Even experts have agreed that romantic relationships are hard work. However, rarely do they talk about the relationship with your partner's family members. That is a different ball game entirely.
Reddit User u/denisennp, OP, wants to know if she's wrong for yelling at her boyfriend's dad to let her out of the car when he turned on the one feature she asked him not to.
Here's The Full Story
OP spent the night with her boyfriend's family, and they went out to dinner (her boyfriend, his parents, and his brother) with his dad in the driver's seat.
A couple of drinks were involved, too. His dad had two, and she had a little more than that. On their way back from the family night out, his dad started engaging her with questions like, “You work on self-driving cars, yeah?”
The answer was a straightforward yes. She's a systems engineer and has worked with several companies. He continued asking her if she liked his Tesla, and she replied jokingly, “Just fine, as long as you're the one driving it!”
He asked what she thought about the FSD he just bought and asked if he should turn it on. She agreed on the condition that she wouldn't be in the car when he did. He laughed at that and asked how she was still scared of the same thing she worked with every day.
It seemed like a joke to her until his dad pulled over and turned the FSD on. At this point, she told him to let her out of the car if he wanted to do that, but his dad and brother started laughing, with her boyfriend completely mute on the scenario.
Her boyfriend's dad pressed on, saying, “It'll be fine.”
It Won't Be Fine
But she wasn't having that. She reached out and tried to open the door, but it was locked. Now, she could feel the anger growing in her, and maybe being under the influence of alcohol didn't help, but she yelled at him to let her out of the car.
Her boyfriend finally decided it was time to step in and tried getting her to calm down, saying she was drunk and needed to calm down. She told him that it didn't matter, but he was concerned about her cussing with his kid brother there. All she wanted was to be let out or for his dad to act right.
His dad finally stopped and said, “Fine, I didn't realize it'd be such a big deal.”
The drive back to the house wasn't as fun as the drive out. The air had tension slicing through it until they got home. Her boyfriend was angry at her overreaction, especially as that was the first time she was meeting his family altogether.
Fury Ensues
She got angry at this and said, “I'm not the one who decided to do the ONE THING that I said I'm not comfortable within the car, just after I asked him not to…”
Her boyfriend defended his dad, saying he (his dad) “used the car a lot, and it was fine.”
The conversation went on with several back and forths, and it ended with her boyfriend getting angry. Then, he told her to go get some sleep.
She woke up the next morning and still stood by what she said, how his dad made her feel uncomfortable, and her boyfriend's family laughed at her and wanted her to do something she was uncomfortable with.
Should she have been calmer, or was her boyfriend's family wrong?
The Verdict
Reddit users, u/Chilly_ and u/_higglety, shared their thoughts speaking on boundaries and relationship enders.
u/Chill said: “NTA. They crossed a boundary you very respectfully put in place. That’s not okay, no matter what your boundary was. Also, unrelated, but what is going on with the self-driving feature that nobody who works on it will be in the car with it on?”
While u/_higglety had this to say:
“Honestly, this would be a relationship ender for me. Oh, not only do you not respect my judgment in a field in which I am a trained professional with industry knowledge, but you're also going to try to force me into a situation I explicitly said I was uncomfortable with, and mock me for that discomfort? And then turn around and make the whole thing MY fault, because I made the unforgivable error of embarrassing YOU?…”
Another Redditor, u/babcock27, pointed out the toxic masculinity guys have about their cars.
The user said: “The fact that you are a female expert told him you were just being hysterical instead of relying on your knowledge. I doubt a male with concerns would have been treated the same.”
What do you think? Is this a classic case of misunderstanding, or did the family disregard her feelings?
This thread inspired this article.
This article was produced and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.
Boloere Seibidor, fondly called B.S. is a Nigerian-based writer and poet. Her favorite topics to cover include music, especially Hip-Hop, film, lifestyle, and fashion. She's been published by Feral Journal, Fantasy Magazine, The Temz Review, and most notably, Wealth of Geeks. She enjoys romantic dinners, movie nights, and touring new sites. When she's not writing, she's delving back in time to the underground world of Hip-Hop, watching TikTok, or visiting the cinema.