Have you ever come across the subreddit page called “Am I the A**hole”? Well, it is a highly entertaining community of people who talk about situations they have recently had to deal with, and others comment with their opinions. Specifically, they tell the person making the post whether or not they were right, or if they were being an a**hole. One user posted about a situation she and her husband faced with both their parents. Her father-in-law is old-fashioned, and he did not appreciate the way she and her husband hosted the dinner.
Old fashioned father-In-Law
u/Upbeat_Fix_4061 posted about the night she and her husband wanted to announce they were expecting a baby. They invited both parents to dinner at their house, but things didn’t go as swimmingly as expected. Her husband’s father is old-fashioned and expects women to serve him at the dinner table. Furthermore, as the breadwinner, he expects to be served first.
Upbeat wrote: “My father-in-law is the type of person that still thinks women should serve men at dining times — like, he has to be served first because he’s ‘the breadwinner’ and shit like that. We usually don’t care since we mostly ignore them, however, this time my family was present.”
At first, her father-in-law tried to sit at the head of the table, but that space was reserved for the hosts (the expecting parents). The father-in-law was sat “did not like it”.
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The second issue
As soon as they were all seated, disgruntled or not, everyone started serving themselves food. This was where the second issue arose. Upbeat explained that her father had a hand injury, so she plated his food, and her sister poured him a drink. All the while her father-in-law waited for his turn. When that never came, he spoke up.
“Three or four minutes after that, my father-in-law asks out loud, ‘Is no one going to serve me my plate?’. My husband looks at him confused and says, ‘No, we don’t do that here.’” After that, her Upbeat’s mother-in-law got up to serve him, but that was not good enough. He wanted the hostess to serve him because she had served her father. Upbeat reminded her father-in-law that her father had an injured hand.
That’s when things turned sour. “He says he won’t eat then,” says Upbeat.” I just shrugged and said that he could starve. I didn’t care. He left with my mother-in-law. And while everyone agreed with me my father said it was a disrespectful thing to say and that I should apologize for the way I did it. So, am I the asshole?”
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Internet opinions
Most of the responses she received on her Reddit post agreed that she was not the asshole in the situation. One anonymous user commented that her father-in-law was being “ridiculous”. “You’re not the asshole,” they wrote. “You didn’t abet the situation. He was once actuality antic and you beneath to absorb his behavior.”
Another user echoed that sentiment by commenting that no one should sit at the head of the table besides the hosts. “Who the fuck assumes they’re going to sit at the head of the table at someone else’s house, during a gathering they’re not even hosting?” commented user u/lurker2531973. “A sexist A-hole, I guess. Damn, that takes some next-level self-centered entitlement. By the time the ‘serve me my meal’ happened, I would have definitely been at the ‘No, starve’ point. You are not the asshole. Congratulations on your pregnancy!”
Meanwhile, there were one or two people who saw things from her dads perspective. u/Efficient_Living_628 commented: “Look, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making your man a plate. I grew up watching that, but the difference is my aunts and grandma weren’t FORCED to do it, it was something they LIKED doing. Hell, I say cooking for you is how I show love, but if I met a man like your father-in-law, I wouldn’t serve him a damn thing. Like you said, his attitude is messed up.”
Keep Reading: Passenger Applauded for Refusing to Swap Seats So Family Could Sit Together
Source
- “AITA for telling my FIL he can starve if he wants because I didn’t care?” Reddit August 24, 2022.
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