'AITA for threatening to call the police on my step MIL over my wedding dress?'
"AITA for threatening to call the police on my step MIL over my wedding dress?"
This story requires a little bit of pretext to understand the full scope. My husband’s parents split up when he was young. They both remarried and had kids with their new respective spouses. My husband would go back and forth between the homes of his parents but preferred his mom’s home because of his step mom.
According to my husband and his mom she was very verbally and physically abusive to my husband. His dad unfortunately would take the side of his new wife which left my husband’s relationship with his father rather strained.
My husband was estranged from his dad’s side of the family from his teenage years until he was about 21-22. One day out of the blue his father called him and wanted to rebuild their relationship. His father was living in California (we were in tx) and offered to house my husband until he could get his own place.
My husband accepted because outside of his step mom he always loved his dad. He decided to forgive his step mom for the things she did to him as a child and tried to forge a new relationship with her as well. When i got to California, i formed a really good relationship with step mom and actually really liked her. We had similar interests and i would go over some times just to hang out with her.
This is where the drama comes in to play. Step mom owns an event planning business. When my husband proposed to me, she offered to help plan the wedding and supply all the florals for us as a gift. I was so excited and we started planning the wedding right away. One of the first things we did was dress shop.
My mom flew out from tx and step mom joined us in the hunt for the perfect dress. I ended up finding my dream dress really quickly and she offered to keep it at her home since my husband and i lived in a small apartment. I agreed and we continued planning the wedding until we got THE TEXT.
She texted myself and my husband 6 months before the wedding saying “I am no longer able to assist in the wedding planning process. Unfortunately, i will not be attending either.” It was a huge shock to us because it was out of the blue and she didn’t give any explanation.
My husband told me not to respond and he would talk to his father to figure out what was going on. He got very vague answers from his dad and no explanation. We let it go and continued our wedding planning without her.
About 3 months before the wedding i texted step mom on 3 separate occasions asking when i could get my dress from her and got nothing back each time. I asked my husband to call his dad to help coordinate something and got crickets from him too. So i texted step mom saying the police will be at their house if i don’t have my dress in hand by X date at 2:00.
Husbands dad called almost instantly after i sent that text saying i was being dramatic and if i hadn’t hurt step moms feelings by not replying to her text i would’ve maybe received a prompt reply from her.
Husband told his dad dramatic or not we were serious about the police being at their house if the dress was not returned. Husbands dad said to come right now to get it when we got there the dress was laying in the drive way with a note that said i was a dramatic bitch and my wedding is going to be ugly.
Because of a twisted story that step mom told their whole side of the family, whenever we see people in public they give us dirty looks and are incredibly rude to us. Maybe it was a little far to threaten the police but how else was i going to get my dress? So, aita?
What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:
OrcEight said:
NTA. Sounds like your MIL is still mean and abusive. You turned the tables on her by ignoring her outrageous text. Threatening to call the police was the only way to force her to cooperate.
conansma said:
NTA, step mummy is a mischief maker. No contact is the way to handle an attention seeker like her. Good luck with your wedding. As someone who has trust issues I would contact every single wedding vendor and ensure the old nasties name is no where near your arrangements with a password required to make any changes.
SnooWords4839 said:
Block them all!
hokeypokey59 said:
I hope you took a picture of your dress in the driveway and the note to "share" with her flying monkeys.
AdventurousPlatform5 said:
NTA, eff em'. Your wedding will be beautiful and cheaper without all the extra haters to feed! Sorry about all the drama, but if there's one thing I've learned from this website, the truth eventually comes out. When it does and the flying monkes descend with apologies, tell them to F-off.
crazykim79 said:
You’re absolutely NTA!! The fact that step-mommy gets pissed off over something and neither FIL or her can be adult enough to even bothering to tell you why and then won’t respond to any texts - I would have done the same thing!
Good to know now what kind of people they are. Let’s you save time having to go through a bunch more bullsh!t with them down the line. And the people giving you dirty looks & saying something? Just cut them out now. Don’t even mess with these fools!
We'll keep you posted on any updates!