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He finally admitted to me that the reason we are not married is because of money, taxes and health insurance. He told me he has told me a number of times where he stands on it. But why does it feel like this is the first time I’m hearing it or did i miss it because I am so in love with him. There was signs I should have seen first one was that he never post about us. He claims he doesn’t want people to know about is person life. He wants to keep us private he doesn’t care to impress anyone. He also is no contact with his mom and she has made fake accounts to add him. He says he’s protecting us from her. He said the important people already know about us. He doesn’t even post the children. He knows marriage is important to me. He knew that from the beginning. I would bring it up often. Like showing him rings or telling him what I want our wedding to be like. Who would be in our wedding. What convinced me he would go along with it. Saying I would have this person as a best man. I even found a song I wanted to be our first dance to. He knows all these things. I ’m pregnant with our second and I have been very emotional lately. I was telling him all the things bothering me why I’m overwhelmed and the topic of marriage came up. I said to him I think I would like a small wedding even just going to the courthouse and surprising everyone. He even said at that moment I think some kind of party would be nice. I don’t know how it switch but basically it went from. Talking about all the wedding we are going to this year and next and it’s going to be hard seeing everyone else get married but us. He got annoyed and said I don’t understand why I can’t be content with what we have. He explained to me that because I claim the kids I get a lager tax break and if we got married we wouldn’t get the same return. The kids are on state health insurance because it’s off of my income because I don’t make as much. He said maybe if I made more money we could. He said we could married today and I’ll show you how it will affect us financially. I have told him I would put the kids on my insurance but haven’t looked into it.

At this point I don’t think he wants to marry me. I have crying yesterday and today knowing my dreams of marrying him are over. Knowing I’ll never get to wear at grandmothers ring knowing my dad his only daughter will never walk me down the aisle. My kids will never have parents that are married. I will never be call his wife. I’m just the girlfriend and the mother to his children. I have given him so many reasons why marriage would be better.

Legally if anything happens to him I don’t have the rights to anything of him. I cant even claim his body if he dies. So who do these decisions go to his mother my guess. The woman who I have never meet and have no contact to.

I don’t know if I want to leave him because of this but it really put a new prospective.

I, (f 26) and my husband, (m 27) went out to dinner with my husbands family for his dads 60th birthday.

for context, we have a party of 11 people: father in law, mother in law, sister/brother in law and their two kids (ages 3 and 5 months), another sister in law and her boyfriend, my husband and I and our 1 year old daughter.

We were having dinner and had a nice time and i was feeding my daughter bits of my food, some of which she threw on the floor. it was getting close to my daughters bed time so my husband and i were going to scoot out early and as i was gathering up our stuff to leave, i quickly bent down to pick up her food scraps off the floor.

my mother in law looked at me horrified and said “the workers will clean that up, they have a special broom, you don’t need to do that” and i replied, “i don’t think it is their job to clean up after my kid, i’ve got it- it only takes a minute.”

she was sitting next to my daughter and had to move a little so i could grab some of the food scraps and i heard her kind of scoff. was i being weird for cleaning up or should i have left it? asshole may be a strong word but am i the asshole?

Who am I kidding? I know I would be the asshole. I’m not even justified, but I don’t care. I just want to see irreparable pain.

Context, my husband (25m) and I (25f) are high school sweethearts. But we come from two completely different worlds. We’re both American, and we’re both Muslim, but his family is deeply attached to his home country’s culture and traditions (he’s second gen from an Arab family) whereas mine isn’t (I’m third gen from a Hispanic family and very Americanized). To make a long story very short: from 16 till we were 22, his family never accepted me because I’m not Arab, and he never advocated for me. What changed at 22? We had a child out of wedlock. No, sorry, we were 22 when my now husband told his family we had a child out of wedlock. We were 21 when we had our baby. Our baby whose birth he didn’t attend, but still wanted to name, and whose existence he kept hidden until he couldn’t anymore.

Ok so there’s the cat out of the bag. We had a baby in 2020 but didn’t marry until 2021.

