rSlash - r/AITA My Husband Ruined Our Kid's Birthday Party

Episode Date: January 15, 2023

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Welcome to R-Slash, am I wrong? We're an adult man ruins a child's birthday party as a prank bro. Am I wrong for throwing away the elf on the shelf and ruining Christmas from my kids after my husband's prank? For context, this year was the first time that we tried the elf on the shelf with our kids. We have three kids. Lucas is nine and he's my husband's son from a previous relationship. Andy is eight and he's my son also from a previous relationship.

Together we had Claire, who's 5. I've accepted my husband's son Lucas as my own and my husband has accepted my son Andy as his. Every Christmas is special for my son Andy because his birthday is December 24th. Andy's biological dad started a tradition where Santa would consider him for being a kid of Christmas, so he feels magical and special. I always try to give him that. Last year, I left Santa Claus footsteps in the snow and I ate a carrot that he left for Rudolph.

Stuff like that. My husband doesn't think that it's a good idea that I do all this for him because I'm showing favoritism. So we should shut it down because of my ex's decision to create a tradition without considering my other kids' feelings. I disagree since I do consider the three of them, but he asked me if we could do something else, like elf on the shelf. I had no problem with that, but I don't know how that works.

He explained it to me, and since he was the one who offered, I let him do it. We bought a cute elf. My kids named Bob. Later, my husband explained that they should behave and never touch or hold Bob if they didn't want to be naughty. At first, it was cute to see them spy on Bob to try to see it fly each night. Andy was the most excited of all. I found him one night talking with the elf,

asking if Santa still remembered him. But my husband took the, behave, or Bob would be naughty part very seriously. Lucas was his first victim after he didn't do his chores. The next day, my husband drew on Lucas' face with Sharpie markers. Then, Claire touched Bob, and my husband destroyed her favorite onesie. Apparently, Bob had cut some pieces out of it while she was sleeping. My husband Miles was having fun, but I could see that my kids weren't. I talked to him about how we should tune down the pranks. He agreed, but he wanted to catch Andy since he hadn't broken any rules.

We argued, but he finally agreed. Fast forward to Christmas Eve, and in the afternoon, we had some of Andy's friends over to celebrate his birthday. So my kids were playing in the backyard, but my husband looks suspicious. I decided to look for Bob. It was supposed to be in the kitchen,

but it wasn't there, and I asked Miles where it was, and he told me no idea. I started getting paranoid, but Andy asked me if we could cut the cake already. I put my best face on and went for it. The cake was in a box, and when Andy opened the box, he started crying. I took a look and the cake was ruined. Bob was covered in the cake, and it looked like he'd been eating the cake. Half of the cake wasn't even there anymore.

Miles started laughing and so did some of the other parents. My blood was boiling, so I grabbed Bob and threw him in the trash. Then I grabbed Miles. We had a terrible argument and he said that I was wrong for what I did to Bob. That I ruined it and how are we supposed to keep the magic with our kids if I'm not supposed to touch Bob? You'll hold up. Keep the magic with Bob. What does this guy think magic is? Terrorizing his kids and ruining their birthdays?

This is kind of an exaggeration, but this is giving like serial killer vibes. Secretly hoping that your kids do something wrong so that you can maliciously punish them by ruining the things that bring them joy? Okay, sharpie on the face. Like that's a, you know, I can see that being fine. I can see the kid being a little like shocked, but it's not too bad. Cutting up the little girl's clothes, that's okay, that's going a little far.

Ruining the kid's birthday party in front of his friends and other parents, that's deeply embarrassing. That's like a core memory that this kid's going to remember for in front of his friends and other parents, that's deeply embarrassing. That's like a core memory that this kid's going to remember for the rest of his life. And then on top of that, your husband got upset that you were treating your son special and his response was to say, you should stop treating your kid special and not to say, okay, let me be a good father by treating the other kids special to bring them up to the same level. Right?

