An unfortunately common occurrence when dating someone is a clash between your partner and your parents.
In a recent Reddit post shared to the popular “Am I The A**hole?” subreddit, one groom, now husband, explained that his mother can sometimes be “rude and catty” and that, because of that, she didn’t get off to “a good start” with his wife.
“But I took my wife’s side and laid down boundaries,” the groom continued in his Reddit post. “My mom gets that she can’t be rude these days. I fully get my wife will never like her, mom probably won’t like her either, and we all just avoid each other for the most part.”
Despite feeling sad that he might not be as close to his family as he once was, the groom decided that his wife “comes first”.
The wedding was a “nearly perfect day” but his mother had a large “food colouring stain” on her cheek that she wanted removed for the big day. Because his mother didn’t know much about makeup, his bride’s makeup artist said she would attempt to help her cover it.
However, according to the groom, the makeup artist was a friend of the bride and knew about the pair’s strained relationship.
“She told her the makeup would have to be darker to hide [the stain],” the groom said of his wife’s friend. “She and my wife giggled ahead of time and decided to f*** with her. She made it super dark, like orange. My mom has fair skin, so it looked ridiculous.”
Assuming that this was the only solution, the groom’s mother decided to remove the makeup and attend with the visible stain.
The groom did not find out about the truth until after the wedding was over while his wife was holding a dinner with friends to look through wedding photos.
“Her friends all began laughing about what they did to my mom. This was the first time I heard about it and I said that was kind of mean girlish,” the groom recounted in his post. “My wife gave me a look.”
“Her friends kept saying it was funny and my mom is dumb and got what she deserved. At this point I got annoyed and said they acted like middle school bullies and they should be embarrassed.”
Following her friends leaving, the man said his wife had a conversation with him expressing how upset she was about what he said. “My wife became very upset and said I should be on her side 100 per cent — not 95 per cent — and that I humiliated her by speaking to her friends like that,” he wrote.
“She accused me of being a mama’s boy,” the Reddit post ended.
Many people were quick to take to the comments to defend the groom.
“You were correct – your wife was acting like a middle school bully, not an adult. And being her husband does not mean you support her blindly, it means you have the courage to tell her when she is going down a bad path. This is not being a mama’s boy, this is being a good and moral human being. If she wants you to be behind her 100 per cent, then she needs to act like a grown-up,” one comment read.
Another commenter agreed, writing: “It looks like you’re going to have to set some boundaries with your wife. After you did that with your mom she behaved. You married a mean, childish, vindictive woman. The fact that she got defensive with you and called you a mama’s boy says so much about her.”
“I think you just got a glimpse of your future here, buddy,” a third commenter pointed out. “She’s probably gonna do more unacceptable things in the future (whether to your mom or anybody else) and gaslight you to support her doings simply because you guys are married.”