“He’s the Nicest Jerk You’ll Ever Meet”
My husband (32), myself (32), and our two-year-old son are at a funeral for my husband’s grandmother this week. We’ve traveled 11 hours away from home to be here, and it’s been a great opportunity for my husband to catch up with his mom’s side of the family.
A little backstory: my father-in-law has been a problem for a lot of reasons over the ten years that my husband and I have been together. We live almost 12 hours away from him and his wife, and we see them about once a year.
My husband has excused his father’s behavior in the past by saying “He’s the nicest jerk you’ll ever meet,” or that his dad is just “socially awkward.” My husband used to be extremely close to his father after his biological mom passed when he was about six years old.
My husband has said that his father was expecting either him or his siblings to take over the family business, but they’ve all moved far away from home. I have felt for YEARS that his father doesn’t like me, and that he puts a lot of the blame for us moving to our current city, and so far away from him, on me.
It hasn’t been a pleasant experience—but that was nothing compared to what happened this week. Today, we’re at this funeral, which is at a Catholic church, and I’m seated next to my mother-in-law, and next to her is my father-in-law.
In the middle of the service, he leans over and asks me “Are you SURE my son is the father? Your kid looks nothing like him.” To clarify, my son definitely does look like my husband. People call them twins. There is NO mistaking it and I know he was “joking.”
But I found it incredibly hurtful that he would even jokingly insinuate that I would be unfaithful to my husband, and in a church, no less. I responded that yes, I was 100% sure, and faced forward because I really couldn’t think of any other way to reasonably respond.
My mother-in-law quickly hissed at him: “Why would you say that?” And then the eulogy started. And since it was a Catholic mass, I had to sit next to these people for two hours with my son next to me, just holding back tears.
I can guarantee that my father-in-law would not have said that if my husband had been sitting by us. Now, I’m sitting in the car at the burial while my son naps. I’m trying to collect myself so that I don’t impact my husband’s day.
I honestly don’t know if I’m overreacting to this, or if it was truly as gross a thing to say to someone as it feels. Story credit: Reddit / fingersonlips