Viral

Mother sparks debate after bringing up her son's ex at the dinner table in front of new partner

Mother sparks debate after bringing up her son's ex at the dinner table in front of new partner
Reddit Moves Closer To IPO
Indy

A mum brought up her son's ex in front of his new partner and it all got very awkward.

Writing on Reddit, the woman explained that her son (Dean) had been engaged to a woman (Emma) until they broke up because she was "unable to have kids". She said she met his new girlfriend (Hannah) 3 weeks later and is now engaged to her. All was well until one fateful dinner.

"The problem here is when we were talking at the dinner table and the topic of children came up (not by me)," she explained. "I asked Hannah about how many children she wanted and she told me that she hated kids and never wanted them. I looked at Dean thinking this may shock him, but he didn't look shocked at all.

"I asked my son, in front of Hannah, why he proposed to a girl that does not want kids, but broke up an engagement with a girl that he dated for six years because she was incapable of having kids. Dean's eyes got wide and he started turning red with embarrassment. Hannah was shocked and said something along the lines of, 'Since when were you engaged?"

Awkward.

Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter

"That's when I remembered that Dean told me to never bring up his engagement with Emma because he was scared of how Hannah would react.

She said her son's girlfriend left the table and her son said he planned to change his girlfriend's mind about children. But "I told him that Hannah was older than him and had had so much more time to think about the topic, and she was most likely dead set on the idea of not wanting kids and hating them," she said. "I really wished I had just kept my mouth shut. Dean then stormed off after Hannah."

Reacting to the story, people had mixed opinions.

"You don't seem to like how fast Dean is moving, or like this new girl better than his high school girlfriend," one said.

"But that doesn't give you the right to divulge this, especially when he told you not to bring up his ex in front of her."

Another wrote: "Your son is the asshole for trying to use women as incubators and dumping them when he finds out he can't."

And a third said: Thank god you didn’t keep your mouth shut. Poor Hannah would have married your son thinking he truly loved her and not realising the love was conditional on having kids. He is going into this marriage thinking he is going to convince/force Hannah to commit to a major life altering decision that she knows she doesn’t want and is the wrong decision for her. You clearly don’t respect someone if you think you have the right to try to force them into that, and that you know what’s best for them better than they do.

"Your son also sucks because he believes he can change this woman's mind about having kids and he dumped his previous fiancee for something she can't control."

What a sticky situation.

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Conversation (0)
x