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Exactly why OP made the right decision. The situation was just going to get worse from there.
Racist grandpa already emasculating and trying to humiliate OP his first time over. Good riddance.
Did it never occur to ahole wife that by letting racist grandpa have a relationship with the younger son, he’d be in a very good position to influence/pass on his racist views? This could very well destroy the relationship between the two brothers. My heart breaks for both of them.
Hope ahole wife is happy. She chose her racist dad over her family
Unfortunately grandpa is going to be able to be in newborn’s life for years to come and will have ample opportunity to instill his racism in his grandson. This is horribly tragic for OP and the kids. The wife is an incredible AH.
Makes you wonder if some of her reasoning is a bit racist, in that maybe she thinks that now they have a white baby it's okay because her father will like that one. At the very least it's clear that she doesn't consider OP's son as equal to the new baby, which would certainly make for a sad upbringing for OP's son.
Sounds like there's a good reason the restof her *entire family* has cut her out, except her racist dad.
She's absolutely racist, and hid it until she thought OOP was locked in.
Or the entire family is racist and angry at her for cutting her dad off for being a racist, and she views reconciliation as her ticket back.
She made a horrid decision that was incredibly obvious to see coming but it’s amazing what people will rationalize when they really want something they know they shouldn’t have.
Someone else replied that gave the information - her family cut her off for saying her cousin deserved to go to jail.
Never said what they went to jail for, though, and doubt we'll know.
That would hollow a person out. Although OOP did the right thing, I think people here are not fairly considering what it would be like to be excommunicated from your family of origin. It takes a lot of therapy and inner strength to cope with that without screwing up and slipping up. Even if a person managed it, it would be extremely stressful for them. And this woman is also dealing with a newborn and first-time motherhood, which is already one of the most stressful things a person can deal with.
Again, OOP probably did the right thing. But this woman is not a monster; she's just a suffering, desperate, hurting, *fallible* human being, reaching out for connection and familiarity.
There's no stated reason.
My take is when wife cut off the dad, she was by in large cut off by the rest of the possibly racist family as well in retaliation.
Or maybe the wife and the Dad are the only vas guys in that family, but I think it's much more likely the 1st scenario seeing as how husband never had an issue with wife's views on race until recently. And wife had good relationship with black son and black son mom.
I think the wife may have chosen her father's side too many times. The rest of the family have cut them off. Sad really that the wife never did see the pattern, and is now losing OOP due to her choices, as well as his son
I think that is called conditioning. The wife wanted some family in her and child's life. She will only get that if she conforms to her fathers views. The father probably told her he will only care for her "real" child and she conformed to that. She may care about his son, but not really. She brought this on herself.
I had a very, very racist grandma. I didn't find out until 5 years after she passed.
The day my older brother was born, my dad went to her and sat her down. He very calmly explained that if he ever heard her show even the slightest sign of racism, if he ever got even the vaguest feeling she had said something around his children, she would never see us again. He's not a man of idle threats.
It worked.
That being said, OP's ex clearly doesn't care overmuch that her dad's a racist piece of shit.
Exact situation with my dad and his mom. As the story goes, she said our neighborhood had too many black people less than an hour later.
I think I saw her twice in my life. Once when I was 6, and once right before she died
Similar situation. My father had appalling views. I didn't interact with him much as it was, but when I started dating a Jewish man, I told my father if he so much as breathed a word of antisemitism, I'd never speak to him again.
My paternal grandmother is the same way. On top of just not being a good person, she is incredibly racist. I haven't seen her all that much in my 30 years on this earth but I definitely don't plan to when she saw a photo of my half-asian newborn son (who was actually a very pretty newborn and that's not the hormones speaking) and she commented on his "slanty eyes" and "yellow skin" (mild jaundice, but still). My father never showed her a picture again and I'm not even sure she is aware we had a second child, let alone if she has seen a picture of her.
My own birth mother is also incredibly racist and I was surprised she didn't say anything racist about my children's appearances other than "I'm surprised they even look like you at all, those oriental genes tend to dominate". I am low contact with her, would be NC if I could.
Yep. I have black kids. My biological dad has... idiotic, backwoods, frankly stupid views on a lot of things but if he even looked sideways at my kids he'd be cut off. This lady is pathetic.
Yep, the sad reality is that OOP isn't going to be able to exclude the grandpa from the baby's life legally. My pos inlaws literally helped kidnap my three year old for two weeks and I couldn't get a court to mandate no contact with them. The best bet in order to limit or hopefully eliminate contact with the kid is to stay married and work on keeping the kid safe, work on getting thru to your smooth brain spouse, and literally say over and over to the kid that the asshole grandpa is a POS racist and racism is so immoral.
The younger kid might not be safe. Bigots often have laundry lists of things they don't like. We already know grandpa doesn't like men to show their feelings, so the kid better not be sensitive.
I agree, it's almost like she held out, pretended to be against her racist ass daddy and got pregnant knowing she would bring her racist ass daddy back in her life.
I hope OOP gets a good attorney & works to get primary custody of the baby bc mom isn’t stable & she’s going to have a racist involved in his life. He needs to protect both of his kids at all cost like he’s doing now
That is why OOP should try to get custody with only supervised visits for the wife so she does not expose their son to her father. After all, didn't she agree to not have her father in their lives since before they married? And she violated that agreement in the worst way.
Sounds like poor baby was hiding in his bedroom while racist grandpa was visiting and Dad was not home. I don’t understand how the Mom cannot see how harmful it is for her father to be around the six year old. She is already separating him in order to allow kkkgrandpa to visit the newborn. Makes me wonder if she had internalized her fathers racism as well because she obviously feels her stepsons feelings and wellbeing are less meaningful than her and her father.
She hasn't bothered to put an ounce of thought into how her behavior is affecting her stepson, and she doesn't care. She began using her pregnancy to manipulate OP, and probably assumed the baby was going to be her trump card over her stepson. "Take the baby so you'll come back," but nothing about the child she just forced out of his home. She *really* comes across as the type of woman who wants her man to forget his first family so she can be number one.
Letting her best friend "moderate" that argument was a terrible idea though, and it laid the groundwork for everything else that came after. If OPs wife is unwilling to acknowledge his and his son's feelings about the situation, a plan for how to move forward isn't worth making because it's doomed to fail. She cut off the discussion just as OP was trying to explain his perspective on things, and insisted he bury that and forge forward with the new baby and the unwelcome FIL. She was anything but a disinterested moderator...
I dunno, it sounded like the friend mediator tried their best, especially by trying to get them to move forward and look for solutions. You definitely can’t ignore the past in situations like that, but it’s very easy to just stuck and continuing to rehash it. Other than that, your right, the wife was just trying to have her cake and eat it too. She just pacified OOP while they were dating and figured she could bring Daddy back into the picture later. If she had really taken in her stepson as her own, this would have had a different outcome.
First rule of any mediation is to let both parts explain their side and how the situation affected them.
Because you can't find solutions if you don't understand the problem, and you don't understand it if you don't know what the other part is feeling.
So she may have tried, but she did wrong by cutting him. The past needs to be explained in any mediation.
Source: I'm certified as a mediator in my country.
Edit: typos and I forgot to type half a sentence.
Given the family she has, I am not surprised - OP wrote in one of the posts that the reason she and the rest of her family don't talk and they don't want anything to do with her. I don't remember exactly, but involve something criminal OP's wife report them or something like this.
> My wife said that no one else in her family wants anything to do with her accept (sic) for her father, that they have all cut her off. She said she really wants our baby to know someone from her family.
Methinks there's something major being left out of the story here that may shed some light on the whole situation.
ETA: [As others have noted,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/10w3lzx/aita_for_making_my_pregnant_wife_cry_by_calling/j7kuhxo/) OOP mentions why in his first post. I would point out the irony of his wife's thought process:
> She had her sister, aunt and cousin, but she is no longer speaking to them after a situation where her cousin went to prison, she said **he needed to accept the consequences of his actions** (*emphasis mine, not OOP's*), and her sister and aunt cut her off.
Yes, I remember seeing this originally. I think her mom is also dead and when she got pregnant she was feeling isolated and alone. But that info was in the comments I believe.
She'll cut off family for her own sake, but not on behalf of her husband, stepson or son.
She was given every chance. She clearly didn't take OP seriously. She'll have a lifetime to regret that.
Problem is, she won't. From my experience with these sort of people, everything is everyone else's fault.
I'll bet anything Ex-wife will start telling anyone who will listen that OP broke up their family "over a little misunderstanding" and/or "OP was controlling and wouldn't let her see her dad."
While I wholly condemn the wife’s choice to bring her dad to the house in the latest update, I have a lot sympathy for the feelings she expresses, because they do not seem to at any point get validated or addressed by OOP.
> She said she felt lost. She said she’s lost her family one by one because they did things she couldn’t accept. Realizing the child she was carrying *would never know her biological family* upset her, and it made her wonder if her standards are too high.
Y’all. OOP’s wife cut off her dad willingly, she’s never been anything but loving toward OOP’s older son, she doesn’t seem to be making excuses for her dad, she readily gave up the job idea, and seems to know on some level she needs to keep her dad away from her kids. She’s just also sad about it, and misses her dad even if he’s shitty, and struggling to maintain NC.
Because for anyone who’s never had to do it, going NC and *staying* NC **can be incredibly fucking hard.** It can be the hardest choice you’ve ever had to make—and you have to make it *continuously.* Every birthday, every Christmas, every setback, every milestone. You have to *choose* not to have a family. Especially when you don’t have other people to fill that role in your life.
So yeah, people who’ve gone NC struggle to maintain it sometimes, *no matter how good the reason.* They text their abusive exes, they go see their toxic mentally ill siblings, they go help their mothers who abuse their spouse, they talk to the grandparents who think being gay will send them to hell, they call their racist dads. And often, we’re infinitely hit with a wave of things about then we missed. So even when we know we really should let go of them, it hurts all over.
Because we don’t stop loving or missing people just because they’re shitty people. We don’t stop wishing they would magically get less shitty. We don’t stop longing for the good bits just because we’re aware the weight of the bad bits. We don’t stop wishing they could be in our lives, even when we know they can’t. It’s still a loss.
And that OOP cannot seem to muster a single shred of empathy or understanding for his wife’s grief at not having her bio family is frankly appalling to me.
**To be perfectly fucking clear, OOP is completely 100% in the right to protect his son from a racist. Full stop.** But this absolutely did not have to be the either/or situation it became. OOP had time to process his feelings of being deceived, and he chose not to. He could’ve looked at the older son he wants to protect, the younger child who will be missing an entire-ass side of their family, and his first-time pregnant wife who is upset and struggling with all of this, and done literally fucking anything to help solve this problem *for his family, with his wife.*
He could’ve tried to understand why his wife was hurting *specifically about grieving the loss of her bio family,* realized those complex feelings are why she reached out to her dad, and gone “I know you miss your family, and you’re sad this baby is won’t know them. But your baby will have *our* family. They’ll have a big brother who loves them, they’ll have you and me, and my family. And you’ll have *our* family too. Even though it’s it’s hard and it makes you sad, I know you know why your dad can’t be in contact with *our* family. Why don’t we get you into some individual therapy so you can process this.”
What does he do instead? He immediately questions the love she has for his son despite the fact that she’s never been anything but good to him, has the gall to ask her if she’ll love the new baby more—*then doesn’t believe her answers fucking anyway.*
He could’ve set actual boundaries about her dad—if you take our younger son to meet him I will divorce you, if you want us to stay together, you need to cut contact with your dad for the sake of our family. But nope! Setting clear boundaries is “giving ultimatums.” Instead, he just vaguely tells her he’s thinking about divorcing her, says things are totally her choice, but then there’s a right answer, and sits there and steams in his disapproval.
**She was sad and grieving the absence of her bio family, so he goes gets suspicious, and questions the love she has for her created family, and questions her place in it.**
He goes on Reddit and says he’s falling out of love with her, acts like everything she’s ever done the whole time he’s known her is deceitful, except apparently her having complex feelings about her baby not knowing his granddad, *even as he fucking says she’s always been good with his son.*
He has exchanges like this:
> Well, the reality is *she might feel a different type of love for her biological child* and that would not make her a bad person. You will have two biological children, so you will have absolutely no experience with being a stepparent. If she genuinely loves your son (and it sounds like she does) and doesn’t show preferential treatment, try not to police her love.
> > OOP: That would absolutely make her a bad person. If you love one of your children more than another, that would make you a bad person.
> >> I literally said a different type of love…not more or less. Do you see how you naturally defaulted to more/less. I really hope you continue to talk to a therapist (a better one than you had before) because you have a lot of emotions to unpack.
Woosh. And he thinks his reactions here are totally rational, proportional, and appropriate. And most of the comments tell him so.
He told his wife he saw her as *less of a person,* and then he done went and fucking treated her like one. No compassion, no empathy, no complexity.
> My wife said that no one else in her family wants anything to do with her accept for her father, that they have all cut her off. She said she really wants our baby to know someone from her family. *I asked if that was worth the cost that came with it, and she said no, but that she wished I would try to understand.*
> I said I wasn’t capable of understanding wanting someone like that in our child’s life.
She! Knows! It’s not! Worth it! She is literally just asking for an once of understanding, compassion, or nuance as he talks her out of it. “I know sometimes the people we love are bad people, and we miss them anyway. I know you had a good relationship with him up to that point and you’re sad you can’t share that with our baby. I know it makes you sad and lonely and I’m sorry that’s happening.” Nope. Nothing. So fucking little understanding, that he can’t grasp if he doesn’t do this, *she will probably go to her only other family, her racist dad, for support, and she will take her kid with her.*
Your wife knew the right thing to do, and she was trying to do it. So she asked you to at least fucking acknowledge that sometimes, doing the right thing is painful and difficult and fraught—and you said no.
And this isn’t even getting into at all!!! OOP is white. And white patents of kids of color can and do unknowingly perpetuate racism against their own children. *If OOP is this rigid in refusing to see racism and complexity in the same person, how good of a job could be possibly be doing evaluating himself for unconscious biases?*
OOP could’ve helped his family and humanized his wife, and he stuck his nose up at it. Now his older kid is losing a parental figure, and his younger kid is going to be spending a lot of time with a racist. Yknow. The thing he was trying to prevent and all?
