'AITA for ruining a birthday party by accidentally exposing a cheater?' UPDATED

"AITA for ruining a birthday party by exposing a cheater?"

Yesterday mom took us to a friend's birthday party, she wanted to introduce us to her friends for the first time since my brother and I moved to Europe less than a month ago and started living with her. In the party I met a gay couple (let's call them Rob & Nick), they are wonderful and I ended up spending time with them. I walked away a bit to go to the barbecue line to make myself a plate.

While I was waiting for the meat I overheard two men talking about hooking up with a woman in the car, I ignored it because I didn't knew who they are and also that's none of my business. A little while later one of that men sat across the table from me and Rob & Nick.

Rob wrapped his arm around his husband and kissed his cheek, you know like normal couples do… then the guy protested loudly saying "are you seriously doing this? There are kids around!" It caught us by surprise and the couple didn't know how to react so I said "you didn't seem to care if there was kids around when you were talking about hooking up with a woman in your car"

What I didn't know was that the guy's wife was sitting besides him... and well, you can guess what happened afterwards. He started to yell at me, calling me a liar then my mom and brother came over to protect me, Rob & Nick entered the fight... and his wife was lashing out at him, screaming at the top of her lungs, was even throwing stuff... it was a HUGE fight.

The birthday girl got overwhelmed and ended the party earlier. I immediately apologized to the birthday girl, she said she understands but I should stay out of it especially since I didn’t know them very well, Nick and Rob can defend themselves.

Some people are bombarding my mother’s phone saying things like I should've ignore and step away with Rob and Nick from the guy cause he was drunk and didn't know wtf he was talking about, others say I should apologize to everyone at the party for ruining the day, others support me and said I did the right thing. I feel awful for my mom and the birthday girl. It was definitely not a good first impression.

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

Thrwwy747 said:

Glass houses n all that. The loudmouth drunk should've kept his bigoted opinions to himself, especially considering how cavalier he'd been about his extramarital activities earlier in the day.

WildChildALR said:

Chances are, this isn't the first time the guy made inappropriate comments about women other than his wife and got caught. The fact she was so quick to believe you could mean this guy is on his third or fourth potential mistress. Hopefully, it's the last straw, and she leaves him.

skskskinky said:

Nah, you didn’t intentionally do it, and if he didn’t want shit to come back to him, he shouldn’t have done it in the first place.. much less start shit talking without expecting to get shit on in response. He deserved it, good going.

Affectionate-Cut291 said:

People think shutting up is the same as not taking a side. That's completely untrue. You choose to speak out. Anyone telling you to shut up is just being lazy and choosing the perpetrator. NTA

BigMikeSus said:

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha this gave me so much dopamine to read. Wow. I need a cigarette. NTA. This was beautiful. Well executed. You can’t write these scenes, they have to happen naturally, but God Almighty I am so blessed to get to hear about this one.

Boobah79 said:

NTA and thank you sticking up for people against bigotry. He was being an a$$#ole and he got what was coming to him. He probably has a past of cheating which is why his wife immediately blew up at him and freaked out. Keep being awesome!

Two days after her original post, she shared this update:

First let me answer some questions.

• The married straight couple were not friends with my mother or Nick and Rob, they don't know each other they only have the birthday person as mutual friend.

• I didn’t said anything loudly, it was like casual. The man’s reaction was what caught everybody attention!

• Rob’s immediate reaction was shock & Nick busted out laughing, he called the guy a “disgusting hypocrite”. They walked my family back to the car, I started to apologize but they stopped me and thanked me for having their back. I was invited to go clubbing with them!

Now onto the update: I sat down for a conversation with my mother. I said that if she wanted I would apologize to all people present at the party but she refused, she knows that it wasn’t what I wanted and told me that she raised a young woman to stand up in the face of injustice and prejudice. But I had to do something about a few people because I unintentionally did planted the chaos seed.

Then we called the bday girl (I’ll call her Carol), I started to apologize again and told her more clearly what had happened. I offered to take her out, buy dinner and stuff but she refused. Carol said that she understood why I did it and is glad that I defended her friends, she also knows that it got out of control because most people were drinking for a while.

She asked me to talk with the wife and tell her everything so I did. The wife was a little more upset and very rude but I kept my patience. She said I didn’t had the right to expose her marriage problem in a table full of people. I stated that this was never my intention, I had no idea they’re married, she didn’t even looked at our direction so I didn’t bother to introduce myself at the table.

But I felt the need to apologize to her once again, I told her everything I’ve heard and described the guy her husband was talking with… turns out they’re brothers! And also I insisted she should have a conversation with Nick & Rob, if I hadn’t said anything she would’ve allowed her husband disgusting behavior.

It was a long call and she led me to believe that this was the last straw on their marriage, I won’t say anything else because like I’ve said enough lol At the end, I think she realized that I didn’t had bad intentions but we won’t be friends.

Lastly, my mom took some action. She wrote a lengthy text to her friend’s group, to sum it up: she was disappointed on how people were quick to call me out but didn’t seem to care that their friends were victim of bigotry. I wasn’t the one screaming and fighting, the party could continued but it became a big mess because how drunk the men were, they tried to help but ended up making it worse.

She stated that her daughter (me) already apologized and reached out to those who got truly affected by the situation, they all should do the same. Some people ended up leaving the chat!

A woman said my mother was “enabling my behavior”, one of them wants me to stay away from all their social gatherings cause I’m a “troublemaker”, a few others are still weighing in… I think this will drag out a little longer which sucks.

Less than a month in a new country and I already messed up. Not gonna lie I feel bad, yes I did stood up to defend a lovely couple but it doesn’t feel good to know all the trouble that it followed. Anyway, I think that’s it! I’ll try to stay away from all of it. Thank you for reading and all the advices!