People Ask Us To Confirm That They're To Blame For Their "Am I The Jerk?" Stories
34. AITJ For Not Wanting My Friend And Her Significant Other To Stay At My Apartment?
“I (23F) just recently moved to a new state about 6 months ago. Without giving my exact location, just know that it’s a hot tourist spot within the US. I have a friend (22F; let’s call her Hannah) who has a significant other (22M; let’s call him Robert) whom I am not very fond of.
I have been friends with Hannah for quite a few years and we have history. At one point, I considered her my best friend but we’ve just had many falling-outs over the years and she doesn’t treat me as well as she should for being my ‘best friend’. Never makes an effort for me but would expect me to drop everything for her whenever, talks behind my back, can be very rude, etc. We even had a falling out as recently as last summer, where I kind of decided that I was okay with never speaking to her again because I’m just sick of it.
I’m the type of person who hates confrontation and felt like even if I explained my feelings to Hannah, she wouldn’t care anyway and would gaslight me. Sometimes I question why I’m even still friends with her but I think after so many years, I’m just attached in some way.
The falling out we had this summer stemmed from her SO, to whom I introduced Hannah.
Her SO has always been very rude to me: doesn’t say hello back to me when I greet him, says rude things in a conversation under the guise of a ‘joke’, and just is disrespectful to me. All three of us were at a party last summer and I went to tell him a story, then he put his hand IN MY FACE and told me ‘Shut up, I don’t want to hear you talk’.
I tried to laugh it off as this is how he is to me, but as I began to try telling the story again, he said ‘I’m serious, I don’t care about your story’ and got up and walked away.
This happened in front of Hannah. To say I was shocked is an understatement, and Hannah didn’t say a word about it to stick up for me.
Later that night, I was venting to mutual friends about how much this hurt me and how I should go about talking to Hannah about this because I’m so sick of her SO treating me like crap and her not saying anything. I ended up never saying anything to Hannah about this, but the mutual friend whom I was venting to ended up telling her.
Hannah then cussed me out and told me how rude it was that I was ‘talking about her SO’ and he had every right to talk to me how he did. And I was so taken aback that we didn’t speak for months. She then apologized a couple of months later, but Robert never did.
Fast forward to now, Hannah says she wants to come visit. OK, great! A couple of weeks later, now her SO is involved in the visit. She asked if they could stay at my place instead of spending money on a hotel. No part of me wants to let him into my space, but I don’t want to cause any drama.
AITJ if I tell my friend that she and her SO can’t stay at my apartment?”
33. AITJ For Not Wanting To Share My Expensive Dress With My Stepsister?
“I (17f) have a stepsister Cara (17, nearly 18f). She has been my stepsister for 4 years now. My dad and her mom have an arrangement that neither of them buys anything expensive for the other’s kid. Fine by me. The previous year, I bought a dress, a pretty expensive one. My dad paid half and I paid the remaining.
I have worn it only twice. When I first bought it, Cara asked me if she could try it on. I said no, just because. She kept bringing it up, but I kept declining. She finally gave up asking.
Now, Cara has a habit of taking my jewelry/tops/jeans from my room while I am out.
At first, I found it weird that she would enter my room when I was out so I told my dad, who brought it up with his wife. She basically called me a jerk for implying her daughter is a creep. Then I realized she was right, and apologized but Cara and her mom have never let it slide.
She still does that, takes my things, wears it the next day, and puts it back again. She has never damaged anything. Dad says it is understandable as Cara’s mom and dad can’t afford as much, so he asks me to share sometimes.
We had an event at school a few weeks later so my dad’s wife asked me if I would be willing to lend my dress to Cara just for the event.
I don’t plan on wearing that dress to the event, so I don’t need it, but I just don’t want to. We wear the same size so I am not worried about the dress stretching out, but I just don’t want to share. I may have watched too many shows and movies but I got worried she might just take it and, you know, in anger ‘accidentally’ rip it or spill something, so I went by my older brother and his significant other’s place and asked them to keep the dress with them for some time.
Well, last night Cara’s mom asked me again for the dress, and I refused, she said I should be nice and just let her wear it for a day. I told them that I didn’t have it so I couldn’t give it to her. She got mad and asked me where it was, but I refused to tell her.
She got angrier and accused me of implying Cara was a thief.
Both she and Cara haven’t been speaking to me since then. Even my dad says he is disappointed in me, but my brother says it’s okay to want something just for myself. AITJ here?”
32. AITJ For Not Cooking A Thanksgiving Turkey?
“My husband’s grandmother used to host Thanksgiving for his family, but she stopped 10 years ago.
Then she passed away. Since we host dinner a lot, & they like our food, his family asked us to start hosting on years we have Thanksgiving with his side.
We agreed, but we hate turkey. We hate casseroles. We hate bland, processed foods thrown on top of other foods & are expected to eat the slop because it’s a ‘casserole’.
We like the gathering of family and the conversation. That’s what draws us to Thanksgiving.
But it’s a lot of work! After 2 years of working HOURS over 2 or 3 days making food we didn’t like, I told my husband I didn’t want to do traditional Thanksgiving anymore. It’s offensive to spend so much time & money making these things that neither of us enjoys.
So we came up with the idea that we would do Thanksgiving with a twist & make our own traditions.
So our 3rd year, we made roast chicken stuffed with beans, chorizo, & lemon, braised in white wine. We made roasted sweet potatoes with bacon and Brussels sprouts. I made homemade cranberry sauce with rosemary & stuffed it into a brie, covered it in puff pastry.
It was beautiful & delicious when baked. We made rosemary & garlic mashed potatoes & rosemary & sea salt focaccia. We made a vegan mac & cheese & a bruschetta (for his sister, who is vegan and never enjoys Thanksgiving). I made tiramisu and vegan chocolate pudding. My MIL found out the week before that we weren’t having a Turkey or green bean casserole or sweet potato casserole or broccoli cheese casserole.
We didn’t hide it. We were excited when we told her. I printed menus & had a whole display going.
She shows up two hours early day of with an entire Thanksgiving meal. Dry turkey. Casseroles. Pies. We let her set it up with our stuff. I remade the menus and made labels for her sides.
When the rest of his family showed up, they only ate the mac and cheese that we made & the traditional things. They didn’t try anything else. (Except SIL: she ate all vegan items).
The next time we hosted, we told everyone that they couldn’t bring anything without clearing it with us first. No one asked to bring anything.
We made a roasted duck and a chicken. Some of the same sides previously. I made deviled eggs with bacon and chives. There were no leftovers.
This year, they asked if we’re doing a nontraditional Thanksgiving again. I said yes. They started asking about casseroles and a turkey.
And this is where I might be the jerk.
I said that we’ve already gone over this. I told them if they wanted traditional Thanksgiving, they could host and we would come and eat whatever they made and have the grace to not complain about it. But if they want us to host, they will eat what we serve. My husband stands by it, but my BIL and SIL think I should just make a small turkey for MIL and her brother to keep the peace.
So am I the jerk here?
Edit for clarity:
- THEY WILL NOT HOST. That’s why they go out to eat in the years we are with my family. No one wants the responsibility or the trouble. That’s also, I think, why my MIL only pulled her stunt one time. It must have been grueling making a full meal for 9 people by herself.
Which is also why I just made space. I understand the effort she made. Even if I didn’t appreciate it.
- They love the food. We test and tweak everything over the course of the year. We host dinner parties regularly, they all come and we learn their favorites. We have a 1-5 star rating system and everyone votes.
Anything less than 3.5 stars never gets made again. Some of my dishes are winners of competitions where I work. I am serving them food that I know they LOVE.
- Cooking a whole bird will not only take up my oven time (I only have one) for the things I planned to make and eat, but it will also require brining and massive prep.
We plan everything down to the quarter hour. There is a schedule so everything is simple and smooth. A full additional turkey complicates everything, and I don’t believe in being stressed while preparing a meal. That’s how things get burned. We cook with joy. I want to drink wine and dance and sing with my husband in my PJs while we cook.”
31. AITJ For Not Telling My Family That I'm Disappointed At Their Gifts?
“I (19M) am very much a gift giver, I set money aside for months to get my mom, grandmother, little sister, and brother gifts for Xmas. I asked each of them what they would like and even decided to knit some things for each of them because I got yarn for my birthday and decided to put it to good use.
Anyway, here’s my main dilemma:
A few weeks ago my mum asked me what I wanted for Christmas and that I had a larger budget than my siblings because it’s my last Christmas home since I’m moving out next July. I said I wanted things relating to my special interests (dinosaurs, music boxes, foxes, and dragons) I even made an Amazon wishlist of things just to give her an idea and she said okay.