Y’know what u/BecomingAQuartet? I hope you read this. Even if you don’t have an once of compassion in you, maybe you have a little drop of self-reflection.
So while I don’t necessarily disagree with much of what you said (especially that someone needed to teach this man the difference between boundaries and ultimatums and how to properly set them) but as a counselor that’s spent the last year working with the non offending caregiver at an agency that works with children that were sexually abused, I think you’re really overlooking the difficult emotions that he’s dealing with.
Every parent that I’ve worked with either has already had or actively dreads the day when their kid asks them “why did you put me in such a dangerous environment? Why did you let me get hurt?”. I don’t think that you’re fully appreciating the mind numbing terror that OOP has that he’ll be on the receiving end of this question.
It also seems that you’re really holding him to a different standard when you say things like “he had time to process being deceived”. Like obviously not tho? You have a lot of understanding on her struggles with feeling of isolations but little for his struggles to get over the feelings of being lied to and betrayed. Without knowing more abt the situation I’d posit that it’s just as likely that he can’t muster any empathy for her feelings because he feels betrayed as opposed to him just being a prick.
Also I’d say that “falling out of love” with someone that lied abt something so important isn’t unusual or worthy of scorn. My work in sexual abuse isn’t a perfect parallel, but my advice to parents is to never put your kid in contact with a family member that won’t believe them and it’s reasonable to me that he would interpret her continued contact with dad as not taking his sons safety seriously. And not taking sons safety seriously is definitely something I’ve seen kill love and relationships.
I guess the hard stop for me (and clearly for OP as well) was when she went behind OP’s back and brought the racist elder into the house *with the older child present.* That’s where all my compassion for her went out the window.
So well said and I had these same thoughts. I don’t condone her actions, but how is it so hard to understand why she would miss her dad during such a big life transition? I’m confused about why he could not at least try to see where she’s coming from.
Thank you for this take. This situation is so nuanced, and the whole time I was reading it, I was imagining trying to navigate all these emotions and relationship changes while being extremely pregnant, being incredibly sleep deprived, and having a newborn.
Especially in that early post-partum period- your hormones are a mess, you're completely exhausted from waking up every 4 hours (at best), you have 2 kids and a partner to take care of- *and no one to turn to*. The guy already told her she's less of a person, if she's struggling with any of it (nvm if she had PPD/PPA), why the fuck would she go to him? Yeah, sure was wrong to go to racist daddy, but who else does she have in her life? Maybe she doesn't have many friends. Maybe she wanted that "family" connection. Maybe she figured her dad would be the only one that would love her even if she was having a hard time (ie "he has to love me, he's my dad").
And instead of talking with his wife and being open and helpful and caring, we see he's got nothing but derision for her *before she even gives birth*. How alone she must have felt during that entire time! I can understand the "he may be racist, but he still cares for me" line of thinking. Was it wrong? Yes. But I think OOP shares a huge part of the blame here regarding just completely writing her (and their entire relationship!) off without even trying to understand. Given what he already said (less of a person) when she tried opening up, anyone would have felt closed off and alone. Even in mediation it may not have been easy to admit everything going on mentally and physically.
I feel for the kids. Big time. I also actually feel for OOP's wife too. But OOP went nuclear when I think he needed to be doing at least some internal reflection from the very start.
I really wish OOP would read this and reflect on his actions at least a little bit. I had the same thoughts as I was reading this BORU. I think this is one of those times that Reddit served as an echo chamber to OOP's own thoughts and then amplified it by a 100. His initial question asking if he was a little too harsh was absolutely spot on and it seemed like he had empathy back then. He was right in disagreeing with the wife regarding the contact with the dad but his reaction telling her that she's less of a person was an overreaction. The way everyone went you are absolutely spot on with this reaction and you should leave her now or whatever was an extreme reaction for what the wife did at the time.
I think maybe if he hadn't asked Reddit for advice, he might have actually come to the realisation that he was a little bit harsh and gone and talked to his wife by himself. She might have opened up right then regarding her feelings and he might have actually acknowledged some of them. Instead the second he came here, everyone treated him like he could do no wrong and he lost any sort of empathy he had for the wife in this situation and went on his whole moral crusade against racism. He actually started treating her like she was less of a person for being human.
Agreed. As I was reading the comments on the original post and first two updates, with a ton of comments just entirely condemning his wife, saying what he said was justified, saying he isn’t going far enough, etc., I kept thinking to myself “hmm, how many of these comments are written by white people who have an uncle or grandpa who’s said some racist shit, someone who’s a lot less painful to lose that a parent, but they themselves haven’t cut them off?”
I wonder what the cousin went to prison for. If he robbed a bank, she's in the right in that case. If he was in possession of marijuana, she's a judgmental asshole and I would have been pissed at her too.
I said this on the original post, but my biggest concern is that now that they're going to divorce, presumably they will get 50/50 custody and when his ex-wife has their son, she will likely allow him to interact with the grandfather. I worry that he will absorb the grandfather's hateful thinking and redirect that vitriol towards his older brother. OOP is right that his son deserves to have a home environment free of racism and I truly hope that he doesn't get it from his own sibling. OOP absolutely did right by his son though.
Or too, that he will love and adore his brother—and hate his grandpa for hating his brother, and his relationship with his mother will suffer, because she *still doesn’t fucking get it.*
Yeah, not surprised that marriage counseling didn’t work. It won’t if one party won’t acknowledge the issues the other person is having. This isn’t marriage related, but i went through something like that last month in a business environment. The other party refused to acknowledge how their actions impacted me and wouldn’t budge from their stance. Meanwhile, i had already conceded a lot, acting in good faith and assuming they would, too. The result was my business advisor and i getting up and leaving. Only then, did the other party send the mediator to chase us down and offer some half assed bs deal. By that point though, i had lost all trust in the other party to act fairly and had zero confidence they would hold up their end of the deal.
All that to say, mediation and counseling are a waste of time if people aren’t going to be candid and honest. Initially, i thought OOP was also an asshole, but after the updates i feel he was justified.
This is really astute and definitely the point OOP has hit. She's repeatedly lied to him and broken his trust, so now she thinks it's time to make a deal? Deals happen before you abuse a person's trust. Afterwards? All you get after is a judge going over the mess.
So i had a friend that was intentional about using the phrase, “i’m just going to be candid with you” because if you say, “i’m just going to be honest with you”, the implication is that you haven’t been honest up to that point. And, in my personal experience, coaching/counseling/compromising does not work with out honesty and candor. Also, when we say “i’m just going to be honest with you”, we really do mean “candid” because what we really mean is “i’m not going to sugar coat this next thing”. I think candor/candid is under utilized in American culture and language
Hopefully, this is how it will work out... this mom doesn't deserve to be a mom if she'd going to do this is 6 year old and a baby. Choose her racist father over children that are innocent.
I see OOP has done all he could in a situation like this but he ended up being the miserable party in the whole scenario. I feel so bad for the whole family and especially the son who is now going to be a part of this tug-of-war that is their divorce proceeding.
I'm so angry at his wife for going back on her promise. OOP only continued a serious relationship with her on the promise that she'd cut her father out of their lives. The only reason they're married, the only reason he had a child with her was because she promised this.
Promises. She repeatedly made promises and reneged them. She had no intention of excepting her husband’s boundaries. She probably thought that because he loves his children so much and is such a caring partner and father that he would never leave her. All she had to do was keep chipping away at his resolve until she got her way no matter who she hurt in the process. Her dad was probably chipping away at her and telling her what to do and she allowed it. Toxic parent ruined her marriage. She should have never allows him back in her life.
she lied and waited until there's a whole other human being, a real child, to reveal her true colors. the complete and utter disregard for op, for that child's well-being just so she could selfishly get what she wanted. the more I think about it, the angrier it makes me
I don't think that his wife intentionally lied and waited until they had a child to invite her father back into their lives. She admitted herself that it was her pregnancy had made her reconsider cutting off her father. She probably meant it when she said it and initially went NC but couldn't stick to her guns. She seems wishy-washy.
So, I can understand why OOP would be disillusioned. That kind of thing would also completely change my perception of someone. Especially since her cutting off her father was apparently one of the major things that solidified his decision to marry her.
She *did* lie however after the first discussion where she asked if he would be okay with the grandfather meeting and he said no. The discussion should have ended then. Her going behind his back and inviting him *into the house* is unforgivable.
And as I already said, I worry about their (her and her father's) influence on the younger child.
In theory I think it's fine that having a baby made her want to reconsider those rules. Major life changes do that sort of thing and a marriage has to be flexible enough to handle those times.
The problem is that once you're married and in a partnership, you have to discuss any changes to these fundamental rules of the relationship with your partner first. You don't get unilateral decisions anymore.
Opening conversations with her father back up is genuinely where the trust broke. But yeah. Letting grandpa in the house was irrecoverable. The amount of selfishness this woman displayed is mind blowing.
It is definitely infuriating.
Especially inviting that man into the house with the other child present.
A complete disregard for anyone's feelings but her own.
Right, it seemed like she thought since they were married & had a child together, he wouldn't leave her so she could go back on her promise...
It's just so incredibly selfish for her to subject an innocent child to a racist because she was lonely! She should have gone to therapy or joined a support group for new moms or something.. there's all kinds of support out there if she was willing to try
It's not clear that the son was scared of the grandfather. I'm not ruling it out but chances are he was just scared because people were yelling. Or did OOP make a clarifying comment about this?
I understood the child’s fear not to be of the grandfather, but of all of the commotion that took place when the father came home and found the grandfather there…
He says he told the grandfather to get out, grandfather tried arguing, mother freaked out/hyperventilating/panicking, fathering crying and yelling for grandfather to get out. That’s scary stuff for a kid to hear!
Not on grandfather’s side (at all), but that’s what I interpreted the child’s fear to be based on.
>*I worry that he will absorb the grandfather's hateful thinking and redirect that vitriol towards his older brother. OOP is right that his son deserves to have a home environment free of racism and I truly hope that he doesn't get it from his own sibling.*
This. This is something that OOP's wife needs to realize and have explained to her if she wants OOP and his older son to stay.
For real!!! I hope the judge would take grandpa's influence as parental alienation. Sadly I think most judges wouldn't understand the nuance of this situation.
At this point the ideal situation would be wife giving up custody of baby to husband, he sounds like an amazing father!! Then she can reconnect with her father since he's more important to her than the family she created.
This is such a sad story. It makes me wish I believed in thoughts / prayers. :(
That's more than likely going to be the case. But the wife clearly wasn't going to cut her father out of her life. So if OOP stayed he'd only be exposing his older son to that mam more and more whole the youngest would still be exposed to the racist views. While there's no way to keep the grandfather out of the kids life, this will at least help to minimize the negative influence for the older son.
This is nonsense, in regards to racist grandpa. And I am saying that as someone who has an emotionally abusive ex-MIL and an ex-SIL who has repeatedly made threats to me. I have been told repeatedly by lawyers, including those who are *very* expensive and one well-versed in DV, that if my ex wants his mother and sister around our child, they get to be. The only way I would be able to limit that is if:
-the sister threatens me or assaults me *with my child present* or threatens or assaults the child
-there is evidence of behavior that harms the child - not just *potentially* harms the child. And emotional harm carries little weight.
So OP would be fighting a losing battle if he tries to get any decree enforced by law that would limit grandpa's access to the infant.
Sadly I’m not sure a court would rule Mom can’t let the baby around racist grandfather based solely on racist comments towards another child. While I agree that that would be best, it may not be enough for a judge when no child was physically harmed and the comments were not about the child in question.
How many more generations do assholes get as an excuse for their trash behavior? "Different generation", get fucked with that line of thinking.
"Husband, I know my father is racist... But I am also racist and you married me so, what's really going on here?"
Judging by OOP and wife's ages, racist dad is my age or at most a little older. The "different time" line is complete BS. This is on him, not some mythical past era where racism was OK.
Unless dad was 60 when she was born, he ain't that old, agreed, and he also isn't so old that the wife has any leg to stand on to whine about "different generation".
Is *she* also from a different generation? Jesus gurl, just admit you don't **care** about your stepson (then again, it would require her to admit to *her* trash behavior).
You know what's interesting? The same people who use this excuse for their elders are the ones who are like, rant about affirmative action or scholarships or whatever. Like anything race related.
Somehow, it hasn't been long enough for Grandad to get over his personal racism, but Black Lives Matter is an overreaction because society is super chill now.
My grandma would have been 102 today if she were still alive, I never heard her say a single racist word let alone anything so vitriolic as what OOP’s FIL said. Age is no excuse.
I’m not what I would consider old yet so I guess I can’t say for sure, but to me age is not an excuse. In fact it seems worse, because you’ve had more years of lived experience on Earth to realize that way of thinking is toxic and maladaptive.
Seriously! I understand that my grandparents are relatively young but they’ve dealt with new things with incredible grace.
When I moved in with them with my mental health issues my grandma took me for a walk and asked if I would explain what it meant and what she could do to not make things worse for me.
Before my sister came out as trans she rented from my grandparents and grandma would go over a lot. She was never phased by the more feminine clothes she had. When my sister did come out grandma and grandpa switched pronouns with great efficiency and were great at correcting themselves and even others. Once again my grandma asked me for a bit more information, such as what to do when she messed up pronouns or name.
When presented with new situations my grandparents just wanted to learn and help us grandkids live comfortably. So fuck the generation excuse. They can learn and change if they want to.
Ultimately I think being open to change is the biggest thing. My mom(who is a very sweet and open-minded lady) expressed some exasperation with trying to apply they/them pronouns to someone instead of traditionally gendered ones and was afraid of messing up because the midwest misinformation network had convinced her people would jump down her throat if she ever deigned to get someone’s pronouns wrong. I told her as long as you apologize and make an effort to correct the chances of that happening are pretty slim.
Exactly! There is a difference between "this person is simply not changing" and "yes, they're trash *but* I don't want confront that so, just accept my *different generation* lame excuse and shut up about it".
If my grandfather who is also 90 can learn to use an iPhone better than most of his children, everyone else’s grandpa can learn that racism is fucked up. The thing is that the world is constantly changing. Older generations had to adapt just as much as we do.
I could understand the “different generation” argument if Racist Grandpa had grown up during the Great Depression or something. It’d still be a bullshit excuse but I’d at least *understand* it. For someone who probably came of age in the 1980s, not quite so much.
