OP (Original Poster) believed all was going well with her wedding planning until her mom found out about her and her fiancé’s four-year age gap. She couldn’t believe how flabbergasted her mother was!
Their Happy Ending
OP is 23, while her fiancé, Jake, is 27. They planned to get married three months after this story was posted.
They’ve been engaged for almost a year. Jake proposed to her just after her graduation ceremony, and OP moved in with him as soon as the lease on her previous apartment was done.
Meeting Her “The One”
She shared that she and Jake first met while they were in college. They had one class together and knew each other “just in passing.”
They would run into each other on campus but never really hung out together. Then, Jake graduated, and OP didn’t meet him again until a few years later.
A Night Out
When she was “bar crawling” with her friends for the New Year a few weeks after she turned 21, she saw Jake again.
He bought her a couple of drinks, and “the rest is history.”
His Relationship With Her Parents
Thankfully, OP’s parents have always liked Jake. They only met him when they got engaged because OP didn’t want to bring him home to meet her parents until she was “sure he’d stick around.”
She said, “I had a very bad experience in high school that made me reluctant to ever bring a man home again until I knew he wanted me as much as I wanted him.”
Only Good Things
OP’s parents have always considered Jake “well-mannered, intelligent, hardworking,” and more. She said she “rarely heard criticism from them until about two weeks ago.”
She said that during that time, her parents came over to have dinner with them. Her mom brought her high school yearbook with her and told OP that “she finally found it.”
Exchanging Memories
OP’s mom said she wanted to share OP’s high school memories with Jake and asked him if he also had his high school yearbook with him. Jake did, and he went up to get it.
But when OP’s mom saw it, she got quiet and asked Jake if he had an older brother.
Things Going Downhill
OP noted her mom knew Jake didn’t have any siblings, so she was confused when she asked her fiancé that question. Then, her mom pointed out the year printed on Jake’s yearbook and said, “That’s four years before she graduated.”
OP wrote, “She was quiet for a few more seconds, then asked Jake if he graduated early, which made us both even more confused.”
Insulting Accusations
When Jake said no, OP’s mom’s face “scrunched up,” and she asked him, “Why are you with my baby girl? Don’t you think you should be with someone your own age? Cradle robbers disgust me; you have no respect for your partners or their parents.”
Upon hearing this, OP and Jake were speechless.
Flipping Out
Before OP could say anything, her mom started “flipping out” and accused Jake of “manipulating her.” Her mom then tried to drag her out of the house while shouting “nasty insults” at Jake.
She wrote, “I asked my dad to do something, but he seemed just as surprised by my mother’s outburst. He finally got up and tried to calm her, but it made her lash out even more.”
Hurtful Words
OP threatened to call the police if her mom didn’t leave, and she eventually did. However, minutes later, OP and Jake started receiving “nasty texts” from her, so OP blocked her mom from their phones.
The next day, OP’s dad called, asking why she did so. Then, OP told him that her mom’s behavior was “inexcusable” and that her mom was now banned from her wedding.
Enough’s Enough
OP added that her mom was “not allowed in her house or in her life until she apologized to them.” Her dad tried defending his wife, saying OP didn’t understand everything her mom was going through, so she shouldn’t be “so harsh.”
Because of this, OP ended up uninviting her dad from the wedding and started ignoring his calls and texts like what she did to her mom. She wrote, “Jake says I may have taken it too far, but I think he’s blaming himself for my mother’s behavior and wants to bend to make her happy. I don’t really know, though. Am I the a**hole here?”
The Aftermath
In an edit, OP explained that after the outburst, she left with her friends for her bachelorette trip, and everyone convinced her to turn her phone off so she could enjoy herself for the weekend.
It’s Not at All Normal
OP addressed some questions and explained that both her mom and her dad are in excellent health. They’ve been going on regular check-ups “pretty much their whole entire lives,” and they were in good health aside from her dad’s cholesterol issues and her mom’s near-sightedness; she explained that her mom never had “such a shockingly or seemingly baseless outburst” before.
She wrote, “There’s no history of BPD, Alzheimer’s, or related conditions in her family as far as I know, but I am open to the idea that I could be wrong. I will tell my father to have my mother seen in case this is a sign of a bigger issue, but I still don’t think that justifies her behavior, and I still want an apology. She disrespected me and my future husband in our home, and I won’t stand for that. She made a lot of nasty comments toward Jake both in person and in her texts and voicemails, as well as insisting that I was naive and ‘didn’t know any better.’ She said some things she couldn’t take back, in my opinion.”
A Deeper Issue?
OP explained that her mom and dad had an age gap of four months; they grew up together, attended school together, and were high school sweethearts. Her mom then found out she was pregnant with OP at 19. So, she dropped out after one year of college and married her dad “pretty quickly” after he learned of the pregnancy.
She explained that, because of this, her mom didn’t have an issue with her getting married “early.” She wrote, “My mother has been very excited about this wedding up until her outburst, and I’m four years older than she was when she married my father. She’s helped me with wedding planning and has been telling me for weeks that she can’t wait to watch my father walk me down the aisle and give me away. I will admit she’s always been a bit protective of me, but that has less to do with normal parental concerns and more to do with how she thought I was going to die when she had me because I was born 12 weeks premature.”
I Don’t Understand
OP doesn’t think her mom has ever experienced anything close to s***** abuse. Even so, she believes it’s not related to their age gap.
She’s also sure that Jake isn’t related to her. She said, “His family is not even originally from America. He moved here with his parents when he was a kid.”
I Need Them to Think About Things
In her update, OP also said she never wanted to cut her parents out of her wedding or her life and has been thinking about reaching out to her dad soon.
However, she hoped they at least “reevaluated their behavior” so they could talk about everything when OP was ready.
What Did She Mean?
OP also added that she had asked her dad what her mom meant by Jake being a “cradle robber” when they only had a four-year age difference.
She wrote, “He replied, ‘It’s inappropriate for a woman to be dating a man who began preschool before she was even born.’”
Redditors’ Two Cents
Users noted that the four-year difference wouldn’t matter as much as they got older.
One said, “When I saw the post was a cradle robber insult and then saw the ages, I thought, ‘Are they kidding?’ Four years is nothing as you get older. It would be weirder if he was, say, 19 or 20 and she was 16, obviously. But the older you get, age just doesn’t matter as much. There is the same age gap between me—28, and my partner—24. No issues.”
Another Redditor wrote, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, as long as you’re both adults now and were when you started dating—which you clarified is indeed the case—then how old he was when you were born isn’t relevant. Your age difference isn’t even questionable. Your parents are being ridiculous.”
What do you have to say? Do you think OP’s mom was overreacting?
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This post first appeared as Her Mother Insulted Her Fiancé by Calling Him a “Disgusting Cradle Robber” Who’s “Manipulating” Her Daughter, All Because of a 4-Year Age Gap. So, She Banned Her From Her Wedding! on Quote Ambition.
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