Same thing with my grandmother.
Christmas comes and it’s present time, I stayed up late last night wrapping all my gifts and this morning I even made my grandmother cry (I had gotten her one of those necklaces where if you look into it it has a photo, and I chose one of her and my grandmother that I had taken back before he passed away in 2016).
Since I’m the eldest my presents come last in our family and I got…
Socks, and a gamestop giftcard (I work at gamestop).
I tried my best to appear like I loved them and then I saw the pile of things everyone got and I feel like my family just kinda forgot me.
I go to my room and I call my partner asking her to vent and I start crying because I just feel like no one actually listened to what I was saying when they asked what I wanted.
My mom barged in and started yelling at me, calling me ungrateful and that if I didn’t like what I got, I should have said so and called me a jerk for ‘being dishonest’.
I don’t understand. I don’t have the best grasp of social cues but usually, even if you don’t like a gift you’re still supposed to say thank you and act like you love it right?
Maybe I’m the jerk because I was too loud in venting to my partner? I’m genuinely confused and hurt.
AITJ for not telling them I was disappointed?”
30. AITJ For Thinking It Was Unfair That I Had To Make And Pay For The Pies?
“Recently a coworker of my (20s F) husband’s (30s M) lost her house and he said that he wanted to invite her and her kids over for dinner. She said they were not ready to go out and socialize, so he offered to bring food to them, and she said that would be okay.
Knowing how awful their situation was, I offered to make a pie for him to bring as well. I picked the pie I wanted to make and we went to the store to grab the ingredients we didn’t have.
As soon as we got in, I saw a grocery item that I wanted for our house, so I put it in the basket.
He asked if I brought my wallet and I said no, I use my phone to pay for stuff (I assumed he was asking because he wanted to only pay for the stuff for his coworker and that I would pay for the house item that I would also be using). We continued to shop and get ingredients for the pie.
When we were done, we went to self-checkout and he scanned the items and then just stood to the side. Confused, I asked ‘Oh, am I paying?’ and he said ‘Yes, that’s why I asked if you had your wallet’. I was a bit annoyed because he got enough for 3 pies (1 for his coworker, 1 for his work, and 1 for the house), all of which I could not eat because I am on a strict diet.
I was annoyed but didn’t say anything and paid.
We got to the car and I asked in a passive (not passive-aggressive) tone ‘What would have happened if I didn’t have the money to pay?’ He replied ‘Then we wouldn’t have got anything. You said you wanted to make her a pie’.
(For info, I have been unemployed for 6 MONTHS and only had $90 in my account and my credit card is maxed.) So I left it at that and we went home. I silently thought in my head that I thought it was unfair that I used half the money I had left in my account to make AND pay for food that I wouldn’t even be able to eat.
I recently switched meds that can make me irritable so I don’t know if I am just overreacting because of my meds and this isn’t a big deal, or if I actually have a reason to be annoyed. So please let me know. AITJ?”
29. AITJ For Driving Home After Finding Out My Mom's "Emergency" Wasn't Really An Emergency?
“My (22M) dad left my mom 4 years ago, he said he was ‘waiting for me to be in college to be over with her finally.’ This might sound bad, but my mother is horrible and she totally deserved it, she treated my dad (and pretty much everyone around her) like crap for most of my child and teenage years, her sisters cut her off, she doesn’t have any friends and my older sister (26F) abandoned her.
But silly me still has some soft spot for her, because she’s my mother and she’s utterly alone, so I still visit her some weekends, drive her around, get her groceries, and fix things around the house. I TRY MY BEST to have pretty much every Saturday or Sunday totally free just for her, but sometimes I just can’t.
I have classes from 7 am to 3 pm and I have a part-time job from 4 to 12, so sometimes I end the day totally demolished, my mom knows that there’ll be some weekends that I won’t be able to visit her, and while sometimes she understands it, she’s totally demanding that I have to be there whenever she needs me because ‘I owe her’.
She would rather go a week with only take-out and limited products than WALK TWO BLOCKS DOWN HER HOUSE to a small convenience store to get them herself.
These last 3 weeks have been rough, I have a huge pile of homework and projects that I have to finish, my job has been an absolute nightmare and I’ve been having problems with my roommate but I would rather live like this than move back to my mom and become her live-in maid that has to do everything for her.
Last Friday I was driving back home around 3:30, it was my day off so I was planning on sleeping all day. My mom called me and asked me to come home as soon as possible, I asked what was happening and she said she needed something, I said that my week has been pretty crappy and that I would rather just go to my place and rest, she promised it was an ’emergency’.
So I said ‘K, I’m on my way’.
When I arrived and asked what happened she said that she needed some milk, bread, and toilet paper. I said ‘WHAT? You said it was an emergency’ and she said ‘It is an emergency! I also need some stuff for the bathroom, you know what? Let me write it down.’ So when she got inside the house I just hopped back into my car and left. She called a few times but I didn’t answer and when I got to my house I turned my phone off and went to sleep.
I woke up around midnight, turned my phone off and I had a bunch of messages from my mom and some relatives. They called me a jerk because ‘I was already there’ and that ‘It was rude of me to leave my mother like that’ so I don’t know, AITJ?”
28. AITJ For Not Wanting My Mom To Marry Her Current Partner?
“My mother (36F) and I (16F) have a complicated relationship.
She is the classic absent mother who cares more about whatever guy she is seeing at the time than her own daughter and has always resented me for hiding my father’s affair from her when I was 11 (important later). Safe to say we are not close, but she has never let me go hungry and has given me a roof over my head, so I can’t really complain much.
I started going out with my significant other, M, when we were 12 years old, and almost 5 years later we are still going strong. He has met my mother countless times over the past 4 years, and I have met his father a handful of times as well, though we never introduced our parents (my mom only cares about herself and his dad is always working).
So, 3 days ago my mother told me she wanted to introduce someone to me. I knew she had been seeing a guy for a few months now, but didn’t really care because she’s almost always seeing someone new. This was the first time she had asked me to meet someone, however, so I was curious and decided to go.
We drove to a nice restaurant, walked inside, and she led me over to a table where my SO and his dad were sitting. I was totally shell-shocked and just stared at her while she grinned and introduced him as her new fiance and my future ‘stepdad’.
I walked out of the restaurant and my mom followed me asking what was the matter.
She told me it was rude to ‘storm out in a fit’, and I asked her where they met and if she knew he was M’s father. She told me they met at a parents’ night at our high school (which means there’s a slim chance she wouldn’t know who he was after one conversation) and said it didn’t matter if he was M’s father or not.
I told her it absolutely mattered because if they married me and M would be ‘step-siblings’ and would live together in some weird family dynamic that creeped me out just thinking about it. I told her I didn’t want her to marry him, and she said if going out with my ‘stepbrother’ bothered me so much, we could just break up.
I yelled at her and said that M and I were together for 4 years, and if anyone was breaking up it would be her and her 3-month partner. She said that her relationship mattered more because ‘she was an adult’, and that I owed her for ruining her marriage with my dad. I called her a selfish jerk who was just jealous I was in a stable relationship while she bounced around from guy to guy.
I walked away and went to my friend’s house, where I am currently. I’m really angry at her. She had to have known he was M’s dad, and if she somehow didn’t, how could she even marry someone without knowing their kid’s name? My SO has been calling me, but I don’t have the heart to answer, and my mom and aunt have been blowing up my phone with angry messages calling me a jerk for not supporting her ‘second chance at love’ when I ruined the first. I’m really starting to believe their words and am wondering if I was unreasonable and overreacted. So AITJ?”
Your mother absolutely started jerk him on purpose to "get back at you" which is ridiculous. Your mother is a selfish, POS, sorry excuse of a person and mother.
Answer your boyfriend's calls. Maybe you two can figure something out together.
27. AITJ For Refusing To Create Another Free Pet Portrait For My Mom's Friend?
“I occasionally do freelance pet portraits, just as a side hobby as I have a demanding full-time job. I charge £40-60ish for them, depending on size and detail and how many pets are in the image.
Not to brag but I put a lot of effort into them and used to get loads of commissions, especially Xmas’s I would end up with about 3 per week.
But I’ve been promoted at my regular job, so I stopped doing them so often, as I work 5-6 days and am always exhausted when I get home.
However my mum asked me to do one for her friend at work, I said yes and said I would for £40, explained it may take a little longer than before because of my job.
