Reddit Stories - Spouse utterly changed her ATTITUDE towards our son when he PREPARED supper INDEPENDENTLY,

Episode Date: July 8, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #parenting #family #attitudechange #independence #mealpreparationSummary: Spouse utterly changed her ATTITUDE towards our son when he PREPARED supper INDEPENDENTLY. Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, parenting, family, attitudechange, independence, mealpreparation, relationships, parentingadvice, familydynamics, childdevelopment, cooking, dinner, selfsufficiency, growth, communication, supportBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse utterly changed her attitude towards our son when he prepared supper independently, and I praised him excessively, resulting in her now favoring our daughter and neglecting him entirely. My partner has always been the one to cook around the house, and as an Italian, it's one of the reasons I fell so hard for her. I've offered to help out in the kitchen or even cook for her sometimes, but she's always firmly, yet politely, told me no and I can't really blame her because I did not get either of my parents' good cooking jeans. Because of this I've always been sure to

thank her for every meal and I've taught my children to do the same. For the past year or so my son has been watching a ton of cooking videos and he's really been wanting to try his hand at cooking. My wife was happy to teach him and at least twice a week the two of them will go out to the store by ingredients for a meal he found and come home and make it. It's been awesome seeing them bonding more, since they haven't really had much overlap in interests. before this. About a month ago after dinner, my son asked his mom if he could try making us all a meal on his own. I said it sounded like a great idea, and she hemmed and hawed for a little while before agreeing. So that Saturday she took him to the store to get his ingredients and then he got to

work. She supervised here and there, but he insisted that she didn't need to so eventually she came to the living room and sat with my daughter and I looking a little bit dejected, so I reassured her that I was sure he'll still want to cook with her. He just wanted to try it out on his own. That seemed to help out a little, but she still seemed a little off. When he finished and we all sat down to eat, I was honestly surprised at just how good he managed to do on his own. I feel bad saying it, but even after a year or so of cooking with his mother, I expected him to mess up more than he did. I wanted to encourage this interest of his so I was sure to let him know while I was eating how good he did, and gently bring up the few mistakes he had made. I did it a lot more than I usually

would with my wife's cooking, and in hindsight I can see that that's what started all of this. His sister, being his little sister, was not as supportive as I was, and quite rudely insulted his cooking. I was going to tell her to mind her manners and be thankful that he cooked for us when my wife made a sound and pushed her plate away, before agreeing in saying that it was too salty and overcooked. This took me aback, and I could tell my son took it hard too, as his mood visibly dropped. I didn't say anything at the time, since my wife and I never argue in front of the kids. And I just kept up the praise of my son's cooking as his mother picked at the plate for a little while longer before she took her and our daughter's plates to the kitchen.

A little while later, I had went to check on my son, and I could tell that he had been crying, so I comforted him, told him I was sure his mother loved the food and that she was probably just having a bad day, not to take it personally. Then later, once the kids were asleep, I confronted her about it, and she tried to just brush it off, but I pushed and she got mad and said that I complimented his cooking far more than I ever complimented hers. This caught me off guard, since I didn't expect my wife to be jealous of our son, and I unfortunately let out an involuntary scoff at this. She blew up at me for her. She blew up at me for her. laughing, and we ended up arguing for a while before eventually I managed to explain that I was

complimenting him so much because I wanted to encourage him to keep cooking, and she even admitted that she shouldn't have been so harsh about it. She said she would apologize to him and I figured that everything was settled. That Monday, when I was driving my son to school, I noticed he wasn't acting normal and looking out the window, trying to hide his face from me. I asked him what was wrong, and he told me he was fine, but I could tell he was fighting back tears so I asked him again and he broke and told me that after I had left to get the car started, she told him that she was going to be cooking alone again from now on. I was furious about this, but kept my cool and told him I would talk to her about it. Bought him a snack from the store before

dropping him off at school. I left work early so I could get home before the kids and talk to my wife. I'll admit I didn't handle it as well as I could have and we ended up in a shouting match where I was calling her childish for being so vindictive towards our son because she was upset with me and she called him a baby and said he shouldn't be so sad about not being allowed to cook since it wasn't a man's job to do so anyway. We ended up leaving each other alone to cool down and when our kids got home, my wife took our daughter out and came back later with a load of toys and clothes for her. I knew immediately what she was trying to do, and that night I told her that I would not let her use the money I make for our family to punish my son. She didn't

