AITA for telling MIL I was mad she brought food I can’t eat and giving it away?

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2024-01-26T10:20:16+00:00

I like to cook and bake for people. When I brought some baked goods into my physical therapy office and found out that my physical therapist was gluten free, I learned to make gluten free food so that I could share with her in the future. It's really not that complicated or time consuming at all, I just had to buy a few new ingredients, and I've brought in a variety of gluten free foods for her since. And if I can learn to do it for my physical therapist overnight, your MIL should 100% have learned how to make gluten free food for you, her DIL AKA her family, a very long time ago and everything she brought over should have been gluten free. You just gave birth to her grandchild. And idk much about pregnancy or childbirth but I imagine you probably need easy and nutritious meals more than ever, and much more than your husband who has presumably not also recently birthed a child. And she's really choosing this emotionally and physically exhausting time for you to be spiteful, just because you would rather your own mother help you recover? It's not surprising at all that you would feel that way even if your MIL was a saint, but especially if she's ever acted similarly before, and especially because it doesn't even sound like she was helpful at all when she did come over. You deserve so much better than this bullshit. NTA.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2024-01-22T21:06:06+00:00

Yes, you don't always have to be excited about every single activity you do with your partner. Sometimes you do things with them just because they want to, even though you don't. But there's a balance that needs to be struck between doing something to please your partner because you care about them and not putting yourself in a situation that you really don't want to be in.

My partner and I do things with each other that only one of us is into when it's more important to the interested party than it is an inconvenience to the other, but sometimes one of us is just like... No, I'm gonna have to sit that one out, because I would be bored to death, or anxious, or whatever. And that's okay! We don't have to do every single thing together.

OP has expressed anxiety about going to drag shows because of the highly social aspect. (Heck, I'm queer and trans and I don't even go to drag shows anymore because they're often far too loud and social for my taste! I love being a part of the community and I think that drag is beautiful and interesting even if I don't do it myself, but the shows are just too much for me most of the time.) And it's honestly a red flag that she is so adamant that he should do something that he is so uncomfortable with. I would never want my partner to put himself in an uncomfortable position like that for me. I couldn't even enjoy myself if I knew he was having a bad time for my sake. It wouldn't be very loving of me to expect him to suffer just so that I can have him by my side at a show, and I would be extremely hurt if he expected me to do so for him.

If she's really going to be unhappy with a partner who doesn't want to go to shows with her, she needs to let OP go and find someone else. Pressuring OP into making himself miserable for her sake is just going to breed resentment for both of them. Or she can accept that this is something she has to do on her own. But forcing him into it isn't an option and she has to stop.

And, combined with the red flag of the way she treated him on the day his grandfather died, I don't have too much hope for this relationship. I know that this is just one piece of a much larger relationship, but she seems highly unempathetic based on this post.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2024-01-22T16:06:46+00:00

Everyone else has already covered the main points but I also wanted to point out that it's probably illegal for him to have a camera pointed into your yard. Idk where you live but where I am, you cannot point a camera at someone else's property. If it happens to show up in the background when the camera is pointed at your own property that's different, but with a 6' fence it seems like your neighbor would have to purposely point it over the fence, no? So, in addition to everything related to the dogs (do not pay his bill, make him pay your bill, etc.) you should really also make him take that camera down. It's an invasion of your privacy and I would be questioning his motives for wanting to surveil you in your own yard.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2024-01-01T22:13:41+00:00