She was fine with it. I asked for a photo to draw from, and she sent a photo of a dog with his paws stretched out in front of him (they were patterned paws and looked really cute).
I spent about 2 hours every evening on the drawing, and it was finished within a week.
I sent it to her, and she said that while she was very happy with the picture, she didn’t like his paws in it and wanted a close-up of his head instead.
She then sent me another photo saying she would prefer that one. This annoyed me as I spent at least 12 hours on this drawing. I told her this and said I couldn’t do a whole other one for no extra pay. I asked for a photo to draw from because I drew the pose in the photo.
(I didn’t explain this at the time but I thought it was common sense.)
My mum told her it wasn’t a big deal and that I would redo it since there was no time frame. She also said I shouldn’t charge so much in the first place as ‘photographers only charge a tenner’.
I’m really annoyed and don’t want to spend another whole week redrawing the dog for no pay.
AITJ?”
26. AITJ For Being Annoyed At My Fiancé's Best Man's Wife For Prohibiting Him From Being Part Of Our Wedding?
“My fiancé and I are getting married next year. My fiancé is hard of hearing and his best man is deaf.
Both can hear partially with hearing aids. They have been best friends since they were 4 years old and my fiancé was his best man a few years ago. The best man’s wife is fully deaf, meaning she can’t hear and relies on signing and lip reading.
At their wedding I didn’t know anyone except my fiancé, but as he was the best man I just did my best to get on with it.
I wasn’t sitting with him during the ceremony or the meal. He was at the top table and I was at a table near the back with deaf people who I couldn’t speak to as I couldn’t sign. That was all fine as it was their day and I understood and wanted them to have a good time.
Now the best man’s wife has messaged us saying that she wants her husband to sit with her during our ceremony and not stand next to my fiancé. She doesn’t want him to pass us the rings and she also has said he won’t be doing a speech but will be sitting next to her during the meal. She has already said that her husband can’t stay overnight with my fiancé the night before the wedding which we have been fine with, even though my fiancé stayed with her husband when he was best man.
We have also previously said that we would put her at a table right near the front during the meal with my family so she can be near him. I have also said yes to her inviting a deaf friend of hers to my hen do that I don’t know so that she has company there.
I feel like we are trying to be as accommodating as possible.
The real problem is none of this is really about her deafness it is about control. I feel she is using her disability as an excuse. She has done this to him many times before and stopped him from going to stag parties and even wanted to come to his stag party with him because she doesn’t want him to do anything without her.
It’s getting to the point we don’t know how much more we can take.
My fiancé is so upset he can’t even talk to them so I have said they can either come and support us as best man or they don’t need to come at all. I need to know am I the jerk here?”
25. AITJ For Not Wanting To Share A Vehicle With My Smelly Coworker?
“I (30M) have been working at my company for 6 years. I am one of the top performers. I have been selected to travel to a conference in a city that is a 4-hour drive from my workplace. One of my other coworkers who I’ll call ‘F’ was selected to go to this as well as two other coworkers ‘C’ and ‘D’.
Our company is getting us a vehicle to drive over there. The problem with this is ‘F’ has a HORRIBLE body odor issue that I have already complained to HR about (although nothing has changed). ‘F’ literally smells like a rotten fish that has been left out in a dumpster in the hot summer sun.
I can not stand to be around her as she smells so bad. I have almost thrown up when I’ve been around her for an extended period of time. There is no way I’d be able to tolerate being in a car with her for that long.
I told my boss I’m not comfortable being in the car with her and I’d prefer to just drive myself over there.
They said this isn’t an option and I’ll have to drive over in the vehicle the company has provided with the others. After this, I decided to confront ‘F’. I approached her at her desk and straight up told her that she smelled like rotten fish and needed to take a shower as we should not be subjected to her horrible body odor, especially in a vehicle.
‘F’ started crying and saying I’d publicly humiliated her. My coworker ‘D’ and other coworkers not going on the trip said I was a rude jerk for humiliating her and that she has a medical condition that causes the body odor. My coworker ‘C’ said I did the right thing confronting her as this might be what she needed to hear in order to change.
He also said that she was lying about her medical condition. So AITJ?”
24. AITJ For Getting My Sister-In-Law Kicked Out Of My Wedding Ceremony?
“My husband (26M), Tyler, and I (27F) got married recently. Tyler has an older brother (35M), Mark, who has a fiancée (28F), Maria. Together they have a 3-year-old daughter (Martha).
Maria has never liked me. I’m quiet and she’s outspoken.
We just never clicked.
We got engaged in 2020 and planned our wedding for 2022.
Well exactly 9 months before our wedding, I got pregnant. We ended up pushing the wedding back.
During all of this, I let wedding details slip through the cracks. One of those details was the flower girl, Martha. To be fair I was horrible with telling Maria details.
A month before the wedding I took Maria and Martha dress shopping where I bought Martha’s dress, tiara, and basket.
A week before the wedding Maria called me because she didn’t know what time Martha had to be at the venue. Maria went on about how I was inconsiderate and inconveniencing her since she also had to get ready for the wedding.
I said ‘Whatever is easiest for you. You can drop her off in the morning and I’ll take care of getting her ready so you don’t have to worry and can get ready yourself.’
Now things had been much better between us during my pregnancy a few months earlier. I was 8 months pregnant when Maria called me to complain about Mark.
She kept saying she had PICKED THE WRONG BROTHER and it should have been her and Tyler instead. Tyler and I weren’t compatible and how he’ll regret being married.
After this call, I made sure to stay clear of Maria as it brought up a lot of insecurities in me (despite Tyler being literally the best partner).
On the day of the wedding, things seemed okay. That was until I was literally walking with my father making my way to the aisle when I noticed Maria at the bar which had been closed for the ceremony since it had ALREADY STARTED!
All the bridesmaids and groomsmen were already down the aisle. The only people left to walk down were my father and me.
Maria went to walk back toward the ceremony. To get to her seat she would have had to enter IN FRONT OF ME DOWN THE AISLE.
So right before she could get to the entrance I grabbed one of the people working the wedding and said ‘Do not let her go down there.’
So the worker grabbed her quickly and I continued on.
After that, I sort of forgot about it. I didn’t realize until the end of the wedding that I hadn’t seen Maria.
Turns out she had been talking about me to everyone. About how I had planned to kick her out of the ceremony from the beginning because I was jealous of her since she and Tyler were so close.
So she ended up leaving the wedding because she was so ‘unwelcome’.
Maria technically isn’t wrong. I did sort of kick her out of the ceremony. And I honestly hate her. Now Maria is telling everyone about how much of a bridezilla I am.
I feel bad now. I could have told the worker to tell her to just go around the building and to the ceremony instead.
But I didn’t think of that option at the time. AITJ?”
23. AITJ For Refusing To Break Up With My Partner For My Best Friend?
“So I have a friend, let’s call her Jess. Around a year and a half ago my relationship with my partner of three years broke down. I decided I wanted to take a break from seeing other people and was happy to just be single for a while.
Jess suggested I go out with her partner’s brother.
I was reluctant as I hadn’t been single long and wasn’t really in the mood but she insisted and insisted eventually wearing me down. We all went out as like a double date thing and the brother and I hit it off! Going out on several dates… Fast forwarding a year and we’re moving in together.
I couldn’t be more grateful to Jess for introducing us.
However… things have not gone so well for Jess and her partner (my partner’s brother). They’ve been together for around two years now but aren’t at the ‘moving in stage’ which upset Jess a lot.
She kept picking fights with her partner about why he wasn’t ready to get a place together, why his brother could commit to me after a year, and how he hadn’t after two years.
This led to a huge fight between them and he decided to end things with her.
Jess was a bit off with me after but we continued being friends just because their split didn’t mean anything had to change between us. But her attitude towards me changed after they broke up. She’d make comments about my partner constantly saying he’s ‘not good enough for me and I should just get rid of him’.
I ignored this for longer than I should have as I decided she was hurting and she needed support.
So tonight she was at it again slagging off my partner and I finally snapped and told her this needed to stop. That my partner had never had a bad word to say about her and that I knew she was upset that things hadn’t worked out with his brother but it’s not fair to attack my relationship.
Well… she flipped out. Screaming, crying, and yelling… she told me I either end things with my partner or we’re done as friends. I told her to leave then because this is not fair to make me choose like this. I don’t want to pick between the person I’m in love with and my best friend but she’s made it impossible.
Since then I’ve received messages from several of our mutual friends saying I should have been more sympathetic to Jess because she’s going through a hard time but I don’t think I can ignore this behavior anymore.