take this well and we ended up arguing again. I slept in the guest room, and have been up to this point. For this past month my wife has kept up this vindictive showering of our daughter with attention and gifts, while almost entirely ignoring my son. I've been talking to my parents and brother about this, and while they agree that she's wrong, they also don't see it as that big of a problem and think it'll sort itself out. At this point, with how she's been treating our son, I'm starting to fall out of love with her, but I also don't want to just jump to divorce if there's something that I can do to fix this whole situation. I can honestly say that we've never had a fight this big. Sure, we bicker every now and then, but she's never taken that out on my son in the past.

I feel responsible and guilty about what happened, and I've been trying to do nice things for my son, when I can, but I also don't want to mirror my wife's behavior so I've also been taking my daughter with us about half the time we go places. But whenever we do, she's been very rude and always talks about all the stuff her mother does for her lately, because she knows it bothers her brother. Seeing the way my wife has been treating our son has made me second-guess our marriage, but I don't want to just jump straight to divorce either. Any advice on what I should do or how to best bring up the topic of therapy would be appreciated. Update, obligatory, but genuine, thank you for all of the support, even the comments that got a bit nasty. That kind of pushback helped me to see that things were a lot worse than I realized. Some of you could do with being a bit nicer, but the advice is appreciated all the same. Short recap, my wife and son cooked dinner together most nights for about a year.

My son wanted to try cooking dinner on his own, which my wife accepted, but started acting funny. She ended up rudely criticizing his meal, then the next day she told him that she would do the cooking on her own from then on, and after I confronted her about this, she started neglecting slash emotionally abusing him while shoveling positivity onto our daughter. The first thing I did after making my previous post was take my son to my parents' house to tell them what was happening from his mouth. I figured they may be more receptive to seeing the pain their grandson was going through and not just write it off like they had with me. They ended up understanding and supportive of my next move, which was kicking my wife out till she worked through whatever problem she was going through.

Next I went to a lawyer and consulted with him. He told me it would be best to have the papers ready to go, even if I wasn't sure I wanted the divorce yet because it's better to get it done as quick as possible if I decided to go through with it because in Canada you, you have to either have to separate for a year, or prove abuse or adultery. I took the kids to my folks' house the next Saturday and came back with my mother. I let her talk with my wife first, then when they were done I told her that I needed her to leave the house until she sorted out whatever was causing her to act this way to our son. She, surprisingly, agreed to this. I'm guessing hearing things from my mother knocked some sense into her, as they were always quite

close. I told her that my parents were willing to let her stay there during the time because her parents lived too far away, or I could put her up in a nearby motel. I would also pay for her to see a therapist every week, which I told her was mandatory for fixing things. Our kids spent the night with my parents and we moved her out the next day, we both sat with the kids and told them what was happening. Our son understood, but our daughter didn't and was quite upset, but eventually we calmed her down. Things went well for the first month or so. She went to all of the weekly appointments, and I met her for dinner a few nights a week with the kids and she seemed to be treating our son properly again. I was really hopeful that she had been making progress. Then the Friday

after her fifth therapy appointment she sent me a wall of text messages about how I was an asshole, and I was trying to steal her children from her, and how I was probably fucking someone on the side. I tried calling her to see what she was talking about, but I think she shut her phone off. I called my mother and she told me that my wife had left the house earlier that day with all of her stuff without saying anything to my mom. I'm not 100% sure what happened next, since my wife has refuses to tell me most details, and I can't get in contact with the friends she was with. The best I can piece together was that she had told her best friend about what was happening, and that friend started telling her all about how I was just trying

to kick her out and steal her kids. She then moved in with her friend, and went on a week-long bender of clubbing and drinking in drugs. When we were younger, we did our fair share of stupid shit together, so while this was surprising, it was most likely her dumb-ass friends convincing her to relive the good old days. I hadn't heard anything for about a week, then I got a text from her friend, telling me I was a loser, that my wife was too good for me, and that she was fucking a younger guy. I tried to demand she give my wife the phone so I could talk with her, but I never got a reply. I screenshotted the text for evidence if I needed it. I ended up getting a call from the hospital at like three in the morning that Sunday.

