Man's fiancée threatens to call off wedding unless her parents move in with them. AITA? UPDATED

"Fiancé (27F) threatening to call of wedding if I (M26) don't let her parents (M57/F50) move in with us after the wedding."

Here's the original post:

TLDR: After my grandfathers death six months ago, I inherited 90% of his wealth with a no contest will. Granting me not only enough money to never work again, but also a massive estate he claimed was his 'hunting cabin.' It's big enough to fit my Fiancé, my parents, and her parents comfortably.

However I said I didn't want them moving in with us, and now it's turned into a total blowout. To those who will ask, no common law doesn't apply to us, and after a heated debate she agreed to sign a prenup (with witnesses around) if I agreed to buy her a 'nice ring, and a vacation once a year.' She clearly isn't with me for the money.

Obviously this comes off as a 'rich people' problem, but up until 5 months ago I was still living in a one bedroom apartment working at a rather large supermarket retail store making $12hr, and going to be paying off college debt until I was in my 60's. My Fiancé is still working her nursing job, and we've been fully living together for four years.

Some background into our relationship, we met six years ago. There were literally zero issues with us dating, when it came to some sort of conflict we sat down, explained both of our sides like adults, and generally fixed the problem. We've rarely gotten into arguments, and have the same end goals in life, children, grow old together, die be buried next to each other, and have fun whenever we can.

I've always had an incredibly distant relationship with her parents, when she introduced me to them they both stated they 'didn't like me' to my face, and thought I 'wasn't good enough.' Her father even said 'not in my lifetime.' When I asked for his permission to marry his daughter, which I stated the only reason I was doing it was for an olive branch.

My parents on the other hand love my Fiancé, they scooped her up like she was one of us from the start. Has never said ANYTHING bad about her in public, nor have they in private. She at least in my parents eyes is the metaphorical second coming of Christ.

During my grandfathers decline in health, I was the first one there. He just got old, and with being old comes complications. I stopped working my 'higher paying' job to work retail to have more time to take care of him, because his other children were 'busy.' This was a very stressful time in our relationship, I had just recently left my job, was not around often, and I myself was super stressed.

Recently, I've began the slow move of everything over there. While we still have to 'live' in our apartment until the lease agreement is up, there's nothing against the rules of me moving stuff. I brought it up to my girlfriend how taking care of my grandfather, has really made me realize how important my family is, and that I wanted to know if It was okay for my parents to move into the new house with us.

My dad could retire, and my mom can spend the rest of her life relaxing not stressing over bills/debt. (because, I can pay that off over time. I'm not insane enough to pay it all in one go.) She expressed how that was an amazing idea, and how she'd like her parents to move in as well.

I laughed at the idea, and asked her if 'she was serious, and why would I want to live in a house with people I don't like, nor want to interact with?' She explained that this could be a good chance at us healing old wounds, and making amends. I explained that not only do I not want to heal old wounds, if it was up to me, they wouldn't be coming to the wedding.

Obviously this was the wrong thing to say, and now she's giving the the ultimatum of 'let them move in, or the wedding is off.' While I can understand her side, I seriously do not want to interact with them in any capacity.

They've tried numerous times to get her back with exes, lie about me, even spread a rumor about me being unfaithful, until I pulled up real evidence of me being nowhere near where they said I was thanks to google location. My Fiancé knows all of this, and still wants to try and 'rebuild' a relationship with them. This past week, I've been avoiding her with excuses/white lies.

I've been meeting with accountants, lawyers, wedding venue people, and jewelers. I've also been spending all nighters at my grandfathers grave drinking with him, and not getting back home until 4am. To me, it feels like my Grandfather is still the only person I can vent my deepest secrets, and frustrations to.

Which is why I've come to you Reddit, I feel trapped. On one hand I do not want to live with people I absolutely hate, and on the other hand I do not want to lose the woman of my dreams.

I want a third parties opinion on the matter, with no connection to me whatsoever as I feel it's the best way to make a good judgement without people close to me influencing my choices. I'm more than willing to answer questions, and know how this subreddit works because I too am a pizzaeating, pimplepopping, redditor myself.

