'AITA for yelling at a 19-year-old and asking for him to be fired? He teased my husband and I.' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITA for yelling at a 19-year-old and asking for him to be fired?"

I (37M) and my husband (39M) have been together 11 years. My husband owns a small bookshop and recently has hired a boy to help him. This lad (I'll call him Joe) is gay and while me and my husband very obviously have no issue with this, Joe seems to do things a lot differently to us. For context both me and my husband are Irish immigrants to London.

We grew up a 20 minutes away from each other and went to the same, very Catholic, school. We aren't exactly flamboyant or outwardly 'gay' and don't exactly do PDA since that's how we were raised. On my lunch break from work I like to visit my husband bringing him records I think he might like and his coffee. Recently however Joe has started making comments.

It started small with him saying things about 'queer joy' and how he loves gay couples which we didn't mind at all, in all fairness it's a fairly scary world for queer people right now and I understand seeing a happy married gay couple means a lot for a kid. But then he started getting a little too comfortable for my liking. He started asking things like 'whose the top' and calling us the f slur jokingly.

I think it's entirely inappropriate to be making those comments to his boss but my husband told me to let it go. Joe calls us the f slur a lot which I had brought up a few times telling him calmly to not do that but when he continued I learnt to let go despite my distaste for it since it didnt seem to bother my husband too much but last Wednesday I lost it. I was up by the counter when Joe came in.

He immediately started blathering on about how f---y we are and while my husband chuckled awkwardly,I did not. Joe noticed this and said I was a stick in the mud and repressed. I was trying to keep my cool until he called me 'a fenian f---t' and I lost it. For anyone who doesn't know the term 'Fenian' isnt exactly a slur or anything but it isn't exactly nice either.

Me and my husband jokingly call each other fenians or paddy's from time to time if we've done something particularly 'Irish' and I've never exactly viewed as a very offensive word to me but something about this English boy made me snap. I asked him if he thought that was an appropriate thing to say to his boss's partner and started shouting.

Telling him he's way out of play and if he wants to keep his job he should buck up. I left to cool down a bit and 30 minutes later got a call from my husband berating me saying that Joe was crying and that hes just a kid. I do feel really bad since hes only young but I still think he needed to be knocked down a step or two, AITA?

Edit: I see a lot of people making comments about the nature of the relationship between Joe and my husband, my husband has asked Joe to stop on my behalf before but this isn't something that really bothers my husband and to be fair it's his workplace not mine.

The internet did not hold back one bit.

FSLAR wrote:

Have customers or other employees seen him act like this? It can backfire badly. Ex: I had a co worker call our boss’s wife and mother hookers when I worked retail or at least imply it. He let it slide. We were in our mid 20s, and eventually same guy called a manager a hooker(among other words) for being a single mom.

She went to our district manager, other managers (who he also said questionable things too) and almost to HR, it went bad. It eventually was a factor when our boss got fired for bad management. I even was asked if it was all true and other staff weren’t okay.

OP responded:

I only really visit the shop when it’s closed for lunch but I really fucking hope not I don’t think my husband would let it get to the stage where he’d say things like that to a customer but I honestly don’t know for sure .

Worth_Winter2468 wrote:

NTA. He should have been given ONE warning. The second time it came out of his mouth he should have been fired. This behavior would not fly in any other work place, with any other boss. Your husband is being a pushover and a coward. Maybe he seems himself in the kid, maybe he’s afraid of confrontation.

But nothing about his behavior is appropriate or profesional. Because he is at WORK. You aren’t his friends. This isn’t a queer book club. He is using slurs and asking about his bosses intimate life at his job. He needs to learn his lesson now or he never will, and that will be partly your husbands fault for letting it seem acceptable.

nim_opet wrote:

NTA. You told him you find it offensive, he knows you are offended and he continued. He is crying because he’s actually facing consequences.

Essebear wrote:

NTA. You showed a remarkable amount of restraint up until that point. He’s 19, not a child and time to face consequences. Possibly it’s the first time he’s really had a free environment to express who he is and embrace his own sexuality.