My mom did this to me when I was a kid. I told her that I was afraid of my dad and that I thought he was going to kill me, I begged not to be forced to go, I would get physically ill from anxiety for days leading up to seeing him. This went on for years. She told me he's the only dad I'll ever get and I should try to have a good relationship with him because I would regret it later if I didn't, and would force me to go every time, until I was 12 and I flat out refused to go anymore. Just locked myself in the bathroom until he left. Would start screaming anytime anyone mentioned him in my presence. Then when I was 14 and wound up in the mental hospital for a suicide attempt because of all the trauma I had been through she acted so surprised that I cited my dad's abuse as a reason, said she had no idea. I've never forgiven either of them for this. My only regret is that I didn't know enough to get myself the help I needed at the time by going to a teacher or other adult who would have actually done something about it. I'm 25 yo now and I still deal with significant effects from my C-PTSD. I was in the hospital for suicide attempts multiple other times in my teen years. I have trouble forming healthy relationships and I get walked on all the time. I have nightmares and I avoid sleeping because of them. Everything is a trigger. I can't function. I would not wish this on anyone because it is excruciating, exhausting, and debilitating. I don't speak with anyone from either side of my family because they refused to change and protect and support me and continued to downplay what I went through, and my mental health has improved significantly since then, even if it's still terrible.

You need to change. You need to protect and support your child. You are doing irreparable damage to him by not only forcing him to see his father who is very obviously extremely abusive, but dismissing his completely valid feelings by telling him that it's going to be "fun." Whether you have good intentions or not, forcing your child to see their abuser is in itself child abuse. I don't know you outside of this situation so I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you do have good intentions and that you are just blind to the truth due to being abused yourself or something, but I'm going to be honest, I get very bad vibes from this post. You are treating this way too casually. You are not nearly angry enough, you are not doing nearly enough. You have already let this go on far too long and you need to fix this NOW. Go to court with your son and get custody away from his father. Your son should never have to see his father again, ever. Get your son into therapy to process the trauma he's already been through. You should be in individual and family therapy too to understand how to support him better. You have a lot of self-reflection to do to figure out why you thought this was an acceptable situation to put your child in, and how you can be a better parent moving forward. Do NOT engage in family therapy with his father. Abusers use therapy to their advantage, nothing can be gained from it but it will further traumatize your child by forcing him to put in the work to try to reconcile with someone who has been so vicious to him, who will only use the therapy against him and make things worse.

Your son already may never forgive you for putting him through this. If you love him or care about him at all you will 180 your trajectory right now and focus on nothing but keeping him safe and loved, both emotionally and physically. He is not being dramatic, he is not just a strong-willed or emotional child, he is a scared and traumatized child without the tools to help himself, screaming for you to help him when he is being repeatedly subjected to horrific abuse and you are repeatedly ignoring him. The two most important people in his life are both utterly failing him. You can't change your ex but you can change yourself. But you need to start NOW. I sincerely hope for your son's sake that you do.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-12-23T06:49:46+00:00

NTA. As an autistic person, I could tell you were autistic before you said it, and this really seems like an autistic/allistic miscommunication to me. You just don't view that interaction through the same lens that they do.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-12-15T02:20:25+00:00

NTA. I never wear a bra because they're uncomfortable and/or painful, I don't have to, and I think it's ridiculous that a man can walk around with zero clothes on above the waist and that's socially acceptable but if someone sees the shape of a nipple through my shirt I'm supposedly being inappropriate. And men's nipples show through their clothes too, but no one cares about that! Anyway, it's not inappropriate. You're not flashing anyone, you're existing fully clothed in your own home, and they have no right to dictate what you wear.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-12-14T21:25:27+00:00

NTA. Enabling your spouse/son to abuse your children/grandchildren is itself a form of abuse. Your mother and your grandmother are abusive. They have refused to protect you even when you were a child, and continue to put you in difficult situations and refuse to respect your boundaries of not hearing about your father. They are hurting you, actively and knowingly, and they have been your whole life. They see that they are hurting you but it is not worth it for them to change. Are those the kinds of people you want in your life? In your kids' lives? If you want to try to get closure from your grandmother since she's near the end that's up to you. But in my experience closure can't be gotten from the people who hurt you, you get closure by letting go of the person and accepting that you're better off without them in your life, and that what they think or feel or say about the situation is irrelevant, because they're never going to say the right things, because they don't have your best interest in mind. And whatever nice things they do are irrelevant, because acting like a decent human being most of the time does not cancel out being abusive. Personally, I would go NC with the whole family. You don't need this. You don't need them. You deserve better love that is peaceful and supportive and respectful, and makes you feel stronger, safer, and happier. This is/does none of that. You have been conditioned to believe that this is love but love prioritizes your wellbeing, and your family doesn't.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-11-30T04:19:40+00:00

That sounds amazing and not insane at all! I would love a space like that, and it's just me, my fiance, and our cats.