Except the cat isn’t out of the bag… yet? When his family found out, they hurried to get us married and “fix this”… at the time I thought they came around, my husband didn’t really communicate well between me and his family so I just assumed the best. In retrospect I was naive as fuck and it’s so clear looking back that his family didn’t suddenly have a change of heart after learning about our son, and that they only allowed us to marry as a means of damage control so they could save face to their community in their home country. And by “allowed” I mean we were told to sign the papers and be done with it. No planning, no celebration, no wedding by any means, no nice pictures, no social media posts. Nothing. I was upset but I also didn’t want to be the kind of person who whines over not having attention? Idk, again, dumb as fuck. After our katb kitab (marriage signing), the first thing my mil discussed was not posting pictures together until she did to announce it, not having a second baby until she said our “shit” was fixed, not posting our already existing child for the same reason, and not talking about the circumstances of our marriage in any way to anyone. I know what you’re thinking, I was an adult with a voice, and I was. I was 22. But at the time I was so concerned with being polite and respectful, I just kept my mouth shut. Again, I don’t know WHY I was like this. I hate my entire reaction in retrospect. I thought I was doing the right thing at the time to foster good relations… but that was never going to happen. I didn’t say anything about my concerns and frustrations to my husband from our marriage date in 2021 until the start of 2023. I didn’t want to cause problems at the time. Again, why was I such a people pleaser?

Anyway, 3 years later and I’m filled to the brim with resentment all because some woman who never accepted me needed to bury some shit that doesn’t, nor will ever, affect me. And then my own husband didn’t advocate for me. And I allowed it all. I don’t care anymore that he’s scared of his mother and the threats she makes, I should be worth sacrificing for, the way I’ve sacrificed for him. He swears he wants to confront her and set boundaries, but idk, I just don’t care anymore? It’s just talk now. It always has been, and I’ve run out of patience and hope for change.

I know it sounds petty, and I know the bulk of this all happened years ago, but it all just really hit me that I actually won’t ever experience being proposed to, or being a bride, having a bridal shower, picking a venue and bridesmaids or being walked down the aisle. I actually will never experience picking out my wedding dress. And I will never have a wedding or any celebration of my marriage.

And the people who took that away from me get to just… move on? Not just that, but my in-laws genuinely believe that we deserve this. That we didn’t deserve to have a wedding because “that’s what you get”. I used to think that I owed these people, this culture, something because I was “wrong”, but I really don’t. I didn’t lie to anyone. I was honest with my parents from the day I met my husband. And when they pushed back because of their own prejudice, I advocated for him. He never afforded me the same and I don’t owe a foreign culture that will never accept me a damn thing. My mil didn’t accept me because she’s some open minded person. She “accepted” me because her son got a white girl pregnant outside of marriage and she had no choice but to. Her words, not mine.

I know I would be the asshole if I exposed this mess, and not a justified one, and I know I allowed ALL of this to happen to me regardless of naivety or hope or believing empty promises or rose tinted glasses, I allowed it all. And I know I need therapy, but I just want to see them lose something that matters to them.

Thanks for listening, love you Morgan😊🫶🏼

INFO: the “damage control”/“saving face” was announcing our marriage when it happened in 2021, but hiding the existence of our son until “sufficient time has passed”. ie our marriage was announced in November 2021, and our son was “born” in September 2022. We don’t see any of my husband’s extended family or greater community irl, so they only know what’s shared online.

INFO: the reason why my son’s actual age would affect my husband and his family is because his family is still very much engaged with their Balad (village) in the blad (back home/home country). They would never be able to return to their balad if this kind of secret came to light. If anyone reading this is familiar with non-western cultures you might understand and be able to explain better.

☪️ For the Muslims, before you judge with bias:

I’m not a practicing Muslim, nor was I raised Muslim. I converted (no, not for my husband) later in my life. Neither are my in-laws practicing. My in-laws didn’t care about Islam when my husband and I wanted to marry because I was the wrong race. They didn’t care about Islam when they threatened to cut kinship ties knowing that’s also haram. Because my husband wanted to marry me. But when a child was involved, THEN they wanted to talk about making the halal easy. And THEN they threatened us into compliance so they could go back to putting their culture before Islam.

