My Dads Fiancee Took My Baby To MEET SANTA Knowing That Was My Plan | r/AITA

[00:00:02] [SPEAKER_00] Hey Waffle Gang, I do hope you are well. My name is Mark B and today we're checking out some more Reddit stories. And if you do love a Reddit story, why not consider hitting that like, subscribe, maybe that notification bell too. Let's crack on with today's first story. Much love guys.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00] Now today's first story comes from Santa Visit Throw from the Am I the Arsehole here subreddit. And it says, Am I the Arsehole for backing out of my dad's Christmas party after his fiancee took my baby to meet Santa behind my back? I live a five minute walk away from Amor and they opened up their Christmas display a few days ago. My husband and I were planning on taking our son, who is eight months old, there for his first Santa visit this past Saturday.

[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_00] My dad's fiancee is a very self-centered person. Most recently she tried to post about my pregnancy on social media before I did and confirmed their wedding date, which has since been changed twice at my sister's birthday party. I'm not fond of her, but she's not usually too hard to tolerate. My immediate paternal family gets together for a small party every year on Christmas Eve. This time my dad and his fiancee are hosting.

[00:01:14] [SPEAKER_00] I was going to attend it with my husband and our son. Last Thursday, I had a business meeting while my husband was also at work. My dad and his fiancee came over to babysit. I spent some time chatting with them before leaving and I mentioned our weekend plans, including how we had taken our baby to see Santa. When I got home, my dad's fiancee showed me pictures of herself with my baby and the mall Santa. I don't even have pictures of just my son. She's in all of them.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_00] She explained my dad had wanted to take a nap, so she took my son out on a stroll. She went to the mall, saw the Christmas display and couldn't resist taking my son there herself. Let me make this clear. I'm not too much of a Christmas person and neither is my husband, but she was well aware we were looking forward to doing this with our son. I'm also upset that my dad napped while babysitting because we wouldn't have had them watch our baby if we knew it'd ultimately just be her.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00] I never gave either of them permission to remove my child from my place while babysitting. I confronted her and said we wanted to take him ourselves and she acted confused and claimed she didn't realize. Was it such a big deal and just wanted to have some fun with the baby? My dad also dismissed my feelings and said I was being dramatic. I grabbed my son and told him to leave. My husband was upset as I was. We decided we wouldn't attend the Christmas party anymore. We'll figure out something else.

[00:02:39] [SPEAKER_00] But we don't want to spend our first baby's Christmas with her. We made it official over the weekend. A lot of my family has replied that they're not coming if I don't. So now my dad is begging me to change my mind. There's still over a month left before Christmas and I want to sort this out as soon as possible. I don't want to attend but I also don't want to ruin the party. Am I the arsehole? On the back of this there was a big you're the arsehole comment.

[00:03:06] [SPEAKER_00] That was almost as long as the post itself but Opie did reply to it saying okay wow I'm not nearly as invested in you as you are in me. Seriously I think this is longer than my post but you're making a lot of stuff up and I feel the need to clarify. One, they didn't visit and offer to babysit because I suddenly needed to leave. They came over to babysit. I invited my dad over with that purpose and he agreed. Two, no she's not his grandmother. Marrying my dad doesn't automatically make her family.

[00:03:35] [SPEAKER_00] No one calls her grandma. We all refer to her by her first name. He already has two grandmothers. He doesn't need a third one. Three, it wasn't sweet of her to take my son out. You don't take other people's children anywhere without permission. Four, you want to document an outing. Take a selfie. Don't do the thing I specifically said I was already going to do. She was well aware I was looking forward to take him there myself.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00] Five, I genuinely have no idea how it could be entitled or selfish of me to be upset one of my child's furs was stolen like that. Six, she did mean harm. Again, she knew I was looking forward to doing it myself. Seven, if I didn't care about my dad's happiness I'd refuse to be around his fiance entirely. Eight, I don't care what my family does. I wouldn't mind if the people who are backing out of the party change their minds. Nine, I genuinely don't care whether my dad marries her.

