“AITAH for calling my husband silly for freaking out that our teenage son has a girlfriend who’s in a wheelchair?”
My husband “James” (37m) and I (39f) have a son “Lucas” (13m) who is a freshman in high school. After the Christmas break, a new girl “Yuki” (14f) was in his class. I’ve heard Lucas and his friends talk about how Yuki is the prettiest girl in school. By their talk, I didn’t know she was in a wheelchair. Just that she’s from another country, is super cool, and super pretty.
After Lucas mentioned he started dating Yuki, I found out she was in a wheelchair when I picked up my son from school. Lucas told his dad and showed what Yuki looked like by showing him her Facebook. My husband seemed okay with it.
But later, which just me, my husband James expressed concern in our son dating a girl in a wheelchair. Talking about how our son doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into and bla bla bla. I called my husband silly and he got mad at me. AITA?
This is what people had to say to OP:
unlikely_branches said:
My daughter has a significant disability and striking facial differences. When parents tell me they had no idea because their kid only talked about how cool and nice she was…. it’s pretty heartwarming and a strong indicator the friends are kind, good people. Your son is one of those kind, good people. Be proud. Challenge your husbands perspective on this.
shyfidelity said:
NTA. Unless he can articulate why he’s concerned beyond general anxiety about disability, yeah, that’s silly
crafty_and_kind said:
It just makes me so happy that, in the end, what’s really going on here is that there’s a fourteen year old girl who’s so cute and presumably delightful that these boys are super into her, oh and side note, she happens to be a wheelchair user! Your husband can hopefully get over himself with a swiftness.
And Super-Link-9800 said:
“Silly” is a much nicer word than I would have used.
Two days later, OP shared this update:
There’s something I (39f) should have brought up in the 1st post. But in my defense, the people who told me about this only mentioned it to me once and my husband “James” (37m) didn’t even bring up in while explaining to me his concern about our son “Lucas” (13m) dating a girl, “Yuki (14f), who’s in a wheelchair.
My husband’s younger brother met his wife in high school. According to them, they told each other their loved the other in less than a month after meeting.
Even though the majority said I’m NTA, I did agree with those who said I was dismissive of my husband. So yesterday I wanted to really hear him out.
That’s when we reminded me the situation about his brother and sister-in-law. How what is going on with our son reminded him of what happened with his brother. I got new information about our son, that when I wasn’t in the room, Lucas told my husband that he’s in love with Yuki.
My husband repeated that our son doesn’t know what he’s getting himself into. He made more points saying that our son barely acknowledging that Yuki uses a wheelchair meant that our son has an immature and unprepared attitude towards Yuki. I let my husband finish.
He mentioned how our son is an athlete and Yuki has different interests, like video games and cartoons. My husband said he’s worried that our son will morph himself into someone else to impress Yuki.
Two of my questions really stumbled my husband. 1st when I asked him if we can name anyone else he knows personally, our generation or younger, who married someone they started dating in high school. He couldn’t think of anyone else besides his brother.
Then the question of when he and I met in college, if he would have chased me if I was in a wheelchair. He said he probably would and he said he got my point.
I talked to Lucas separately. He was surprisingly excited to share with me his feelings about Yuki. He told me that he’s in love with her. About how she’s the coolest, most interesting, and prettiest girl he’s ever met.
He talked about wanting to do something for her for Valentine’s day, but he doesn’t know what yet. He mentioned that, even though Yuki is fluent in English, he’s watching videos to learn basic phrases in her native language. How he’s listening to love songs in our native language. How he’s learning all about her native country.
I only gave him two pieces of advice. To avoid promising Yuki anything major, to avoid ending up disappointing her. And that really really big grand gestures can make a girl feel overwhelmed.
Right now, I’m not too concerned about my son’s relationship with Yuki. Back when I was in high school, I had a male best friend who managed to be “in love” with 5 different girls in just 4 years of high school. As for my husband, I think he’s coming around after our conversation last night. So things seem okay to me.