AITJ for not picking my friend when she gave me an ultimatum?”
22. AITJ For Not Eating The Food My Mom Cooked?
“I (20f) have a prawn allergy. When I eat prawns, even in the smallest quantities, my eyes swell so much to the point where I can’t open them.
I’ve gone to a doctor for this and they prescribed flu medicine. It works but the swelling can still take at least an hour to go down after I’ve taken the meds.
Right now I live with my mom and sister because apartment prices are really high where we live. It’s common for folks to live with their parents.
My dad’s work is far away so he doesn’t live with us.
The problem is that my mom cooks prawns regularly for family meals, even though she knows that I’m allergic. Every time she uses prawns in her cooking I get an allergic reaction and her reaction is always to say that she won’t cook with prawns again.
I have no idea why she is doing this. I asked her why, and she told me that it was because I like prawns. But I don’t (and have clarified on many occasions) and neither she nor my sister is a big fan of prawns. To manage this situation I have to take medicine every time I eat her cooking.
Recently, I had a busy schedule because of replacement classes, with a half-hour lunch break between my online classes. My mom made lunch for us again, and one of the ingredients she used was prawns. I didn’t want my eyes to just start swelling right before my class so I picked out the prawns and ate the rest. But my mom got really mad, saying that I was ungrateful and disrespectful.
Right now she’s still mad and has excluded me from family meals, telling me to settle all my meals on my own because I didn’t appreciate her. Should I have just done what I’ve always done, finish the food and take medicine afterward? Am I the jerk?”
21. AITJ For Going Off At A New Coworker?
“I work at a bakery and have for nearly 3 months now.
I’m one of 3 new girls. M is the person this is about and she started 2 weeks after I did.
I picked it up really quickly. M however, hasn’t picked anything up. She doesn’t listen to instructions and doesn’t do anything she’s asked unless our boss asks her to. She has to constantly be retaught how to do everything or if she does do something, it gets done incorrectly and someone else has to redo it.
She’s always on her phone, makes lots of careless mistakes, and prioritizes chatting with customers over doing something like making a sandwich she put through or going on to serve the next customer.
There have been a lot of things she’s done that have annoyed me but this is the only time I’ve ever snapped. We have a big oven out the back that we use to heat pies up to the correct temperature so they can be put in the pie oven to sell to customers.
This thing has a very loud alarm so you know when to tend to them and the alarm goes off twice. Every person was doing something, I was on the coffee machine and getting absolutely smashed when the oven alarm went off. It’s hard to concentrate when it’s on because of how loud it is.
M has been taught how to do it, by everyone INCLUDING our boss who doesn’t even handle the training part. I watched her walk right past the oven, not turn off the alarm and into the cool room which had already been done so there was no reason for her to be in the cool room.
We’ve actually realized it’s where she goes to be on her phone. I had to stop what I was doing and go deal with it.
Afterward, when it was quiet, I pulled her to the side and asked why she walked past the alarm and didn’t turn it off despite everyone else being busy either serving or making things for customers.
She said it was because she didn’t know what we wanted her to do with it so she just left it. I asked her why she didn’t go get someone and take over from them and she replied that everyone was busy so she figured someone would get to it.
I said ‘M, you have been taught by everyone how to do the pie oven.
At this point, it’s unacceptable and quite unfair that we have to pick up your slack. If you’re unsure, ask. Don’t just walk away when every single person is busy. We all have enough on our plates without having to make sure your jobs are getting done. Just do it and do it properly.’ I walked away after that and we didn’t even look at each other for the remainder of her shift.
I was still annoyed when I got home and was venting to my stepmum and she said that while she understands how frustrating it must be, I should’ve just let it be. Now I’ve calmed down, I’m unsure if I should have said anything at all.
So, AITJ?”
20. AITJ For Using My Partner's Money To Pay The Locksmith?
“My partner of 4 years and I are staying with his parents right now while looking for a house.
His dad has a mild obsession with moving the cars in the driveway to where he wants them. About 2 weeks ago this resulted in him locking my keys in my car.
My partner’s car needed to be taken into the shop after work so he needed to use my car the next day. My partner calls me and says, hey can you take care of the keys locked in the car situation today?
To which I said I will try my best. I responded this way because I had no idea how to go about this situation and I was also working. I work from home though so it is a bit easier than for my partner who works 60 miles away. His dad also has to leave the house for work.
So I simply Google searched keys locked in the car and found two places with good reviews. I contact the one with the better reviews and they are fast and efficient. The guy called me and said a technician would call me soon and I asked for the price at that time. The guy said the technician would quote me.
When the technician calls he does not quote me and I forget to ask him. I figured something like this shouldn’t cost a ton because it happened to my dad a few years ago when I was with him and it cost about $150.
So the technician drove 40 minutes to get here and then quoted me $290.
I felt terrible that he came all this way so I said ok. I figured this was a terrible situation I hope to never be involved in again.
I knew my partner had a stash of funds in the closet so I went and grabbed $300 to pay for the service.
Texted my partner after it happened and said hey, I’m sorry I feel like a total idiot but that cost $300 which seems high.
He called me shortly after and said he wasn’t happy about the cost but it is what it is. We didn’t think his dad should have to pay either because we live here for free right now.
Fast forward to last night. I forgot to tell my partner that I used his cash from the closet to pay for that so I brought it up because I don’t just do something like that normally.
He got very upset with me. Saying I was the one who got a bad deal on that so I should have to pay for that. To which I say, I don’t feel good about the price but I didn’t cause the issue to begin with.
At this point in our relationship I don’t even typically think about money.
I do pay for a lot and I know that. I was just under the impression that he didn’t really either since he said he wanted to marry me and get a house. He also uses the phrase, what’s mine is yours and I feel the same way.
So am I the jerk because my default on this was to just make my partner pay since his dad caused the issue?
EDIT: I should also mention:
- My spare key was in my partner’s backpack which he left in my car.
- I also was working all day and my partner knew that. He just felt I had more time to deal with it.
- My partner knew I was not experienced in this realm.
- I can’t call the cops in my area for this and even if I could why would I?
Other people actually need the police, not someone whose car isn’t running and whose keys are inside.
- I took accountability for the fact I didn’t shop around and I forgot to ask the tech the price before they got here, that’s on me.”
19. AITJ For Leaving A Bad Review On Our Wedding Photographer?
“So I (23f) married my husband (31m) in May of last year.
We got a recommendation for a wedding photographer and decided to go with her. She never met with us beforehand and kept canceling our engagement shoot included in the package we bought. We never ended up getting that shoot.
So the day of the wedding comes around and she’s super snarky. Saying things like ‘You are difficult to get in contact with’ and ‘Well I guess I will figure it out myself’ when I was busy.
She was super unorganized and just seemed uninterested.
We got done with the ceremony then told me that all the photos were blurry and that ‘it must be this lens’. I was taken aback that she didn’t check her equipment beforehand. She just kept doing little things like that. Also throughout the day, she kept getting more and more agitated.
When the night finally was over after her complaining for the last hour we told her goodbye. Well a few weeks later we asked when we would get our photos in and she said ‘In a few weeks’. Ok, no problem we didn’t receive them till 2 months after that. The photos weren’t even edited they just had a vignette on them.
Well, I wouldn’t leave a bad review just cause I didn’t feel like she did a good enough job. But as months went on I kept hearing more stories about how rude she was to our guests. How she wasn’t taking any photos during the reception. (we asked for the most photos then) She also apparently decided to use our open bar for our guests as a challenge to drink as much as she could and that’s why she was getting so agitated because she’s angry when wasted. When I found out I felt I needed to leave a review but I waited a couple more months after that to really let it simmer and see if it was worth possibly ruining a small business with it.
When I thought it over for long enough I felt like it was justified to leave the review so I went ahead and posted it.
She responded by saying she didn’t know I felt that way and seemed to not be too upset. But I’m now getting texts from people saying I shouldn’t have posted it and people are bombing her reviews with positive things to cover mine up.
So I was just wondering am I the jerk?”
18. AITJ For Choosing My Housemate Over My Mom?
“I (37f) grew up moving a lot with housing based on my mother’s relationships. This led to some unsafe situations for me, and I enlisted and left home as soon as I could. About 8 years ago, I bought a house. It was a really big deal for me to have a permanent home.
I was introduced to my current housemate, Cass (36f), by a mutual friend 9 years ago and we really hit it off. She has high-functioning autism and manages it really well, but can still go into overload with high physical/emotional stress to the extent that she can’t understand what people are saying and has trouble talking.