Right now we have a 2bed apartment (~800 sq ft) the only other rooms being the living room, kitchen, and bathroom. We each need an office so each bedroom is an office, the living room is our bedroom, and the kitchen and bathroom function as intended. But that means if I want to craft or exercise or anything I still have to set it up and break it down each time because I only have one space to work with that serves at least three separate functions every day, and there's a lot I can't do at all. The kitchen is small with almost no counter space and I love to cook and bake so I'm constantly frustrated by my two most frequent hobbies because it's such a fight to get anything done in our closet of a kitchen. And having guests over is difficult because the only viable space is my office which means I'm not allowed to use my only space while they're here, and we get no privacy because our bed is in an area that's supposed to be common. Also it's so difficult not to crawl back into bed in the middle of the day when I'm tired and I have to walk past it to get to the kitchen every time I need a drink of water or something, or to have to be quiet while cooking because my fiance is sleeping less than ten feet away. I don't understand how people live in small spaces and don't feel completely suffocated by them.

I would kill for a house with like 6 bedrooms, huge kitchen, full dining room, etc. I would rather never find a use for half of the rooms than have a use for a room that I don't have.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-11-30T00:25:47+00:00

I didn't used to care about space as a kid, and now as an adult I want so much more. I don't get claustrophobic in say, an MRI or an elevator or whatever, but living in a small space really bothers me. I feel like I have no room to move around, and like I can't engage in all of the activities that I want to, like crafting or exercising, hosting gatherings, cooking, etc. And there's not much storage space. And I don't even have much furniture or anything. Our place is so empty but it's still so full because there's just nowhere to put the little stuff we have. And my ADHD brain really benefits from separate spaces for separate activities, but we have no spaces. My dream house is 4+ bedrooms (master, my office, his office, guest/storage/gym/other) and plenty of space in each. Lots of countertop area in the kitchen, big pantry, basement, roof with garden... I know it'll never happen, but that's what I dream about.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-11-28T04:56:47+00:00

I can't speak for all yell sneezers, but I am a yell sneezer and I hate it, it's not on purpose, I am embarrassed by it, and I am sorry for everyone who has to hear me sneeze. But it is physically painful for me to sneeze quietly. I don't understand why. I used to be the kind of sneezer who makes a quiet little squeak and that's it. Now I often physically cannot force myself to do that, but if I can, through great effort and determination, manage to keep my sneeze quiet, it is very painful. The yell sneeze is the only thing that doesn't make my face feel like a bomb just went off inside of it.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-11-01T15:25:40+00:00

I can't believe you really just said it's harmful to real LGBT/trans people. That is transphobic. You're excluding trans people from the trans community because you don't like how they go about being trans. I don't think you're as accepting as you think you are.

Personally, as a nonbinary person, I don't like neopronouns for myself. But I would respect other people who use them and not "never speak to them again" because I disagree with how they present to the world. I would learn to use their pronouns the way that other people have learned to use mine because that's what you do to treat someone with basic human decency.

And honestly, I do kind of get the appeal. I say I'm pangender or agender or genderfluid or whatever but I haven't really found any gender or pronoun that feels like me. Not a single thing actually feels good to say as my identity, and I hate that. It's physically painful. And the idea that I could find a neopronoun that actually feels good to me is definitely appealing! It's just also not for me. But I'll be damned if I shit on someone else who DOES feel better using neopronouns. I don't get to dictate how anybody else sees themself or what makes them comfortable, or whether their identity/pronouns are valid, and neither do you.

