Original

I always said I’d never be the overbearing, jealous mother constantly thinking about my son and his relationship. I disliked it when my mother-in-law did that, and I was supportive of others in similar situations. But now I've joined this club and I hate it. I would never express these feelings to my son or his girlfriend, so I’m talking about it here.

Four years ago, my son ended a five-year relationship. Even then, I did a lot to help him out. He works long hours, comes home, eats, watches TV, plays video games, and that’s it. His house—both inside and out—needed attention.

Two years ago, he started dating a new girl (let's call her Ann). She’s very nice—polite, funny, and hardworking—but she’s also very particular, neat, and set in her ways, much like me, and unlike my son. He says she balances him out, which I’m happy about, but I recognize this is my issue.

Ann moved in with him a little over four months ago when she found out they were expecting their first child. Ever since then, I feel like I’m being pushed away. I've never felt this way before. I used to go over once a week to deep clean his house. He isn’t a total slob, but he’s not one to sweep, mop, or dust unless it's really bad. However, since she moved in, every time I visit, the house is spotless. Laundry done, dishes washed, walls and floors cleaned, and even his dry cleaning is taken care of.

What triggered all this was seeing her planting flowers and greenery at the front of the house and in the backyard—something I used to enjoy doing. While I work part-time, attend a weekly yoga class, and have other interests, this was something that had become a part of my routine and kept me close to my son.

I know this all sounds childish, but has anyone else experienced this petty jealousy? How do you stop yourself from escalating, especially if these feelings worsen after the baby is born? I’ve always believed in boundaries, but now I find myself becoming one of those people.

Comment 1: It sounds like you're struggling with reframing your relationship as fellow adults.

You recognize Ann is womderful for your son, but why not cultivate a relationship with her? It sounds like you both enjoy gardening, so leas with that. Offer to be whatever support they need and let Ann especially know you're willing to take your grandson when she needs time to herself

Also, you need to let your son be an adult so he doesn't completely depend on Ann for household labor. That's one itch that dooms relationshipa.

I'm glad you have the self awareness to realize what's happening and want to change it

Comment 2: You babied your son for too long it now feels like she’s actually stealing your baby. That’s how this reads, to me at least.

Reply: Agree. I’m a little shocked that any parent is cleaning their adult son’s house. No disrespect, just seems like he should be doing those things on his own now. Especially with a baby on the way

Comment 3: Girl, you were over there doing housework for your adult man child? You need to step back and recognize you’ve got attachment issues here.

I strongly suggest therapy. Get some hobbies. Treat your adult son like an adult. You know who I feel bad for? Anne.

All that time and you didn’t teach your son anything. Zero home training. Now it’s all her job.

She’s quickly gonna tire of doing it all but don’t you dare try to “help” by doing it for him. This jealousy is only the symptom of a whole host of issues here.

[AITA for not trying to be part of my estranged daughter's life?](https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/s/QxCMAk8cZn)

[Is my daughter better off without me? ](https://www.reddit.com/r/EstrangedAdultChild/s/sI2z0sOoAa)

[I stay in my abusive relationship because I believe I deserve it](https://www.reddit.com/r/offmychest/s/msgcVXbqBn)

Hi guys! I listen all the time (and just joined The Rich!) so wanted to share my recent post to [r/pettyrevenge](r/pettyrevenge) in case you’re interested; I know y’all are petty bitches just like me, so you’ll probably get a laugh.

About a decade ago I helped build up a small business with two former coworkers. The two of them left our former mutual place of employment to branch out on their own, and invited me to join them. Things were great until one of them (I’ll call him Greg) boss met and married a crazy woman in a whirlwind shitshow of a relationship that ultimately destroyed the business.

Alongside doing marketing and media for the small business, I helped Greg promote his side hustle. Not only was I doing the work for the business for well under market value (I had young kids, they were very flexible, that offset the lower pay) but I’d also help with the side hustle for free. It wasn’t much effort on my end to help him out, and I liked him as a person and wanted to see him do well.