Due to this, she has to be careful about getting enough sleep, staying healthy, and keeping her work hours manageable (not the best income). When I bought my house, we decided that she could be my housemate rent-free (still paying utilities) in exchange for taking care of my house and property during my deployments. It was a win-win.
It worked out well. We are both very happy and have built a supportive, safe, and caring environment for both of us. A few years back, before shipping out, I offered to put her name on the deed so she was taken care of if anything happened to me. She didn’t feel comfortable with that but was okay with me putting it in my will just in case.
The point is I have viewed our house as OUR home, not just mine for years. I have since set my sights on life post-Navy, and we’ve both decided we are happiest in our unconventional arrangement and that it is for the long haul.
Here is where the conflict happened. My mother came to visit.
The three of us were talking and my career plans came up. She said that I would no longer need a housemate since I wasn’t being deployed so she could move in. I told her it was OUR house and she could stay in the guest room as long as she needed if Cass was also okay with it.
It was not a big deal at that point, but then she went off. Called Cass a number of things with ‘gold digger’ being the least offensive and saying Cass didn’t ‘deserve’ the house. Cass was clearly starting to struggle and started stammering. I got my mother out of there as fast as I could and told her if she could not respect us in our home, she was not welcome, and just because she uses people that way does not mean Cass does.
She yelled that she always kept a roof over my head, but I shut the door on her and didn’t hear the rest. I haven’t answered her calls and Cass said she hasn’t looked at the texts from her. This happened yesterday and it still makes me mad thinking about it.
However, she is my mother and I probably should not have snapped back at her.
So, AITJ for shutting the door in my mom’s face and choosing my housemate over my mother?”
17. AITJ For Not Helping My Ex With Our Dogs?
“My ex and I divorced close to two years ago and it was a huge, messy, drama-filled garbage fest which I highly resented because A. We have a kid together and they had to deal with that and B.
As far as you can assign fault in a breakup, it was hers almost entirely (no infidelity involved, but lots of other terrible crap).
One of the biggest points of resentment was over our two dogs, which she fought tooth, claw, and nail for, going so far as to give me full/primary custody of our child so that she could keep both dogs.
Fair trade to me.
Due to life circumstances, she now needs help with the dogs. Basically, I’d need to foster the dogs for a period of time, and then contribute financially toward their care after that period and probably dogsit.
Now, I absolutely COULD take the dogs. I have the space, and all that, and offered to just take them from her permanently.
That didn’t fly, and how could it, when she literally traded her kid for a chance to have them.
On the one hand, obviously, I don’t want to do ANYTHING to help her. I don’t want to have more interactions than I already need to have with her to take the best care of our child, nor do I want to be beholden to her schedule, whims, or anything else in a way that I’m not now since I get final say over where and when our child is with her.
Even outside of not wanting to help her out, our dogs require rigorous care for her standards, one of the main components of our break up. Their quality of life would necessarily go down in my household, but down from like Reincarnated Grandmother Edna in Dog Body to just… dog. Plus, I’ve gotten used to not having to run after two big dogs and frankly, after the years of madness surrounding them, it’s nice.
It’s how I want my house to be.
On the other hand, mother of my child and all that, and these were also my dogs for five years so I care about them and don’t want them to go to a shelter or worse situation. My child is also attached to the dogs and I don’t want them having to suffer just because I don’t want to deal with their mother.
Ex is pretty much constantly on a tear about how dogs are a lifelong commitment and it’s cruel of me to be so indifferent to how they’ll spend their older years. But you know what, a kid is supposed to be a lifelong commitment too and she didn’t care much about shirking that.
I just wanna make sure my bitterness over the breakup and how she is not in our child’s life in a meaningful way isn’t being taken out too much on innocent parties.
AITJ?”
16. AITJ For Wanting My Partner To Get Tested For Autism?
“My partner and I stumbled upon the topic of kids.
Since we both are gay cis men, we cannot have kids on our own. I said that I would be open to any form of having kids, and he said that he would only be comfortable with some form of surrogacy or basically anything where he is biologically related to the child.
I am on the autism spectrum, and my partner likely is as well.
The issue is, that he is in denial about it because he had pretty severe bullying issues in high school due to the word getting out that the teachers at his school treated him as though he was diagnosed autistic. He has had many social issues and insecurities due to this and refuses to look into a diagnosis, or at least get tested to make sure he is or isn’t.
This is relevant because when he mentioned he wanted biological children, I told him that I would not agree to children until he got tested for autism to confirm it or not. I told him that as someone who was raised in an abusive household likely due to my parents having undiagnosed neurodivergence, and mental issues, it would be unfair to bring a child into an environment like that.
I also said that he should know, because autism is genetic and we should begin preparing for the likely event that the child is autistic (ie parenting classes, researching what it means to parent an autistic child, etc.)
He got upset with me and began crying, and said that I promised to never bring this up and that I was hurting him by bringing this up.
I told him that I understand it hurts to acknowledge these things, but once you become a parent your pain is no longer your own and is shared by the family you are creating. It would be unfair to me and to the child to act as if nothing is wrong. He said that we would be good parents regardless, that his teachers were wrong to diagnose him, and that he doesn’t need to get tested or anything.
He’s really upset about this, and I want to spend the rest of my life with him, so AITJ?
Edit: Both my partner and I are young and still in college. Having children is a very far away prospect for us, so there is tons of time to change.”
15. AITJ For Getting Up Early To Be More Productive?
“I have been trying to implement a morning exercise routine into my regimen for the past 3-4 months.
I have fitness goals that I am trying to achieve and also just want to be more fit and mentally healthy. I try waking up at 4:30 and leaving the house by 5 to hit the gym or go downstairs and meditate or read on weekdays. Regardless, my goal is to be out of bed by 5 a.m. and do something productive.
My wife and I have been married for 7 years. She is not naturally a morning person and is an extremely light sleeper. Me rolling onto my back can wake her up. My wife has told me that she can’t sleep if I get out of bed for a variety of different reasons; the bed gets too cold, she likes having someone cuddling her because it helps her sleep, my alarm wakes her up and she can’t fall back asleep, her sleep is important to her.
She has said that we need to compromise and that I can’t get out of bed at 5 a.m. every day because she needs me in the bed in order for her to sleep, and she really needs her sleep otherwise it affects the rest of her entire day and throws her off her rhythm and negatively impacts her mood for the rest of the day.
This is where we disagree. I feel controlled and I feel like she is dependent on me to sleep. The best part of the mornings is that our kids are asleep, my wife is asleep, and I have time to myself to do whatever I want for 1.5 hours before the house is up at 6:30 a.m. It is the only time I have completely to myself.
It helps me feel in control of my schedule rather than my schedule controlling me. It also impacts my mood if I am up at 5 a.m. and just lying in bed doing nothing. I like that feeling of accomplishment in the mornings and I want this to be a part of my lifestyle. I feel extremely annoyed that my wife needs me in bed and that I have to limit my morning time.
I make it a point to be back home by 6:45 so that I can get the kids ready for school, changed, fed, and dropped off. My wife does not usually help with the kids in the morning and that’s okay with me and I do this to give her extra time in bed.
We go to bed together by 10:30 most nights unless I am catching up on work/grad school items, then I usually come to bed around midnight.
We are with each other pretty much all day because we both work from home. She works out usually between 11:30 and 1:30. On the days she doesn’t work out, sometimes I can squeeze in a workout but this isn’t something I can plan for because it depends on her workday whether she will work out or not.
This goes back to controlling my own schedule rather than schedule controlling me.
This is becoming a big issue for us. Am I being selfish for wanting to incorporate an early morning exercise/me time routine into my lifestyle on weekdays? Is there a way to compromise here? Any other couples facing a similar issue?
Am I the jerk??
Some additional details: My wife is okay with me waking up early 2-3 times a week, not every weekday M-F. This defeats the purpose of a routine for me as I want this to be a part of my weekly regimen. Not just some random days.
I don’t really know how she slept before, but she’s expressed she needs me by her side to sleep early in our marriage.
It didn’t bother me too much early on but now I’m getting annoyed because it’s been 7 years and I don’t think it’s sustainable to do this!
My wife is healthy and also pursuing an active lifestyle. In fact, she was the one who inspired me and pushed me to become fitter.”
14. AITJ For Hating My Dad's Friend?
“My mom (F 38) and I (F 18) hate my dad’s friend. So do the people who come over when he’s here, and basically the rest of my family.
My dad’s friend, we’ll call him John, has been coming for 4 days, every. single. week. to train with my dad. It’s after work hours (6 pm) and was only supposed to be for 45 minutes, 4 times a week.