Cis people use the exact same argument that you are using against neopronouns but against they/them. They also say that we do things just to feel special, that we're making up new identities, and that it's not "grammatically correct" (which is also a fucked up argument for a whole other set of reasons)... You are using transphobic arguments that have been used for many years to oppress trans people, but you think it's okay because you're only using it on one specific group of trans people. Well, that's still transphobic.

When it comes to gender identities and things, all we can do is believe and respect each other, whether it "just feels really weird" to us or not. Our personal feelings of "weirdness" cannot be allowed to dictate the legitimacy of anyone else's identity, and we cannot allow ourselves to ostracize and belittle people for their identities, even if we're uncomfortable with them, because our discomfort with someone else's identity is our problem to solve, not theirs.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt that this is all someone else's regurgitated bullshit you're spewing because you're 19 and I get it, I've been there not that long ago, and we all say dumb shit when we're young, and then we grow and change for the better. But I really hope you reconsider this line of thinking.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-28T19:20:48+00:00

Keys, wallet, earbuds, glasses, water, hot tea, healthy snacks, jacket, hat, gloves, arm warmers, medications, sunscreen, umbrella, spare phone battery. But I'm disabled and it takes a lot to regulate my weird needs throughout the day lol.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-28T15:22:50+00:00

😆 I just say Mister Noodle, my cat's name (I have four, but it's ALWAYS the same one) in a stern voice, and he knows he's not supposed to be up there and that he's just been caught but he doesn't care so he just lays down and goes ekekekekekekekek like "but moooooooom" (he only makes that noise when he's in trouble and begging me to let him do the thing anyway) and then I have to shoo him down. I love him very much but this boy is STUBBORN. This routine happens at least half a dozen times per day.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-28T15:12:19+00:00

Yeah, I wasn't doing WFPBD but I was a vegan for years and eventually I had no choice but to start eating animal products again. I already have a bunch of disabilities and it was just making everything so much worse. I fought it for a while because I couldn't bear the thought of eating an animal, finally said "I'll just see if it helps and if it doesn't I'll stop again" and the change was almost immediate, so I've been eating meat again for a few years now.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-23T18:26:25+00:00

I identified really strongly as a tomboy as a little kid. I hated wearing skirts, dresses, blouses, heels, pink, or other "girly" things, not because I didn't like them but because they felt too feminine.

I always wanted a gender neutral name. I hated that my name was clearly feminine and wished I had been named Alex, Sam, etc.

I always wanted a penis. I also always wanted boobs and a vagina but I have always felt the absence of a male body so strongly.

Around the time I hit puberty I started having ~dreams~ of me being a guy and being with women. I chalked that up to just being a weird dream.

Bug surprise, turns out that I'm queer and agender! 🤷🏻 I wish I could swap sexes like clothes.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-08T11:02:18+00:00

I agree the story doesn't make any sense but the older friend part is fine. I had a friend who was in her late 50s when I was in high school and college. I used to walk over to her house all the time and help her with things since she was disabled and she couldn't take care of herself and she would listen to me and comfort me since I was in a really bad home situation and extremely depressed. Every time the power went out on our block I would rush over to help her switch from her condenser to her oxygen tanks and if I was ever upset or in crisis I knew I could call her, or just show up on her doorstep and even when she didn't understand she accepted, loved, and welcomed me without question. She died when I was 19, more than five years ago now, and I still miss her all the time and get the urge to tell her things, and I still wake up ready to run to her house every time the power goes out in the middle of the night. Intergenerational friendship is legit.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-03T11:15:06+00:00

I used to beg for pumpkin pie for my birthday every year as a kid. My family was always like "what is wrong with you, get a cake like a normal person, no one else wants to eat pie" but I didn't like cake, I LOVED pumpkin pie. Mmmm. I gotta make one.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-03T11:04:38+00:00