[00:04:29] [SPEAKER_00] We're all adults and I'm not using my child for anything. Ten, I don't care about being the center of the family universe. What? Especially not compared to my dad's fiance who makes literally every gathering about her. And based on your tirade about your own father. You can reply to this if you want but I won't give you any more attention than this. Super unexpected mummy says, not the arsehole. Does she always play dumb when she purposely stirs up trouble? Opie says most times yes.

[00:04:59] [SPEAKER_00] My dad usually buys it. Which makes it pretty difficult to deal with. Flounderbetter says, my parents did this with my daughter. At first I was upset but then realized at one years old she won't remember it. I just took her myself for pictures. Now that my parents are gone and my daughter is an adult. I love those pictures. Opie says, I know my son won't remember this but I will. I didn't want this woman to take him. I wanted to do it with my husband. And there will never be a point in which I like these pictures.

[00:05:28] [SPEAKER_00] Even if she wasn't in them. They would still remind me that she took that moment away from us. I'll probably take our son again anyway. But I can tell this will be in my head. Secure employee says, go ahead and take your son to see Santa. He won't remember that he was already there. And get the pics you want. As for the party. Does your husband's family do anything on Christmas Eve? Maybe you can get together with them. If you see them on Christmas Day or if they live far away. And get with a family that won't go to your dad's party.

[00:05:57] [SPEAKER_00] Show him that there are consequences for his and his fiance's actions. Opie says, not on Christmas Eve. But some of my in-laws get together every year for Christmas. My husband doesn't want to go because there's a lot of people. And they're pretty loud. My maternal family also has a yearly Christmas party. So I attend when I can. But it's in a different state. And we can't travel comfortably right now. My mom and stepdad are going to Europe for the holidays. So this post was on November the 11th.

[00:06:26] [SPEAKER_00] And someone asked about why the Christmas display is up so early. Opie says, it might be a cultural thing. I don't live in the US. We don't have Thanksgiving. And Halloween isn't widely celebrated. I've seen Christmas displays start as early as October. The mall near my place wasn't even the first to do it this time. Another commenter says, Did she have the baby seat properly installed in her car in order to take your child to the mall? Opie says, she didn't drive there. She just put him in a stroller and walked. I'm already angry. But I'll be even more furious.

[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_00] Had she taken more than five minutes away from my place without permission? And there was a lot of comments. Some saying, you know, baby's not going to remember it. You can still take him, etc. And I'm with Opie on this one. You know, taking your eight-month-old baby out of the home without your permission or supposedly co-babysitting. But your dad was napping at the same time. And the way that Opie talks about dad's fiance gives me the impression that she's done this deliberately. That, you know, this isn't the first time. Something along these lines has happened.

[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_00] And it kind of felt, in some ways, it was more about her experience. That she wanted that photo op for her socials or something along those lines. Couldn't imagine looking after a baby and then just saying, Oh, I'm going to take the baby out and just go and do whatever I want without explicit permission from the parents. This is simply just about basic respect, boundaries, and trust. And that's all there is to it for me. But Opie did come in with an update on this one and said,

[00:07:52] [SPEAKER_00] A little under two weeks after my first post, my husband and I took our baby to a different mall and visited Santa there. Their display wasn't as big as the one from the mall near our place. But it was more colorful and they had a nicer tree. We explored the area with our son afterwards. And I came very close to tears watching the way he reacted to everything. We also took the opportunity to get some Christmas shopping and charity stuff done. Overall, we had a wonderful day. It didn't make either of us forget what happened.

[00:08:20] [SPEAKER_00] But I'll cherish those memories forever. In other news, out of the 15 people who had been invited to the party, not including my son, only four are still attending. Two people from my paternal family and two from my dad's fiancés. The only two she invited. My relatives who didn't back out of the party are my dad's cousin, who is visiting from a different country and staying at his place. And my grandmother, who doesn't seem to understand what's going on. I want to stress that getting my family members involved wasn't my intention.

[00:08:50] [SPEAKER_00] I told both my cousins what happened because we planned secret Santa for the party every year. That's where the news spread from. There was also a weird domino effect going on with different parties of the family. I'm not coming, so neither are my parents type stuff. Which contributed to the amount of people who backed out. Communication with my dad has been complicated. He's blaming his fiancée for causing the problem. But also me for being emotional and ruining everything.

