So this past weekend, my spouse and I invited my mother over for Family Game Night. The group consisted of 5 people total.
We played scattergories and had a bit of debate on if several answers counted. Every decision was put the to group for a vote. Example, does a restaurant count as a "store"? My mother quickly became unhappy with some of her answers getting outvoted.
The last straw came when the question was "things you replace", the assigned letter was T, and I said "Toilets". She immediately said "well ive never seen anyone replace their toilet so that shouldn’t count either". I tried to defend myself and mentioned there is a south park episode all about Randy Marsh replacing his toilet. She responded with "WELL, if it happened on TV then THAT must make it real, right?" Everyone was uncomfortably quiet.
Here’s where I might be the asshole… ive spent most of my life quietly taking these nasty comments from her and I decided to stand up for myself. I asked her "Do you have an issue we should talk about?" She said "well this game was a bad idea because its all up to whatever you think counts or doesn’t." I told her "Every answer has been a vote. Do you want to move on and play a different game with a better attitude, or would you like to leave? Because right now you are making me uncomfortable."
She decided to leave, and the rest of the group decided we’d like to continue playing other games without her. Now, ive heard from other family members that she said I "kicked her out of my home just for disagreeing with me". From my perspective, she had the option to stay if she could stop being rude and making everyone else have less fun. My brother suggested I could have debated less during the game, or just moved on without calling her out.
So, AITA??
I feel likes there’s a lot of back story here. What were some of the ones of hers that were voted down? Also using a cartoon as an example sounds like you were making fun of her.
I stand with the mom on the ‘toilets’ response, lived in the same house for 18 years and did not have it replaced.
Maybe so, but we just replaced one here after being in our place for just under a decade. Toilets DO get replaced sometimes. The base of it had become cracked, so it needed replaced.
I’m not saying that they never get replaced.
I’m saying that it wouldn’t make the top 100 things to replace in your house, from my perspective.
NTA
Our parents sometimes have a difficult time remembering that we are people, not Muppets. She’s allowed her opinion, and you yours. You asked her if she’d play the games without the attitude, and she chose, instead, to leave. That is 100% on her. She didn’t like being told to behave appropriately by her child, regardless of your age, and went home sulking.
To those that disagree with you, here’s the thing: we all choose how we react, what we say, and how we behave. You have expectations of appropriate behavior in a group setting, and she chose not to abide by it. Simple as that.
INFO
Was it just her having her answers or rejected or were her answers rejected way more than others? That coudld feel like being singled out, or show she maybe needed better explanation of how the game worked. Yes, it is definitely possible that she is huffy and oversensitive, but is it also possible that because she was in your territory that you subconsciously wanted to make her feel unwelcome?
I promise these are genuine questions and not a gotcha.
ESH.
Sounds like a typical outing for family game night.
You two need to work out the underlying issue. Whatever that is.
And for whatever reason, don’t ever play Monopoly with her….
I’m going with ESH. Your mil over reacted, but you used ONE example of someone in a cartoon replacing their toilet as proof. Generally people don’t replace their toilets unless they break
Toilets get replaced for a number of reasons. Efficiency, bowl shape, height and age are reasons that come to mind. Depends on your preferences or needs.
Have you ever played Scattergories? That’s kind of the game. The goal is to have unique members of a category that start with a particular letter. It leads to a lot of edge cases and defending dubious picks. Choosing and defending a bad word isn’t being an asshole, it’s playing the game.
Being a rude over a particular word or defense isn’t part of the game, it’s being an asshole.
NTA. She **chose to leave.** Which is very different from, “Get TF out of my house!”
BTW, I’ve replaced three toilets.
My wife and I have replaced all of the toilets in our 11-year old home because the ones the builder put in were not very good. There’s a reason home renovation stores have an entire aisle of toilets.
NTA
ESH. Obviously the question meant things you replace often. Your answer was terrible.