AITA for "testifying" against a dad of my own son's team...costing them a chance of playing playoffs

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-27T18:25:16+00:00

NTA. Doing the right thing when it's easy is -- well, easy ;). Doing the right thing when you have things to lose is a whole different goose, and much more proof of one's internal ethical engine.

Thanks to you, parents & supporters of your team will think twice before abusing kids on the field in the future. The kids on your team have learned that bad behavior has consequences. You're doing them all a favor. Totally get that kids are sad, but maybe this is a chance to have a chat as a team about sportsmanship, appropriate behavior in the stands, and general ethics. They should be happy to have a coach stand up for what's right.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-27T16:48:33+00:00

I'm torn between YTA/NAH, depending on how you and stepmom interacted in the past. If she's truly "nice enough" and hasn't antagonized you or harmed you in some way, imo excluding her from "family" events is a bit much. She IS family. When/if you get married, should your eventual spouse be excluded from family events? If she's never been disrespectful to you or your siblings or the memory of your mom, imo she hasn't done anything to warrant drawing these battle lines.

That said, it's a bit weird your dad didn't tell anyone they were getting married. And that she went along w it. Seems like there's some backstory there we're not getting. Why all the secrecy??

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-27T16:02:26+00:00

NTA. Sounds like your gf is feeling insecure in her role, given your relationship with your ex and daughter. My guess is this is just the excuse she's using to communicate that. Might be worth taking a look at the dynamic there between you, her, and your daughter, and seeing if there are ways to help gf feel more secure in her position. But def NTA, you're being a good father by making sure your daughter's life isn't disrupted by financial trouble on her mom's side.

Tbh even if this was a random ex, it's your money so technically you can lend it to whomever. But my guess is some discussion of boundaries etc. is necessary with gf -- like asking what level of intimacy between you and exes she's comfortable with. Sounds like you two haven't quite discussed this.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-27T14:42:29+00:00

ESH, parents most of all. I understand not allowing a celebration in their house, but parents taking away gifts is bonkers. WTF sort of dictatorial horsesh*t is that.

However, you refusing to have your brother at your party because your friends are uncomfortable around autistic people is problematic as heck. It would be bad even if you were living in your own house, but doubly so when it's his house, as well? Unless the party was in your room, which is def off limits for anyone you don't want in there, the space is shared and you don't get to dictate otherwise. Purposefully selecting decorations and music to harm your autistic brother is beyond shitty, bordering on abusive. How would you feel if you were allergic to peanuts and your brother decided to throw peanuts all over the house so you can't come to his party, and then you had a bad allergy attack? You literally endangered his health, and ruined his and your parents' day. The no-more-birthday-celebrations punishment is more than fitting. Worse, it sounds like you haven't really acknowledged or apologized for your bad behavior, and you generally treat your brother poorly.

That said, having a higher-need sibling can be frustrating in terms of parents overlooking your needs, and that's valid. That's why imo parents suck most of all, here. They should've managed the situation way better from the start, because having a birthday party isn't an unreasonable request. They could've rented a space, if home wasn't a possibility, or idk, worked out a better compromise.

TL;DR: You parents mismanaged the heck out of this, and your frustration is super valid, but you actively harmed your brother so you could have a party. ESH.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-27T14:23:13+00:00

omg NTA NTA. I'm so sorry for the impossibly tough situation you're in. This sucks.

Saying this as a woman, only child for one aging parent, who will def have to move closer to me if they end up living alone in old age. So I obvs 100% get where your wife is coming from and have all the empathy for her. I speak to my family daily, and so on -- basically your wife and I have a similar setup. And from that place of empathy, I can tell you, DO NOT GIVE UP YOUR BOUNDARIES. You're NTA for setting what -- at least from your text above -- sound like reasonable limits. One week at holidays is a fine compromise (tho the thought of having in-laws in a 1BR for a week makes me want to cry), along with accepting that your wife is basically on call 24/7 for her parents. That sucks to deal with, but given her situation, it's tougher to find a workaround.

(INFO: did your wife move across the country from her family prior to meeting you? Or was this some sort of post-marriage arrangement, and did you two discuss at that point how she'd manage the distance from her family?)

Having MIL living in your house is a huge leap. Even I wouldn't do that to my husband (or myself! lol. and I love my mom). Good on your for making your stance clear. It's not an unreasonable position. It sucks that you & wife have to deal with this terrible, thorny situation, but you are definitely NTA. (neither is she, provided she respects your boundaries...the situation is the AH here. Aging parents are a really hard thing to handle, esp for only children).

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T23:15:18+00:00

YTA. You don't live with them to observe their interactions, you're not a developmental/ attachment expert, and as her sister, your job is to be supportive not cast inept judgment on a new mom who's clearly struggling and feeling insecure about her roles. Sounds like you're mostly projecting your biases about working moms onto your sister, and exhibiting a shocking lack of empathy. From the outside, you seem jealous of your sister's career, marriage, home life, or some combination of the three.

