While every relationship is a little different, it’s likely that if we did a Family Feud -style survey of the biggest problems in a marriage, the number one answer would involve interference from the in-laws.
Because while there are some instances where this kind of outside attention can actually benefit people in a toxic relationship, it seems much more common for in-laws to meddle in affairs that simply aren’t up to them.
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In such cases, problem in-laws will often conflate what makes sense to them with what actually works in their children’s relationships.
But as one engaged woman tells it, one situation that her potential mother-in-law started seemed to reveal just as much about the man she’s about to marry.
As the woman we’re about to hear from explained, she and her fiancé have been engaged for the last two years of their eight-year relationship.
And as she wrote in a Reddit post , one of the things they had discussed when they first took this step is that there wouldn’t be a prenuptial agreement.
Because while she made clear that she wasn’t knocking them in general, her personal feelings were that, “If you’re preparing for divorce before even getting married, it’s a sign that you’re probably marrying the wrong person.”
But while the couple may have considered the matter closed, it’s clear that her fiancé’s family still doesn’t.
And each time one of them brings up signing a prenup, she declines and explains that the matter is between them, while the fiancé also declines in a noticeably less firm fashion.
However, this situation recently escalated when his mother put a prenup that she had her lawyer draft in front of the woman after dinner and told her to sign it. The woman didn’t read it and refused again.
As the woman put it, “She called me a gold digger. No one, including my fiance stood up for me so I stood up for myself.”
And the woman did so by revealing that she actually makes four times as much money as her fiancé does.
Add that to the fact that she has her own house and no debt (while he’s in the hole for over $100,000) and she could only ask the mother what she was so worried about.
In her words, “That shut her up real quick especially when my SIL then said ‘if anything, he’s the gold digger here.'”
But while that response may have gotten her mother-in-law off her back, it also made her fiancé angry with her.
As she put it, “He said it was emasculating for his family to know I’m so much more successful than him and his brothers are making jokes and changed his contact info to ‘gold digger.'”
Ultimately, he thought she could’ve handled the situation better.
But as far as the Reddit community she reached out to was concerned, that was a strange criticism coming from someone who didn’t handle the situation at all.
As one user put it , “If there’s anything ’emasculating’ here, it’s that your fiance can’t keep mommy out of his relationships even as he approaches 40.”
And his lack of a response and what the community thought was misplaced anger made them very concerned about where this relationship was headed.
One person encapsulated these feelings in their response :
His mother brought in the pre-nup – in front of the whole family – AFTER he already said no. His mother called his fiance a gold digger infront of him & the entire family. But YOU were the one who emasculated him?
The fact that he didn’t defend you is a huge red flag. The fact that he feels emasculated is a huge red flag. The fact that he blames you instead of his mother is the biggest red flag.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
h/t: Reddit | AITAemasculatormaybe