Greg was older than me by about 20 years and absolutely shit with technology. He couldn’t take a decent photo to save his life, let alone post it online (he had no social media) so I helped him create a basic portfolio of images I stored, and helped him send those to clients in emails and texts.

All three of us were in long term relationships. The other owner, I’ll call her Ashley, and myself were both happily married to men we loved and had kids. Greg had never been married but had been with his girlfriend for more than a decade. A few years into the business, Greg’s relationship deteriorated and he broke up with his girlfriend.

Despite that being a potentially very upsetting situation, Greg seemed unfazed and even happy about it.

We were happy for him when he told us he’d met someone a few months later, in early January. She had just gotten out of her third marriage and that was worth a mental note, but the first red flag was her insisting she move in with him within a month. That was the beginning of the end of the business.

The new girlfriend had a wicked jealous streak, and hated that Greg’s co-workers were women. Despite going out of our way to be friendly and welcoming to her, it drove her crazy we worked together.

She started meddling and suddenly all my work was subject to her feedback and approval. It got real weird real fast, and within a few months I saw she was going to tank the business and I probably didn’t want to go along for the ride.

They were engaged by the first week of March with a huge ring she insisted she needed to represent Greg well in the community. It’s worth noting she didn’t not attend any functions in the community, and she and Greg lived about 40 minutes away from the community, so I don’t know how she sold him on that, but she did.

She began constantly criticizing the work I did, saying she could do it for him better. She had no training in things like product photography, marketing, photoshop, social media management or events, but she felt it was pretty easy and insisted I was taking advantage of him by getting paid $15 p/h part time with no benefits.

I quit the first week of July. Before I left, I had a respectful heart to heart with Greg. I told him I was sorry for whatever had happened to his fiancé that hurt her in a way that made her so uneasy with women working with him. I told him I was happy he’d found love and for all the joy she brought him. But that while his fiancé undoubtedly had many great things she could bring to the business, I couldn’t do my job well with her trying to do it as well. And since I knew I was leaving anyhow, and had genuinely cared for the guy as a person, I said I was concerned by the way she had already isolated him from his friends and family, and that now she was putting his business at risk as well. I said I knew it wasn’t my place to intervene there, but that maybe he should find someone who’s place that was, such as a therapist or counselor, to help strengthen their relationship before the marriage and set them up for success long term.

I left and they were married a few weeks later. None of his family or friends were invited. No prenup. He swore he knew what he was doing and everyone else was the problem.

I knew the wife was going to drive out the co-owner Ashley next and try to start a new business with her husband’s side hustle. I’m not particularly insightful, she was just painfully predictable.

So I quietly spent the next 7 months building a social media presence with the name of the sidle hustle. Greg didn’t understand any of that, had never claimed the name anywhere, and didn’t have an llc. I made sure to target my reach away from our local area, but his wife was too busy trying to ruin the current business to fuck around much on social media, so neither noticed my page presence.

I was their product photographer so I put a bunch of glamor shots of a similar product I threw together on my pages. Think high end pottery vs beginner level shit: mine was very basic but I made it look gorgeous. His was gorgeous but he couldn’t take/edit/upload decent photos or content. I never actually listed anything for sale, but I posted consistently, building a beautiful little portfolio.

Finally, the business I had worked for shut down in dramatic fashion after a downward spiral of screaming matches between the owners and the heinous new wife.

\\\*Shockingly\\\* uberbitch was soon thrilled to announce she and her hubby were going into business for themselves, and even had a new Facebook page.

…but unfortunately, everyone who searched for it was met with the full force of my algorithmic meddling. Every search on Google, every search on Facebook, every search on instagram…all got a first result of this other business with beautiful product photography.

Every post for the entire time I’d been building my petty darling had little passive aggressive captions: “Isn’t it time you get what you deserve?” Or “we pride ourselves on delivering the level of service you should expect!”

