People Contemplate "Am I The Jerk" After These Situations Went Down

This is such a tough situation, but in the end, their son has the right to include or exclude any family members from his life as he wishes.

"Her parents always looked down on me, and I can somewhat understand why given my past and how me and my wife met.

At 23, I was a homeless man.

My wife was the first person who was nice to me. Almost got kicked out of this small restaurant when I was trying to avoid the rain. She was there and pretended that we were meeting, so they’d let me stay.

Got a free meal and we talked for a long time. She really helped turn my life around, stuff like helping me fill out job application. From there, we became good friends. 2 years after that, after getting my crap together first thanks to her, I asked her out.

Her family never approved of our relationship because they thought I was trash due to how my life was when we met. Which again, I get it. But after 4 years of us being in a relationship? Me having the same steady full time job to help with the bills for years?

They didn’t even come to the wedding. Then when my son was born a year after they still wanted nothing to do with us.

So we haven’t had contact in years since my son was a baby.

Now he’s 16, and they contacted us out of the blue. They still don’t care to talk to either me or my wife, but they were “willing to put their feelings aside” to get to know him. We never went into details with him about why we don’t talk to them, and he’s never asked much before.

We left the choice to him if he’d like to meet them. And he agreed to it.

He’s gone over to spend time on several occasions the past 3 months. Finally, the other day, he asks us why we didn’t keep contact with them. To him, they seemed like nice people, so he doesn’t get what the conflict was. They told him we stopped talking over a conflict we had but left out that they were the ones who didn’t want to see us.

So we told him the truth. My son already knows about my past. That’s something I never wanted to hide from him.

We told him they never approved our relationship because I used to be homeless, and they never wanted to be part of our lives since then.

He got mad at them, and now they’re mad at us.

My son doesn’t want to talk to them, and they sent us screenshots of some of the things he told them (no insults or inappropriate language but just what he thought of them). And they think we’re jerks because they were finally building a relationship with him, and we ruined it.

For now, my son says he doesn’t want to be involved with people like that. We’ve talked to him several times; he still hasn’t changed his mind. It was my choice to tell him why, and my wife supported that.

Now with how things have turned on, I wonder if I was a jerk like they seem to think I am."

Another User Comments:

"NTJ. You weren't spiteful or cruel. You didn't lie or even exaggerate. Heck, you didn't even go out of your way to stand in the way of their having a relationship with your son, despite everything your in-laws had done to hurt you.

The truth is this simple: If your in-laws had been more genuinely compassionate people, at any time in all these years, then your own son, who you've clearly raised to be a thoughtful young man, would have had more compassion towards them as well.

They are living with the consequences of their own actions, as difficult as that may be for them to face, and you are NTJ." FoolMe1nceShameOnU

Another User Comments:

"NTJ.

“Willing to put their feelings aside” doesn’t sound like an apology, like regret, or like they even acknowledge that they are the reason they are in this position.

It sounds like they got lonely as heck, and instead of owning up, they wanted to have you casually sweep their skeletons into the closet, so they could selfishly use your parental feelings to cross a bridge they’d burned.

If you look through my post history, you’ll notice I often get downvoted for advocating more centered and almost devil's advocate seeming viewpoints (because I think a lot of people jump to extreme “just cut them off” viewpoints where family is concerned here, but I grew up in cultures where family is much more integrated and core to the cultural identity).

Having said that: Y’all don’t owe them crap.

They want to rebuild, then they better actually put in the work and get to building; they don’t get to try to walk all over you like you’re a convenient bridge for the deep ditch they dug." Gaimcap