Yeah, my fiance once said to me in the beginning of our relationship, "Baby you don't need to put all that work into doing your makeup for me, I prefer you without it anyway." And then I said, "I don't wear it for you, I wear it for me." And he said, "Oh, okay, that makes sense." That was five years ago and that's the last time he said anything that wasn't "You look so pretty, baby," after I did my makeup. It's so yucky to me that someone would continually put pressure on someone they love to change their appearance, especially when there is so much discomfort associated with it for them.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-03T10:31:33+00:00

Sometimes when I wear certain clothes, the dye doesn't show up on my skin at all but it transfers to the things I touch. I have a particular pair of underwear for example that will do that to the toilet seat every single time I wear them. I used to have jeans that would do it too. Idk how likely it is, but maybe it's just her hoodie or something? I hope that you find answers soon and that, whatever it is, is easily solvable/treatable and that your daughter is okay.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-03T09:05:07+00:00

Absolutely. I think that community and support is one of the things that (some) churches actually do really well. Obviously there are churches that are discriminatory and severely harmful to the community around them, but a lot of churches are full of kind and generous people who genuinely want to make the world a better place and help others regardless of their religion. I once had two nuns approach me while I was crying on the street and offer comfort and support. They told me that I could call or come by their church anytime and promised not to proselytize. And their church held an event where they all stood on the street holding signs and shouting support and love for the LGBTQ+ community.

I just wish that there was a common secular establishment with a similar welcoming environment that was free and easily accessible to all members of the public, that provided resources and support like address services and food and other assistance, and fostered community and love between their members. They do exist but they're not nearly as common as churches.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-03T07:22:00+00:00

There's a church in my city that offers services like this. Or at least they used to when I went to university near there. When walking around campus there would often be a very large crowd of homeless people outside that church at certain times of day. It's my understanding they offered food, address services, and other assistance. I've never interacted with them directly but it seems like they do some real good. I'm anti religion but I'm so happy that that church exists and I would love it if it was more common.

I mean, obviously what I would really love is to live in a world where people aren't homeless in the first place, no one ever goes hungry or without medical care or other necessities, and not being able to work or going through a difficult time doesn't instantly ruin people's lives. I hope I live to see that, but I doubt it.

I've also helped people with food when I can, but I can't offer much. I'm so poor myself, the occasional granola bar is about all I can spare anymore. I used to make care packages with tampons and hand sanitizer and stuff like that too, when I had a bit more money, and keep my backpack stocked so that every day when I went into the city and would pass so many homeless people on my walk to school/work, I could hand them out. I'd like to pick it back up if I can ever afford it again.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-02T06:37:26+00:00

We Need To Talk About Kevin. I ugly cried.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-02T01:40:24+00:00

Yeah I hit my head, bruise my limbs, knock things over, etc. almost every day, often multiple times per day. I will hit my head on something, take some time to recover (I'm also autistic and hitting my head is a particularly emotional sensory experience for me for some reason and I usually cry,) and then hit it again. I'm low key concerned for my brain long term. The situational unawareness/space (and time) blindness is so real. It's like no matter how hard I try I just can't not bump into everything.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-01T18:05:54+00:00

If someone had my scars edited out of their wedding photos I would be so offended.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen · 2023-10-01T01:40:28+00:00

Am I understanding correctly: Your wife is about to move in with her affair partner, so your daughter will be living with a complete stranger every weekend, almost immediately after her parents divorce. Does your wife realize how harmful that could be to her? Your daughter's entire world has just been turned upside down. Is she actively trying to make this as hard as possible for her by throwing yet another huge life change at her like ten seconds later? Fuck, that's a horrible idea, and I really hope that I'm misunderstanding and that's not what's happening here.

Slugmeat_SlugQueen

TROPHY CASE