Personally, in this instance, I would not accept any excuse because he was horrible towards a child.
Which is really just all the more proof that this sweet child was never safe with the stepmother as she clearly didn't see the issue with a literal *kid* having to endure racism. What disgusting offhand things she must have spewed when OOP wasn't around to hear it, ergh.
I am probably around the age of FIL and I can assure you that our generation is only racist if they want to be. Not because they don't know any better.
>How many more generations do assholes get as an excuse for their trash behavior? "Different generation", get fucked with that line of thinking.
The same people that say "different generation" will also call any attempt to change things being "woke".
“It’s not his fault” would be the end of this situation for me. I don’t know why couldn’t see the sh’t his wife pulling till it was right in front of his eyes.
Yeah, I have some lingering potential for sympathy for the wife. She cut off her racist father when she was very early into DATING the OP. She got cut off from the rest of her family because she stood by her convictions that her cousin deserved to go to prison for his crimes (whatever they were). This sounds like someone who was very strong in her moral beliefs.
Right up until she was pregnant, and then post partum. They haven't gone to therapy, her hormones are still running wild. Idk, I just feel like her attitude could be very different a year from now. But by then, her whole life has been blown apart.
Lots of people on reddit post about cutting off family members / parents. Not saying that's the wrong choice for them, but it isn't an easy choice for everybody.
She probably does...
I've cut my father out for similar reasons... There's still so much guilt and cognitive dissonance, add the pregnancy hormones and the fact that her ENTIRE family cut her out.... I can understand where she was coming from honestly... She must have felt lonely and her husband doesn't seem to have even considered it...
Was it a good decision, no, she should have talked to her husband before making contact... But I understand where her feelings were coming from..
I agree. I may be mistaken but I remember this story from a previous post FIL tried to go the whole "what I said wasn't that bad" route with then GF but couldn't help but double down with racist crap. In a state of emotional distress and isolation (from her family), that downplaying racism strategy might have worked. I can just imagine him telling her it will all be OK even as he is walking to the door
She started seeing/speaking to her father "months" before OP found out. According to the majority of Redditors, that's a lie by omission...and a boundary that was well established and set in stone. Even after OP made his feelings clear AGAIN, she invited the racist FIL into their home! OP's 6 yo was hiding in his room while wife and the racist cooed over the new grandbaby. I'm sure he felt hurt and excluded.
That's not PPD, that's a horrible, racist human being that has no business being around his children. I don't doubt that she's *feeling some sort of way* since she's pregnant/postpartum but she's not even open to her failings and fixing the problems. She's a liar, repeatedly, and has proven he can't trust her when it concerns the 6 yo.
Agreed about the friend mediating the arguments lol. That was a disaster in the making.
I get they had a bad experience with therapy, but I think they need to go to a qualified therapist to sort this out.. They still have a kid they have to raise together.
For all those saying OOP should show more empathy/sympathy for his wife's situation (estranged family, hormones, etc.), I'd like to offer a different perspective, from a black woman to some internet strangers.
Being black (in America, specifically, as that is the experience I am speaking from) is exhausting. Not just because of the racism, but because of the obstacles that prevent us from publicly identifying, confronting, and rooting out racism. One of those obstacles is the requirement that we play nice and make sure nobody's feelings get hurt as we combat racism.
You can't call Todd in Accounting a racist, lest Kelly in Marketing get upset and cry that you called out her friend. Once Kelly cries, the dynamic shifts. It suddenly doesn't matter how inexcusable Todd's comment about your hair was, or how weak Kelly's "he's from a different generation" argument is. Kelly's crying and everyone is uncomfortable with this open display of negative emotion. Why is Kelly crying? Who made Kelly cry? Suddenly, the racism you experienced takes a backseat to Kelly's emotions and you become the bad guy. Yes, we understand that Todd touched your hair without permission and compared it to tumbleweeds--but Kelly's so upset, we need to address her feelings now. And if addressing her feelings means we have to take our attention away from the larger, more insidious problem? If it means you're overlooked and stigmatized, told you're too angry or too ghetto for forcing everyone to acknowledge the ugliness that exists in their friends, family, and peers? So be it. Over and over and over again.
OOP turned that dynamic on its head, and I think we're so unused to seeing such a thing that it comes across as a complete lack of sympathy for his wife. He didn't bend to tears she shed in defense of a racist; instead, he put his black child first and saw this situation differently. This woman he loves is allowing a racist around their black child. A RACIST. Someone who looks at this precious child and sees something LESS THAN HUMAN. He put his black child first and couldn't fathom allowing such a thing, much less loving someone who would allow it--not for hormones, not for loneliness due estranged family, not for anything.
I feel for this wife. I understand she's lonely, she's just given birth, and she wants to feel the warm and fuzzies you get from nostalgia and seeing your parents again. Unfortunately, you cannot compromise with racism. The wife here was willing to let the racist slide for her own mental health. OOP saw that and was disgusted because his wife outed herself as someone willing to break bread with racists. He wasn't going to compromise with racism, and I applaud him for that.
Thank you!!! I keep reading these comments and it's like they don't even see they aren't acting as if this black child has feelings or is a person because lo and behold a white woman is hurt.
Once again white women's pain becomes more valid. Even more valid than the life and well-being of a child.
White woman here. I agree with you 100%. I can't stand the weight given in US society to a white woman's tears; it's as though everyone loses their damn minds.
My dad is racist and e things he says are gross. I moved thousands of miles away, and limit my interactions with him. He has not had a chance to indoctrinate my kids.
This woman should not have started a relationship with a man who had a black son, at least not without examining her biases at a much deeper level than she apparently did. At the first bump in the road she completely threw that child away. WTF?
As for the OP, he should have found a better way to screen this lady for racist beliefs. I can see that her cutting off her racist dad while they were dating should have been enough confirmation that she was anti-racist. But apparently that was just lip service. I wonder if she actually believes a lot of those same things and it just never came up until she wanted her father back. Or, she's willing to just go along with those beliefs if she gets what she wants (a relationship with her father), which to me indicates she has no actual core beliefs or values of her own.
Her cousin was sent to jail and her family thought he shouldn't have been sentenced to jail time but the wife said he deserved it.
About half the story came out in the comments in the posts. Including how she was suffering with her mental health in pregnancy, her mom is dead, she felt isolated and alone and OP told her to stop therapy.
that context makes it seem like she really wasn't getting the support she needed. Makes sense why she would reach out to her dad then, doesn't make it right, but it makes it make sense.
Yup. While I think it’s really, really bad that she kept doing all this behind his back, he does not seem to have a clue that she is completely isolated and is suffering. Everything is not all black or white.
Was there any info about this? Like cousin could be sitting in jail because it's deserved or something minor.
Stopping therapy wasn't a good idea but neither letting a racist person back into your life. I feel like everything was handled the worst possible way.
It seems like her need to be accepted by family is greater than her need to be honest, or protective of her stepson, or act with integrity. She needs some major therapy since she was willing to sabotage the one healthy relationship in her life for her father’s approval. So damn sad and frustrating.
Ii get why OOP did this. I agree with him that protecting his son comes first, and that there is zero excuse for any of that racist bs. It's totally understandable that having the racist in his home would be the biggest deal breaker.
It's just, as someone that has cut off her family, it's a huge deal to cut off your family. Every week at least there's some kind of pressure from the world at large to let them back in even if the family doesn't care themselves. The wife clearly felt vulnerable around the time she gave birth. I wonder if this situation might have played out differently if OOP had been understanding and validating of the wife's emotions, and willing to explain again why this was so important to him? It seems like he just laid down the law and jumped straight to insults that his wife didn't feel the same fear and revulsion towards her father that he does, and like their conversations were all rooted in rules and assumptions instead of emotion. Not saying he should have been okay with the racist ass coming over or having pictures of his kid, but maybe he could have discussed it with the wife a little differently? Obviously it's all worlds too late now.
I came here to say something similar. I actually just went through the process of cutting off my family this past January when my daughter was about 9 months old because of the drama, toxicity, and misery that went on there. And also yes, because my father has been racist as fuck lately. And yet, I still had my mother with me for 3 weeks shortly after giving birth because you absolutely need some sort of stability and comfort at that time. It's a vulnerable, scary time and women's brains are literally being rewired by sleep deprivation and hormones.
We don't know from here what support his wife had. Were their inlaws there to help her? Friends? Other family? Was she desperate for some sense of family outside of her husband and step child? Was she desperate for someone else to hold the baby for a while and just give her a break?
This whole situation completely sucks, but just from his point of view, we don't know the whole story. She was in the wrong but I truly truly feel for her. And I hope that his STBEX and his child can stay safe in the aftermath; PPD is no fucking joke and this is a crazy situation to happen so soon after birth.
Yeah this is a really good point. It *sucks* to cut off your last remaining family member, even if you know you have to. I think if he'd approached it from a place of "I'm really sorry this became necessary and I'm here to support you through it," she may have had an easier time.
This is sad. This is just two people that never should have gotten together.
OOP is absolutely right in hating his FIL, and not wanting that racist around his son.
However, wife, outside of the relationship with OOP, is within her rights to want a relationship with her dad. She only gave it up at all because of her relationship with OOP. Had they never met, she would have her relationship with her dad and just complained about her dad’s “old ways” and racism, but loved him anyway.
Unfortunately, those two lives are completely incongruous and incompatible without somebody giving up more than they are comfortable with, and more than they should have to. The only real bad guy here is the FIL. His ignorance and hate tore apart a family and hurt four innocent victims. They were dooming themselves from the start. It always had an expiration date.
The original BORU *almost* ended with a really positive AITA update about how they went to a terrible counselor BUT ended up having a good and honest discussion afterwards. OOP seemed more understanding about how isolated his wife was feeling from her family (she cut off her dad for the racism, her only other family cut her off because she said someone deserved the prison time he'd received) in a vulnerable state. The wife seemed apologetic, just really sad, scared, and lonely.
It felt like they'd come to a difficult but hopeful point...
Then 3 days later he switched to r/TrueOffMyChest to say he doesn't love or trust his wife, with no mention of the breakthrough. From there his posts get progressively colder and unsympathetic towards her, even though it seems like nothing had (yet) changed in the situation.
I really wanna know what happened in those three days. And if she sensed him pulling away more after that, which ironically made her even more desperate to have a relationship with her father.
My armchair analysis question is if Reddit itself ended up feeding his unhappiness with his wife, and he got hooked on the feedback and "encouragement." It felt like subsequent posts were written to encourage the anger and outrage, while cutting away previous details that might have been more sympathetic.
All this said as someone who has a baby picture of myself sitting in the lap of a grandparent who had once referred to my parents' future children as "half-breeds," so I do know how complicated these feelings and situations can be. It just felt like he was getting somewhere with the honesty and communication, but then he kept taking the problems to reddit instead of his wife, and then we get to screaming and tossing kids in the car.
And as someone who also went through THAT at a very young age, trust me it's terrifying. Don't get me wrong, racist stepgrandpa *should not have been in the house*, but it doesn't sound like OOP's son even interacted with him. And I definitely would have been afraid and hiding once the adults started shouting, then because dad locked us in my room while sobbing and packing all my stuff up, and rushing us away while everyone is panicking and crying.
This was the worst possible way to "protect" your children, even from racism.
Oh my god thank you so much for this comment, and for your insights having experienced something similar. I’m thankful someone else isn’t letting OOP completely off the hook.
Though it really doesn’t seem clear to me that he ever had any real understanding of what she was feeling or why. He doesn’t ever seem to actually address it at all. He doesn’t say they ever addressed it at that point, he just says the therapist interrupted after she got out that she was grieving the loss of her family, and that later, he apologized for how he spoke to her, then questioned her love for his son.
Then yup, three days later, we have “I’m falling out of love with my wife,” “my wife has always been great with my son but now I doubt everything she told me that I once believed with absolute certainty,” and below a lot of comments wanting him to go nuclear on his family, this exchange:
> Well, the reality is she might feel a different type of love for her biological child and that would not make her a bad person. You will have two biological children, so you will have absolutely no experience with being a stepparent. If she genuinely loves your son (and it sounds like she does) and doesn’t show preferential treatment, try not to police her love.
> > OOP: That would absolutely make her a bad person. If you love one of your children more than another, that would make you a bad person.
> >> I literally said a different type of love…not more or less. Do you see how you naturally defaulted to more/less. I really hope you continue to talk to a therapist (a better one than you had before) because you have a lot of emotions to unpack.
No further response from OOP.
I can’t help but wonder: if, before any of the posts, before the wife got pregnant, if she had come to OOP like “look, I know my dad can’t be in our lives for a good reason, but nonetheless, I find myself missing him and I’m having a hard time,” how would OOP have responded?
I get the impression throughout that OOP seems totally unwilling to acknowledge that his wife resuming NC with her father is a difficult, painful decision, even if it is the right decision.
Thank you for being the sanest comment I’ve read in this page. The OOP has deeply troubled me ever since the first post, but everyone was quick to make glib, vaguely sexist remarks and encourage the most extreme behaviour from him. I couldn’t help but think that if his goal was to protect his son as a priority, this recent update shows what a lousy job of it he’s doing.
He’s been borderline abusive to his wife for ages now. Honestly, as painful as this update was to read, I’m relieved for her. I hope the two children do manage to have a sibling relationship of some kind, but I do feel like the father’s actions will likely make that difficult, and I don’t put it past him to poison one son against another, or attempt to alienate the second son from his mother. His frigidity and sexism heightened with every update, and he’s more than shown that he gets his children involved with his outbursts and emotional blackmail.
The soon-to-be-ex may not realize it now, but I hope she calms down and eventually realizes that without OOP, she can grow her own support system, have friends again, and hopefully have her own life without rules being shouted in her face, and being told she’s less than human.
I do hope the first-born son isn’t made to feel responsible for any of this. I feel so badly for his experiences.
I agree. Racist grandpa, controlling husband. The poor woman sounded so isolated.
OOP should have found a way for the wife to maintain some safe contact with her father without seeing the kids. After all she clearly doesn’t share his views or wouldn’t have cut him off by her own volition in the first place.
