AITA for not saying anything about the underwear?

A Reddit user shares an awkward incident involving their daughter and her fiancé, who are temporarily staying with them. Tensions have been high, and after a mix-up where a pair of the wife’s underwear ended up in the couple’s laundry, the daughter assumed her fiancé was cheating. The Redditor, recognizing the underwear as his wife’s, chose not to intervene and watched the argument unfold.

Eventually, the wife came home, confirmed the underwear was hers, and the daughter felt embarrassed. Now, the daughter refuses to speak to her father, and the fiancé stormed out. The user wonders if they were wrong for not stepping in sooner. Read the original story below for all the details.

‘ AITA for not saying anything about the underwear?’

My 20 year old daughter and her fiancé are currently staying with us. I love my daughter but she is very difficult and I can’t stand her fiancé. I gave them a deadline to move out because I can’t take this anymore. They got into a massive fight the other day while my wife was out.

I guess a pair of my wife’s underwear got in with their laundry and she thought he was cheating. I think the fact she immediately jumped to cheating shows how bad their relationship is.

She was waving the underwear around and I recognized them because they had a floral print but I just let this ridiculous fight go on. My wife came home after about thirty minutes and said they were hers. My wife asked if I didn’t realize they were hers and I accidentally laughed.

My daughter burst into tears and won’t talk to me. Her fiancé said we’re fucked and left the house but my wife thought it was funny.

See what others had to share with OP:

whomst_jpeg −  You might be the a**hole but i am LIVING for it. Edit: my personal verdict is YTA but I’d like to invoke Shitman v. Frickboy which states that in times of outlandish or otherwise infantile behaviour, assholery may, subject to scrutiny, be permitted.

alsbigdeal −  ESH. Including me because I laughed too.

Phy44 −  NTA. If your first thought is “cheating” not “the other woman that lives in this house” you’ve got issues.

moudine −  NTA, it’s not your fight either. Also it’s wild that your daughter would think that her fiance was bringing girls into YOUR house, he own parents, to cheat on and accidentally leave underwear there! That’s hilarious and I would have probably laughed, too. If I lived with another woman and the same thing happened to me, I feel like I would assume they were hers before anything else. My SO and I keep our laundry separate and stuff of his still ends up in mine.

[Reddit User] −  NTA- you made a great point, if her first instinct is to accuse him of cheating, despite living in a household with ANOTHER WOMAN, meaning your wife, then they have some major problems that they should definitely work through before getting married. Honestly, it is pretty amusing that you let them ride it out on their own without your input.

perublanket39 −  ESH. Can’t complain about people fighting when you could have stopped it. But you don’t deserve to have an angry couple in your own home.

ThrowRA-shopping123 −  I’m stuck somewhere between ESH and NTA. It’s not your fight. Your daughter sounds like a piece of work, and it sounds like they have some serious issues. However, you had the power to step in and easily resolve that specific conflict. Not to mention she was waving your wife’s underwear around the house.

[Reddit User] −  YTA. I don’t know what “difficult” means, so if there were more info on what exactly your daughter’s done that is so awful maybe that can change. But I’m saying YTA because you just sat back and let your daughter believe that someone she loves enough to marry had deeply hurt and betrayed her. You sat there and laughed quietly to yourself and enjoyed her pain.

Again, I will acknowledge that maybe this is an E-S-H situation, but you should seriously examine why hurting your daughter is f**king funny to you. Is that amusement worth the damage to your relationship with your daughter? Do you think the potential long term consequences are worth it, or should you maybe get over it and reach out with a sincere attempt at talking out your problems like adults?

She went from thinking her fiance had betrayed her to knowing her father would let her believe in a lie like that *because he thought her suffering was funny*. Funny does not mean you didn’t do something hurtful, and she is 100% justified in being unwilling to speak with you over this.

spaceshipcommander −  You are, but that’s hilarious and I’d have done the same thing.

Levivianne −  YTA, you might not agree with her choice of boyfriends, but you could have saved her some grief here. You obviously hurt her feelings by laughing. What’s done is done and they might break up sooner or later for other reasons but you didn’t have your daughter’s back.