AITA for taking a coloring book back from my niece after she got attached to it?
I (27F) live with my husband (31M). We’ve been married about a year and a half. Overall things are good, but we’re still figuring out boundaries, especially around our stuff.
I collect Hello Kitty and Sanrio items. Nothing extreme, but I have a small display shelf in the living room and a few related things on the bookshelf. Most of it is stuff I’ve picked up over the years. I fell in love with Hello Kitty as a kid when I lived in Japan, and after my family moved to the US I stopped seeing it around, so collecting it now feels a little nostalgic.
Last year I went back to Japan to visit my grandparents and found these really nice Sanrio coloring books. They’re not like the cheap kids’ ones at the store. The paper is thicker, the art is really detailed, and I bought them more as nostalgic collectibles than something for random kids to use.
This past weekend we babysat his niece (6F) while his sister was out of town. I was working from my home office, so he handled most of the childcare during the daytime.
Yesterday on my lunch break, I saw her looking at my shelf. She asked if she could touch some of the figures, and I said yes, as long as she was very careful and put them back. I assumed she meant the ones she could already reach/JUST the figures she was asking about at that exact moment.
Later, I came out to grab a snack and saw her coloring at the table. At first I thought it was a normal coloring book, but then I realized it was one of the ones I brought back from Japan. From my hello kitty shelf.
I didn’t want to upset her, but I thought I set pretty clear guidelines and 6 seems old enough to understand that to me. I could be wrong. so I just said, “Maybe we can find another book for you to color in.” She was really into it, and my husband laughed and said we should just let her keep it since she’d already started coloring in it.
I quietly told him I’d rather not and that we could easily buy her a different book. He brushed it off and said I was overthinking it. I didn’t want to argue in front of her, so I dropped it.
That night, after she went to sleep, I saw he had packed the coloring book into her backpack. That bothered me, because it felt like he’d decided to give away something of mine without asking. So I took it out and shoved it under a couch cushion lol. I know it seems so dramatic but I just knew if I put it back on the shelf it would wind up back in her bag.
The next morning she had a meltdown looking for it. Crying, screaming, meltdown. We explained when her mother came that she had lost a coloring book “we” gave her.
After they left, I put it back on the shelf. He said he was really disappointed in me, said I was being petty and childish and should have let her keep it. I told him it wasn’t about the price, it was about the fact that it was something I brought back from Japan and part of my collection, and he gave it away without asking.
Now things are tense, and I’m wondering if I overreacted by taking it back.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
LdiJ46
You should be really disappointed in him. He gave away something that was important to you without a single thought.
prison-schism
I would be locking up my collection after that. That’s the type of blatant disregard that leads me to believe he would get rid of her stuff… he knew she didn’t want him to give away her coloring book and tried to do it anyway. What will he do after this, now that she had the gall to take it back?
Ktinabell
NTA. He is. He sees your collection as childish and something that can be disposed. That’s not cool. If he wants to give that one away, he should buy you a replacement. Honestly, he should anyway.
LucyD90
“He said he was really disappointed in me.”
Then tell him you’re really disappointed in him for stealing from you, and letting his niece go unpunished for doing the same. This is how you raise an entitled brat. NTA.
Low_Armadillo3366
Not the AH and I hate when people do this with children. I don’t give a damn what a six-year-old wants. She’s not gonna get it. especially if it’s an exclusive item I bought in another country. What the hell was he thinking?
Beautiful_Rule3029
NTA. When my kid was four, he asked a cousin if he could user her “pretty markers”. She felt really bad about saying no and came to me to explain why. These were high-end, artistic lettering and coloring markers.
I told her I totally understood and told my son that she was willing to lend him some markers (she said that to me) but not those. He went sad, then I told him “either color with these or don’t color at all. Your choice.”
He decided to not color. I told my niece to leave her pretty markers where they were and I told my son “You are not to touch these.” 5 min later, he was coloring with the normal markers. If a 4 year old can understand, so can a 6 year old and so does your husband.
chaserscarlet
NTA but your husband is a massive AH. He’s giving away stuff that’s sentimental to you to his own family with very little regard for your feelings. This isn’t just a colouring book to you and is a clear demonstration that your husband doesn’t respect you.
DapperLie3224
the coloring book is yours. it is not his to give away. next time give his niece one of his collectibles, don’t ask first, and see how fast he changes his tune. period. he’s a huge A.