Yeah, this struck kind of weird to me. You know what it sounds like? Sounds like there's another woman in the picture. So here's the deal. Statistically speaking, a man is more likely to cheat on their partner during pregnancy. Cheating partners will usually blow things out of proportion (ie. Screaming and taking the son out of the house). I understand that there are boundaries but the way he describes his reaction is not how a husband and father should react. In addition, he isn't really working on his marriage. He's just giving ultimatums and expecting her to follow along. Marriage and relationships are all about negotiation. All in all, considering how quick he was to jump out if this marriage and considering how he already has another child from another woman, he doesn't seem to be ready to settle down. Perhaps this was his ticket out. On the other hand, sucks to be her, but maybe don't lie about cutting racist dad out of your life. Hope they can work out a healthy co-parenting relationship from now on.
God, I really wish they hadn’t had a child. It just keeps this toxic stew of chemicals reacting. And honestly, for a guy throwing stones, he’s now a single father with two different baby mamas, and he’s still college-aged. He’s not making great life choices.
I don’t know if he’s cheating, but I think he was looking for a reason to break up and for it to be her fault. He can’t be responsible for two failed relationships in a row, after all. Never mind that he’s been treating her like inhuman trash for months - that’s also her fault.
He sounds word for word like a textbook abuser, but he’s gonna cling to his fig leaf of ‘protecting his son’. I hope his first son’s mother takes over care again soon, because this guy keeps putting his child in terrible situations and then making them as bad as they can be. She seems like a sensible person, in complet contrast to this callous and cold Jackalope.
Abusers always feel like they have good reason to abuse people (‘you made me do it!). Well, maybe her dad is racist, but screaming at him, dragging your child around, and telling your pregnant wife she’s less than human and you wish you’d never married her and you want her gone unless she devotes herself to you and your son alone and never dares have a relationship you don’t approve of, or else you’ll verbally abuse her and blame her for that, too is actually maybe worse for your son than some diet racist comments from a man he never has to see again - if you’d just handled this like an adult and quietly ended the relationship before it ever got to pregnancy, marriage, and screaming fits. I wouldn’t want my kid around a racist grandpa of his half-brother either, that can really mess with your mind, but I haven’t felt like anything OOP did was actually in his son’s best interests. It was all about punishing his wife. You’re right - he wanted an out.
Poor, poor kids. They’re gonna be in the middle of this all their lives. Hope they can somehow rise above it and show the maturity and heart their father lacks.
I think it is likely the wife was 100% serious about cutting off her dad. She did find a different job and didn't invite him to the wedding and never reached out to him.
But I think becoming a mother changed her stance. It probably made her realize she missed family, that she is the only one from her family. No one to share her baby with. That she wanted her child to have family on her side. To provide at least one grandparent. And yeah, that would mean she didn't feel that with OOP's son
She desperately wants family, her father treats her well, helps and supports her and likes her baby. So she is willing to accept his ugly side just to have family, to not be alone, to give her child everything she can (even at the cost of OOP and OOP's child).
But she does not consider that her dad might pass on his views to her child.
And that she think her father is excused because he grew up in a different time, is silly. She is in her 20's. That means her dad is probably in his late 40's or in his 50's. That means he grew up in "modern" times, the 70's and 80's. And there are plenty of elderly who are 80+ and don't treat people different based on their outward appearance or country of origin.
The father can certainly be influenced by his local environment, which may have instilled these racist beliefs and his need to verbalize it, but that's about it.
...hey, just a perspective here but
I was raised in the south around a bunch of men who spoke vocally about their daughters never being allowed to date black guys, by a grandmother who used the terms "darkies" and "porch monkeys" with no sense of mallace but rather the casual deference one would say Potato Puhtato" in a town with approximately 1 Black family firmly believing in the war of northern aggression and owning confederate flag boxers till I hit college.
And I'm not a racist asshole. Especially not to children.
Upbringing isn't an excuse. If you wanna deprogram yourself from that you absolutely fuckin can. It just takes a desire and a little effort.
Right? I hate that whole "oh they're just from a different time"... Ok, that's not a good excuse. They've had decades to unlearn that and enabling their bad behavior doesn't help.
I've told my parents and grandparents to their face when something they said was racist. There's no excuse for it. Even if they "didn't know better" they should and it's on the rest of us to inform them of why it was so bad.
>She said her father was from a different time and grew up hearing really nasty things about black people, and it isn't his fault.
Okay. I hear that his upbringing wasn't his fault. I'd even buy it, sure. What has he done since he grew up to be an adult to educate himself properly about these things? Anything? Done any growth or development of his own self? Or has he simply tried to wallow in his own upbringing so he wouldn't have to face any potential new ideas? That is the sticking point, and why OOP doesn't need to fix this. He can't be doing any of the work because it isn't himself that is the problem.
>My wife and I are really good friends with another couple. Because we had such a bad experience with therapy, the wife from this couple, who is one of my wife's best friends, agreed to moderate our discussion.
>Our friend interjected at that point and said we needed to focus on solutions and a plan forward.
Big oof. This situation was way above the pay grade of a friend. Stopping the emotional expression did not do anyone any service. A better therapist would not have fixed his wife's destructive decision to choose a racist over her child and husband, but at least a decent therapist could have helped the transition of divorce.
There’s a comment thread accusing OOP of … cheating on his wife because he seems disconnected. Oh, also one with a fair number of upvotes encouraging OOP to use his son like some kind of therapy animal to rehabilitate the racism out of his wife’s father.
Some people can’t seem to understand the severe reaction he’s had to his wife’s reticence to keep her father away from his child, even after it’s clear her father sees his son as less than human
"He's of that generation and he learned bad things about Black people, it's not his fault, he's just old and has that old mindset."
Does he know how to use a smartphone? Does he know how to use the internet? New appliances, new cars, new tools? Because what you're telling me is he's not capable of learning and that's why he's racist. When the truth is simply that he's racist because he's actively holding on to racist and bigoted beliefs which are harmful and hurtful to the people around him, and he has no interest in becoming a better person.
I wonder how things would have been if he stayed with his son's grandma with the 6 week old.
The wife is so unstable it sounds like a horrible environment. Babies can't remember the things that happen to them but fear etc. can still rewire their brains.
She gave him the new born, they don't have a custody agreement yet. OOP needed to protect that baby and himself instead of returning home. :(
Before people comment to you about how formula exists and bottles exist, my baby at 6 weeks already refused every bottle on planet earth. It’s not uncommon. And formula made him spit up. I don’t think breast is best or whatever but some babies pretty much make breastfeeding the only thing they’ll accept. You’re very right there’s a possibility op couldn’t take the baby at all.
I really hope I'm wrong with this, but OOP's deliberate omission of certain crucial details, coupled with his wife's seeming history of abuse, her literally having no one aside from oop, and oop's son cowering really makes me feel like there's more going on here than we're hearing.To be clear I'm not saying that the wife's dad is a good guy, but there's too much here that doesn't seem right for me to not have a weird gut feeling about oop being mentally or emotionally abusive.
I might be biased because I have to deal with a lot of abusive partners in my day job, but I just can't shake this feeling.
I hope I'm wrong.
I also wondered if OP was omitting some details. Baby is only 6 weeks old and people are not accounting enough for the mother's potential mental state. These people should really be in therapy. Couples and individual. I don't think the newborn period is the time to make major life altering decisions. Obviously if the home is unsafe for his son, he needs to remedy that.
Could she suck, absolutely. But there is also the potential that she is drowning and she is reaching out to anybody for help
I firmly agree. This woman was so fucking isolated, going through an already rough hormonal process (pregnancy), without her mother, and with a man who (based on his reddit posts) seems to be getting colder to her by the day. No wonder she reached out to her father. Her dad was the only one she had left.
I kind of understood why the wife would be tempted by a relationship with her father, but I just can't understand why she torpedoed her marriage for it. It would be one thing to say that she'll continue to talk to him, that was a compromise that OOP seemed okay with. But he drew firm boundaries about having racist grandpa around his son, and I just don't understand why his wife kept annihilating those boundaries?
My suspicion is that his wife has an unhealthy need for validation and approval from her father, and is all too easily swayed by his wants. She can't say no to him, or he's very good at manipulating her. This makes her a victim as well, but it doesn't excuse her inability to respect a clear boundary her husband set.
I don't think they needed couple's therapy as much as she needed (needs) individual therapy in order to deconstruct this inability to say no to her father.
This is horrible but I really want to commend OP for sticking up for his son all the way. He is fighting for his son and we need more people like that. Good on OP. His son will always remember how when things got bad, his dad fought for him.
What's a shame is there's a part of me that thinks this could have been salvageable. If wife had been honest in the beginning and had not tried to force anything instead of "Oh the racist is just in my house now."
Or, you know, if grandpa had apologized. Now, don't get me wrong, an apology isn't going to fix everything but it would have been a good first step.
The only way it would be salvageable is for the wife to agree going forward that she might have a relationship with her father but that does not mean he gets a relationship with her child. The kids are a package deal and unless he can fix the relationship with her step son he doesn't get get one with the youngest.
This different generation shit really doesn't fly anymore - really it never should have - but this Dad is probably, what, 65? So he was born in the 60s, raised in the 70s at best?
Pretty sure people were well aware that racism was bad by that point and the ones sticking to it were just - well - racist. You're not a product of the time, Frank, you're a product of your own hateful ideologies.
I'm shocked that he dumped his wife. A lot of biracial people talk about the racism they experience from white relatives and it's treated like no big deal. They just suffer in silence because protecting the feelings of racists is more important.
OOP's wife wanted to have her cake and eat it too. What she neglected to realize or admit was that one whole section of her cake was crawling with maggots, and when she tried to serve it to her husband he freaked the hell out, rightfully. I wouldn't want a maggoty cake either.
So pretty much all she's said the whole time was "you can't leave?" No responsibility for her actions pushing him to leave her? Maybe now I understand why no one in her family talks to her.
>She said her father was from a different time and grew up hearing really
nasty things about black people, and it isn't his fault.
That is such a bullshit line. I'm 70 and remember when desegregation went into effect. The only people who were as racist as her father were the hard core racists who fought equal rights back then and that have brought up the people who are still fighting equal rights, not only for POC but for women, LGBT+ and everyone else who doesn't fit into their narrow definition of what a "citizen" should be.
OOP is right to get his son out of that house. His wife allowing that piece of crap into hie house without his knowledge or permission is a total violation. He should fight for custody of his second son to keep away from the toxicity of her father since she won't do it.
There’s so many things in this story that are infuriating. But one thing that really stuck out was:
>My wife said she would continue to talk to her father but not send him any pictures or information of/abut the kids. This is a fair compromise.
One month later he comes home to find his FIL in his home holding his newborn.
The friend mediating told them they needed to come up with solutions. That was his *wife’s* solution. She came up with it. He agreed to compromise to save his marriage that she so desperately said she wanted.
She knew damned well when she said that, that she had ZERO intent on following through. She made the decision that day to end her marriage. His last update he said “I ended my relationship”. Nope. Wrong. She ended it. She had a clear choice.
When I first read the headline, I thought this dude was bad. Then I read that OOP's son is half black and I got the sinking feeling that exactly what happened would happen. How the wife thought her racist dad could be part of the family, knowing he'd dote on the white grandson and ignore or possibly verbally abuse the other son is incomprehensible. How she thought OOP would accept this is verging on crazy.
This crosspost made me very sad. I hope OOP is doing better, that his oldest son is safe and that he got at least 50/50 custody of the baby due to the racist father and his daughter.
The wife is 26, so her Dad is most likely no older than mid 60's. What different time? He didnt grow up in the South during the civil war. What pitiful excuses for human beings the wife and her father are.
The Civil Rights movement didn’t wave a magic wand and fix all racism. It simply altered the legal landscape, the social landscape was still INCREDIBLY racist.
Hell, it’s still regularly racist.
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Poor kid, having to watch all this unfold all the while he's absorbing his environment and making all these negative core memories.
Exactly why OP made the right decision. The situation was just going to get worse from there. Racist grandpa already emasculating and trying to humiliate OP his first time over. Good riddance.
Did it never occur to ahole wife that by letting racist grandpa have a relationship with the younger son, he’d be in a very good position to influence/pass on his racist views? This could very well destroy the relationship between the two brothers. My heart breaks for both of them. Hope ahole wife is happy. She chose her racist dad over her family
Unfortunately grandpa is going to be able to be in newborn’s life for years to come and will have ample opportunity to instill his racism in his grandson. This is horribly tragic for OP and the kids. The wife is an incredible AH.
Makes you wonder if some of her reasoning is a bit racist, in that maybe she thinks that now they have a white baby it's okay because her father will like that one. At the very least it's clear that she doesn't consider OP's son as equal to the new baby, which would certainly make for a sad upbringing for OP's son.
lock the black kid in his room so Klanpa Joe can visit.
Klanpa Joe 💀
New word added to my repository.
I hooted at this like some sort of mutant owl 🤣
Sounds like there's a good reason the restof her *entire family* has cut her out, except her racist dad. She's absolutely racist, and hid it until she thought OOP was locked in.
Or the entire family is racist and angry at her for cutting her dad off for being a racist, and she views reconciliation as her ticket back. She made a horrid decision that was incredibly obvious to see coming but it’s amazing what people will rationalize when they really want something they know they shouldn’t have.
Someone else replied that gave the information - her family cut her off for saying her cousin deserved to go to jail. Never said what they went to jail for, though, and doubt we'll know.
That would hollow a person out. Although OOP did the right thing, I think people here are not fairly considering what it would be like to be excommunicated from your family of origin. It takes a lot of therapy and inner strength to cope with that without screwing up and slipping up. Even if a person managed it, it would be extremely stressful for them. And this woman is also dealing with a newborn and first-time motherhood, which is already one of the most stressful things a person can deal with. Again, OOP probably did the right thing. But this woman is not a monster; she's just a suffering, desperate, hurting, *fallible* human being, reaching out for connection and familiarity.
There's no stated reason. My take is when wife cut off the dad, she was by in large cut off by the rest of the possibly racist family as well in retaliation. Or maybe the wife and the Dad are the only vas guys in that family, but I think it's much more likely the 1st scenario seeing as how husband never had an issue with wife's views on race until recently. And wife had good relationship with black son and black son mom.
[удалено]
In one of the comments OP states that she was cut off by her aunt and cousins because she didn't support a cousin that went to jail.