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

RedditPosterOver9000 said:

You're nuts at your age and with a potential fresh marriage to even entertain as a joke the idea of your psycho inlaws mooching off you before the ink is even dry on the marriage certificate.

MaryAnne0601 said:

The woman of your dreams would never allow her parents to be that vile to you and tolerate it. Look my father liked my brother in law but did NOT want my sister to marry him. It was his situation and family he objected to. At the rehearsal the officiant told my father “You say I give this woman or her mother and I do.”

My father looked at my sister and said “What if I say I don’t give this woman because I don’t believe in this marriage?” My sister looked him straight in the eye and told him then I walk down the aisle alone and give myself because I love him.

Make no mistake my father never bad mouthed my BIL before or after the wedding. He did talk to my sister once about his concerns before they were married. My sister never would have tolerated behavior like your In laws have shown. My parents wouldn’t have been that disrespectful to either of them.

If your fiancé really loved you she wouldn’t have allowed it. She certainly would never ask you to ignore it and live with them. Take a long hard look at your relationship. It’s not as rosy and wonderful as you think.

facinationstreet said:

Hell no. Call off the wedding. You sound like a lottery winner. One of the ones who runs through their money in a matter of a few years. Slow your roll.

PolygonMan said:

Your reactions - laughter and incredulity - are completely 100% correct. Asking you to house and live with two people who hate you, tried to destroy your relationship and treated you like shit is laughable. It's ridiculous. By giving you this ultimatum she already showed you where you rank for her. You don't matter. Your happiness and comfort in your own home doesn't matter.

Call her bluff, and when she instantly turns around and changes her mind (which she 100% is going to do) tell her it's too late. Remember that she used an ultimatum about ending your entire relationship to manipulate you. You are probably the least trapped person here, you need to get in that mindset.

pineboxwaiting said:

Your fiancée may not be after your money, but her parents absolutely are. My instinct is to call her bluff. Under no circumstances should you be forced to house her parents. At the same time, this may be her reaction to living with your parents as a newlywed. I loved my in-laws but wouldn’t have wanted them to live with me as I began my married life.

Ask her if she would be amenable to marriage if the two of you lived alone with the understanding that you will NEVER live under the same roof as your in-laws nor will you ever support them financially. If she refuses this offer, then she may not be who you thought she was after all.

Verdict: NTA. And commenters urged him to get out of the relationship, asap.

Well, apparently he took everyone's advice. Two days after his original post, he shared this whopper of an update:

This will be my only update post available for this subreddit, in the 48 hours since I've posted that thing took off like a rocket ship. I'd like to start off by thanking everyone for their opinions, while a majority of you told me to leave, others offered compromises, logical alternatives, and gave me questions I didn't even THINK to ask myself.

I think this has been the longest 48 hours of my life, reading through comments, responding to them, having meetings IRL, and talking with my Fiancé have REALLY given me clarity on what my next choices in life are going to be.

1 - I've postponed the wedding. While some of you may refer to it as 'calling her bluff,' I call it waiting and seeing.

As of right now, we're REALLY talking about how compatible we truly are, going over our goals in life again, and talking in depth about the relationship we want with our inlaws if we got married apparently alot had changed since the last time we talked about it (before I got money, some of you called it).

2 - Yes, she genuinely thought moving her parents in would make my relationship with them better over time. I've expressed that as a result of all they've said/done to me any positive relationship or communication with them will only be done out of necessity.

For example if she was pregnant, in the hospital, or any life altering complication or celebration. She did not take this well, but that was expected, but it's important I tell my truth. She believes I'll come around, and try to build a relationship with her parents, but as of right now I can't see myself doing it.

3 - My Parents won't be moving in, as I haven't even asked them yet. I know some of you were confused/assumed it was already happening. It was not, I asked if it was okay if they could. Not TELLING her it was happening.

Some of you suggested that maybe moving them in as newlyweds was weird, and suggested building them a small house on property. I didn't think about that, and will talk to my accountant/parents about it whenever that conversation needs to be talked about. Nice idea reddit strangers.