It wasn’t for money. It wasn’t a real business. It existed solely to fuck them up.

Because of the free help I’d given him before, he had no idea what it would cost to get anything visually comparable in a fair market. Their products looked like ass in every photo, their business never gained any traction, she had to get a job doing retail and he had to go work for someone else after having his own successful shop.

I’d feel worse for him if I hadn’t tried to tell him toward the end of my time there about my concerns for him. He said he knew what he was doing.

He didn’t. But I did.

It was obscenely petty, and when I told Ashley about it after the original business collapsed it was a soothing balm for her in a dark time.

Stay petty, friends. Sometimes karma won’t serve itself, and it’s delicious slowly simmered.

Original Post

I'm a 34 year old man married for five years and my wife and I recently bought our first house. It's not huge, but it has a nice backyard and enough space for family dinners. My parents were excited when we bought it and immediately started talking about hosting birthdays and holidays at our place.

The problem is that my parents have never really accepted my wife. They aren't openly rude to her but they constantly leave her out of conversations make plans with my siblings without telling us and act as if she's just someone I brought along rather than part of the family. Last month my younger sister hosted a birthday dinner for our mother. Everyone was invited except my wife.

When I asked my mother about it she said my sister wanted a small gathering and that I was welcome to come alone. I refused to attend because I wasn't comfortable celebrating with everyone while my wife was deliberately excluded. My parents accused me of making a simple birthday dinner into a family drama.

A week later my father called and asked if they could hold our family's annual holiday gathering at my house. Apparently, my sister's apartment is too small this year and my parents thought my backyard would be perfect. I told them I wasn't willing to host family events when my wife wasn't being treated as an equal member of the family. My father said I was punishing everyone over one dinner and that family gatherings shouldn't be used to settle personal disagreements. My wife told me she doesn't want to be the reason I lose my relationship with my parents, but she also admits she's tired of always being the one expected to tolerate everything to keep the peace.

Now my siblings are saying I'm being controlling because it's my parents' tradition, not mine, and refusing to host will disappoint the whole family. I don't want to cut my parents out of my life. I just want them to understand that they can't exclude my wife from family events and then expect to use our home whenever it's convenient.

AITA for refusing to host family gatherings until my parents start treating my wife like part of the family?

Comment 1: I keep reading so many posts like this.

FUCK YOUR FAMILY.

You chose your wife. You didn’t choose your family, they were accidents. Time to cut them loose. Don’t put up with their childish ignorant entitled behavior.

PROTECT YOUR WIFE.

Comment 2: If your wife isn’t good enough to be invited to your family’s social events, she’s not good enough to provide her home for their social events

There is already no peace with the way they are treating your wife. They want you to be ok with their behavior continuing while using you and your wife’s resources

Is she a different race? Different religion? Different ethnicity? Why do you think they are treating her like this

Just ignore them. They don’t deserve to use your home. NTA

Reply: I'm sure not only do they want to use her home, they leave their entire fucking mess for her to clean up after them too.

These people are vile. OP should cut them off at the knees. OP married his wife and she's his number one family member now building his own family with his wife.

His parents can use their own house or rent a place for family gatherings. OP should not continue to subject his wife to this bullshit. If he does, then she deserves better than him, and he should let her go. Because now OP is his wife's problem and not his family.

I feel so sorry for OPs wife. She married into a horrible family. They will treat her kids even worse and exclude them too one day.

Comment 3: OP, respectfully, you know your parents' and siblings' behavior is wrong. And if raising the issue only makes them play the victim and gas-light, they're still not "getting it."

Let them know that their attitude stinks and that you won't be bullied into acting like their behavior hasn't been toxic. Stick to your guns and keep them from using your home for "their" gatherings until they see the light. NTA

Sean, if you ever need baby name ideas lol. Uy Pilipins!!!!