I used to think I was the only person in the wrong, but then I talked to an imam and a sheikh, both of which told me there were faults on both sides, but even then, the way my mil treated me was unislamic and she didn’t have the right to interfere in our marriage the way that she did. We should’ve lied about the date we married, not the existence of my son. That came from an imam, not my own opinion.

Last edit: I put up with all of this at first because I loved my husband and believed him when he told me all the things I wanted to hear at the time. And then I wanted to be a good wife, and a good daughter-in-law. I was also so excited to learn about my husband’s culture. The food, language, clothing, music, dances, etc. I was so excited to learn and embrace it. But now I just hate it. I want no part in it. I truly believed that I could be accepted by them for who I am, and I’m now realizing that I was never going to be because I was never supposed to be part of their family. I’m just frustrated that I’ve only realized this all after I’ve given up everything that mattered to me and I have no more leverage.

My husband swears he wants to stand up to his mom and make this all up to me and we’ll make conversation plans and create boundaries together, but when it’s time to pay the piper and tell his mom… he’s a fucking coward. Even still, knowing I’m at my ends… I think I’m just gonna have to come home with divorce papers, I don’t think I can beg for the rest of my life. I never wanted to divorce, I’m worried I haven’t tried everything to make it work but I’m also worried I’ve done too much to appease him and his family. Idk

Lastly, idk if it’s bigotry or if I’m just taking these comments too personally, but I didn’t covert for my husband. I’d be muslim whether I was with him or divorced from him. Idk if it’s relevant to mention that he never knew I was interested in Islam (a journey that lasted a few years) until I shared with him that I had already said the shahada. I’ve also already been to his home country. I went last year (without our son, a mutual decision between all 3 of us), and I met the people and saw his homeland. It was a good experience actually. The people were kind and welcoming, and my husband was frustrated because they actually did welcome me with open arms. There’s another woman from the same country as me who married into the balad and she’s incredibly respected in the community. The only “bad” experience I had over there was realizing that it’s not his community that’s closed minded, it’s literally just his mother.

My (26F) fiancé (26M) are getting married next year. As we are trying to figure out who we want to invite, my sister R (23F) told me she is going to invite our parents previous third to her own wedding (recently engaged to her own fiancé, 25M). Our parents were in a polyamorous relationship with B for 3 years (2019-2021) and they had a “wedding” in Bora Bora to celebrate their decision to become a throuple. My sisters and I were very supportive, even though we could see that B only wanted to date my dad, not my mom, and we could see this becoming problematic. However, they are adults and can make their own decision, and we decided to support them in their relationship. As time went on, B and my dad started to push out my mom and it became very obvious that B would prefer to not have my mom as part of their relationship, but my parents had been married for 25 years and didn’t want to divorce. B even told my mom that if it weren’t for my dad, they wouldn’t even be friends. Come 2021, and my dad dies unexpectedly from COVID. My mom and B faked a supportive relationship for my dad’s funeral, and then my mom kicked B out of the house (B moved into our family home after the “wedding”). Since then, B has tried to manipulate my mom into seeing my little sister M (13F) because she “was part of her life and doesn’t want her to think she doesn’t love her anymore” but my mom held firm and will not let B see M. Fast forward to now, and I do NOT like B. She has been condescending and rude to me and my sister T (24F) and she told me that my mom “ruined my upbringing because I am a stuck up brat who doesn’t know when to mind her business.” B’s relationship with R is very different, because she was around more during my parents and Bs relationship, as I live in another part of our state. R and B are still friendly and they go to lunch and talk every month. I was talking to R about my wedding invites and she asked if I was inviting B. I told her no, because I don’t want her there. R told me that I was being childish and immature for not moving on and honoring both of our father’s wives, and I told her it’s my wedding and I don’t view her as my mom, so I don’t have to invite her. Now I am second guessing myself and worried I might be dishonoring my dad by not inviting B. WIBTA if I didn’t invite B to my wedding?