Why tear down one kid's joy rather than building up the other kids' joy so they're all joyful together? You're like, eh? What? What is wrong with this guy? I don't know if we're exactly in divorce territory because in the grand scheme of things destroying a birthday cake isn't, I mean, it's pretty bad. It is pretty bad.

This guy enjoys being cruel to children. Jeez, yeah, maybe we are actually crossing over into divorced territory. Opie, your husband isn't making a joke anymore. He's being just like, downright cruel. Also, I can't help but notice that his son had the least harmful prank against him, which is drawing on his face with the Sharpie. The kid that was half-years and half his had a slightly worse prank, and the kid that was only years head by far the worst prank. That doesn't really feel like a coincidence. That feels like the favoritism that he said was so bad that you showed your son at the beginning of the story.

Man, the more I think about the story, the worse it is. Like, at the end of the day, we just boil this down to, your husband enjoys and looks forward to showing cruelty to his own kids. Yeah, like, geez, the more I think about it, if that's not a deal breaker, what is? Also, I'll confess, I don't really understand the elf on the shelf, like tradition. My family didn't do it. I know next to nothing about it. I thought the way that it worked was the elf was supposed to like randomly move around the house.

You know, like you put it in the kitchen and the kids go to sleep and then when they wake up, it's in, you know, the dining room. And they're like, oh, look, the elf moved overnight. Isn't that so weird and magical? That's what I thought elf on the the Shelf was supposed to be. Is it not? Is it about destroying kids and terrorizing them

and putting coal in their stockings? I actually don't know the answer to that. So anyways, I'm giving you zero out of five on the wrong scale OP. I'm giving your husband, gosh, four out of five on the wrong scale, I think feels appropriate. Rooting a kid's birthday cake and humiliating him on his birthday in front of his friends, when he didn't even do anything wrong, just because you're dying to do a prank is, uh,

is psychopathic. Am I wrong for taking an Uber to a wedding so I wouldn't be late? My sister got married last weekend. I flew into town, and my parents insisted that I stay with him instead of a hotel like I wanted. My parents are consistently late for everything. I think it's a Latin thing. I hate being late.

I think it's disrespectful. The wedding was at 2.30. My folks live about half an hour from the church. Noone rolls around and my folks aren't even getting ready yet. They're adults, and I'm done dealing with them. So I get ready. I sin for an uber, and I'm at the church by 2. I check in with my sister.

She asked me if I had any problems getting my parents to church. I told her that I came by myself. She went white and said that I was responsible for getting them there on time. Well, nobody asked me to do that. I didn't even want to stay there. So now everyone starts calling my parents and they're just getting ready. They were about 35 minutes late. The service had to be shortened because there was another wedding that day. Everyone still met at me for not getting my parents there on time. My aunt said that I'm wrong for messing up the timing of the wedding.

My mom says that it's my fault for not reminding them to get ready. Am I the only one who thinks that adults should be able to be on time for their own kids wedding without help? No, OP, you're not the only one. These are grown adults. And this isn't like, you know, being late to, I don't know, the neighborhood potluck or like a PTA meeting, this is their own kids wedding. And like, why does everyone just assume that it's your responsibility? Is it because everyone

so accustomed to your parents being late and just lazy, uncaring people that they just assume they're going to be constantly late and unaring in the future. So therefore, everyone else has to accommodate them, even though you haven't been asked. No, Opie, this is really, this is really, really dumb. I'm completely on your side here. I'm giving you zero out of five buttholes. I'm giving everyone who blames you two out of five buttholes, and I'm giving your parents three out of five buttholes. Am I the butthole for telling my parents that I won't attend their Christmas celebration until they send my husband a separate invitation? I'll preface this by saying that my husband, Luke, does not get along with my parents. You can't tell who's right or who's wrong. There's always this ongoing tension between them, but they can be civil

