Our daughter (8 years old) asked for a snow globe for Christmas. It’s all she wanted.
My wife said no, because our daughter is not good with fragile stuff. My wife said our daughter will end up smashing it right away.
I insisted because maybe she won’t break it. Also, its what she wants for Christmas; even if she ends up breaking it eventually, at least she’ll get to enjoy it first.
We had our Christmas party early just now because my wife will be out of town on Christmas day.
Anyway, our daughter opened her present. She loved it, and she was hugging it and dancing around with it. My wife starts screaming, “You’re not being careful! You’re going to break it!” Daughter dropped it. It shattered.
Our daughter is devastated. My wife says all this sadness could have been avoided if I hadnt insisted after she said no.
I say our daughter only dropped it because my wife’s screaming startled her (it startled me too!)
To someone who doesn’t know my wife, the snow globe might seem irrelevant. You might say I shouldn’t insist against my wife’s preference in any situation. But my wife is not like most people. She says “no” for everything. She told our daughter to stay in the dark because she didn’t want to buy a replacement lightbulb… She’s ridiculously stingy and very strict with our daughter. So it’s up to me to determine every time if her saying “no” is actually normal or if its another weird one where I need to insist for my daughter’s sake.
But now since the snow globe DID get broken immediately, as my wife predicted, I’m second-guessing my instinct on this one.
OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
1) what action you took that should be judged
- I insisted to gift a snow globe after my wife said “no”
(2) why that action might make you the asshole.
- my action resulted in an event which arguably ruined christmas for all of us
TOP COMMENT
Oh hell, I missed that quote. OP, that’s absolute shit. That is not ok to subject your daughter to.
REPLY
Yea, I’m really worried about this kid.
If the wife’s yelling startled OP (a full grown man, I’m assuming) obviously it would startle a kid into dropping what they were holding. I’m betting she wanted this to happen so she could be “right” and not buy anything nice for the kid again
RESPONCE
I grew up with an unhinged mom. The lightbulbs would slowly go out in the rooms we used in the house. But it was never “clean” enough to get them replaced. So we’d slowly live in a darker house until discomfort won out over her crippling mental illness. One time we got all the way down to just the light in the oven hood. That really sucked.
We don’t talk anymore.
OP is going to be YTA if he lets his daughter stay subjected to the abuse.