He is over for 2-3 hours. He’s a normal guy who works in construction, but is a master in karate; he thinks he knows what’s best and that his opinion is always wanted and should always be respected.
When he’s here, he has commented on my mom’s eating and commented on my eating. I ate McDonald’s 2x in 2 weeks, so he goes ‘Oh you love McDonald’s don’t you?
That’s twice now.’ I am anorexic. He doesn’t know this about me, but regardless, it is never okay to comment on someone’s eating or body unless they ask for your opinion. He called my mom selfish to my dad because she’s a Virgo (we’re the opposite, actually) and wanted him out by 10 p.m., on a weeknight.
He assisted in getting my significant other (M 19) a job through an association, which my SO ended up having to regularly apply for like everyone else did. John thinks he’s the reason he got the job, and 4 nights a week, he lectures my SO about the money he’ll make, how he helps good people and that’s why he chose to help my SO, etc. My SO had to prove himself to get the job, he did the hard work and deserves to feel like he got himself the job.
Not from someone else, over and over and over again. Furthermore, he talks to him like he has no experience, and it bothers both of us. He makes me analyze my own father’s body to ‘see how good he looks and how muscular he’s gotten.’ I am not the one who should be looking at MY DAD’s body like that.
He has even told my friends to do the same, and it has made them uncomfortable. He told my grandfather, who suffers from depression, that the reason he has issues with his body is because he did it to himself. My grandfather stated he was also uncomfortable, and visibly looked embarrassed when he said it.
Every time he comes over, it’s a new thing that gets under my skin. It has made me dread going to my happy place; my home. He makes my mom feel like she has to hide in her own home like she did when my grandfather lived with us for 20 years, as he always wants to talk to whoever is on the main floor.
We complain to my dad, but he’s sick of it and has done little to establish boundaries (or they just haven’t worked). My mom and I feel that maybe we are overreacting, but I also feel like I’m not! So, are we the jerks?
EDIT: My dad is a great, sensible guy. He and my mom have a lovely relationship.
My dad’s issue is that he doesn’t have much of a backbone, and I think maybe stuck in a rock and a hard place, taking it out on us.”
13. AITJ For Making My Coworker Cry?
“I work in a small office. I’m a gay man in my late 40s who has always kept his romantic life private at work. Because I don’t talk about who I’m seeing most of my coworkers assume I’m single which I’m fine with.
I’m not friends with coworkers either so we don’t chill outside of work. That’s how I like it. I was at work one day, minding my own business at my desk when a coworker whom I have never particularly liked because I find her incompetent and annoying suddenly turns to me and asks, ‘Is it tough being completely alone at your age?’ I said, ‘Excuse me?
My private life is none of your business and is not open for discussion,’ to which she replied, ‘I didn’t mean anything bad by it. I’m just saying it must be hard being single at your age. I’m sure the global crisis has made meeting people difficult, and it’s only getting worse, huh?
Is that why you got Duke (my new puppy)?’
I paused and just stared at her taking in what she just said. I’ve worked with this woman for over a decade. She is only a year younger than me, recently pregnant, and is going on maternity leave very soon. Most in the office think she won’t come back due to the fact that she’ll be a new mom at 45.
We have a cordial professional relationship and never share our private lives with each other. So for her to not only overstep this boundary but to say something so insulting made me fire back. Knowing how sensitive she is about entering motherhood at her age, I responded to her, ‘Is it tough knowing that when people see you they’ll think you’re the baby’s grandmother?’
The color drained from her face. I later learned she was crying in the break room. I felt like she was trying to create some crap with me before she left. I have no idea. The only reason I can think of is that she has unexpressed long-standing resentment for me and felt she could say something now that she’s leaving.
It was a childish exchange of insults that should not have happened. Believe me, I’m not thrilled with myself for attacking a woman for the way she looks. It’s sexist and I’m ashamed of myself for having insulted her that way but I feel she deserved it.”
12. AITJ For Talking About My Weight Loss Journey?
“I (22M) am 5’8 and 135 pounds. I used to be well around 200. It wasn’t doing anything good for my health.
My health was slowly declining as it was so hard for me to walk up the stairs. I used to chafe really badly between my legs. I got permanent chaffing scars in between my laps. I have dark patches of skin on my sides, laps, back everywhere. It came to a point where I was depressed, miserable, and insecure about myself and my life.
Health restrictions were lifting up as we went back to work I realized I hadn’t been eating as much the past few weeks because I have ADHD and forget to eat every time I went to work so I’d only eat once a night because I work in a restaurant where there are no breaks.
I didn’t exercise much. I just started counting my calories and eating less than I was burning. I lost about 60-65 pounds in less than a year. Every time I told my coworkers or any peers who asked me about how I’d lost the weight there would always be one or two overweight people listening in on the conversation visibly upset that I was describing myself as fat, disgusting, and unhealthy.
Some went as far as to combat me on my own personal experience and some went as far as to call management on me to tell them I was fat-shaming people.
I’m so sick and tired of Americans trying to normalize obesity. I’m all for everyone being proud to be in their flesh, blood, and skin but I will never advocate for obesity when it comes to anything medical. All the offended obese people would assume and spread rumors about me having an eating disorder and that I was starving myself which didn’t make me feel too good because yes I was struggling to eat more, I was scared that I’d somehow magically gain 10 pounds overnight.
My sibling is also overweight and overheard me talking to a friend about how and what she shouldn’t be eating and he also was very visibly upset. I felt so bad and I would try and give him advice if it wasn’t for the fact that we don’t get along anymore. I feel like I shouldn’t be telling this to other people just to not offend people, like stepping on eggshells, the people I care about are overweight and obese and it makes me really sad they’d get sad or angry when they hear me talk about it with others.
(P.S. I don’t just go around talking about it with people. People usually ask me how’d I done it after they found out I used to be obese. The question usually came up when they see my horrible stretch marks.)”
11. AITJ For Being Angry At My Mom For Looking Through My Phone?
“I (24F) have been staying with my parents for the last 3 days because I am studying for my finals. My mother and I are really close and I tell her everything, even though I know she is super nosy. Anyway, yesterday I was in my room studying and had not checked my phone which I had left in her room, for several hours.
When I went to her room for a visit, I noticed my phone was unlocked (even though it had a password and I had not touched it at all). I check, and I see that someone has gone through all of my messenger conversations up to April 2022 and in fact has left one open. Obviously, my mother, as the phone was in her room.
I confronted her about it, and she denied it at first, but then admitted she had noticed what my password was and was just curious to see what I was talking about with my friends.
I obviously got furious because this seems premeditated, I mean who memorizes someone’s password with the sole purpose of violating their privacy?
I tried to explain to her how violated I felt and she did apologize, but she was laughing about it and my father tried to gaslight me as well, saying she wasn’t looking through my phone, that she got confused thinking it was her own phone etc, etc. Which made me even more furious. And then I obviously was mad and upset, and now they are both saying I overreacted and she was just being silly.
But I don’t feel I can trust her when she acts like this and I can’t forgive her.
She is crying and is saying that I took it too far by not forgiving her. She has done it before and I believe will do it again, as she asked me ‘What do you have to hide anyway?’
AITJ?”
10. AITJ For Being Mad At My Wife For Lying About Going Out With A Friend?
“My wife and I have been married for nearly 5 years. Right before our wedding, one of our closest friends told her not to marry me, he was the only person to ever say this to her, and I can only assume he said it with his own feelings in mind.
We uninvited him from the wedding and broke off all contact, he was gone from our lives.
Recently he tried coming back. He was back in town (I think he went into the military or something), and wanted to get together with all our old pals. Keep in mind these are people we have barely talked to anyway because they all went ghost as soon as we had our son. It’s not like we missed these people, we had a whole new circle of friends.
If it had been just the old friend group I would’ve gone, but HE was organizing it, it was HIS get-together and I had no intention of going, and I thought my wife would’ve been on the same page. Apparently, I was wrong. She wanted to go because ‘It’s been 5 years, I miss these people, blah blah blah’.
I was shocked, angry, and very upset. I asked her not to go because I have not, and will not forgive him and want nothing to do with him. Plus how would it look if she went? Like I’m some petty baby who can’t get over it? To me, it was a major betrayal, but I couldn’t control her she could make her own decisions and go despite my reservations.
That brings us to today, I got another message he’s back in town and wants to get dinner again. My wife asked if I got the message, I told her I had and that I was not going. I asked if she was going, and she told me she wasn’t really feeling it (the restaurant).