enough to sit together at a table. I recently got an invitation for Christmas celebration for my parents. The invitation includes me and Luke, but Luke thought this was somewhat rude and disrespectful because he believes that he should get his own invitation and not have his name mentioned as an extension to mine. Yo what? Okay, Opie, hold up. Hold up, I gotta stop right here. You can't tell who's right and who's wrong? Oh, I've got a pretty good idea about who's right and who's wrong in this tension. We talked, and he said that he wouldn't go unless they sent him a proper invitation. I called my mom and asked if she could do it. She thought that it was ridiculous, and she said that she and dad did the same thing

with my sister and her husband. I told her it was fine, but Luke can be sensitive like that, and so a simple invitation in the form of a text directly to him will fix it. My mom got defensive and said that Luke is being ridiculous. Dad claimed that Luke is trying to pull some power move to humiliate them, but I thought this was a small issue. They still thought it was ridiculous, so I told them that I won't attend if they don't send him a separate invitation, because he won't attend if he doesn't get it.

This blew up and my sister started arguing saying that Luke needs to get over himself and shamed me for trying to force our parents to send him an invitation by saying that I won't come if they don't. We haven't talked after that, and right now we're just waiting for an invitation. Then OP post in an update, I just got off the phone with my sister. She told me that our parents have just disinvited me from the celebration. I feel horrible, but I can't argue anymore, just like I can't argue about what everybody else in the comments is saying, I admit it, Luke is the problem.

He just caused me to be disinvited from the event and is blaming me for it. Okay, so I have a really, really long history on this channel of saying support your spouse. And yes, 10 times out of 10, you should support your spouse. But to be clear, supporting your spouse doesn't mean agreeing with them. Supporting your spouse means helping them be the best person they can be at all times, because indulging your husband's petty power play is not supporting him. It's enabling him. Because I agree with your dad OP, it is a power play. You have got to stop deluding yourself OP.

If this story is indication, your parents are not the problem, your husband's the problem. I'm giving your parents 0 out of 5 buttholes. OP, you get 1 out of 5 buttholes for enabling your husband. Your husband gets 2 out of 5 buttholes for being a petty loser. Am I the butthole for not disclosing that I had plastic surgery to my boyfriend? I'm a 26 year old woman, and I've been dating Max who's 25 for 4 months. When I was 22, I had a nose job because I broke my nose twice as a kid and it left it with a large bump.

Then at 23, I had a breast augmentation that bumped me up to 2 cup sizes. These were lifelong insecurities that I was bullied over, and it was really relieving to get them done. Onto the present. I met Max through a friend friend and things have been great. Last night I was scrolling through my social media while on the sofa with him. I stopped on an old classmate's vacation photos

where she wore a bikini and frankly, had very obvious implants. She looks great, I'm happy for her, but you can tell. Max glanced over at that moment and said, gross. I asked him what the deal was and he said that women who get implants or other surgeries are a huge turn off to most guys and how men prefer natural over tube balloons and how insecure she looks. I couldn't help but laugh and said, so you're turned off by me? He got very confused and asked what I meant. I informed him that I had procedures

done before. He kept denying it and saying that I was joking until I showed him old photos of me. He got quiet and left shortly after. I got a text saying that I should have disclosed this on the first day, how I let him on and that he needs to reconsider things. It's the next day and I haven't heard anything. I am bewildered, am I the butthole? See, that's the weird thing. He isn't actually turned off by plastic surgery because you have plastic surgery and if he's dating you, that means he's attracted to you. He just thinks that he's turned off by plastic surgery.

So the weird thing is, like he's confronted with these two incompatible ideas, I don't like plastic surgery, I'm attracted to my girlfriend who does have plastic surgery. And it's really weird that of those two options, he decided to stick with, I am not attracted to plastic surgery. Instead of, I'm attracted to my girlfriend. Also, OP adds in an edit that she broke up with her boyfriend over text, so I think you dodged a bullet on this one OP. Like, he's upset at you that you didn't tell him about your plastic surgery on date one, but you should be upset at him for not disclosing to you that he's a misogynistic hypocrite on the first date.