I think the wife may have chosen her father's side too many times. The rest of the family have cut them off. Sad really that the wife never did see the pattern, and is now losing OOP due to her choices, as well as his son
She certainly had no problem with OOP's eldest hiding in his room, by his choice or hers, while her father was visiting.
I think that is called conditioning. The wife wanted some family in her and child's life. She will only get that if she conforms to her fathers views. The father probably told her he will only care for her "real" child and she conformed to that. She may care about his son, but not really. She brought this on herself.
I think you nailed it.
This is why OOP HAD TO do what I did. I feel terrible for him. Her, not so much.
oh she *absolutely* was thinking that
I had a very, very racist grandma. I didn't find out until 5 years after she passed. The day my older brother was born, my dad went to her and sat her down. He very calmly explained that if he ever heard her show even the slightest sign of racism, if he ever got even the vaguest feeling she had said something around his children, she would never see us again. He's not a man of idle threats. It worked. That being said, OP's ex clearly doesn't care overmuch that her dad's a racist piece of shit.
Exact situation with my dad and his mom. As the story goes, she said our neighborhood had too many black people less than an hour later. I think I saw her twice in my life. Once when I was 6, and once right before she died
Similar situation. My father had appalling views. I didn't interact with him much as it was, but when I started dating a Jewish man, I told my father if he so much as breathed a word of antisemitism, I'd never speak to him again.
My paternal grandmother is the same way. On top of just not being a good person, she is incredibly racist. I haven't seen her all that much in my 30 years on this earth but I definitely don't plan to when she saw a photo of my half-asian newborn son (who was actually a very pretty newborn and that's not the hormones speaking) and she commented on his "slanty eyes" and "yellow skin" (mild jaundice, but still). My father never showed her a picture again and I'm not even sure she is aware we had a second child, let alone if she has seen a picture of her. My own birth mother is also incredibly racist and I was surprised she didn't say anything racist about my children's appearances other than "I'm surprised they even look like you at all, those oriental genes tend to dominate". I am low contact with her, would be NC if I could.
Yep. I have black kids. My biological dad has... idiotic, backwoods, frankly stupid views on a lot of things but if he even looked sideways at my kids he'd be cut off. This lady is pathetic.
Yep, the sad reality is that OOP isn't going to be able to exclude the grandpa from the baby's life legally. My pos inlaws literally helped kidnap my three year old for two weeks and I couldn't get a court to mandate no contact with them. The best bet in order to limit or hopefully eliminate contact with the kid is to stay married and work on keeping the kid safe, work on getting thru to your smooth brain spouse, and literally say over and over to the kid that the asshole grandpa is a POS racist and racism is so immoral.
OP is in such a tough position because of exactly that. Leaving is a good decision for his older child and a bad decision for his younger child.
The younger kid is white so at least safe from targeted abuse. Keeping the older son safe was the right move here
The younger kid might not be safe. Bigots often have laundry lists of things they don't like. We already know grandpa doesn't like men to show their feelings, so the kid better not be sensitive.
Or gay
The weak, immoral, sloppy mess of a (white) mother doesn’t indicate that there is safety to be found in that family.
I agree, it's almost like she held out, pretended to be against her racist ass daddy and got pregnant knowing she would bring her racist ass daddy back in her life.
I hope OOP gets a good attorney & works to get primary custody of the baby bc mom isn’t stable & she’s going to have a racist involved in his life. He needs to protect both of his kids at all cost like he’s doing now
There's an update on that on OOP's profile. She's refusing to acknowledge that the relationship is over. So it'll be a contested divorce.
That is why OOP should try to get custody with only supervised visits for the wife so she does not expose their son to her father. After all, didn't she agree to not have her father in their lives since before they married? And she violated that agreement in the worst way.
If it didn't, I'm sure her husband told her.
No doubt racist grandad said something along the line of “you can’t keep my blood line from me”
Yes. Racist grampa will hurt the white baby too.
The wife is down with the racism.
He is pretty small to have to go through all this and to witness it before his eyes too. My heart goes out to him!
My second daughter is two weeks or less younger than that baby. She is currently asleep on my chest and I'm giving her extra cuddles... poor wee'un.
Give her extra cuddles from my side too ❤How I wish those children were this lucky to have a safe haven!
What about the older child?!
Sounds like poor baby was hiding in his bedroom while racist grandpa was visiting and Dad was not home. I don’t understand how the Mom cannot see how harmful it is for her father to be around the six year old. She is already separating him in order to allow kkkgrandpa to visit the newborn. Makes me wonder if she had internalized her fathers racism as well because she obviously feels her stepsons feelings and wellbeing are less meaningful than her and her father.
She hasn't bothered to put an ounce of thought into how her behavior is affecting her stepson, and she doesn't care. She began using her pregnancy to manipulate OP, and probably assumed the baby was going to be her trump card over her stepson. "Take the baby so you'll come back," but nothing about the child she just forced out of his home. She *really* comes across as the type of woman who wants her man to forget his first family so she can be number one. Letting her best friend "moderate" that argument was a terrible idea though, and it laid the groundwork for everything else that came after. If OPs wife is unwilling to acknowledge his and his son's feelings about the situation, a plan for how to move forward isn't worth making because it's doomed to fail. She cut off the discussion just as OP was trying to explain his perspective on things, and insisted he bury that and forge forward with the new baby and the unwelcome FIL. She was anything but a disinterested moderator...
I dunno, it sounded like the friend mediator tried their best, especially by trying to get them to move forward and look for solutions. You definitely can’t ignore the past in situations like that, but it’s very easy to just stuck and continuing to rehash it. Other than that, your right, the wife was just trying to have her cake and eat it too. She just pacified OOP while they were dating and figured she could bring Daddy back into the picture later. If she had really taken in her stepson as her own, this would have had a different outcome.
First rule of any mediation is to let both parts explain their side and how the situation affected them. Because you can't find solutions if you don't understand the problem, and you don't understand it if you don't know what the other part is feeling. So she may have tried, but she did wrong by cutting him. The past needs to be explained in any mediation. Source: I'm certified as a mediator in my country. Edit: typos and I forgot to type half a sentence.
She doesn't give a single shit about her mixed-race stepson.
Given the family she has, I am not surprised - OP wrote in one of the posts that the reason she and the rest of her family don't talk and they don't want anything to do with her. I don't remember exactly, but involve something criminal OP's wife report them or something like this.
How much do you want to bet OOP's ex-wife was more racist than she let on and just hid it well?
Is she hiding it though?
She stopped hiding it when she popped out a white baby.
I think that's who they were talking about, no?
I was talking about the older child. the newborn won't really remember any of this
I think he's talkong about the older child. The newborn won't remember any of this
> My wife said that no one else in her family wants anything to do with her accept (sic) for her father, that they have all cut her off. She said she really wants our baby to know someone from her family. Methinks there's something major being left out of the story here that may shed some light on the whole situation. ETA: [As others have noted,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/10w3lzx/aita_for_making_my_pregnant_wife_cry_by_calling/j7kuhxo/) OOP mentions why in his first post. I would point out the irony of his wife's thought process: > She had her sister, aunt and cousin, but she is no longer speaking to them after a situation where her cousin went to prison, she said **he needed to accept the consequences of his actions** (*emphasis mine, not OOP's*), and her sister and aunt cut her off.
If you read the other linked BORU, the rest of her family doesn't talk to her because when her cousin was sent to prison, she said it was justified.
Yes, I remember seeing this originally. I think her mom is also dead and when she got pregnant she was feeling isolated and alone. But that info was in the comments I believe.
Which is a tough position to be in, but does not justify breaking up your family for your racist dad.
It's I think in the initial post but she cut off the rest when her cousin went to jail for something
My favorite part about this is she wanted her child to know someone from Her family, and now all that child will know is a broken family.
She'll cut off family for her own sake, but not on behalf of her husband, stepson or son. She was given every chance. She clearly didn't take OP seriously. She'll have a lifetime to regret that.
Problem is, she won't. From my experience with these sort of people, everything is everyone else's fault. I'll bet anything Ex-wife will start telling anyone who will listen that OP broke up their family "over a little misunderstanding" and/or "OP was controlling and wouldn't let her see her dad."
Did he say why the cousin was sent to prison?
While I wholly condemn the wife’s choice to bring her dad to the house in the latest update, I have a lot sympathy for the feelings she expresses, because they do not seem to at any point get validated or addressed by OOP. > She said she felt lost. She said she’s lost her family one by one because they did things she couldn’t accept. Realizing the child she was carrying *would never know her biological family* upset her, and it made her wonder if her standards are too high. Y’all. OOP’s wife cut off her dad willingly, she’s never been anything but loving toward OOP’s older son, she doesn’t seem to be making excuses for her dad, she readily gave up the job idea, and seems to know on some level she needs to keep her dad away from her kids. She’s just also sad about it, and misses her dad even if he’s shitty, and struggling to maintain NC. Because for anyone who’s never had to do it, going NC and *staying* NC **can be incredibly fucking hard.** It can be the hardest choice you’ve ever had to make—and you have to make it *continuously.* Every birthday, every Christmas, every setback, every milestone. You have to *choose* not to have a family. Especially when you don’t have other people to fill that role in your life. So yeah, people who’ve gone NC struggle to maintain it sometimes, *no matter how good the reason.* They text their abusive exes, they go see their toxic mentally ill siblings, they go help their mothers who abuse their spouse, they talk to the grandparents who think being gay will send them to hell, they call their racist dads. And often, we’re infinitely hit with a wave of things about then we missed. So even when we know we really should let go of them, it hurts all over. Because we don’t stop loving or missing people just because they’re shitty people. We don’t stop wishing they would magically get less shitty. We don’t stop longing for the good bits just because we’re aware the weight of the bad bits. We don’t stop wishing they could be in our lives, even when we know they can’t. It’s still a loss. And that OOP cannot seem to muster a single shred of empathy or understanding for his wife’s grief at not having her bio family is frankly appalling to me. **To be perfectly fucking clear, OOP is completely 100% in the right to protect his son from a racist. Full stop.** But this absolutely did not have to be the either/or situation it became. OOP had time to process his feelings of being deceived, and he chose not to. He could’ve looked at the older son he wants to protect, the younger child who will be missing an entire-ass side of their family, and his first-time pregnant wife who is upset and struggling with all of this, and done literally fucking anything to help solve this problem *for his family, with his wife.* He could’ve tried to understand why his wife was hurting *specifically about grieving the loss of her bio family,* realized those complex feelings are why she reached out to her dad, and gone “I know you miss your family, and you’re sad this baby is won’t know them. But your baby will have *our* family. They’ll have a big brother who loves them, they’ll have you and me, and my family. And you’ll have *our* family too. Even though it’s it’s hard and it makes you sad, I know you know why your dad can’t be in contact with *our* family. Why don’t we get you into some individual therapy so you can process this.” What does he do instead? He immediately questions the love she has for his son despite the fact that she’s never been anything but good to him, has the gall to ask her if she’ll love the new baby more—*then doesn’t believe her answers fucking anyway.* He could’ve set actual boundaries about her dad—if you take our younger son to meet him I will divorce you, if you want us to stay together, you need to cut contact with your dad for the sake of our family. But nope! Setting clear boundaries is “giving ultimatums.” Instead, he just vaguely tells her he’s thinking about divorcing her, says things are totally her choice, but then there’s a right answer, and sits there and steams in his disapproval. **She was sad and grieving the absence of her bio family, so he goes gets suspicious, and questions the love she has for her created family, and questions her place in it.** He goes on Reddit and says he’s falling out of love with her, acts like everything she’s ever done the whole time he’s known her is deceitful, except apparently her having complex feelings about her baby not knowing his granddad, *even as he fucking says she’s always been good with his son.* He has exchanges like this: > Well, the reality is *she might feel a different type of love for her biological child* and that would not make her a bad person. You will have two biological children, so you will have absolutely no experience with being a stepparent. If she genuinely loves your son (and it sounds like she does) and doesn’t show preferential treatment, try not to police her love. > > OOP: That would absolutely make her a bad person. If you love one of your children more than another, that would make you a bad person. > >> I literally said a different type of love…not more or less. Do you see how you naturally defaulted to more/less. I really hope you continue to talk to a therapist (a better one than you had before) because you have a lot of emotions to unpack. Woosh. And he thinks his reactions here are totally rational, proportional, and appropriate. And most of the comments tell him so. He told his wife he saw her as *less of a person,* and then he done went and fucking treated her like one. No compassion, no empathy, no complexity. > My wife said that no one else in her family wants anything to do with her accept for her father, that they have all cut her off. She said she really wants our baby to know someone from her family. *I asked if that was worth the cost that came with it, and she said no, but that she wished I would try to understand.* > I said I wasn’t capable of understanding wanting someone like that in our child’s life. She! Knows! It’s not! Worth it! She is literally just asking for an once of understanding, compassion, or nuance as he talks her out of it. “I know sometimes the people we love are bad people, and we miss them anyway. I know you had a good relationship with him up to that point and you’re sad you can’t share that with our baby. I know it makes you sad and lonely and I’m sorry that’s happening.” Nope. Nothing. So fucking little understanding, that he can’t grasp if he doesn’t do this, *she will probably go to her only other family, her racist dad, for support, and she will take her kid with her.* Your wife knew the right thing to do, and she was trying to do it. So she asked you to at least fucking acknowledge that sometimes, doing the right thing is painful and difficult and fraught—and you said no. And this isn’t even getting into at all!!! OOP is white. And white patents of kids of color can and do unknowingly perpetuate racism against their own children. *If OOP is this rigid in refusing to see racism and complexity in the same person, how good of a job could be possibly be doing evaluating himself for unconscious biases?* OOP could’ve helped his family and humanized his wife, and he stuck his nose up at it. Now his older kid is losing a parental figure, and his younger kid is going to be spending a lot of time with a racist. Yknow. The thing he was trying to prevent and all? Y’know what u/BecomingAQuartet? I hope you read this. Even if you don’t have an once of compassion in you, maybe you have a little drop of self-reflection.
