AITAH for ruining my brother-in-law’s favorite author for him?
My (42M) wife (42F) I have been together for a bit over twenty years.
My wife is the oldest of 5: 42F, 38F, 36F, 36F, 20M.
That list is not a typo. My in-laws had an “oops baby” (their term) in their mid-forties and decided to keep it. Putting aside the absolute meltdown the youngest twins had when they suddenly found themselves as middle children rather than the “babies” of the group, the thing that really messed with the dynamic is that the youngest is the only boy.
My wife and I started dating near the end of her mom’s pregnancy with “Max”, we’ll call him, so it kind of feels like he’s my little brother too. And for the most part? He’s honestly been fine. Spoiled a bit, but up until he went off to college he was just a normal nerdy kid who also happened to like rock climbing, and weight lifting. We’d talk about LoTR and Star Trek, debate the ethics the Old Republic, that sort of stuff.
When he went off to college out of state, it was hard on my wife and I too because we helped raise the boy, especially since her parents are not in the best shape for people in their sixties.
But things took a turn the first winter break after he left for school. He started getting weirdly I don’t the term, “militant” maybe about odd things. He’d trash talk his other sisters, constantly complain about his mom, even say stuff about my wife directly to me. After we talked to him (by “we”, I mean his dad and me, since he wouldn’t listen to anyone else), we ended up figuring out he was into some sort of what is known as “manosphere” stuff. It was hard, but we ended up somehow over the next few months getting through to him, getting him into a therapist, and realizing that what he had chosen to engage with was wrong.
Thankfully, we seemed to have caught it early enough that he’s mostly returned to normal. But there’s one thing he just won’t. Freaking. Stop. And that’s going off every time he hears anything religious. This all came to a head a few weeks ago over Christmas / New Years, when Max was at the dining room table popping off about a friend of his (my in-law’s neighbor’s kid, actually) being an idiot for entering college late because he was on a Mormon Mission. He just wouldn’t stop ranting about it.
My mother-in-law decided to change the topic by bringing up the convention Max had gone to in Salt Lake City (probably because Max’s topic reminded her) in December for his current favorite fantasy author.
I’m sure some of you by now can see where this is going.
The topic switch somehow worked, which meant Max then started gushing about the latest book, the people he met, all of it. I was super confused though, so I was like “Max, if you hate religious people so much, why are you so obsessed with a devout Mormon author?”. I swear, it went quieter than if a priest had lifted his leg and cut wind in the middle of mass.
Max started to argue with me about it, but after searching the internet more than once, he stormed off to his room. It’s been weeks and Max is basically refusing to talk to my wife or me. He’s also apparently depressed and threw out all of his books by that author. My in-laws are blaming me for this, but my wife thinks he’s old enough he should have put two and two together and that we’ve done our best to help him his entire life, despite not being his parents.
So, AITAH?
