AITA for doing the same? In-Law Visits exclude me from their Brunch/Dinners “As a Family”?

A Redditor shares a frustrating situation involving his wife’s family, who exclude him from family meals and outings whenever they visit. This time, things escalated when they left for a birthday dinner without informing him and tensions boiled over the next day.

When he responded with frustration, his in-laws and wife accused him of being the one who made things uncomfortable. Read the full story below to understand how the conflict unfolded.

‘ AITA for doing the same? In-Law Visits exclude me from their Brunch/Dinners “As a Family”?’

Hi Everyone! I (30M) have been married to the wife (30F) for almost 3 yrs.. 2 yrs ago, I moved to the other side of the country (US) for wife’s job. She and her family are from the Middle-East. Her sister lives in the next state over.

Each time they’ve visited, they go out as a family to dinner/brunch at a nice place without me. I expressed it made me uncomfortable and felt disrespectful especially considering they were staying here. This continued to happen with every visit. I expressed my increasing discomfort and anger with each occurrence.

Cue current visit. They are to be here in our home from Thursday-Tuesday. After work, at 7:45 I go out to the deck for a smoke and to decompress. 8:25PM MIL comes to the deck and tells me dinner reservation is at 8:30 and to get ready.

No one told me anything? I go upstairs and wife is getting ready in a room. I pop in and incredulously ask her why she didn’t tell me about dinner?? Her response was: “You could have asked, couldn’t you?”

I tell her this is incredibly rude. She said this is about FIL’s birthday. I go to my desk for more work and ask wife to let me know when she’s done getting ready.

SIL and wife both pass behind me while getting wife ready not saying a word. I then hear them go downstairs and the front door closing. I go downstairs and they’re gone. I called wife 4 times. No answer. I am seething. I drive to cool off and get a call from wife 20min later.

I go off about why she didn’t say anything to me and about how they all ditched me and how this is extremely disrespectful. She says: “Oh, okay! I’ll tell them you said so.”

They get back at 11:00 PM. SIL asks if I ate. I said yes even though I didn’t. FIL looks at the TV and asks if I’m watching X. I curtly say yes. They say goodnight and go to bed.

Saturday morning, I go get breakfast. I took extra time bc I wanted to be anywhere away from them. I get a msg from FIL: “We are making brunch for everyone.”. Wife txtd asking where I am.. I didn’t reply.

FIL and MIL are in the kitchen saying brunch is ready and to please eat. I tell them “I ate.” before heading upstairs to my desk to game for the first time in months. Wife comes and says something but I can’t hear her. 6:30 PM I go downstairs to heat up food.

SIL is on the couch. Wife, MIL, and FIL walk downstairs. No one says anything to me. Wife is on the middle of the stairs when she yells:
“Is everyone stressed out and quiet because of that RUDE, boring, BUZZKILL!? Don’t let that fat POS ruin your day.”. I respond: “Oh, look. It’s a talking garbage can. Hey Oscar!”

SIL looks at me and throws up her hands. I continue to eat my sandwich as everyone leaves. Wife texts me that MIL is crying in the car because of how uncomfortable I made all of them. They are all leaving, wife included.

I said their leaving is completely fine by me and that they’re the ones who showed the disrespect first. They are all leaving tomorrow morning to a lake resort for the remainder of their time.. AITAH?

Here’s what the community had to contribute:

LoveBeach8 −  NTA. Your wife clearly disrespects you and puts her family way ahead of you. They all trick you, deceive you and enjoy it, whilst pretending to be dumb, like it’s all your fault. They’re g**lighting you.

Separate. Pack your bags and go to a hotel. Get an attorney and file for divorce. You have been in a marriage of one person married to other people. EDIT: Thank you so much for the awards! 🙂

AnnieB512 −  So you asked to be included, MIL says get ready and instead you have a fit and pout? Then you don’t get ready, you go back to your office and start working and then get mad that they left you behind? The way she treats you is bad, I agree, but then when things don’t go exactly your way, you pout like a child. ESH.

lmmontes −  Why did they leave you behind after MIL said to get ready?
Regardless, NTA. You would be better off without ALL of them.

No-Ambition5170 −  ESH. You are all poor communicators. You all sound like a sad bunch.

No_Dark8446 −  YTA. Everyone should have communicated better. You were told go get ready for dinner. Other people were getting ready. You were very obviously expected to be at this dinner. Clearly no one gives a s**t about being on time, so who cares that it was in 5 min. (I don’t believe your weirdly specific timeline btw)

Now that you KNOW you are invited and expected to be there, you go off and work instead of heading down to the living room, going out to the car, or any other common area to meet up with others. You make yourself unavailable. Could your wife had said something at several different times? Yes. Could you have taken on the responsibility of BEING PRESENT? Also yes.

Again, you were invited to eat and be with the family, and YOU LEFT. How are they being rude because you went off on your own and then isolated yourself to play video games like a moody teenager?

YOU are hosting THEM. Why are you not stepping up in any way to arrange plans or to at least be aware of what’s happening? You sound like the kind of man who puts all the responsibility on his wife to do everything. You just expect to walk through your home life putting in absolutely zero effort and then lash out when that is embarrassingly obvious.

Also, what does it matter that she is middle eastern? Why do you specify that about her and her family, but you don’t say anything like that about yourself? What lens are you expecting people to read this through by giving that information?

similar_name4489 −  NTA you realize your wife doesn’t respect or even like you right? 3 years in and that’s her behavior? Either you’re letting a lot out or she’s just using you. A divorce would be better

The-Hive-Queen −  INFO: Do you two even like each other?

Fitstar06 −  I’m not Middle Eastern, but my spouse is. So, IMHO your wife and her family are rude and disrespectful to you, and they will never accept your presence. You almost seem like an accessory for your wife, as if getting married was something she had to do rather than something she wanted to do.

My in-laws come to visit and stay in our house, and I am *never* excluded from family gatherings because I *am* family. NTA and lawyer up. You deserve better.

Marowo14 −  YTA. So let me get this right, the family. Told you when dinner is and you saw your wife getting ready. Instead of also getting ready with your wife, you went back to work. You didn’t bother to put on nice clothes or shower, brush your teeth after smoking.

Nothing? Didn’t wait and chat with your FIL for 5 minutes while people finished up. You went back to work. Yeah, you’re the a**hole. They told you when dinner was, you knew they were getting ready, yet you expect everyone to make sure you came with. Then you are rude to your family when they come back, miss brunch and have a massive attitude. I would be tired of you if I was your wife.

UnCertainAge −  ESH! Your wife and her family have been awful. But unless I misunderstood, they were at last including you. Poorly, but still. And you behaved like a phenomenally bratty, insufferable child!! WTAF?!?