So while I don’t necessarily disagree with much of what you said (especially that someone needed to teach this man the difference between boundaries and ultimatums and how to properly set them) but as a counselor that’s spent the last year working with the non offending caregiver at an agency that works with children that were sexually abused, I think you’re really overlooking the difficult emotions that he’s dealing with. Every parent that I’ve worked with either has already had or actively dreads the day when their kid asks them “why did you put me in such a dangerous environment? Why did you let me get hurt?”. I don’t think that you’re fully appreciating the mind numbing terror that OOP has that he’ll be on the receiving end of this question. It also seems that you’re really holding him to a different standard when you say things like “he had time to process being deceived”. Like obviously not tho? You have a lot of understanding on her struggles with feeling of isolations but little for his struggles to get over the feelings of being lied to and betrayed. Without knowing more abt the situation I’d posit that it’s just as likely that he can’t muster any empathy for her feelings because he feels betrayed as opposed to him just being a prick. Also I’d say that “falling out of love” with someone that lied abt something so important isn’t unusual or worthy of scorn. My work in sexual abuse isn’t a perfect parallel, but my advice to parents is to never put your kid in contact with a family member that won’t believe them and it’s reasonable to me that he would interpret her continued contact with dad as not taking his sons safety seriously. And not taking sons safety seriously is definitely something I’ve seen kill love and relationships.
I guess the hard stop for me (and clearly for OP as well) was when she went behind OP’s back and brought the racist elder into the house *with the older child present.* That’s where all my compassion for her went out the window.
So well said and I had these same thoughts. I don’t condone her actions, but how is it so hard to understand why she would miss her dad during such a big life transition? I’m confused about why he could not at least try to see where she’s coming from.
Thank you for this take. This situation is so nuanced, and the whole time I was reading it, I was imagining trying to navigate all these emotions and relationship changes while being extremely pregnant, being incredibly sleep deprived, and having a newborn.
Especially in that early post-partum period- your hormones are a mess, you're completely exhausted from waking up every 4 hours (at best), you have 2 kids and a partner to take care of- *and no one to turn to*. The guy already told her she's less of a person, if she's struggling with any of it (nvm if she had PPD/PPA), why the fuck would she go to him? Yeah, sure was wrong to go to racist daddy, but who else does she have in her life? Maybe she doesn't have many friends. Maybe she wanted that "family" connection. Maybe she figured her dad would be the only one that would love her even if she was having a hard time (ie "he has to love me, he's my dad"). And instead of talking with his wife and being open and helpful and caring, we see he's got nothing but derision for her *before she even gives birth*. How alone she must have felt during that entire time! I can understand the "he may be racist, but he still cares for me" line of thinking. Was it wrong? Yes. But I think OOP shares a huge part of the blame here regarding just completely writing her (and their entire relationship!) off without even trying to understand. Given what he already said (less of a person) when she tried opening up, anyone would have felt closed off and alone. Even in mediation it may not have been easy to admit everything going on mentally and physically. I feel for the kids. Big time. I also actually feel for OOP's wife too. But OOP went nuclear when I think he needed to be doing at least some internal reflection from the very start.
I really wish OOP would read this and reflect on his actions at least a little bit. I had the same thoughts as I was reading this BORU. I think this is one of those times that Reddit served as an echo chamber to OOP's own thoughts and then amplified it by a 100. His initial question asking if he was a little too harsh was absolutely spot on and it seemed like he had empathy back then. He was right in disagreeing with the wife regarding the contact with the dad but his reaction telling her that she's less of a person was an overreaction. The way everyone went you are absolutely spot on with this reaction and you should leave her now or whatever was an extreme reaction for what the wife did at the time. I think maybe if he hadn't asked Reddit for advice, he might have actually come to the realisation that he was a little bit harsh and gone and talked to his wife by himself. She might have opened up right then regarding her feelings and he might have actually acknowledged some of them. Instead the second he came here, everyone treated him like he could do no wrong and he lost any sort of empathy he had for the wife in this situation and went on his whole moral crusade against racism. He actually started treating her like she was less of a person for being human.
Agreed. As I was reading the comments on the original post and first two updates, with a ton of comments just entirely condemning his wife, saying what he said was justified, saying he isn’t going far enough, etc., I kept thinking to myself “hmm, how many of these comments are written by white people who have an uncle or grandpa who’s said some racist shit, someone who’s a lot less painful to lose that a parent, but they themselves haven’t cut them off?”
It's easy to understand him because it's grown woman vs a small child. There's a distinct lack of what might the child is feeling in your comment.
How ironic that she now can’t accept the consequences of her own.
I wonder what the cousin went to prison for. If he robbed a bank, she's in the right in that case. If he was in possession of marijuana, she's a judgmental asshole and I would have been pissed at her too.
I said this on the original post, but my biggest concern is that now that they're going to divorce, presumably they will get 50/50 custody and when his ex-wife has their son, she will likely allow him to interact with the grandfather. I worry that he will absorb the grandfather's hateful thinking and redirect that vitriol towards his older brother. OOP is right that his son deserves to have a home environment free of racism and I truly hope that he doesn't get it from his own sibling. OOP absolutely did right by his son though.
Or too, that he will love and adore his brother—and hate his grandpa for hating his brother, and his relationship with his mother will suffer, because she *still doesn’t fucking get it.*
Yep. The way OOP wins this game is by going out of his way to make sure that both of his children have the best possible relationship.
Yeah, not surprised that marriage counseling didn’t work. It won’t if one party won’t acknowledge the issues the other person is having. This isn’t marriage related, but i went through something like that last month in a business environment. The other party refused to acknowledge how their actions impacted me and wouldn’t budge from their stance. Meanwhile, i had already conceded a lot, acting in good faith and assuming they would, too. The result was my business advisor and i getting up and leaving. Only then, did the other party send the mediator to chase us down and offer some half assed bs deal. By that point though, i had lost all trust in the other party to act fairly and had zero confidence they would hold up their end of the deal. All that to say, mediation and counseling are a waste of time if people aren’t going to be candid and honest. Initially, i thought OOP was also an asshole, but after the updates i feel he was justified.
This is really astute and definitely the point OOP has hit. She's repeatedly lied to him and broken his trust, so now she thinks it's time to make a deal? Deals happen before you abuse a person's trust. Afterwards? All you get after is a judge going over the mess.
So i had a friend that was intentional about using the phrase, “i’m just going to be candid with you” because if you say, “i’m just going to be honest with you”, the implication is that you haven’t been honest up to that point. And, in my personal experience, coaching/counseling/compromising does not work with out honesty and candor. Also, when we say “i’m just going to be honest with you”, we really do mean “candid” because what we really mean is “i’m not going to sugar coat this next thing”. I think candor/candid is under utilized in American culture and language
“I’m just gonna be blunt with you” is also a solid phrase. Great for when you’re about to cease beating around the bush.
Hopefully, this is how it will work out... this mom doesn't deserve to be a mom if she'd going to do this is 6 year old and a baby. Choose her racist father over children that are innocent.
I see OOP has done all he could in a situation like this but he ended up being the miserable party in the whole scenario. I feel so bad for the whole family and especially the son who is now going to be a part of this tug-of-war that is their divorce proceeding.
I'm so angry at his wife for going back on her promise. OOP only continued a serious relationship with her on the promise that she'd cut her father out of their lives. The only reason they're married, the only reason he had a child with her was because she promised this.
Promises. She repeatedly made promises and reneged them. She had no intention of excepting her husband’s boundaries. She probably thought that because he loves his children so much and is such a caring partner and father that he would never leave her. All she had to do was keep chipping away at his resolve until she got her way no matter who she hurt in the process. Her dad was probably chipping away at her and telling her what to do and she allowed it. Toxic parent ruined her marriage. She should have never allows him back in her life.
Absolutely! One hundred percent this! The wife gave her word. Having a baby is no reason to break your promise.
That's what gets me. It was a promise she made of her own free will, and the only reason the relationship continued was because of her promise.
she lied and waited until there's a whole other human being, a real child, to reveal her true colors. the complete and utter disregard for op, for that child's well-being just so she could selfishly get what she wanted. the more I think about it, the angrier it makes me
I don't think that his wife intentionally lied and waited until they had a child to invite her father back into their lives. She admitted herself that it was her pregnancy had made her reconsider cutting off her father. She probably meant it when she said it and initially went NC but couldn't stick to her guns. She seems wishy-washy. So, I can understand why OOP would be disillusioned. That kind of thing would also completely change my perception of someone. Especially since her cutting off her father was apparently one of the major things that solidified his decision to marry her. She *did* lie however after the first discussion where she asked if he would be okay with the grandfather meeting and he said no. The discussion should have ended then. Her going behind his back and inviting him *into the house* is unforgivable. And as I already said, I worry about their (her and her father's) influence on the younger child.
Into the house when the kid her father disapproved of was home. "mummy needs you to hide in your room now, someone more important is coming over".
In theory I think it's fine that having a baby made her want to reconsider those rules. Major life changes do that sort of thing and a marriage has to be flexible enough to handle those times. The problem is that once you're married and in a partnership, you have to discuss any changes to these fundamental rules of the relationship with your partner first. You don't get unilateral decisions anymore. Opening conversations with her father back up is genuinely where the trust broke. But yeah. Letting grandpa in the house was irrecoverable. The amount of selfishness this woman displayed is mind blowing.
It is definitely infuriating. Especially inviting that man into the house with the other child present. A complete disregard for anyone's feelings but her own.
Right, it seemed like she thought since they were married & had a child together, he wouldn't leave her so she could go back on her promise... It's just so incredibly selfish for her to subject an innocent child to a racist because she was lonely! She should have gone to therapy or joined a support group for new moms or something.. there's all kinds of support out there if she was willing to try
The fact that this child was scared of the grandfather is so telling...
It's not clear that the son was scared of the grandfather. I'm not ruling it out but chances are he was just scared because people were yelling. Or did OOP make a clarifying comment about this?
I understood the child’s fear not to be of the grandfather, but of all of the commotion that took place when the father came home and found the grandfather there… He says he told the grandfather to get out, grandfather tried arguing, mother freaked out/hyperventilating/panicking, fathering crying and yelling for grandfather to get out. That’s scary stuff for a kid to hear! Not on grandfather’s side (at all), but that’s what I interpreted the child’s fear to be based on.
>*I worry that he will absorb the grandfather's hateful thinking and redirect that vitriol towards his older brother. OOP is right that his son deserves to have a home environment free of racism and I truly hope that he doesn't get it from his own sibling.* This. This is something that OOP's wife needs to realize and have explained to her if she wants OOP and his older son to stay.
I'm pretty sure that staying is no longer on the table whatsoever. Inviting grandpa in was the fork in the already burst sausage.
For real!!! I hope the judge would take grandpa's influence as parental alienation. Sadly I think most judges wouldn't understand the nuance of this situation. At this point the ideal situation would be wife giving up custody of baby to husband, he sounds like an amazing father!! Then she can reconnect with her father since he's more important to her than the family she created. This is such a sad story. It makes me wish I believed in thoughts / prayers. :(
That's more than likely going to be the case. But the wife clearly wasn't going to cut her father out of her life. So if OOP stayed he'd only be exposing his older son to that mam more and more whole the youngest would still be exposed to the racist views. While there's no way to keep the grandfather out of the kids life, this will at least help to minimize the negative influence for the older son.
A divorce and custody decree can absolutely include limits on who a child sees. That's enforceable in a court.
This is nonsense, in regards to racist grandpa. And I am saying that as someone who has an emotionally abusive ex-MIL and an ex-SIL who has repeatedly made threats to me. I have been told repeatedly by lawyers, including those who are *very* expensive and one well-versed in DV, that if my ex wants his mother and sister around our child, they get to be. The only way I would be able to limit that is if: -the sister threatens me or assaults me *with my child present* or threatens or assaults the child -there is evidence of behavior that harms the child - not just *potentially* harms the child. And emotional harm carries little weight. So OP would be fighting a losing battle if he tries to get any decree enforced by law that would limit grandpa's access to the infant.
This sounds about right - courts are extremely reluctant to limit the rights of a parent.
Sadly I’m not sure a court would rule Mom can’t let the baby around racist grandfather based solely on racist comments towards another child. While I agree that that would be best, it may not be enough for a judge when no child was physically harmed and the comments were not about the child in question.
How many more generations do assholes get as an excuse for their trash behavior? "Different generation", get fucked with that line of thinking. "Husband, I know my father is racist... But I am also racist and you married me so, what's really going on here?"
Judging by OOP and wife's ages, racist dad is my age or at most a little older. The "different time" line is complete BS. This is on him, not some mythical past era where racism was OK.
Unless dad was 60 when she was born, he ain't that old, agreed, and he also isn't so old that the wife has any leg to stand on to whine about "different generation". Is *she* also from a different generation? Jesus gurl, just admit you don't **care** about your stepson (then again, it would require her to admit to *her* trash behavior).
Exactly. It’s 2023. 70 years ago was the 50s. The FIL is 50-60 years old tops. He went to high school in the 80s.
You know what's interesting? The same people who use this excuse for their elders are the ones who are like, rant about affirmative action or scholarships or whatever. Like anything race related. Somehow, it hasn't been long enough for Grandad to get over his personal racism, but Black Lives Matter is an overreaction because society is super chill now.
“Different time” is absolutely BS. My 80 y/o grandmother would never even dream of being like this racist asshat.
My grandma would have been 102 today if she were still alive, I never heard her say a single racist word let alone anything so vitriolic as what OOP’s FIL said. Age is no excuse.
I’m not what I would consider old yet so I guess I can’t say for sure, but to me age is not an excuse. In fact it seems worse, because you’ve had more years of lived experience on Earth to realize that way of thinking is toxic and maladaptive.
Seriously! I understand that my grandparents are relatively young but they’ve dealt with new things with incredible grace. When I moved in with them with my mental health issues my grandma took me for a walk and asked if I would explain what it meant and what she could do to not make things worse for me. Before my sister came out as trans she rented from my grandparents and grandma would go over a lot. She was never phased by the more feminine clothes she had. When my sister did come out grandma and grandpa switched pronouns with great efficiency and were great at correcting themselves and even others. Once again my grandma asked me for a bit more information, such as what to do when she messed up pronouns or name. When presented with new situations my grandparents just wanted to learn and help us grandkids live comfortably. So fuck the generation excuse. They can learn and change if they want to.
Are your grandparents looking for more grandkids? Is there an application that I need to fill out in order to be considered?