I was relieved.
She then told me she had to go out to grab some medicine for our son, and that she was going to meet up with our sister-in-law for a bit.
I got a call at 7 pm (her reminding me to administer our son’s meds), the reception was bad and I was having a tough time hearing her and the background noise seemed weird, I asked where she was, and she told me she was at the restaurant.
My heart sank, she went again. I all but hang up on her right then and there to get the call over before I start a fight.
Am I overreacting? Should I be mad? AITJ?”
9. AITJ For Making A List Of Unacceptable Topics My Significant Other Cannot Talk About?
“My (19f) significant other (19m) came from a rough family and has experienced some pretty bad things from family members (fights, arguments, etc).
The issue is that he now doesn’t have boundaries with anyone about what he can and cannot say and what is and isn’t appropriate. He has said that this habit was from his mother who would tell him all the drama in the family no matter how inappropriate and that he simply grew up in that sort of environment.
The last time he visited my family, he jokingly exposed one of my secrets regarding my toxic father. It was super embarrassing and caused some interesting conversations.
So this time, I wrote a list of unacceptable things – like my toxic father, things about intimacy, etc.
I gave it to him under the guise of ‘I know you find it difficult to filter out some topics because of your upbringing so I made you a list!’ I wasn’t rude or mean (certainly not intentionally) and said I know it’s an issue of his.
But he got really upset and accused me of questioning his mother and her parenting techniques (which I never mentioned). I tried to explain that my family is different from his and that my young family members (under 10) don’t need a play-by-play of his deranged cousin and her hatred towards animals. Those things are not appropriate to say during a family dinner.
I told him that him (even jokingly) telling a story about my father was a huge breach of trust and made everyone uncomfortable because of how toxic he was.
He apologized for that incident, but still said the list was rude and patronizing and said that maybe it would be better if he didn’t go.
AITJ for making the list? I wasn’t trying to be rude but maybe I was?”
8. AITJ For Not Leaving Dinner For My Mom?
“My father died unexpectedly a few years ago, and since then I’ve mostly been staying at home with my mother (in her 50s). Before my father passed, I was a very independent young man with a booming social life and career prospects.
That’s all gone now. She is rather emotionally and physically dependent on me and cannot handle me being away for more than 2 weeks, without me coming back home for long stays. When I do go away, she leaves loads of jobs for me to do when I get back. She’s not an invalid but does suffer from arthritis.
I do most of the chores around the house. I cook, clean, water the garden, look after the cat, do the laundry, take the trash out, etc. I have almost no friends and most days I don’t leave the house, and she is the only person I interact with.
So this brings us to today when I was on a call with a friend.
I rarely leave the house nowadays, so what few friends I haven’t drifted from since my father died I call online now. My mother got angry with me because I didn’t do a job she asked me to do. She came in and started telling me off. I told her I was on a call, and that now was not a good time.
She basically said ‘I don’t care’, and continued telling me off in front of my friend. I had to hang up.
I sort of lost it, and flew into a rage. I got really mad at her for doing that. She then said it was justified because I was being ‘irresponsible and neglectful of her needs’.
I left the house and stayed out for several hours.
All this went down just before dinner, which meant I left her with no dinner.
I came back at 10 or so, and Mom was really angry and upset with me for ‘starving’ her. She said it was completely unfair of me to starve her as punishment for her telling me off.
She said all these things about how I interrupt her on the phone all the time, and how this wouldn’t have happened if I had done as I was told in the first place, still believing what she did was perfectly justified. But she was REALLY upset with me that I had starved her, saying ‘How could you deny me food?
How could you do that? What kind of son are you?’ that kind of thing. (By the way, she CAN cook. She’s not 6.)
So… AITJ here?”
7. AITJ For Refusing To Take Care Of My Nephew?
“I (25f) don’t have a lot of contact with my family due to a situation that happened when I was 17. My sister Amy (24f) and I have never gotten along. It felt like she always had to play this rivalry game with me about who was better.
I went out with a guy Mike (now 25m) for a year starting when I was 16 and it was my first really serious relationship. We had made plans to go to the same college and everything. I found out that he had been having an affair with Amy a week before graduation because she got pregnant.
It got messy, I ended up going to stay with my grandparents because I couldn’t tolerate being home. My parents were pretty mad at her and Mike, but since Amy wanted to keep the baby they asked me to just forgive her and move on to make things less difficult for them. I refused, they tried to use my college money as leverage, and I told them to suck it and joined the military instead.
Which turned out to be a good decision, I’ve done pretty well for myself and I met my fiancé who is the best person I know.
8 years later and I haven’t been home, but I resumed limited contact with my parents a couple of years in with the understanding that Amy, Mike, and the resulting kid do not exist to me.
They didn’t like it but abided by the agreement until almost a month ago.
Long story short, Mike and Amy split, Mike isn’t answering any contacts and Amy is completely missing. She dropped her kid (7m) off with my parents and said she would be back in a few hours, but it’s been three weeks.
It’s not a good situation. My mom is getting treated for cancer, my dad is also not in the best health, and Mike’s parents moved away years ago, so there’s not a lot of help. They want me to try to take leave to come help or maybe take the kid for a few weeks while all this is going on.
The practical issues with that aside, I just don’t want to. I have no connection to this kid and I don’t think that would be good for anyone. My fiancé agrees, but my parents are upset that I won’t help them or my nephew over something that happened when we were teenagers and told me I’m being a jerk.”
6. AITJ For Being Mad At My Dad For Lending My Car To Other People While I Was Away?
“I (F 18) just got back from a two-month-long trip/study abroad in Europe. Right before I left, my dad mentioned to me that there was a family that might want to use my car while I was gone because they were having financial issues and couldn’t afford a car at the moment. I said something like ‘Yeah maybe I’ll think about it’ because I really like my car and it kind of feels like a violation to have someone that I don’t know using it.
I thought about it for a while and I decided that I would be OK with them using my car but my dad never brought it up again so I just didn’t say anything.
The day I left for Europe he said something about giving them the car and that he had already offered it to them.
This kind of ticked me off because I never said that I was OK with that but I figured because I was fine with it it wasn’t that big of a deal.
Fast forward to two weeks ago whenever I go back, my dad tells me that my car is still with the family and will be for the next two weeks.
We had a Florida vacation planned for the week after I got back so he figured they could just keep it for the week I was at home before Florida. I get really upset about this because I do delivery work and I have made it clear to my parents that I was planning on working a lot the week before we went to Florida.
I’m about to adopt a cat so I need the funds to buy all the equipment and I also have to pay my parents back for some things they bought me while I was in Europe. So I ended up only being able to work one time that entire week because I had to wait for my mother’s car to be free which is shared between the entire family.
So today is the day that I got my car back. And whenever I went to go pick it up I made a joke to my mom about how they’ve been riding around in my car with my ‘caution: this car makes frequent stops at your mom’s house’ sticker that I got from my brother as a gift, this whole time.
She then told me that my dad had ripped it off of my car before he gave it to them. I was really mad about this because he didn’t ask me and he literally ruined my sticker which was a gift. So I called him and I told him that he was going to pay for my new sticker to replace it because he ruined it and he agreed eventually.
After I got home from picking up my car, I went to get my keychain that I keep my keys on and put it back with my keys. I looked everywhere that it could’ve been and even asked my dad where he had put it and it was nowhere to be found. This was also a gift from my best friend and he lost it and I have no idea where it is.
So I got upset with him and told him as calmly as I could that he was being really disrespectful of my things, and then he and my mom basically made a joke out of it and made me feel like I was being overdramatic. He also told me that I couldn’t be mad because I didn’t fully own the car.
So AITJ for getting mad at my dad for letting a couple use my car?”
5. WIBTJ If I Don't Want To Invite My Cousin And His Wife To Family Dinner?
“My cousin (25M) and his wife (24F) married almost two years ago. I (21F) was close to my cousin growing up, who we’ll call Jay. When I went back home last time, my cousin started to bring his wife on our family trips as a way to introduce us.
I noticed that she had a reserved personality, which I attributed to her just being shy. I remember Jay and two other cousins once wanted to go on a trip to the mountains, an hour away from where we live. Jay invited her as well, which none of us minded. We greeted her and were super careful to make her feel welcome.
Whenever we tried to initiate a conversation with her, she would always give one-word responses. We sat there in awkward silence.
On the way back from the trip, I told my cousin Jay that I’d wanted to go to the amusement park hopefully soon. She chimed in and said that the amusement park was for little kids and that I should go home because I was tired and needed to rest. My cousin Jay agreed with her and started making fun of me for wanting to go to the amusement park, which was out of the ordinary since J always loved to go with us.
