Being snubbed by the in-laws is the sort of holiday movie trope that kind of makes you roll your eyes when you see it in a Hallmark or Lifetime film.
It can't possibly happen that often out here in the real world, can it?
Apparently it does, and there are about a million different ways to deal with it.
Some people ignore it, some people fight about it and then there's the woman we're here to write about. She, evidently, graduated with honors from the school of hilariously passive aggressive pettiness.
Seriously, it's glorious.
The story starts, as most stories about in laws do, with a wedding. The woman and her wife had theirs just two months before the holidays.
The happy couple should, by all accounts, still be enjoying the honeymoon phase. They might be, but mother-in-law doesn't seem to share their joy.
According to the original poster, her wife's mother doesn't seem thrilled about her daughter marrying a woman and has expressed as much a few times. Still, it's the holidays so surely mother-in-law would let it go, right?
When it came time for holiday pictures, mother-in-law snubbed our dear poster hard. MIL told the poster that she couldn't be in the picture since they were to be "family only" but proceeded to allow everyone else's spouses into the pictures.
The poster's wife went to argue about the exclusion, but our paragon of petty vengeance had a better idea. She offered to take the pictures rather than be in them—and then proceeded to take the worst pictures she could.
Her and her wife found it hilarious, but OP wanted Reddit's opinion on the situation. So she turned to the AITA (Am I The A$hole) subreddit and shared her story of snubs and snapshots.
We'll let this very special holiday edition of AITA unfold in OP's own words:
"I married my wife Lia two months ago. I'm also a woman for the record."
"Lia's mom seems to have a problem with me, or my sexuality or something, Lia is bi and her mom seems to wish she'd stayed with one of her male exes."
"So anyway at Christmas, we were taking photos and her mom was like 'OP, we want the photos to be family only..' Lia started to protest, like 'we're married, mom' but I didn't want an argument so I said 'it's ok, I'll take the pictures'."
"It was kind of cringy because Lia's sister's husband, and cousin and his wife and son were there so there were definitely spouses and children included. I was kind of annoyed and decided to not take the best ones..."
"Just on purpose, focused the camera on the furniture rather than people, snapped pictures zoomed in awkwardly close, used unflattering flash, didn't hold my hands steady so they were blurry, took pictures on purpose when someone was looking away or coughing or something."
"Anyway I took like 30 pictures and they ranged from bad to horrible. And I gave the camera back and said that I hope they find a nice one to frame in there."
"After everything, Lia was angry on my behalf, said her mom had no right to treat me like that and I didn't have to say 'it's ok' when it was totally rude. And I just started laughing and told her what I'd done."
"We snuck down to the dining room later that night and she lost it laughing at the pictures I'd taken. She even deleted some of the more decent ones."
"We're still waiting for her mom to plug her camera into the computer and see the pictures. We're planning on saying I tried my best but didn't know how to use a dslr camera if anyone says something."
"Am I the a$ for taking bad photos on purpose?" - redcommodore
It's rare that these AITA posts don't spark a sort of back and forth banter between those who think the poster is a jerk and those who don't. This is one of those times.
Reddit pretty unanimously supported OP's snaphot shenanigans.
"This is the kindest and most effective revenge ever!" - pyneapplepyro
"This is a coping mechanism for dealing with crazy. You are family and should have been in the photos. You took a wildly negative experience and turned it into laughter. You may have channeled some higher frequencies. YAY! Sending you merriment." - raptors_6_
"She does not see you as part of the family and then wants you to do her a favour. Please give us an update when she finally checks those photos!" - jaxon7au
"This is f*cking hilarious and I would do the same. Hope I never have to deal with homophobic in-laws if I get married, if I do you bet Ill be as petty as this." - radioactiveglucose
"It was petty, but the justified kind of petty. Like, what even does she want to accomplish by excluding you?
Your SO: "Well, if mom doesn't want you in the family picture, I guess I'll just divorce you and go back to my ex! :D"
As if..." - unolai
"You're not the a$ here. But next time call out the spouses and cousins and say 'oh sorry, MIL wants just the real family.' And awkwardly wait until they get out of the frame, when her mom protests say 'oh well if it is family then I'll set the timer and hop in.'... then put the camera on manual focus and have the photos still be blurry :)" - ToblersLaw
Love awkward family photos? The Awkward Family Photos 2020 Day-to-Day calendar is available here.
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