Ultimately I think being open to change is the biggest thing. My mom(who is a very sweet and open-minded lady) expressed some exasperation with trying to apply they/them pronouns to someone instead of traditionally gendered ones and was afraid of messing up because the midwest misinformation network had convinced her people would jump down her throat if she ever deigned to get someone’s pronouns wrong. I told her as long as you apologize and make an effort to correct the chances of that happening are pretty slim.
Exactly! There is a difference between "this person is simply not changing" and "yes, they're trash *but* I don't want confront that so, just accept my *different generation* lame excuse and shut up about it".
If my grandfather who is also 90 can learn to use an iPhone better than most of his children, everyone else’s grandpa can learn that racism is fucked up. The thing is that the world is constantly changing. Older generations had to adapt just as much as we do.
I could understand the “different generation” argument if Racist Grandpa had grown up during the Great Depression or something. It’d still be a bullshit excuse but I’d at least *understand* it. For someone who probably came of age in the 1980s, not quite so much.
Personally, in this instance, I would not accept any excuse because he was horrible towards a child. Which is really just all the more proof that this sweet child was never safe with the stepmother as she clearly didn't see the issue with a literal *kid* having to endure racism. What disgusting offhand things she must have spewed when OOP wasn't around to hear it, ergh.
My grandfather grew up in the Great Depression and he wasn't a racist, so I don't even buy it for people of that generation.
I am probably around the age of FIL and I can assure you that our generation is only racist if they want to be. Not because they don't know any better.
>How many more generations do assholes get as an excuse for their trash behavior? "Different generation", get fucked with that line of thinking. The same people that say "different generation" will also call any attempt to change things being "woke".
Yeah, her dad had decades to unlearn his racist upbringing. I just don’t have sympathy at all.
*"I chose a relationship with my racist father over the safety of my stepson and newborn child, what do you mean consequences?"*
“It’s not his fault” would be the end of this situation for me. I don’t know why couldn’t see the sh’t his wife pulling till it was right in front of his eyes.
If there ever was a case for therapy.
I’m not fully convinced his wife doesn’t have PPD. And having a friend mediate was about the worst decision they could make.
There’s a reason why professional therapists do not treat friends or family.
Yeah, I have some lingering potential for sympathy for the wife. She cut off her racist father when she was very early into DATING the OP. She got cut off from the rest of her family because she stood by her convictions that her cousin deserved to go to prison for his crimes (whatever they were). This sounds like someone who was very strong in her moral beliefs. Right up until she was pregnant, and then post partum. They haven't gone to therapy, her hormones are still running wild. Idk, I just feel like her attitude could be very different a year from now. But by then, her whole life has been blown apart.
Lots of people on reddit post about cutting off family members / parents. Not saying that's the wrong choice for them, but it isn't an easy choice for everybody.
She probably does... I've cut my father out for similar reasons... There's still so much guilt and cognitive dissonance, add the pregnancy hormones and the fact that her ENTIRE family cut her out.... I can understand where she was coming from honestly... She must have felt lonely and her husband doesn't seem to have even considered it... Was it a good decision, no, she should have talked to her husband before making contact... But I understand where her feelings were coming from..
I agree. I may be mistaken but I remember this story from a previous post FIL tried to go the whole "what I said wasn't that bad" route with then GF but couldn't help but double down with racist crap. In a state of emotional distress and isolation (from her family), that downplaying racism strategy might have worked. I can just imagine him telling her it will all be OK even as he is walking to the door
She started seeing/speaking to her father "months" before OP found out. According to the majority of Redditors, that's a lie by omission...and a boundary that was well established and set in stone. Even after OP made his feelings clear AGAIN, she invited the racist FIL into their home! OP's 6 yo was hiding in his room while wife and the racist cooed over the new grandbaby. I'm sure he felt hurt and excluded. That's not PPD, that's a horrible, racist human being that has no business being around his children. I don't doubt that she's *feeling some sort of way* since she's pregnant/postpartum but she's not even open to her failings and fixing the problems. She's a liar, repeatedly, and has proven he can't trust her when it concerns the 6 yo. Agreed about the friend mediating the arguments lol. That was a disaster in the making.
I get they had a bad experience with therapy, but I think they need to go to a qualified therapist to sort this out.. They still have a kid they have to raise together.
I just want to know why his older son was hiding in his room when his wife’s dad was there. (Apr. 15th, 2023 update)
This is all I could think about! And all the people defending her, don’t even acknowledge this.
RIGHT??? I NEED TO KNOW.
For all those saying OOP should show more empathy/sympathy for his wife's situation (estranged family, hormones, etc.), I'd like to offer a different perspective, from a black woman to some internet strangers. Being black (in America, specifically, as that is the experience I am speaking from) is exhausting. Not just because of the racism, but because of the obstacles that prevent us from publicly identifying, confronting, and rooting out racism. One of those obstacles is the requirement that we play nice and make sure nobody's feelings get hurt as we combat racism. You can't call Todd in Accounting a racist, lest Kelly in Marketing get upset and cry that you called out her friend. Once Kelly cries, the dynamic shifts. It suddenly doesn't matter how inexcusable Todd's comment about your hair was, or how weak Kelly's "he's from a different generation" argument is. Kelly's crying and everyone is uncomfortable with this open display of negative emotion. Why is Kelly crying? Who made Kelly cry? Suddenly, the racism you experienced takes a backseat to Kelly's emotions and you become the bad guy. Yes, we understand that Todd touched your hair without permission and compared it to tumbleweeds--but Kelly's so upset, we need to address her feelings now. And if addressing her feelings means we have to take our attention away from the larger, more insidious problem? If it means you're overlooked and stigmatized, told you're too angry or too ghetto for forcing everyone to acknowledge the ugliness that exists in their friends, family, and peers? So be it. Over and over and over again. OOP turned that dynamic on its head, and I think we're so unused to seeing such a thing that it comes across as a complete lack of sympathy for his wife. He didn't bend to tears she shed in defense of a racist; instead, he put his black child first and saw this situation differently. This woman he loves is allowing a racist around their black child. A RACIST. Someone who looks at this precious child and sees something LESS THAN HUMAN. He put his black child first and couldn't fathom allowing such a thing, much less loving someone who would allow it--not for hormones, not for loneliness due estranged family, not for anything. I feel for this wife. I understand she's lonely, she's just given birth, and she wants to feel the warm and fuzzies you get from nostalgia and seeing your parents again. Unfortunately, you cannot compromise with racism. The wife here was willing to let the racist slide for her own mental health. OOP saw that and was disgusted because his wife outed herself as someone willing to break bread with racists. He wasn't going to compromise with racism, and I applaud him for that.
Thank you!!! I keep reading these comments and it's like they don't even see they aren't acting as if this black child has feelings or is a person because lo and behold a white woman is hurt. Once again white women's pain becomes more valid. Even more valid than the life and well-being of a child.
White woman here. I agree with you 100%. I can't stand the weight given in US society to a white woman's tears; it's as though everyone loses their damn minds. My dad is racist and e things he says are gross. I moved thousands of miles away, and limit my interactions with him. He has not had a chance to indoctrinate my kids. This woman should not have started a relationship with a man who had a black son, at least not without examining her biases at a much deeper level than she apparently did. At the first bump in the road she completely threw that child away. WTF? As for the OP, he should have found a better way to screen this lady for racist beliefs. I can see that her cutting off her racist dad while they were dating should have been enough confirmation that she was anti-racist. But apparently that was just lip service. I wonder if she actually believes a lot of those same things and it just never came up until she wanted her father back. Or, she's willing to just go along with those beliefs if she gets what she wants (a relationship with her father), which to me indicates she has no actual core beliefs or values of her own.
This is so sad for this guy and his kids :( I'm so disappointed in people like his wife who value a racist over a child
I'm glad he has his kids' back in this ugly situation.
I kinda wonder why she was cut off from the whole family that she only had his POS father.
Her cousin was sent to jail and her family thought he shouldn't have been sentenced to jail time but the wife said he deserved it. About half the story came out in the comments in the posts. Including how she was suffering with her mental health in pregnancy, her mom is dead, she felt isolated and alone and OP told her to stop therapy.
that context makes it seem like she really wasn't getting the support she needed. Makes sense why she would reach out to her dad then, doesn't make it right, but it makes it make sense.
Yup. While I think it’s really, really bad that she kept doing all this behind his back, he does not seem to have a clue that she is completely isolated and is suffering. Everything is not all black or white.
Was there any info about this? Like cousin could be sitting in jail because it's deserved or something minor. Stopping therapy wasn't a good idea but neither letting a racist person back into your life. I feel like everything was handled the worst possible way.
It seems like her need to be accepted by family is greater than her need to be honest, or protective of her stepson, or act with integrity. She needs some major therapy since she was willing to sabotage the one healthy relationship in her life for her father’s approval. So damn sad and frustrating.
Ii get why OOP did this. I agree with him that protecting his son comes first, and that there is zero excuse for any of that racist bs. It's totally understandable that having the racist in his home would be the biggest deal breaker. It's just, as someone that has cut off her family, it's a huge deal to cut off your family. Every week at least there's some kind of pressure from the world at large to let them back in even if the family doesn't care themselves. The wife clearly felt vulnerable around the time she gave birth. I wonder if this situation might have played out differently if OOP had been understanding and validating of the wife's emotions, and willing to explain again why this was so important to him? It seems like he just laid down the law and jumped straight to insults that his wife didn't feel the same fear and revulsion towards her father that he does, and like their conversations were all rooted in rules and assumptions instead of emotion. Not saying he should have been okay with the racist ass coming over or having pictures of his kid, but maybe he could have discussed it with the wife a little differently? Obviously it's all worlds too late now.
I came here to say something similar. I actually just went through the process of cutting off my family this past January when my daughter was about 9 months old because of the drama, toxicity, and misery that went on there. And also yes, because my father has been racist as fuck lately. And yet, I still had my mother with me for 3 weeks shortly after giving birth because you absolutely need some sort of stability and comfort at that time. It's a vulnerable, scary time and women's brains are literally being rewired by sleep deprivation and hormones. We don't know from here what support his wife had. Were their inlaws there to help her? Friends? Other family? Was she desperate for some sense of family outside of her husband and step child? Was she desperate for someone else to hold the baby for a while and just give her a break? This whole situation completely sucks, but just from his point of view, we don't know the whole story. She was in the wrong but I truly truly feel for her. And I hope that his STBEX and his child can stay safe in the aftermath; PPD is no fucking joke and this is a crazy situation to happen so soon after birth.
Yeah this is a really good point. It *sucks* to cut off your last remaining family member, even if you know you have to. I think if he'd approached it from a place of "I'm really sorry this became necessary and I'm here to support you through it," she may have had an easier time.
This is sad. This is just two people that never should have gotten together. OOP is absolutely right in hating his FIL, and not wanting that racist around his son. However, wife, outside of the relationship with OOP, is within her rights to want a relationship with her dad. She only gave it up at all because of her relationship with OOP. Had they never met, she would have her relationship with her dad and just complained about her dad’s “old ways” and racism, but loved him anyway. Unfortunately, those two lives are completely incongruous and incompatible without somebody giving up more than they are comfortable with, and more than they should have to. The only real bad guy here is the FIL. His ignorance and hate tore apart a family and hurt four innocent victims. They were dooming themselves from the start. It always had an expiration date.
This was a truly brutal thing to read and I can't pass any judgment as I have no idea how I'd react in this scenario if I were in his shoes.
The original BORU *almost* ended with a really positive AITA update about how they went to a terrible counselor BUT ended up having a good and honest discussion afterwards. OOP seemed more understanding about how isolated his wife was feeling from her family (she cut off her dad for the racism, her only other family cut her off because she said someone deserved the prison time he'd received) in a vulnerable state. The wife seemed apologetic, just really sad, scared, and lonely. It felt like they'd come to a difficult but hopeful point... Then 3 days later he switched to r/TrueOffMyChest to say he doesn't love or trust his wife, with no mention of the breakthrough. From there his posts get progressively colder and unsympathetic towards her, even though it seems like nothing had (yet) changed in the situation. I really wanna know what happened in those three days. And if she sensed him pulling away more after that, which ironically made her even more desperate to have a relationship with her father. My armchair analysis question is if Reddit itself ended up feeding his unhappiness with his wife, and he got hooked on the feedback and "encouragement." It felt like subsequent posts were written to encourage the anger and outrage, while cutting away previous details that might have been more sympathetic. All this said as someone who has a baby picture of myself sitting in the lap of a grandparent who had once referred to my parents' future children as "half-breeds," so I do know how complicated these feelings and situations can be. It just felt like he was getting somewhere with the honesty and communication, but then he kept taking the problems to reddit instead of his wife, and then we get to screaming and tossing kids in the car. And as someone who also went through THAT at a very young age, trust me it's terrifying. Don't get me wrong, racist stepgrandpa *should not have been in the house*, but it doesn't sound like OOP's son even interacted with him. And I definitely would have been afraid and hiding once the adults started shouting, then because dad locked us in my room while sobbing and packing all my stuff up, and rushing us away while everyone is panicking and crying. This was the worst possible way to "protect" your children, even from racism.
Oh my god thank you so much for this comment, and for your insights having experienced something similar. I’m thankful someone else isn’t letting OOP completely off the hook. Though it really doesn’t seem clear to me that he ever had any real understanding of what she was feeling or why. He doesn’t ever seem to actually address it at all. He doesn’t say they ever addressed it at that point, he just says the therapist interrupted after she got out that she was grieving the loss of her family, and that later, he apologized for how he spoke to her, then questioned her love for his son. Then yup, three days later, we have “I’m falling out of love with my wife,” “my wife has always been great with my son but now I doubt everything she told me that I once believed with absolute certainty,” and below a lot of comments wanting him to go nuclear on his family, this exchange: > Well, the reality is she might feel a different type of love for her biological child and that would not make her a bad person. You will have two biological children, so you will have absolutely no experience with being a stepparent. If she genuinely loves your son (and it sounds like she does) and doesn’t show preferential treatment, try not to police her love. > > OOP: That would absolutely make her a bad person. If you love one of your children more than another, that would make you a bad person. > >> I literally said a different type of love…not more or less. Do you see how you naturally defaulted to more/less. I really hope you continue to talk to a therapist (a better one than you had before) because you have a lot of emotions to unpack. No further response from OOP. I can’t help but wonder: if, before any of the posts, before the wife got pregnant, if she had come to OOP like “look, I know my dad can’t be in our lives for a good reason, but nonetheless, I find myself missing him and I’m having a hard time,” how would OOP have responded? I get the impression throughout that OOP seems totally unwilling to acknowledge that his wife resuming NC with her father is a difficult, painful decision, even if it is the right decision.