My wife had overdosed on something, and was dropped off at the ER by someone who didn't stick around. Since I was her emergency contact, they reached out to me. I called my mom to come watch the kids and headed over there. They managed to get her stabilized, and were treating her. I stuck around for a few hours and she was in and out of consciousness, and when she was, she wasn't very talkative. When she properly woke up, she started apologizing for everything, and that's when I found out the few details I know about her friend in the Bender.

I asked her if she had been fucking someone else like her friend said, and she didn't reply, which was as much of an answer as I needed. She kept trying to apologize and I just kept my cool and told her this wasn't the time or place for this. We ended up leaving at about 8 a.m. the next day. I got her back to my parents' place, got her into bed, and just before I left, I put the papers on the table beside the bed and told her that I expected her to sign them within a week and that I had proved she cheated on me during her bender. I had told my parents I was planning on doing this on the phone,

so I wasn't just dumping this drama on them without warning. The kids are both doing fine. They don't know anything of what happened with their mother or the divorce. All they know is that my wife is still moved out, and that she's busy getting better so we're not going to be seeing her as much. I'll probably tell them in a couple weeks whenever school lets out for the summer so it doesn't affect their learning. Over the next couple weeks I've gotten countless calls from her, ranging from begging for a second chance, to screaming at me that she hated me and was going to make my life hell, going back and forth every other day.

I've also been getting vitriolic texts from her family and friends calling my all sorts of names and threatening me that if I don't drop the divorce I'll regret it, all of which have been screenshoted. My parents agree that divorce is for the best, but they're questioning my timing, and wondering if I shouldn't have picked a better time to do this than when she was fresh out of the hospital. I'm 100% sure I want her out of my life, and I plan on going for full custody of my children as I don't want them around my wife if this behavior is what she's willing to stoop to. And while I do want it done as soon as possible, I'm wondering if I should take back the papers and tell her I've changed my mind, at least until she's a bit more stable. Next story, Sister got my dad a DNA test for Christmas and now we found his birth parents after 56 years while learning about their incredible love story. My dad, M.56, was adopted at birth. He was raised in Eastern Canada and never really searched for his birth parents.

The people who raised him are his parents to him and he loves them very much. They have always been amazing grandparents to my sister, F-19 and I, M-22. All he had from his birth parents was a letter which told him he was born out of love, but they could not support him when he was born. So when my sister decided to get him a genetic test for Christmas, it was purely with the intention to find out what ethnicity we all are and the thought of finding his birth parents didn't even cross our minds. Eventually, when we got his results, we were surprised to find the names of two people with perfect genetic matches to my dad. He had the option to reach out to them, so he wrote them each an e-mail. and just waited for their responses. Almost immediately, his biological dad, who I'll call Jim, not his real name, responded.

He said how excited and happy he was to have found my dad and how he was looking for him for so long. My dad, who is usually an emotionally reserved man, was curled up on the couch grinning as he was texting Jim for the first time. I was still in shock from the news, but was so happy to see my dad even happier than when I graduated uni. Soon thereafter, he also received a message from his biological mom, Debbie, not her real name. By talking to them both, my dad learned the story of his birth and I think that it's absolutely wild. Debbie is the daughter of an Australian mining engineer and they all moved to Canada for his work when she was in high school. Later on, they moved to the Midwest

where she met Jim at the age of 17. They were high school sweethearts and were thinking of marriage. after they graduated, but then Debbie got pregnant. This being the 60s, this was a huge deal. Her dad was furious and sent her back to Canada to give birth and arranged a private adoption as he knew of a couple who were trying to have a kid, my grandparents. Once she gave birth, she was able to let Jim know that she was being sent back to Australia. They never saw each again for the next 40 years. Jim apparently was only able to move on once he received a letter over five years later from Debbie, saying that she got married. Eventually, he got married too, and they moved to the West Coast, but his wife got into a terrible car crash and lost the use