Also, I've heard this a few times that people are turned off by plastic surgery. Like, that's a really, really toxic attitude to have because they're assuming that the only people who do it are for vanity reasons, but there are lots of people out there who are born with like defects and problems with their body that they want to get fixed. And for them, the only option is plastic surgery. Like what about people who are born with cleft palettes and are literally missing part

of their lip? If they get plastic surgery and restore their lip, are you really going to tell that person that they're gross and disgusting? Nah man, you're gross and disgusting. OP, I'm giving you zero out of five buttholes. I'm giving your boyfriend one out of five buttholes. Am I wrong for not wanting coal for Christmas? This year I went to my fiance's house for Christmas.

It was my first time going because we would typically go to my family's house instead. I got a rather pricey gift for my fiance, Dan, that's related to his hobbies. I got nice gifts for Dan's parents based off things that I talked about with them before. I also got a small pack of chocolates for each of Dan's other relatives, who I didn't know that well. I wasn't expecting many gifts from Dan's relatives because I didn't know many of them that well, but I was certainly expecting more than I got. At first, I was excited when I saw that there was a big pile of gifts for me. However, once I opened the first one, it was just a piece of coal.

Everyone laughed, and I just kind of laughed along thinking that it was a gag gift and that the other gifts would be different. But every single gift turned out to be coal. All 18 of them. I started to get upset, so I cried and lashed out at Dan. But he calmly explained that, apparently, this is a long-standing tradition in his family where they gift coal to newcomers who are celebrating Christmas with him for the first time. He explained that it's just easier that way, since all the relatives who might not know the newcomer well don't have

to stress about finding a gift and it's a fun experience for the newcomer as well. I told Dan that I couldn't believe I skipped my own family celebration for this and left but now Dan and some of his family are blowing up my phone saying that I embarrassed him in front of his relatives and that I made it awkward for everyone. So am I wrong here? Okay, so people can get really sensitive about their local holiday traditions. You know, there's actually a really good movie about this. It's called Mid-Summer, and basically a bunch of college kids go to a little village where they have these like quaint, sweet local rituals and customs and traditions.

And because these college kids are newcomers, they don't understand the importance of these traditions and they don't want to participate in them. But by the end of the movie, luckily, they come around and participate. Okay, if you haven't seen that movie, and you don't know what it is, I'm joking because that movie is a horror movie about a cult that murders a bunch of people because that's their weird local tradition. Look, just because something is a tradition that doesn't make it inherently a virtue. I could say, my family tradition is, every time someone comes in the house, I punch them in the face.

It's just, it's our tradition. You have to respect our tradition, tradition, tradition. Who cares if it's a tradition? Just because something's a tradition doesn't make it okay. OP, what's your fiance and your fiance's family did to you was cruel and humiliating. Your fiance could have at least given you some kind of heads up out of basic respect for you. I feel like one gift of coal would have been like an okay gift. Like, oh, you get coal,

oh, but surprise, we actually have real gifts for you. But 18, one after the other, I'm just imagining OP sitting like on the floor next to the Christmas tree surrounded by smiling people She hardly knows while she opens a box. Cole opens a box. Cole opens a box. Cole opens a box. Cole opens a call opens Cole opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a open a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a open a call opens a opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a call opens a open a call opens a call opens a open a call opens a call opens a call opens a call, opens, call, opens, call, opens, call, opens, call, okay, I did 18 gifts there. Just, I started out just to be funny, but then I realized, oh my God, 18 is a lot of gifts. That is humiliating. Everyone just smiling down at you for like 10 straight minutes as you open up gift after gift of coal, weird.

OP, I'm giving you zero out of 5 on the wrong scale. I'm giving Dan and his family 2 out of 5 on the wrong scale. That was our slash of my The Butthole, and if you like this content be sure to follow my podcast because I put out new Reddit podcast episodes every single day.