[00:09:17] [SPEAKER_00] The first time we tried to talk, he made a very offensive comment I couldn't overlook. And then accused me of being dramatic over that too. Our second conversation was better, but still didn't solve much. I was ready to call it quits and accept we'd never agree on this. But my dad called me a few days ago with his fiancée. She didn't really apologize. Instead, she reiterated she just wanted to do something fun and didn't think it would be a big deal. But didn't mean to upset me. Knowing her, I didn't buy any of that.

[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_00] I told her there were numerous things she could have done that weren't the one thing she knew I was already planning on doing with my child. And didn't require removing him from my place without my permission. There was no way she hadn't realized it was important to me. She just didn't care. She tried denying it at first, but she couldn't give me a better explanation. After a few minutes, she started crying and said, You get to have special moments with this baby every day. Why can't I have an hour? That led to another small argument.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_00] In the end, I didn't know what they thought would happen with that call. I'm not going to their Christmas party and neither of them will ever babysit my son. Or any other child I might have in the future, again. My dad has since apologized, specifically for the phone call. But I don't care anymore. I'm done losing hair over this. And I'm done being treated like my feelings, boundaries and authority as my child's mother don't matter. I'm not cutting ties with my dad. But I'll do whatever I can to make sure nothing like this happens again.

[00:10:43] [SPEAKER_00] And I like the information diet idea some of you suggested. I definitely feel no need to share any news about my son with my dad's fiance. As for the holidays, my eldest son is throwing a small party at a place on Christmas Eve. Which, mostly everyone who backed out of my dad's party is attending. On Christmas Day, we'll visit my in-laws and then return home to relax with our baby and play video games. Next year, we're traveling out of state to see my maternal family and go to the beach.

[00:11:11] [SPEAKER_00] This has been a very chaotic month and I have no desire to waste more energy on this. So I probably won't update again. I'm not 100% satisfied with how everything worked out. But I'm glad the situation has been mostly dealt with. And this actually might be the most excited I've been about Christmas in a while. Thank you again and happy holidays. Mila replies that saying, Why can't she have an hour of special moments? Because this is your baby. I don't think she'll ever get it, Opie.

[00:11:40] [SPEAKER_00] Opie says my son is the first baby born in my paternal family in two decades. So I was always a bit worried about things that would get too overwhelming. Turns out, most of my relatives are very respectful. But this isn't the first time I've had trouble with her and my dad over something related to my son. And like I mentioned in my first post, she's extremely self-centered. Part of me almost believes she didn't mean to harm me. Simply because I'm pretty sure she doesn't think about anyone else's feelings. Foxy Sly says,

[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00] Your dad is, and I'll put this as kindly as I can, a daft bastard. Who still doesn't seem to grasp what the issue is. His relationship with you has been damaged by this. And it's had ramifications with his wider family too. But he's still got his selfish, self-serving, manipulative and deceitful girlfriend. So maybe he'll chalk it up as a win. Opie says it's better than I expected, honestly.

[00:12:36] [SPEAKER_00] I started trying to sort everything out so early in November because I thought would still be fighting right now. Another commenter says, You did nothing wrong. The people who aren't attending aren't attending because they know what she did was shitty. And don't want to be around someone like that. They aren't not attending because you're not. They're not attending because they're adults and choose not to. All these people recognize what the special thing she purposely and intentionally robbed you from. And think she's crap. Which she is. Opie says,

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00] And I think like Foxy said in this one, it was a good ending. The best one that they could realistically hope for. Opie's put up her boundaries and basically said, This won't be happening again. But I can almost guarantee that Opie's got many stories about her.