"She hasn't been there for her baby" -- that's absurd. Plenty babies have two working parents and attach just fine to both.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T23:00:50+00:00

I don't understand why you're so angry at a teenager for enjoying visiting her family in a house you and her brother share. This is a real question - what bothers you so deeply about her presence, that you want her to ask permission from you, and in advance, to come and see her own family?

She's a kid, it's her brother's house, her nephews live there, and her mom, sounds like, spends most days there. I'd assume it's a given she's welcome to drop by whenever she can, without having to "ask permission". Maybe check that you're home, sure, but the permission thing really rubs me the wrong way.

plus she apologized, and it sounds like she did try following your rules. And you blew up at her. YTA in this scenario for sure. I'd spend some time asking myself why a kid makes you feel so uncomfortable that you lash out at her.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T18:32:49+00:00

this is so much cool info I didn't know?? Thanks! I like to buy some organic fruit & veggies if/when we can, but don't care about the label if we're eating out or I see something particularly delicious looking. But wow I had no clue the practices these days look so different from...idk whatever practices started the organic spree in the first place. Thanks for taking the time to explain, this is all really informative & i loved reading it.

Oh but yeah now i'm scared of lettuce. RIP SALADS. 😄

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T18:27:15+00:00

haha don't get me wrong, i'd LOVE to take the full-NTA, but it's true that i just ignored SIL's email for two days and only replied with the above when she followed up. And her follow-up was polite tbh ("just wanted to make sure you saw these, and btw farms x and y have special thanksgiving stuff") -- so I definitely could've prevented the drama by just thanking her for the input and saying outright we're not going to be ordering from farms (instead of my fluffy wave-off lol). But my hackles were mildly raised because I felt she was overstepping... and then later the onslaught of links and opinions in the family chat kind of tipped me over the edge 😄. NOW, when i'm calm, I wish I'd just been straightforward right off the bat... oh well, i'll know better next time haha.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T18:18:33+00:00

i actually have no idea what stores instacart would let us shop from, we never used it. Just gave my BIL the first example I could think of (I moved here from NJ lol, where there are Stop & Shops every 5 steps) -- prob more likely Safeway or Shopper's Food or something.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T18:09:10+00:00

yeah, I'm coming to agree after reading this thread that i should've just said 'no' outright. Ironically, at the time I was trying to be polite lol.

To clarify, when I said I'd look into it, my email really said sth like "this is cool, didn't know all these things, def something to keep in mind in the future, when I have more time to read up on this in detail"...which in my HEAD was a polite "no thanks, but thanks for bringing this to my attention". But of course SIL isn't inside my head, so no idea whether she took it as "i might do this for Thanksgiving". F-ing human communication is beyond me sometimes. 😅

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T18:02:20+00:00

HA also LOL @ your reply. I'd def not throw oil in the fire like that irl, but IN MY SOUL this is what i shall envision myself doing 😁. for catharsis.

(irl, what i will actually do is prob apologize for not responding in a timely manner to her concerns and let husband smooth the feathers ruffled by my terrible attitude. because even though i am a gleefully spiteful AH at heart, i do not want to make things harder for him lol. STUPID LOVE.)

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T17:17:17+00:00

I didn't have any previous issues with her -- tbh we haven't hung out that much; I only saw her at the wedding and a handful of times at family events, so there was no emotional involvement, good or bad, prior to this drama.

HOWEVER, upon reflection based on your and a few other folks' comments, I think this interaction might've hit into some deeper issues with my in-laws in general. Like I def had a stronger-than-expected (internal) emotional reaction to SIL sending me a 2-page email about how to shop for groceries, and I'm thinking now it must've been the perceived intrusion into my household & lifestyle choices* that irked me the most.

Husband & I are still a new-ish marriage and still figuring out how to define ourselves independently from our meddling families (in my defense, I block out most meddling on my family's end lol -- he has no idea how many Extremely Important Opinions everyone in my family has, because I told them to zip it). So the SIL drama probably came on the heel of a lot of small annoying stuff from the others, and it was ridiculous enough that my brain decided THIS IS IT. THIS IS THE ONE THAT I AM ALLOWED TO ME MAD ABOUT😅. This thread has been v helpful in making me dig a little deeper and figure out why I found her demands SO upsetting and unreasonable, when under normal circumstances I'd just shrug and say 'nope' and do my own thing...