of both legs in one arm, so they were never able to have kids. Debbie had three daughters in Australia, the oldest of which is seven years younger than my dad. They saw each other for the first time around 12 years ago, as they reconnected on Facebook and Debbie happened to be taking a trip to the West Coast of America. Both Jim and Debbie had always wanted to keep my dad, and so they tried for decades to find him. But my province apparently is one of the hardest places in the world to find adoption information, especially since my dad only received his birth certificate at his baptism, so their names were not on it. Jim had essentially given up trying to find my dad until genetic tests became popular. He asked Debbie to take every single one, and he did the

same, about five years ago, in the hopes that one day my dad would take one. When he received my dad's message, he immediately wrote to Debbie, I found him. Since then, we have had several calls with Jim and his wife and they are absolutely lovely. We are their only family since they don't have kids and I couldn't be happier. At the end of the month, we'll be flying to the West Coast to meet them. It has been harder to talk to Debbie as Australia is so many hours ahead of us, but She also is so kind and an absolute joy to talk to. I haven't met my three new aunts yet, but apparently one lives in London. It's crazy to think that I might have been within a few kilometers of her the few times

I've visited. I also have five new younger cousins. A couple of them are huge fans of Japanese culture, so they're ecstatic to hear that they have half Japanese cousins. My mum is Japanese Canadian, so my sister and I are both half. We hope to visit them one day in Australia, but we might all meet up in Japan next year. I don't know how to end this, I am still processing everything. It's absolutely incredible to have my family grow so much, but also a little overwhelming.

I'm so happy for my dad, for Jim, and for Debbie, and I'm so excited to get to know them better. I hope I get to meet my new cousin soon too. I feel so incredibly lucky that this happened, seemingly against all odds. My dad was initially raised Francophone, so it's a miracle that they even speak the same language. Anyways, thank you so much for taking the time to read through this, and my apologies for how long this post ended up being. I might post an update after I meet Jim and his wife. I hope you all have a wonderful day. Update, first of all, thank you so much to everyone who left such kind of.

and heartfelt comments on my first post. It's incredible of your stories. To those who were concerned that we would abandon my grandparents that I grew up with, that is most definitely not the case. They were the people I grew up with and I absolutely love them to bits, although only my grandmother is still with us. All the incredible times I've had with her growing up are so much more important than blood and I can't comprehend the stories I read

where people forget about their adoptive parents or grandparents when they find their biological ones. I won't recap my previous post here because I'm lazy, huh? So, we just got back from visiting Jim and his wife, who I'll call Mary, not her real name, on the West Coast and it was one of the best experiences of my life. We spent a week in their city and got to experience so much with them. Our first time meeting them in person was very emotional and felt very surreal. We spent the whole day looking through my dads and our old photos, basically catching Jim up on everything that he has missed over the past 56 years.

We also got to see so many of his and Mary's old photos too, which was very cool. We went to a park near their house and on the walk, I heard Jim whisper my son with a massive smile across his face. Throughout the week, we explored their city and saw so many cool sights and tried so much delicious food. Mary knows her city so well and it was great to see her favorite spots all around the city from food carts to gardens to museums. We all went to an incredible Japanese American museum and Jim and Mary absolutely loved it. They were very keen to learn about the internment during World War II and said that they knew a bit about it before, but now it feels so personal. We went on two hikes with Jim, Mary wasn't able to come because she is in a wheelchair. It's so cool to have such an active and outdoors a grandfather who is able to go on such long hikes.

He taught us some foraging tips and told us stories from when he used to camp for years on end. Both he and Mary are very spiritual, so he also told us great stories for meditation retreats they've done. He's even tried psychedelics, so he's definitely the cool grandpa. I won't go into precise details of places we went, but it was great exploring such a cool part of the world with amazing people. We were all very sad when the trip was over and we had to leave. I've gained two new grandparents on the West Coast and I couldn't be happier. And they said that they've gained two grandchildren, I'm so glad that they see us as such. Mary told me her greatest regret in life was not being able to have children and grandchildren, but now she does.

This has been such a transformative time in our lives and I think it's incredible just how many people are so much happier now because my sister just happened to get my dad a DNA test. This is just the beginning of our relationship with our new grandparents and I am so excited. Now we have to figure out a way to go to Australia to meet Debbie. Whenever that happens, maybe I'll make another update. Until then, I hope you all have a lovely day and thank you so much for taking the time to read our story.