[00:14:15] [SPEAKER_00] Where she oversteps, where she tries to take the spotlight, various things like that. Almost guarantee it. But what do you guys make of this situation? Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below. And let's move on to another story. Now, our next story is a bit of an older one. It's from Trashbox account from the relationships subreddit. That says,

[00:14:44] [SPEAKER_00] Like the title says,

[00:15:20] [SPEAKER_00] And he said, He started making extremely sexual jokes and comments towards me. And he started hugging me and lingering way too long. I always pushed him off and told him to knock it off and he never hugged back. Then earlier tonight he came into my room and laid in my bed and tried to cuddle me. i pushed him off and forced him out of my room and he said he was just playing around but it didn't

[00:15:50] [SPEAKER_00] feel like he was just playing and if he was then it was way over the line i haven't told anyone yet because i don't know who to tell if i tell my parents and they're gonna flip their shit and go insane and go above and beyond what's actually necessary if i tell my sister i'm sure she's going to be really hurt and mad at me or they get into a huge fight or something and everything will blow up and i'd feel terrible because she really loves him and i don't want to ruin a marriage i just don't

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_00] know what to do with all of this being one huge mess this absolutely isn't flirting at all and he's been escalating this for months by the sound of it and now he's at the point he's literally getting into your bed that's predatory groomy behavior and i think the only correct response to this is to tell your parents immediately yeah they flip out but i think anyone would in that

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_00] situation a 25 year old doing this to their teenage daughter of course they're going to and op isn't the one that's overreacting op isn't the one that's ruining her sister's marriage it's him who's doing that with his groomy behavior and i'm really hoping that's the path op goes down in their update but potent says i would say tell your parents and your sister sit them all down your sister should have set boundaries already so she let you down because of her poor judgment your parents may

[00:17:12] [SPEAKER_00] overreact but what is overreacting kicking him out he deserves that if your sister chooses to go with him that's her choice however you should be able to feel safe and comfortable in your own home don't hesitate to tell your parents another commenter says you should tell your sister first she deserves to know even if their marriage is ruined it's not your fault put yourself in your sister's shoes wouldn't you want to know if this was happening to your older or younger sister

[00:17:39] [SPEAKER_00] is your brother-in-law is okay with this type of inappropriate flirting with you chances are the marriage would have issues anyway because he'd be flirting with other girls jingle moon says tell your parents tell your sister tell somebody please this guy is escalating his creepy molesty behavior and he has easy access to you at any time it could be dangerous please tell someone before this goes any further if it blows up into a big fight it should because he's completely out of line and

[00:18:07] [SPEAKER_00] inappropriate i'm scared for you right now please tell someone what's going on so op does come in with an update and says after the incident last night i didn't sleep very well and early this morning when i thought he brother-in-law would be at work i decided to leave my house for a little while until i knew for sure that my parents would be back home as soon as i opened my door brother-in-law forced his way in and pretty much cornered and open-endedly threatened me and told me that if i said anything no one would

[00:18:36] [SPEAKER_00] believe me which made it 10 times harder to say anything i left my house until i knew at least one of my parents would be back my mom and when i went home the first thing i did was tell her and she confronted him about it he did what a lot of people who commented yesterday said and tried to blame me for coming on to him and flirting back and claimed that he was just playing around but luckily my mom believed me and they got into a huge argument my sister walked in on the argument and i told her

[00:19:03] [SPEAKER_00] what happened then she got mad at me and we began arguing by that time my dad had gotten home and got involved and was ready to literally kill brother-in-law so there was a huge argument going on between the five of us then my sister slapped me and called me several names various types of slurs and my parents kicked the both of them out and they left together to go who knows where i'm sorry it's so poorly put together i just wanted to be quick and to the point and i'm also on mobile so please forgive

[00:19:32] [SPEAKER_00] any grammatical errors and also thanks to those who commented last night it helped give me the courage to say something even though it was hard tammy says to op after this excellent job your sister knows the truth she just chooses to deny it don't let her make you feel bad wicked says that was my thought she has to know he's a sleeve and she overreacted to help her dog deeper into denial

[00:19:57] [SPEAKER_00] rather than even listen to what her sister had to say commenter says 20 says your sister will come crawling back to you and your family in the future i'm sorry you had to deal with such stress possibly look into getting a restraining order as well commenter says oh my god you were so brave how fucking dare this guy do this to you i'm so glad that your mother is a good mother i just left this one

[00:20:21] [SPEAKER_00] thinking thank goodness the parents believed op and supported op through this at the same time because he was escalating in this situation and it did leave me wondering obviously i don't know i didn't know the full ins and outs of everything right but it did leave me wondering what the sister actually knew about her own husband the fact that he was so flirting out in the open like this but now