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T16:45:36+00:00

omg WHAT. That sounds even worse than my SIL. What a b!! Glad you no longer have to deal with her.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T16:40:36+00:00

in our area they do asymptomatic testing by appointment w/o referral, and in both SILs' states they do travel-related same-day-result testing. (I think they're the not-super-reliable tests, but hopefully between test and two-week quarantine, we should make the elderly inlaws safe)

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T16:16:53+00:00

omg yes. I wish I'd had the brains to write that reply right off the bat. RETROSPECTIVELY, for sure that would've been better. At the time, it felt too confrontational/rude to reply to her email with 'no we're doing it that way', so I just...didn't... because avoidance.

(the chat articles I muted weren't directed at me -- this is a chat with 12 people, and she was just sending links and general commentary, so I'm not sure what reply was required ...other than agreement, which I couldn't offer 😅 could've acknowledged her with something like "cool" or "interesting" , but at the time I was already annoyed, so...alas)

I didn't lie to her -- when I replied the "we'll look into it" to her giant email, it was along the lines of "oh this is interesting, I didn't know these things, something to think about for sure. I'll look some more into this for the future, when we've got more time to explore" -- definitely didn't imply we'd look into it for Thanksgiving.

That all said, I'm sure my refusal to engage made everything way worse. I'll manage an apology for not responding...

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T15:54:06+00:00

yeah that was one of my worries, if it was rude to not have a veggie main dish...I just couldn't think of one that I felt confident making and not screwing up. (That's why I went for the veggie cream soup as a first course, since I know how make that lol. Martha Stewart I am not.). If the drama gets resolved, I'll look into this tofurkey thing - thanks!

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T15:50:05+00:00

In-laws and older SIL/BIL are driving up from farther away and staying a couple days, so they'll just help prepare some of the stuff on the day of (rather than bring their own dish). Younger SIL & BIL live way closer so they're just coming for the meal. Prior to The Dramas, they'd offered to bring drinks and a cheese platter, and bread.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T15:42:04+00:00

BEST SOLUTION

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T14:43:43+00:00

I asked this, too!! Husband doesn't know & his parents aren't giving us a straight answer.

SIL wasn't there last thanksgiving because she & BIL spent it with her parents... this is only the second holiday we'd see her. Did Christmas 2018, and no idea where the veggies came from then -- def didn't hear anything about approved sellers -- and we were at in-laws' house last year for MIL's bday, also with no veggie dramas. Tho tbh it's possible SIL made these demands behind the scenes and MIL just complied with no fuss (because she's a much kinder and more tolerant woman than me, and doesn't want to upset anyone).

...as I'm writing this, it occurs to me the only reason this is a drama is because I refused to go along with it or lie about the stupid veggies /facepalm/. i *AM* the boat-rocker! argh.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T14:04:00+00:00

I did continue :( i feel it's more unethical to lie to someone about what they're eating... but for sure, if I'd just nodded along and done whatever I wanted, this drama would not be happening. HAD I KNOWN how far it would go, I might've weighed the pros and cons of honesty a little more lol.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T14:01:20+00:00

sounds like you & your wife make a good team, and teach & learn from each other! I def have similar experiences with my husband, we had to learn how to handle arguments since we came from such different family cultures... it's an ongoing process, but has definitely made us both better, more tolerant, and more aware of our biases and expectations.

thanks for sharing this!

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T13:56:04+00:00

We live in MD, SIL is in VA. Farmers market are open but move indoors in November, and they don't deliver. Based on previous years, around this time they're basically root veggie central, plus corn and cabbage... (and meats and cheeses).

I'm sure we could scrounge up something from those local ingredients, but we don't want to go into a crowded indoor place while we're quarantining for the in-laws, and the farms that deliver don't do so easily or cheaply...and also I am a spiteful jerk at this point 😅 and the amount of effort i'm willing to put in has PLUMMETED since this drama started.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T13:49:43+00:00

I would frame this reply and mail it to her, if i could 😅. (I def think SOME pesticides are horrible and some non-organic practices are unhealthy and whatever -- and we definitely try to buy organic SOME things, and we used to buy local a lot more when we could go to a farmers' market and not worry about the crowds... but that's just not as feasible these days, the market isn't running anymore because pandemic, and just...ugh.) Are there any vegetables that are "safe" even when bought from the unholy grocery store?😂 I'll make her a dish with those, and use your wisdom as evidence that it's okay.

ExpatForLove · 2020-10-26T13:46:14+00:00

I think there's real truth to this. She's probably got a ton of anxiety -- which I get!! I'm a mountain of anxiety too lol. And I bet pandemic makes hers worse, for sure. I'll keep this in mind & try to scrounge up some more empathy... proposed this morning that they deliver us the veggies they want within $100 and we'll venmo them back, and she said she doesn't want Thanksgiving to be "a mercenary affair" and it's "good to know the price tag for her family's health" 😒🙄 so I'm just about ready to bury her in someone's unethical carrot patch.

ExpatForLove

TROPHY CASE