My other cousins also looked a little shocked at his response. From then on, I didn’t enjoy being around her, but I didn’t say anything out of respect for my cousin.
A couple of days later, Jay asked my other female cousin and me to come with him to her house. I reluctantly agreed. We went over, and she put some snacks on the table.
Her sister was there and said, ‘I can tell that you like to eat more than her’ (my other cousin who was with me). I was a little confused because I’d never met her sister and wondered why she would say something like that, mainly because I hadn’t eaten anything. Still, I guess she was making the assumptions based on my physical appearance (I am of normal healthy weight, but my cousin is super skinny).
I didn’t say anything back to her and remained polite the entire night.
I politely told my cousin afterward that I didn’t feel comfortable with his wife’s sister’s comment. He started insulting me, saying that I was the one who needed to get diagnosed because I must have an ‘intellectual disability’ and said a lot of other mean comments.
We’re not close anymore. I am back home and told my aunts that I wanted to host a family dinner at my house with some of the cousins, and they wanted me to invite Jay and his wife, but I don’t want to spend time with them. My family has been telling me that it would be rude of me to do so and that whenever I want to do something, I would need to invite them along because they’re part of the family, and distancing from them would be rude.
WIBTJ?”
4. AITJ For Wanting My Roommate To Get Rid Of Her Cat?
“I (19M) moved into an apartment with 2 other roommates I’ve never met. One of the roommates, who we’ll call J (19F), lives there with her cat. I’m allergic to cats yet still agreed to move in thinking it wouldn’t be a big issue.
The cat, however, has been a bit problematic.
It sheds all over the place, which doesn’t really bother me due to the hair being around, but more so does because it makes my allergies act up more than anticipated. I’ve never experienced anything like it. It also pooped on the other roommate’s bed, which upset him.
She isn’t around very often to be responsible for the cat. I politely asked her if she was willing to vacuum the fur more often or bring it to her mom’s apartment which she visits a lot. She denied any of it was possible and I got the impression she just really didn’t care to do anything accommodating.
I contacted the landlord, F (M38), and asked him if he could do something about it. He said he would talk to J. 30 minutes later he reached out to me and told me there was nothing he could do.
For me, this meant I would have to find a new apartment, so I looked into living arrangements near my university and noticed that a lot of the nearby buildings didn’t allow pets so out of curiosity I went to the front desk of my building and asked them if they had such a rule.
I found out that, not only did the building not allow pets, but that F isn’t even the landlord of the apartment, he’s just a tenant and he’s renting the apartment to us without our names on the official lease, all while probably up-charging us quite a bit. This is pretty illegal and can lead to him being charged and losing the apartment.
I confronted him about this and told him that I wanted the cat out in 48 hours or we were going to have a problem. He’s clearly nervous about it and he’s telling me we should just talk about it. I told him let’s talk about it when the cat is gone. J is also pretty upset that I’m playing this card and is suddenly a lot more reasonable about what she can do about the cat than she was before.
I was pretty excited about getting to this point and knowing I wouldn’t have to move and told one of my best friends everything about what was going on. He said that he disagreed with my choice to do this because I signed up to move in with a cat knowing I’m allergic.
I argued that it was hard for me to be sympathetic because I didn’t think J nor F had the decency at first to try to help me with my problem. What do you guys think, AITJ?”
3. AITJ For Offering To Bake A Cake For My Niece's Birthday?
“Yesterday was my niece’s first birthday and originally the plan for the cake was for my father-in-law to buy a store-bought cake.
When my father-in-law mentioned he was buying a store-bought cake for the party I asked if I could bake the birthday cake and smash cake instead. My father-in-law was thrilled at the idea and requested that it be a surprise to my sister and brother-in-law, I saw no issue and agreed. Over the past week, I have spent countless hours on this cake, going in I had very high expectations for the cake and although I did not meet those high expectations I am still happy with the cake and 100% believe it is better than a store-bought cake.
Yesterday at the party when it was time to bring out the cake my father-in-law took the cake out of its hiding spot and brought it into the main area of the party. When my brother-in-law saw the cake he had a big smile and seemed really happy, however when my sister-in-law saw the cake she looked mortified. Quickly my sister-in-law threw on a fake smile and asked my father-in-law about the cake, probably my father-in-law announced that I was the one who made the cake.
My sister-in-law gritted her teeth the entire time we sang happy birthday and refused to even try the cake for the whole party.
After I left I was bombarded with messages from my sister-in-law and brother-in-law. The messages were everything from I intentionally sabotaged her daughter‘s first birthday party to because of me all the photos of her daughter‘s first birthday are ruined by the stain of my trashy cake.
I didn’t know what to say so I just screenshot all of the texts and sent them to my husband who is currently overseas for the military. After I did that everything has just blown up. It feels like brother against brother and like my parents-in-law are just trying to play both sides.
Every Saturday we usually do a family day, usually, we all eat a bunch of good food and do some kind of activity together but this morning my father-in-law asked me to sit out of this week’s family day and I’m crushed. Honestly, I was just trying to be nice and make my niece’s birthday even more memorable, I was not trying to take the day away from her but it feels like everyone’s against me and I think I might be the jerk.”
2. AITJ For Moving Out Of My Partner's House To Get A Dog?
“I (25f) recently moved into my partner’s (27m) house with him. Everything has been going well, except for our pet situation!
So my partner has a 12-year-old cat named Charlie who he loves very much.
Charlie HATES other animals though, especially dogs. He gets really upset when dogs walk by the house or bark. It sucks because it’s always been my dream to get a dog and my partner knows this but has always been adamant that ‘We are NOT getting a dog until Charlie dies.’
I really don’t even bring it up often, but I do live a pretty active lifestyle so every now and then I will just daydream and mention that it would be awesome to have a dog to join me on all my adventures one day, to which he immediately responds that we can’t until Charlie dies.
And ever since I moved in he’s been saying things like ‘And if you don’t like it you can leave at any time.’
So I actually thought more about it and he’s right – we can just go back to living separately so I can finally have my dog, we can still be together AND Charlie is happy.
I thought it was a good compromise but when I told my partner that I was considering moving out, he FLIPPED out. He said I was ‘being immature’ and ‘choosing a dog over him.’ But it’s not like I want to break up with him. I just want to live in a space where I can get a dog if I want to.
Besides, he said if I don’t like it I can leave…
I’m going to look at two apartments this evening and my partner told me I can stay with my mom until I find a place. I really don’t want to feel like I’m choosing between him or a dog, but he’s kinda making it that way, in my opinion.
So AITJ if I go through with moving out to get a dog?”
1. AITJ For Asking My Son To Let His Brother Borrow His Car For His Wedding?
“One of my (m 52) sons, ‘Henry’ (27), is going to be getting married soon. My son, ‘Steve’ (29), has a Ford A model car from sometime in the 1920s. I can’t remember what year exactly. Henry’s wedding has a 1920s theme in terms of the decor and the wedding dresses/tuxedos Henry and his bride, ‘Pearl’ (26), are wearing.
When Pearl found out about Steve’s car she asked him if they could use it in their wedding as the car she and Henry would use to drive from the church to the reception hall (about 10 minutes away) and to use in some photos of her and Henry because of the theme. Steve said no to Pearl’s request. This upset Henry because Pearl had her heart set on it and they have been unable to find a 1920s car to rent for the wedding.
There were a few available for rent but the price was far out of their price range.
Steve does drive the car on public roads all the time. It isn’t just something he keeps in his garage or for show that no one ever uses. The reception venue is less than 10 minutes from the church and Steve drives it greater distances than that.
He also takes it to car shows and lets people take photos of it, with or without them in it, all the time. The car is most definitely insured. Henry went so far as to offer to take out his own insurance policy on the car for the day of the wedding or to have a contract drawn up by a lawyer that he and Pearl would be responsible for costs if anything happened. But Steve still said no. He and Henry have always gotten along and been on good terms before this.
I’ve also asked Steve to let Henry and Pearl use the car for the wedding but he said no and got frustrated and upset at me for asking after he already said no to Pearl and Henry. I know my ex-wife had asked him too. Pearl is really upset because she had her heart set on having a 1920s car at the wedding and Henry is doing everything he can to make it happen because Pearl asks for so little; she is the opposite of demanding.
But no matter what anyone says Steve refuses and is frustrated at anyone who asks him about the car. He says it’s not for use in weddings. Was I wrong in asking him to do this for his brother?”
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