AITA for telling my BIL to worry about his own wife?

A Redditor (31M) recounts a tense encounter with their stepbrother-in-law (BIL), who made a big deal about the Redditor’s wife (28F) not wearing her wedding ring during a night out. The BIL criticized their marriage and suggested the lack of a ring showed she didn’t care about the relationship. In response, the Redditor defended their wife and told the BIL to focus on his own marriage. The situation escalated, leading to family drama and some relatives choosing not to attend Christmas with them.

‘ AITA for telling my BIL to worry about his own wife?’

I, 31m, have been married to my wife (28f) for ten years. We have four great kids together, and while we do have our squabbles here and there, we have a solid relationship. So a couple weeks ago my step sister and her new husband come to our town and ask us to go out with them. My wife and I get a sitter for the kids, and we meet them at a bar. Both my wife and I drank two beers over the course of the 4 hours we were there. but my step sister, and especially her husband, got wasted.

At around beer 10 for my brother in law, somehow talk of our weddings/ engagements came up. I was mostly talking to my brother in law so I’m 99% sure this came from my wife and my step sister. Which was fine. Whatever. I honestly didn’t think anything of it, until my brother in law told my step sister to show us her ring (we’ve seen it before this btw. We were both in the wedding).

I’m also going to slide in here that my brother in law’s PARENTS are rich. I don’t know about his finances but I do know they have money. And he works for their business. Moving on…. then he asks my wife what hers looks like because he’s never seen it (true, they hadn’t met when I married my wife) and my wife says “I’m not wearing it.”

Was this a surprise to me? No. I can’t tell you the last time I saw her wear her rings. She’s a housewife (and I’m not knocking that at all), but she just doesn’t wear them 24/7 at home and as a result of that she doesn’t stop and think “hey I’m going to Walmart let me go grab my rings.”

Anyway my brother in law makes a big deal of it, basically saying she would wear them if she cared about our marriage at all, pointing out that I was wearing mine (and I was, but to be fair it came in like a six pack on Amazon. Theyre the rubber ones. If I lose one of them (and I have) I have more).

Now I don’t care about people having opinions. But what I do care about is when they’re trying to drive those opinions home to the point my wife feels bad about herself when she’s done nothing wrong and that’s what started happening.

After both our wives go to the bathroom later and he went in a little more to me with things I won’t say here, it ended with me telling him that I could trust my wife with or without a ring, if he couldn’t trust his even with one maybe he should worry more about that and not whether my wife wears the rings I paid for. (Me paying for them was a really big thing for him for some reason).

Since then I guess he’s been s**tty to my step sister about her wanting to come for Christmas with our family and blamed it on me and when I talked to my dad he told me that they weren’t coming because of what I said. Now other family members aren’t coming because they aren’t and I guess it’s a thing and it just feels stupid.. Was I wrong?

These are the responses from Reddit users:

chaenukyun −  NTA. Married couples decide for themselves what they’re comfortable with. I know a couple married over a decade where they’re more likely to not wear their rings. Not because of a lack of love, but because of work, cleaninh etc., and they may leave the house without it.

I know another couple where it was decided the guy wants to wear those silicone rings because of lifestyle reasons, but there’s still the more “formal” and expensive wedding ring. Different strokes for different folks. Just reassure your wife. With everyone else…well they werent there when BIL acted an ass.

FrizzWitch666 −  NTA. What a giant child.. I’d double down. Get a giant inflatable engagement ring. Hang it around your wife’s neck. Print receipt in blow-up size and have her hold it. Take a picture. Send to entire family with message “Is this good enough for you? I can get step sister one too if BIL likes it.”

Tumbleweed_Jim −  NTA. He was being pushy and weird about something that is none of his business. And if your step sister is letting her husband control her like that, that’s a whole different issue. I’ve been married for almost 11 years and neither my husband nor I wear our rings. Neither of us likes jewelry that much and frankly the only people who have ever commented are my in-laws family who already don’t like the fact we don’t go to church.

Famous_Specialist_44 −  There’s no point arguing with a drunk. And if you are drunk theres no point staying offended if a sober person puts your drunk conversation in it’s place. NTA Forget about it they’ll split up soon anyway.

BaRiMaLi −  NTA. Love is in your heart, not on your finger.

InfamousCup7097 −  If other family members who weren’t even there for the conversation feel they don’t want to show up for a family function over drama that doesn’t even involve them then they are not worthy of your time anyway. I wouldn’t talk to your bil again until he apologizes for being rude and trying to make up issues in YOUR marriage over his dumb opinion on jewelry. Nta.

OfficeWorldHacks −  If he’s that concerned about who’s wearing what, maybe he should worry about his own bling (or lack thereof). You’ve got a great point—trust isn’t measured in carats, and if he’s more stressed about your wife’s jewelry habits than his own marriage, maybe he needs a reality check.

Smeats- −  NTA. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it back. It’s none of his business. The comment about the “rings I paid for” only hurt him because daddy paid for his.

PermissionAny1549 −  NTA – he’s just chucking a temper tantrum like a 2yr old because he got called out and put in his place.

panachi19 −  NTA. He needed a check and you gave him one.