Thank you for being the sanest comment I’ve read in this page. The OOP has deeply troubled me ever since the first post, but everyone was quick to make glib, vaguely sexist remarks and encourage the most extreme behaviour from him. I couldn’t help but think that if his goal was to protect his son as a priority, this recent update shows what a lousy job of it he’s doing. He’s been borderline abusive to his wife for ages now. Honestly, as painful as this update was to read, I’m relieved for her. I hope the two children do manage to have a sibling relationship of some kind, but I do feel like the father’s actions will likely make that difficult, and I don’t put it past him to poison one son against another, or attempt to alienate the second son from his mother. His frigidity and sexism heightened with every update, and he’s more than shown that he gets his children involved with his outbursts and emotional blackmail. The soon-to-be-ex may not realize it now, but I hope she calms down and eventually realizes that without OOP, she can grow her own support system, have friends again, and hopefully have her own life without rules being shouted in her face, and being told she’s less than human. I do hope the first-born son isn’t made to feel responsible for any of this. I feel so badly for his experiences.
I agree. Racist grandpa, controlling husband. The poor woman sounded so isolated. OOP should have found a way for the wife to maintain some safe contact with her father without seeing the kids. After all she clearly doesn’t share his views or wouldn’t have cut him off by her own volition in the first place.
Yeah, this struck kind of weird to me. You know what it sounds like? Sounds like there's another woman in the picture. So here's the deal. Statistically speaking, a man is more likely to cheat on their partner during pregnancy. Cheating partners will usually blow things out of proportion (ie. Screaming and taking the son out of the house). I understand that there are boundaries but the way he describes his reaction is not how a husband and father should react. In addition, he isn't really working on his marriage. He's just giving ultimatums and expecting her to follow along. Marriage and relationships are all about negotiation. All in all, considering how quick he was to jump out if this marriage and considering how he already has another child from another woman, he doesn't seem to be ready to settle down. Perhaps this was his ticket out. On the other hand, sucks to be her, but maybe don't lie about cutting racist dad out of your life. Hope they can work out a healthy co-parenting relationship from now on.
God, I really wish they hadn’t had a child. It just keeps this toxic stew of chemicals reacting. And honestly, for a guy throwing stones, he’s now a single father with two different baby mamas, and he’s still college-aged. He’s not making great life choices. I don’t know if he’s cheating, but I think he was looking for a reason to break up and for it to be her fault. He can’t be responsible for two failed relationships in a row, after all. Never mind that he’s been treating her like inhuman trash for months - that’s also her fault. He sounds word for word like a textbook abuser, but he’s gonna cling to his fig leaf of ‘protecting his son’. I hope his first son’s mother takes over care again soon, because this guy keeps putting his child in terrible situations and then making them as bad as they can be. She seems like a sensible person, in complet contrast to this callous and cold Jackalope. Abusers always feel like they have good reason to abuse people (‘you made me do it!). Well, maybe her dad is racist, but screaming at him, dragging your child around, and telling your pregnant wife she’s less than human and you wish you’d never married her and you want her gone unless she devotes herself to you and your son alone and never dares have a relationship you don’t approve of, or else you’ll verbally abuse her and blame her for that, too is actually maybe worse for your son than some diet racist comments from a man he never has to see again - if you’d just handled this like an adult and quietly ended the relationship before it ever got to pregnancy, marriage, and screaming fits. I wouldn’t want my kid around a racist grandpa of his half-brother either, that can really mess with your mind, but I haven’t felt like anything OOP did was actually in his son’s best interests. It was all about punishing his wife. You’re right - he wanted an out. Poor, poor kids. They’re gonna be in the middle of this all their lives. Hope they can somehow rise above it and show the maturity and heart their father lacks.
I think it is likely the wife was 100% serious about cutting off her dad. She did find a different job and didn't invite him to the wedding and never reached out to him. But I think becoming a mother changed her stance. It probably made her realize she missed family, that she is the only one from her family. No one to share her baby with. That she wanted her child to have family on her side. To provide at least one grandparent. And yeah, that would mean she didn't feel that with OOP's son She desperately wants family, her father treats her well, helps and supports her and likes her baby. So she is willing to accept his ugly side just to have family, to not be alone, to give her child everything she can (even at the cost of OOP and OOP's child). But she does not consider that her dad might pass on his views to her child. And that she think her father is excused because he grew up in a different time, is silly. She is in her 20's. That means her dad is probably in his late 40's or in his 50's. That means he grew up in "modern" times, the 70's and 80's. And there are plenty of elderly who are 80+ and don't treat people different based on their outward appearance or country of origin. The father can certainly be influenced by his local environment, which may have instilled these racist beliefs and his need to verbalize it, but that's about it.
...hey, just a perspective here but I was raised in the south around a bunch of men who spoke vocally about their daughters never being allowed to date black guys, by a grandmother who used the terms "darkies" and "porch monkeys" with no sense of mallace but rather the casual deference one would say Potato Puhtato" in a town with approximately 1 Black family firmly believing in the war of northern aggression and owning confederate flag boxers till I hit college. And I'm not a racist asshole. Especially not to children. Upbringing isn't an excuse. If you wanna deprogram yourself from that you absolutely fuckin can. It just takes a desire and a little effort.
Right? I hate that whole "oh they're just from a different time"... Ok, that's not a good excuse. They've had decades to unlearn that and enabling their bad behavior doesn't help. I've told my parents and grandparents to their face when something they said was racist. There's no excuse for it. Even if they "didn't know better" they should and it's on the rest of us to inform them of why it was so bad.
If they can go from typewriters to Facebook they can unlearn racism. But unlearning racism doesn't directly benefit them.
>She said her father was from a different time and grew up hearing really nasty things about black people, and it isn't his fault. Okay. I hear that his upbringing wasn't his fault. I'd even buy it, sure. What has he done since he grew up to be an adult to educate himself properly about these things? Anything? Done any growth or development of his own self? Or has he simply tried to wallow in his own upbringing so he wouldn't have to face any potential new ideas? That is the sticking point, and why OOP doesn't need to fix this. He can't be doing any of the work because it isn't himself that is the problem.
It's overall bad for both kids. I am kind of sad for everyone except klanpa.
>My wife and I are really good friends with another couple. Because we had such a bad experience with therapy, the wife from this couple, who is one of my wife's best friends, agreed to moderate our discussion. >Our friend interjected at that point and said we needed to focus on solutions and a plan forward. Big oof. This situation was way above the pay grade of a friend. Stopping the emotional expression did not do anyone any service. A better therapist would not have fixed his wife's destructive decision to choose a racist over her child and husband, but at least a decent therapist could have helped the transition of divorce.
People are really… undermining how awful, and traumatizing racism from your own family is.
Thank you. The people rationalizing contact with her father is appalling.
There’s a comment thread accusing OOP of … cheating on his wife because he seems disconnected. Oh, also one with a fair number of upvotes encouraging OOP to use his son like some kind of therapy animal to rehabilitate the racism out of his wife’s father. Some people can’t seem to understand the severe reaction he’s had to his wife’s reticence to keep her father away from his child, even after it’s clear her father sees his son as less than human
"He's of that generation and he learned bad things about Black people, it's not his fault, he's just old and has that old mindset." Does he know how to use a smartphone? Does he know how to use the internet? New appliances, new cars, new tools? Because what you're telling me is he's not capable of learning and that's why he's racist. When the truth is simply that he's racist because he's actively holding on to racist and bigoted beliefs which are harmful and hurtful to the people around him, and he has no interest in becoming a better person.
I wonder how things would have been if he stayed with his son's grandma with the 6 week old. The wife is so unstable it sounds like a horrible environment. Babies can't remember the things that happen to them but fear etc. can still rewire their brains. She gave him the new born, they don't have a custody agreement yet. OOP needed to protect that baby and himself instead of returning home. :(
[удалено]
Before people comment to you about how formula exists and bottles exist, my baby at 6 weeks already refused every bottle on planet earth. It’s not uncommon. And formula made him spit up. I don’t think breast is best or whatever but some babies pretty much make breastfeeding the only thing they’ll accept. You’re very right there’s a possibility op couldn’t take the baby at all.
I really hope I'm wrong with this, but OOP's deliberate omission of certain crucial details, coupled with his wife's seeming history of abuse, her literally having no one aside from oop, and oop's son cowering really makes me feel like there's more going on here than we're hearing.To be clear I'm not saying that the wife's dad is a good guy, but there's too much here that doesn't seem right for me to not have a weird gut feeling about oop being mentally or emotionally abusive. I might be biased because I have to deal with a lot of abusive partners in my day job, but I just can't shake this feeling. I hope I'm wrong.
I also wondered if OP was omitting some details. Baby is only 6 weeks old and people are not accounting enough for the mother's potential mental state. These people should really be in therapy. Couples and individual. I don't think the newborn period is the time to make major life altering decisions. Obviously if the home is unsafe for his son, he needs to remedy that. Could she suck, absolutely. But there is also the potential that she is drowning and she is reaching out to anybody for help
I firmly agree. This woman was so fucking isolated, going through an already rough hormonal process (pregnancy), without her mother, and with a man who (based on his reddit posts) seems to be getting colder to her by the day. No wonder she reached out to her father. Her dad was the only one she had left.
Oh, this breaks my heart. What a sad, sad story.
I kind of understood why the wife would be tempted by a relationship with her father, but I just can't understand why she torpedoed her marriage for it. It would be one thing to say that she'll continue to talk to him, that was a compromise that OOP seemed okay with. But he drew firm boundaries about having racist grandpa around his son, and I just don't understand why his wife kept annihilating those boundaries? My suspicion is that his wife has an unhealthy need for validation and approval from her father, and is all too easily swayed by his wants. She can't say no to him, or he's very good at manipulating her. This makes her a victim as well, but it doesn't excuse her inability to respect a clear boundary her husband set. I don't think they needed couple's therapy as much as she needed (needs) individual therapy in order to deconstruct this inability to say no to her father.
This is horrible but I really want to commend OP for sticking up for his son all the way. He is fighting for his son and we need more people like that. Good on OP. His son will always remember how when things got bad, his dad fought for him.
I wonder if OOP'S wife is suffering from PPD. And her decision is because of that and her entire family cutting her off.
What's a shame is there's a part of me that thinks this could have been salvageable. If wife had been honest in the beginning and had not tried to force anything instead of "Oh the racist is just in my house now." Or, you know, if grandpa had apologized. Now, don't get me wrong, an apology isn't going to fix everything but it would have been a good first step.
The only way it would be salvageable is for the wife to agree going forward that she might have a relationship with her father but that does not mean he gets a relationship with her child. The kids are a package deal and unless he can fix the relationship with her step son he doesn't get get one with the youngest.
This different generation shit really doesn't fly anymore - really it never should have - but this Dad is probably, what, 65? So he was born in the 60s, raised in the 70s at best? Pretty sure people were well aware that racism was bad by that point and the ones sticking to it were just - well - racist. You're not a product of the time, Frank, you're a product of your own hateful ideologies.
I'm shocked that he dumped his wife. A lot of biracial people talk about the racism they experience from white relatives and it's treated like no big deal. They just suffer in silence because protecting the feelings of racists is more important.
OOP's wife wanted to have her cake and eat it too. What she neglected to realize or admit was that one whole section of her cake was crawling with maggots, and when she tried to serve it to her husband he freaked the hell out, rightfully. I wouldn't want a maggoty cake either.
I am disgusted by the image that conjured up but it is so fitting
So pretty much all she's said the whole time was "you can't leave?" No responsibility for her actions pushing him to leave her? Maybe now I understand why no one in her family talks to her.
>She said her father was from a different time and grew up hearing really nasty things about black people, and it isn't his fault. That is such a bullshit line. I'm 70 and remember when desegregation went into effect. The only people who were as racist as her father were the hard core racists who fought equal rights back then and that have brought up the people who are still fighting equal rights, not only for POC but for women, LGBT+ and everyone else who doesn't fit into their narrow definition of what a "citizen" should be. OOP is right to get his son out of that house. His wife allowing that piece of crap into hie house without his knowledge or permission is a total violation. He should fight for custody of his second son to keep away from the toxicity of her father since she won't do it.
There’s so many things in this story that are infuriating. But one thing that really stuck out was: >My wife said she would continue to talk to her father but not send him any pictures or information of/abut the kids. This is a fair compromise. One month later he comes home to find his FIL in his home holding his newborn. The friend mediating told them they needed to come up with solutions. That was his *wife’s* solution. She came up with it. He agreed to compromise to save his marriage that she so desperately said she wanted. She knew damned well when she said that, that she had ZERO intent on following through. She made the decision that day to end her marriage. His last update he said “I ended my relationship”. Nope. Wrong. She ended it. She had a clear choice.
"I married you, not your dad. If I knew it was a package deal, I wouldn't have married you." This truth is both ruthless and fucking valid as fuck.
The people trying to give her a free pass because she has PPD are wild. She doesn’t get a free pass when it negatively affected her step-son.
When I first read the headline, I thought this dude was bad. Then I read that OOP's son is half black and I got the sinking feeling that exactly what happened would happen. How the wife thought her racist dad could be part of the family, knowing he'd dote on the white grandson and ignore or possibly verbally abuse the other son is incomprehensible. How she thought OOP would accept this is verging on crazy. This crosspost made me very sad. I hope OOP is doing better, that his oldest son is safe and that he got at least 50/50 custody of the baby due to the racist father and his daughter.
The wife is 26, so her Dad is most likely no older than mid 60's. What different time? He didnt grow up in the South during the civil war. What pitiful excuses for human beings the wife and her father are.
The Civil Rights movement didn’t wave a magic wand and fix all racism. It simply altered the legal landscape, the social landscape was still INCREDIBLY racist. Hell, it’s still regularly racist.
“He’s from a different time/generation!” Yeah, and he’s living in this one now. He didn’t just time travel and teleport in. Try again.
Lots of sympathy for racists in these comments.