He’s pushed boundaries but not responded correctly when asked to rein it in somewhat. That’s why he’s upset, because he knows he deserves to be yelled at and deserves to be out of a job. Repeatedly asked nicely and doesn’t care or change his ways. Deserves whatever your husband chooses to do next

EJ_1004 wrote:

NTA. The ‘kid’ is 19 and is old enough to know that saying harmful remarks in front of, let alone to address your boss is not the way to go. Should you have yelled, maybe not but I can’t say I would have done any better in your position.

Honestly, apologize to your husband for the scene you caused, mention that as long as the kid works there you won’t be going to the book shop for favors or otherwise as he makes you uncomfortable and after today you’re sure the kid would be uncomfortable as well.

Let him know if you’re willing to offer the kid an apology (I wouldn’t but maybe you’re a bigger person than I am), and let him know that you don’t want one from the kid as you find his behavior and language appealing and don’t want anything from him.

gillette1814 wrote:

Are you uncomfortable at all about Joe and your husband’s relationship? I agree that Joe needs to respect your boundaries regarding nicknames and “jokes,” but this just feels like Joe really strikes a nerve with you. It feels personal, your aversion to Joe. I need more info before I weigh in.

OP responded:

I’m not really ‘uncomfortable’ with their relationship per se but I do think that my husband lets Joe get away with these things and doesn’t really have my back in these kinds of situations. He's a peacemaker by nature and while I love that about him it results in him letting things slide that I wouldn’t so then I’m made to be the bad guy.

eldestport wrote:

Mate, 'fenian' is absolutely a slur and that is a very specific and targeted thing for him to be calling you. He might think he gets a pass for using homophobic slurs and I'm straight so that's not for me to say but as a Brit he doesn't get to throw around the word 'fenian', especially in that kind of context (obviously it's different if two Irish people use it in friendly banter).

A British person using it against an Irish person, well that could easily be regarded as hate speech.

OP responded:

In all fairness Fenian isnt exactly a common as it used to be and he could’ve just heard me and my husband saying it and assumed it was like a nickname or something? It’s just that it’s been used by English people against me in the past so I’m more sensitive to it I suppose

After receiving a lot of comments, OP shared a major update.

Update: Joe is my husband's son. I won't go too much into the details for both my and their privacy but I had a major fight with my husband about why he was being so lenient with him and why we didn't have my back in this. We were shouting back and forth until he shouted something about 'blood being thicker than water' I shout back about him being just some boy and he stopped suddenly.

Then he told me. Joe is from an ex girlfriend of his whose now unable to take care of him so my husband picked up. He's been playing child support for years. We each have our separate bank accounts so I didn't even notice. I'm contemplating separation and divorce. Someone I've known for 15 years became a stranger in 10 seconds.

I physically got sick thinking back on those remarks that he made to his FATHER. My husband always went white as a ghost when he said those kinds of things and that was possibly the only thung he actually gave out to him for but it makes me feel sick all the same.

The comments kept coming.

chainblade59 wrote:

The update is absolutely insane. I’m sorry that you got hit with such an overwhelming piece of information. No perfect way to navigate finding out something life-changing like that. Especially NTA now. I wish you the best of luck moving forward after finding out that he was lying for so long (and yes, hiding that information is absolutely lying).

the_owl_syndicate wrote:

You have a husband problem.

premadecookiedough wrote:

My coworkers and I can casually throw around the word "d#ke" back and forth at each other and it doesn't matter, but I would never use that language around elder lesbians. I never had to deal with the negative affects of that word being used against me.

The only reason my peers and I can so casually joke about it now is largely thanks to their generation being the ones who pushed back and loudly fought against hate speech. I consider it the highest form of disrespect to point that language in their direction- its like pointing at a war-torn veteran with a toy gun and thinking it's funny to joke about shooting them

NTA- Kids gotta learn one way or another, and gentle warnings aren't getting through to him. Its time he learns that pride month aesthetics aren't what won us our rights, its the quiet bookshop owners who survived years of pointed ab-$e directed at their sexuality and lived to provide a small corner where kids like him can feel safe.