[00:20:47] [SPEAKER_00] i'm gonna turn this one to you guys what do you guys make of this situation let us know your thoughts down in the comments below and let's have another story now our next story comes from our very own subreddit r slash mark narrations it's a nightmare neighbors story oh very cheeky indeed

[00:21:08] [SPEAKER_00] it's from odd cauliflower 3952 it's just titled nightmare noisy neighbor i mark and fellow waffles first of all i want to thank you for making the most awesome podcast to listen to when i ride my bike to and from work in these ice cold months i always feel like imposter syndrome wrote reading things like that thank you so much though appreciated i love the nightmare neighbor stories and i feel like my story

[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00] from soon a year ago would fit right in back in the start of 2025 i female 30 moved into my new apartment after a messy breakup and spending months living on my friend's couch a little backstory i live in a small town city with less than a thousand people so everyone knows everyone here and i've been living here for the past 27 years back to the story a month after i moved in i got a new neighbor female 40ish

[00:22:04] [SPEAKER_00] who apparently was a musician from the first week she moved in all i could hear was loud trombone music and even though my apartment is big i could hear it all through the rooms this went on until like 1 to 2 a.m and for approximately 7 to 10 hours on end i gave her a week before i asked her if she could maybe do it in another room and in the room next to my wall or at least shorten the amount of hours or

[00:22:31] [SPEAKER_00] just ending it before 12 so i could sleep she told me she was sorry if i could hear it but she had to practice as many hours as she did for work and she was told it was allowed in the apartment but she would do it in another room another week passed where it was better and then it started again every day for 7 to 10 hours i contacted my landlord who said he would talk to her and it quietened down

[00:22:56] [SPEAKER_00] for a while until it started again at this point it had been two months since it all started i called my landlord again this time literally crying because even when i wasn't home i could hear it in my head it ended up with my landlord evicting her and her screaming and pounding to the point where my friend had to pick me up because i had a panic attack luckily she moved and now one of my old friends

[00:23:23] [SPEAKER_00] moved in instead so it all ended well but now almost a year later i still sometimes hear trombone in the back of my mind when there's quiet in my apartment bloody hell oof absolutely a nightmare right there and the fact that you still got this phantom trombone music nearly a year later it's just haunting isn't it and i think people should be entitled to play their music practice their music

[00:23:50] [SPEAKER_00] whatever but you know there's got to be some sort of limit to it seven to ten hours daily until 2 a.m in the morning now come on now let's just take in the piss i get that it's for work etc but there's that and then there's you know completely oblivious to the fact that you live in a shared building with other human beings who need sleep but in the end she proved that you weren't dealing with someone reasonable here the fact that she escalated it to screaming and pounding when facing consequences

[00:24:18] [SPEAKER_00] for her own behavior says it all really doesn't it and although i joked about you know having a trombone noise in the back of your mind all the time i really hope that that you do shake that out at some point because that's got to be annoying as shit but you did trigger a memory for me funny enough when i was younger and you know i lived with my parents and i lived in a flat like very much younger and above us was another apartment there was an old man and a son that lived there at the time and

[00:24:46] [SPEAKER_00] this old man's job was to go around uh like car parks and collect the coins from inside the machines and then he had to take it home and he had to bag it up etc and he had no carpet on the floor so you could always tell when he had come back for his day because he would tip all the coins out onto the floor and you would hear him rattling above it was so noisy and you'd hear him scraping and the coins rolling around you know it wasn't the end of the world kind of stuff but but it was almost like the same hour

[00:25:12] [SPEAKER_00] every day you're just expecting this massive crash of coins above your bedroom and it was just it almost put me on edge you know but this dude actually went to jail in the end because he was taking coins off the top and uh he'd been doing it for years apparently i think it was like over 30 grand in coins he had stolen over like years but whenever i see someone at one of the machines that counts the coins and people take buckets of coins with them and tip them into these machines

[00:25:39] [SPEAKER_00] that always gives me that memory as well but what do you guys make of this situation thank you for sharing your story by the way really appreciate it do love a nightmare neighbor story don't forget to share yours over at r slash mark narrations if you have your own and just a huge thank you for being here today getting involved in the stories your love your support your time it always means the absolute world to me so thank you so so much and hopefully i'll see you in the next one take care and much love