'AITA for not taking my wife's side and siding with my parents?' UPDATED
"AITA for not taking my wife's side and siding with my parents?"
Background: My wife (28 F) and I (30 M), as well as my brother and his wife went to visit our parents as we haven't seen them in a while. My parents (57) had a box of $300 ginseng in the fridge to be given as a gift for their close friend's wedding anniversary tomorrow — we know this because it came up in conversation during lunch.
They also told us to help ourselves to anything in the fridge but to not touch the ginseng for obvious reasons. The problem came when a few hours later my parents called us in a panic saying that they couldn't find the ginseng and if anyone saw it. I didn't take it and at first I thought they just misplaced it somewhere.
However, they insisted that they both agreed on not moving it out of the fridge drawer for that exact reason. All of us denied taking it and the conversation got more heated when my father started yelling that someone must have taken it since it only went missing when we came to visit.
All of us continued to deny taking it, with my wife being really quiet, and my father said that if it doesn't turn up soon, he'd have to have everyone's belongings checked. That was when my wife admitted that she took it.
Apparently, it was some popular brand that my in-laws mentioned and she wanted to give it to them, and she thought that no one would notice since it was in an inconspicuous place in the fridge.
My MIL later called and said my parents overreacted over "such an inconsequential thing" and screamed at me that I was an a**%$le for not defending my wife. The thing is, imo it wasn't a small thing, my wife literally stole hundreds of dollars from my parents and tried to lie her way out of it.
While I agree that my parents shouldn't have started yelling and accusing us, I feel like my wife was in the wrong for taking the ginseng in the first place. This situation has caused a lot of friction and we haven't been speaking since coming home. AITA?
Here's what people had to say to OP:
ThomzLC wrote:
NTA your wife is a thief that literally stole something OF HIGH VALUE from your parents. 'She thought that no one would notice since it was in an inconspicuous place in the fridge.' She is literally lying as you mentioned this topic was brought up during lunch it was an expensive gift not supposed to be touched.
'My MIL later called and said my parents overreacted over 'such an inconsequential thing' and screamed at me that I was an a**hole for not defending my wife.' They are the a**^%les for enabling this lying & stealing behavior.
ProtectionFrequent18 wrote:
NTA your wife literally stole a $300 item for your parents and her and MIL are mad she got caught. Honestly, if my husband did that id be having a long think about continuing the marriage.
human-ish_ wrote:
NTA. Unless we're missing a large part of the story, your wife more or less stole $300 from your parents and didn't think anybody would notice. Even if she didn't know it was a gift, she knew the brand, so she must have had a clue about the price. And for her mother to also brush it off as nothing major?
Eww. I wouldn't trust her in my house unless everything over $20 was locked away, even the couch. If MIL asks why she's not allowed over, it's because she thinks stealing from your family is totally fine and you disagree. (Also, steal a bunch of s**t from her and see how she feels. Like clean out an entire kitchen cabinet of spices.)
Responsible_Judge007 wrote:
NTA. And would I be your parents, your wife wouldn’t set foot in my home ever again. I would be petty enough to tell the hole family that if they ever invite her to a gathering to hide their expensive stuff.
Later OP came back and added this update to the same post:
Update: After making the post, I thought a lot more about the situation. I realized after reading the comments that this indeed wasn't a one time situation. Things in our house like face creams, kitchen utensils and even household tools would go missing and I would just believe my wife's excuses.
I feel like such an idiot for not realizing sooner, and honestly can't believe she took advantage of my trust like that. I guess a part of me refused the believe the truth which was how she thought she could get away with it this time.
When I brought up divorce she immediately threatened to call the police to arrest me for domestic violence (When I had never laid a hand on her like that) so that I couldn't ever find a job again, so needless to say my lawyer is being called and this marriage will be over very soon. I have also apologized to my parents for all this awful behavior and they have accepted.
To be honest, this is probably the best ending and I'm kind of glad this situation happened before it went on any longer. I'm incredibly done with my (hopefully soon ex-) wife and her side of the family (Whose mother called me again yesterday entirely remorseless and called me a childish mommy's boy). Thank you everyone for all the help and comments.
Also, to clarify a few things, from what I'm aware, MIL was aware of my wife's actions, especially since she had done this sort of thing before (Taking things from our house to give to them) and didn't see anything wrong with it since neither of them like my parents. And since it was going to be a short visit (Like two hours tops), she thought no one was going to notice the missing ginseng before we left.