Dad Asks If He's Wrong To Spend His Birthday With His Family Who Don't Accept His Wife Or Kids
He says she gave him an ultimatum and "got angry for no reason." But he left out a huge part of the story.
tommaso79, Studio Romantic / Shutterstock.com; Canva You know those stories where you're sure you know exactly what's going on until you start tallying up the inconsistencies and asking a few clarifying questions? And suddenly your whole point of view changes?
A story a dad on Reddit recently posted is precisely that kind of story. At first, his post to Reddit's "r/AmItheA--hole" (AITA) subreddit, a forum where people go to find out if they were in the wrong in a conflict, seems like a classic case of an insensitive partner ruining her husband's birthday. And then you start digging into the details...
A dad claims his wife 'got angry for no reason' because he decided to spend his birthday with his family.
He was shocked to come home from his family party to find his wife had hurled his birthday cake into the trash and left the house with his kids. So he asked his fellow Redditors if he was wrong for "spending my birthday with the family I came from and not with the family I created?"
But it turned out there was a lot, lot more to the story than just that.
His wife told him she 'wasn't sure' if she was going to celebrate his birthday.
He was hurt, because "I normally go all out for her birthday" with "dinner, movie, gifts" and the whole nine. So when his mom called and said she'd planned a party for him, for "just family," so he decided to do that instead.
He "decided to go straight from work," but claims that since "I do not have a phone," he "couldn't call and inform my wife." If you're yelling "red flag" at your screen right now, you're absolutely not alone. No phone in 2023? A married dad with two kids? Okay then.
Worse still, he writes that he "ended up staying at the party till about 11pm before going home," after not having told his wife where he was going because he "does not have a phone." So what he found when he drove home should perhaps not be surprising.
When he got home he found that his wife had prepared a surprise birthday party for him.
Turns out she wasn't just not planning to celebrate his birthday after all. When he entered the house, he found "a birthday cake was in the trash and so was dinner (it looked like steak and triple baked potatoes, my favorite)," he writes. And it wasn't only the cake that was in the trash. There was also "a birthday card with my kids' hand prints in paint."
But what he did not find in his house was his wife or kids. "When I got home my wife and 2 kids were nowhere to be found," he writes. "I figured she got angry for no reason and decided to spend the night at her sister's place," he writes, which has to be the most oblivious thing a guy has ever written in Reddit's entire history.
The following morning, he writes, "she came home and completely blew up at me," and accused him of choosing his family over his wife and kids. And she issued an ultimatum — he has to choose between the family he created, or the family he comes from.
When he refused, she threatened to take the kids and divorce him, leaving him in total shock that she would make such an unfair demand.
When Redditors asked more questions, it turned out that his wife is Black, his kids are biracial, and he comes from an openly racist family.
Things were already off to a pretty bad start among Reddit commenters based on his bizarre claims of not owning a phone. Quoting from his post, a user wrote, "'My mom called and informed me'… 'I don’t have a phone so I couldn’t call and inform my wife’... Which is it, bro?"
But that was nothing compared to what was revealed in discussions with other Reddit commenters when they asked for more context, in which the man revealed shocking details totally absent from his post.
Moderators on Reddit removed the discussions because of their racist content, but commenters were quick to relay what had gone down before the removals.
"It's NOT just that they don't like his wife," a commenter reported. "The mum has been saying offensive things about the wife and kids - when they got married, she 'joked' she wouldn't want mixed race grandkids!"
Yikes. And once the truth came out about his racist family and his enabling of their bigotry, absolutely nobody was siding with this guy. "As per your comments, your mother said some incredibly racist things about your own kids, yet somehow she’s the one you choose to spend your birthday with?" one user mused. "You're the a--hole, and I hope your wife takes your kids a long way away from you and your racist mother."
Several others saw through what they thought was a transparent attempt to shift blame onto his wife for his own insensitive — not to mention incredibly problematic — actions. As one Redditor put it, "'...she got angry for no reason...' Dude is brain dead."
Disappearing without a trace on your birthday? To have a party with your racist family who openly mock your Black wife and mixed-race grandchildren? There really is no mystery here, sir, but nice try.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.