4 - What have I been doing? ALOT of meetings about my future, finances, and setting up trusts/wills. I'll be re-enrolling into school to take classes on business, finances, accounting, and economics as my accountant suggested I do.

We're still working on a budget, but as of right now my next steps are furthering my education to manage my newfound wealth and opportunity in a healthy way as to not blow it.

As of right now, to be honest I'm emotionally drained. I think think the weight of my grandfathers death is finally hitting me despite it being months later, and the only thing that kept me going was the idea of the wedding day.

With that being postponed, I can really only focus on myself, my values, and my emotions. Staying up all night and drinking at a grave site isn't healthy, and I've not only promised myself to cut back on the booze, but also not stay up drinking.

I've been thinking about maybe getting into some sort of therapy/grief counselling, but I'd need to make sure that is in the budget with my accountant as that's a long term thing maybe they know someone.

5 - Couples Counselling. To those that suggested it, that's a wonderful idea. However, I'm not sure if I can move past her strange dependent relationship with her parents.

Initially I thought I could, but with the 'rose tinted goggles' off I'm starting to see alot of redflags I'm not too confident a therapist/wedding can solve. We both have issues we need to work through, but right now I'm not sure if we'll be working through them together.

I know alot of you said to drop the relationship, but I think after six years it's worth giving it a try to save it. Making a choice like that without trying to fix the problem seems silly, but I did expect ALOT of those answers to come through it's just how reddit is.

Just know that, I know my worth, I know my values, and I'm not backing down. Maybe we won't work things out, and the relationship will just end. Maybe things will work out, and we can continue. At least for now 48 hours later, it's too soon to tell.

6 - As for the prenup, we haven't signed anything yet. A lot of you were really harping on the 'nice ring, and fancy vacations' once a year thing. While the vacations compromise is indeed concerning, the ring issue is something we've been having conflict on for awhile. My personal opinion before/now is that rings are overpriced, silly, and serve no significant purpose in a relationship.

She says that they're a important symbol of love/commitment. The compromise to the prenup in regards to the ring was, I actually buy her a 'better' ring than I already had. Which sounds super predatory in those words, but it makes sense in my mind. She doesn't want a 'titanic heart of the ocean' style jewelry piece, just something a bit more noticeable, I probably should've elaborated on that in my original post,

but hey we all make mistakes. Which to some sounds like gold digger mentality, but I know the price range of ring she wants and it's about the same range my dad spent on my moms ring. It's something you'd see on a middleclass woman's finger, nothing huge, nothing small, just enough I guess. I still think they're just silly circles of metal and compressed dirt.

There's not much to say, we sat down talked for awhile. I explained my side of things, she explained hers. She was upset I was postponing the wedding, but once she realized I wasn't going to fold she agreed under the notion that it was 'best for our relationship to work on this before marriage.' Right now, I'm taking a step back from her to clear the air, and give us time to formulate what we want on our own.

I've driven the two hours to the cabin, thankfully the internet people hooked that up yesterday. I've talked to my parents, not about them like moving in, but about the situation as a whole. (leaving out I went to the internet before I went to them.) While my dad can't just abandon his job, he sends his love and support.

My mom is currently making the 18 hour drive, so 'I wouldn't be alone by myself.' I've gotten attempted phonecalls from the inlaws within the last 24 hours, but I've watched them ring and went back to doing my everyday tasks like lawnwork, meal prep, reading, bingewatching netflix.

It's strange, but right now I feel happier alone right now than I do with Fiancé. Maybe it's some sign that it's not meant to be, or that I've finally been able to relax for the first time in years and have found comfort in solitude, maybe I'm happy my mom is going to cook me my favorite dinner as a child to cheer me up.

I think as of right now though, I have ALOT of work to do not only emotionally but also literally. I'm thinking about doing some telework just to still have a mainstream of income part-time, as I'll probably get bored of being jobless in about a week I need some hobbies.

TLDR: The wedding is postponed, going back to school, and probably going to be staying in the cabin until the lease is up on the 30th regardless of if I lose my security deposit, I'll just pay my Fiancé that deposit. As of right now, she definitely won't be moving into the cabin with me I truthfully want some distance between us until we can figure out how this relationship is going to continue/end.