well, for starters im a 22 y/o F. i have two siblings, im the middle child, younger 19 y/o sister, older 29 y/o brother. when i was in the 7th grade, i was SA’d by my stepdad. (me and my sister was riding different buses so we got home diff times) was happening until about 10th grade and i moved out and lived with my grandparents (made my sister move with me). my brother moved into my grandparents home when he was in 6th grade bc our stepdad was abusive and nagged about every little thing. i never told anyone bc my stepdad threaten to unalive my family &’ would always snatch the house phone line out the wall before he would do what he would do. till this day my room has no room door (at parents house) on it. never told my brother or gmpa bc i didnt want them losing years to prison for handling the situation in their own ways. i never had any sleepovers with homegirls. didn’t want my stepdad getting ahold of them or knowing where they lived. never told my mom at the time bc she would come home and claim she didn’t want to hear what i was crying about bc she was tired from work and had a rough day. made me feel unsafe to tell her anything. plus hearing my family saying she’s man-crazy.

well, recently, in feb, i ended up telling my siblings. my brother felt almost guilty bc he always thought he was a protective brother but wasn’t protecting me at all. i reminded him how it’s not his fault and i made sure i protective our sister.

well, my siblings and i was tryna come up with a good time to tell my mom. (when she’s not at work and when she’s not around her husband). well, around July 2nd, she founded out by accident.

i came home from filing a police report on someone from work and my messages was proof on him trying to SA me (messages of me saying what he did and he apologized in msgs) well, i included how the situation made me have ptsd bc i was SA’d as a child… she read it, asked what happened and i ended up telling her about my childhood. she reassured me how she wasn’t upset with me , she just wish she just wish she knew sooner. she apologized with how she made me feel when i was younger with the neglect. now she’s living with us and she’s in the middle of a divorce

Me (30f) and my husband (33m) have been together for 2 years and married for a year. We also have an 8 month old son. We have an awful marriage especially for the past month. Everything started getting worse when our son was born. My husband has always bad a bad behavior from time to time and now its non stop. We dont talk unless its something about our son. While I was pregnant he would give me stress (i had high blood pressure and was not feeling well all the time). One time we were taking a walk and my foot slipped and I almost fell but i kept my balance so i didnt and instead of him holding ny hand and walking next to me he got mad and was walking infront of me like 10 meters away and ignoring me. Another time the door got stuck, we couldnt open it, he got pissed and made me clean the whole fridge while i wasnt feel well and was very pregnany. He would talk to his coworker until 1-2 am put the phone on speaker and i wouldnt be able to fall asleep.

Our son was born and things got out of hand. Three weeks after i gave birth my husband told me im not capable of taking care of the child that im lazy and that i didnt want to do it. I know damn well im taking a good care of my son. After what he said i told my MIL if ny husband doesnt change his behavior i will go back to my parents house. She probably got scared that i will take the child away from them and made us move in with them ( they will in another city). Also they were desperate for a grandchild due to my SIL not being able to have children for so many years.

After they took us to their home i basically felt like i was being a hostage. I was told by my husband that he will take me to my parents whenever i wanted but that never happened. He would take me and my son to see my parents only on the weekend once a month when he wanted. He didnt want us to not be under his or hes parants surveillance. So basically they didnt trust me with the child. While we where there my MIL would constantly lie about the stupidest things and brag about stuff she has done and my FIL would always comment on everything i did (why am i taking so long to give the baby milk even tho it takes 30 sec to make the milk, why am i putting him to sleep so much even tho my son is screaming for sleep, why am i not playing enough with him even tho im 24 hours with him taking to him, reading him stories, playing with toys, singing i dont know what they expect more of me)

After 7 months and my parents intervention we are back to where we originally lived and my relationship with my husband is getting unbearable. Hes always mad about something and i always do things wrong. Like i can never do anything right and im sick ot this. I cant take it anymore.

On the other hand im scared that if i file for divorce they will try and to take my son away from me. My head is a mess and i cant deal with this anymore.