In my home!? So resentment is building.
Fast forward 2.5 years now to present day. We have flooding at our home while DH is away. FIL and MIL come over and start helping. We need to redirect the water coming into the basement with sand bags. My FIL and I disagree on how to place them. I try to explain to him that I worked in heavy civil construction for 10 years, and have at multiple different job locations been part of the team that redirected entire rivers. I’ve also created more storm water protection plans than I can even count.
FIL gets upset that we are disagreeing and his temper flares, throws things across the garage, and storms away while calling me a b**ch. I had finally had it and started screaming at him about how he’s an AH. I called him a f**cking AH to be specific. Because he left our wedding, never apologized, and truthfully does not show up or make it a point to be part of my twins lives. He told me that DH marrying me was a mistake. More things were said and he drove off.
DH has communicated that my FIL does believe an apology is in order for calling me a name. I also agree that my behavior deserves an apology. It was over the top and unacceptable. I honestly acted worse with my reaction than his initial trigger. But FIL is doubling down that he is not apologizing for leaving the wedding. He doesn’t understand why one apology has to be tied to the other. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong because he came to the reception and that was enough. He stands by his actions and reasoning that getting a divorce is a sin and my husband should not have gotten divorced at all or remarried.
I feel like I can’t let that go and I’m not interested in half an apology. He left his own son’s wedding early because he was so upset about it. Disrespected his son’s now wife, and my parents who paid a significant portion for that whole day.
Now here is where I’m asking AITAH for telling DH I am not interested in a half apology from FIL?
TLDR: FIL left my wedding early. Emotions got heated. He called me a b*tch. I called him an AH. FIL wants to apologize for calling me a name but not about the wedding. I don’t want an apology unless he’s apologizing for both.