You can find loads of stories about disagreements with mothers-in-law all over the internet. And in many of them, those MILs are painted in a rather bad light - they are being helicopter moms, Karens, or just overall insufferable beings.
Yet, in today's story, the perspective is a tad different. In this case, the wife, who had an issue with her MIL, is being viewed as the unreasonable one. Well, at least by her husband. Whether you agree with that or not, we're going to leave you to decide for yourself (and hopefully tell us in the comments).
More info: Reddit
It often seems that when someone has a disagreement with their mother-in-law, it’s because she’s being unreasonable
Image credits: Mike Cox / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
But in this story, the mother-in-law is the voice of reason in the situation
Image credits: Kateryna Hliznitsova / Unsplash (not the actual photo)
Here, one day a woman felt the need to call out her parents'-in-law financial favoritism towards their son, who wasn't her husband
Image credits: namii9 / Freepik (not the actual photo)
The mother-in-law pointed out that the woman should keep her nose out of a wallet that isn't hers
Image credits: External-Ladder-6302
Some vulgar words were exchanged between them, and in the end, the woman said she won't let mother-in-law babysit anymore, which her husband thought was a terrible idea
The OP has a nearly 5-year-old son with his wife. The man’s parents, the boy’s grandparents, are very much involved in the kid’s raising – they've been his free babysitters ever since he was only a few months old. Not only do they babysit him according to the parents’ rules, unlike some other grandparents, but the boy also adores them.
Besides the author, the parents also have another son, his brother. He has had some issues, where the folks had to bail him out, help him out financially, and now are still paying his rent. Basically, he’s very much dependent on their parents’ wallet.
So, one day, the original poster’s wife commented on how that son seems to be the parents’ favorite, as they keep supporting him with money. Her mother-in-law took offense to that. She explained that the woman shouldn’t care about where she spends her well-earned money; granted, she said it in a rather crude manner.
This caused the wife to demand an apology, as she didn’t feel she deserved to be talked to in such a manner. And so, the MIL did apologize for her vulgar words, but not for the message she sent.
Since this didn’t resolve the fight, the wife ended up saying how she no longer feels comfortable with leaving her son to be babysat by the grandparents. To be more precise, she called her MIL “emotionally volatile.”
But the OP didn’t want to stand with such nonsense – why rip the boy away from grandparents he feels good with? Transitioning him to kindergarten out of the blue might traumatize him.
Image credits: The Yuri Arcurs Collection / Freepik (not the actual photo)
And the thing, the original poster is onto something here. After all, everyone realizes how separation can be a sad and uncomfortable experience that no one wants to go through. It takes time to get over it, and sometimes the effects don’t ever fully go away. The latter is especially prominent in cases when the separation happens suddenly or has additional distressing elements.
So, just imagine a child being ripped away from the grandparents he loves so much, without much explanation, and being put into another type of childcare that he’s not used to. Those negative separation effects are going to kick in almost for sure.
At first, the effects can manifest in a form of emotional distress, behavioral changes, cognitive issues, or even physical symptoms. In some more extreme cases, with time, they might cause mental illnesses, such as PTSD. Of course, it doesn’t happen every time someone is separated from someone, just in certain cases; but you can never know when that happens.
Essentially, we don’t know for sure how the kid will react if the OP’s wife goes through with the plan to separate him from the grandparents. But the risk is there, so we see why the man sided with his parents in this situation. At the same time, he might have planted the seeds of distrust in his marriage by doing so, but maybe we shouldn't tickle that beast today.
Instead, share your opinion in the comments – who do you think is in the wrong in this story – the husband or the wife? How would you solve their situation?
In netizens' eyes, the husband took the right side - his wife was being unreasonable for wanting to separate their kid from his grandparents whom he loved so much
