Featured on @StorylineReddit: November 2, 2025
The cake arrives already sliced into neat pastel optimism: chocolate layers, soft rainbow flowers, careful stripes along the side. It’s a birthday. Someone sets it down. Someone makes a joke a little too loud.
In some families, visibility has a temperature. Wedding rings. Hand-holding. A word like “gay” said casually, without bracing for impact. What passes as light teasing in one room can land as provocation in another.
This story hinges on that shift. Not on betrayal. Not on some long, premeditated confrontation. Just a remark angled toward a spouse, and the air changes.
After that, things move quickly. The argument doesn’t feel new, exactly. Just exposed.
A married couple attends a mother-in-law’s birthday out of obligation more than comfort. The relationship has been tense for years subtle digs, attempts to undermine, the steady background hum of disapproval. At the party, the daughter-in-law makes a joking comment about the rainbow decoration on the cake. The response is immediate and public.
What follows isn’t a measured objection to a rude remark. It’s a jump. The criticism widens to include the marriage itself, the visibility of wedding rings, the daughter’s judgment. The couple leaves. That part is brief.
The longer movement happens afterward. Extended family members call and message, reframing the event around disrespect and health concerns. The focus slides from the outburst to the original joke, as if one explains the other.
On the surface, it looks like a disagreement about tone. Underneath, the dynamic feels older. A minor spark. A disproportionate explosion. Then a collective effort to restore order.
By the next day, the daughter decides to go no-contact.
Text Version
AITA for describing my MIL’s birthday cake as “kinda gay”
CONCLUDED
I am not The OOP, OOP is u/Neat-Ladder4424
AITA for describing my MIL’s birthday cake as “kinda gay”
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: Homophobia, abusive behavior
Original Post May 18, 2022
I don’t even know where to begin. So I’m 27 F married to 28 F (yeah we’re lesbians). We’ve known each other for seven years and have been married for 4. We were each other’s first kiss, first love, first everything. I will call my lovely wife Emma from here on out for clarity.
My MIL has always been vocal about her dislike for me and the fact that Emma married a woman. She was initially supportive when Emma came out, but I think she was hoping Emma would suddenly turn straight and decide to marry a man, reverting back to the “God-fearing housewife” state. When Emma and I first started dating, she would make subtle digs about how I wasn’t good enough for Emma, but the neighbor’s kid Brandon sure was. When MIL realized we were getting serious, she tried to sabotage our relationship by accusing me of cheating, being after their inheritance (??), being a psychopath because I have chronic social anxiety, and other completely outrageous things. We were pretty fed up with her at that point and since we both had jobs set up for us, Emma and I moved in together in a city about a hundred miles away from MIL. Since we got a lot closer during that time, I guess I have MIL to thank for accelerating my relationship with my love. MIL wasn’t invited to our wedding because she threatened to make a scene and bring her own groom for Emma (I highly doubt she would have but we didn’t want to chance ruining our day).
So here’s the current situation, and where I may be TA:
Emma and I went to MIL’s birthday party yesterday (we only visit her once a year for Emma’s sake). We brought her some nice crystal wine glasses as a present, she was making snide comments about our relationship, everything was going as expected. MIL’s boyfriend brought out her cake, which was a chocolate cake covered in pastel rainbow flowers. I commented to Emma (perhaps a bit too loudly), “Rainbow cake is lookin kinda gay, maybe she’s finally coming around” and MIL absolutely blew up. She was screaming at us that it was disgraceful that I said she was gay, and that we even wore our wedding rings to her party when we knew that she didn’t like to see them. She was yelling at Emma that she shouldn’t have brought me, because I’m a disgusting reminder that Emma isn’t right in the head. Emma was fuming and close to tears so we left immediately after.
Emma said she doesn’t blame me at all and no longer wants contact with her mother. Emma’s cousins, grandparents, and uncle are blowing our phones saying that what I said was wrong and disrespectful, and that we are horrible people, especially since MIL has high blood pressure issues and I was just trying to aggravate her. I was trying to aggravate her, and I don’t feel bad that I did, but I feel awful that I made MIL say those horrible things to my wife, and that Emma is currently no-contact with her mother, who she was quite close to before we were married.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
RCKJD
NTA. You didn’t make your MIL say those things. She said them by herself and you two are better off without her.
OOP
That was my gut feeling but my wife’s whole family has been harassing us nonstop since yesterday and I’m feeling kind of frazzled.
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Balpona_Freesun
wow her mom is super strongly invested into the hate, and her whole family is it seems to NTA as all that comment was was commenting that maybe her mom was accepting of her daughter
OOP
The weird thing is, ten years ago when my wife came out to MIL she was super supportive and accepting, but once my wife started dating girls things kinda went downhill from there.
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ElevatorOk8601
So MIL can mentally and emotionally abuse Emma, but you can’t joke about a cake? Wonderful in-laws/s
NTA. It seems like no one in that family can handle you and your wife are happy and gay!
OOP
Yeah, I really was not expecting that harsh of a response from MIL. I wanted to annoy her since she’d been rudely commenting about my wife and I all day, but I wasn’t expecting her to completely explode.
~
rough-landing
NTA..if it wasn’t the rainbow cake comment then it would have been something else eventually. I feel for your wife though. I’m sure this is difficult for her.
OOP
After reading through these comments it does look like she was just trying to pick a fight. She always does this, picking apart what we wear and how we “show off” our wedding bands. My wife and I deliberately refrain from any affection apart from holding hands in her presence. I’m glad my wife was able to cut her off finally.
Edit: In case anyone wants to know what the cake looked like, I unfortunately did not get a photo. I did however find some similar looking floral cakes from this company, but MIL’s had pastel rainbow flowers on the top and pastel stripes on the sides.
Edit 2: I am so sorry, I’m really worn out and I think I’m just going to go to bed. I apologize if I didn’t reply to your comment yet, I’ve read all of them and I’ll try to respond in the morning. I didn’t expect so many comments so soon.
VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE
OOP updated the – May 19, 2022 – Next Day/Same Post
Edit 3: I don’t know how to make an update, so I’ll just post another edit here. I woke up to an overwhelming amount of replies. I didn’t think this many people would see the post. I’m sorry that I couldn’t reply to everyone.
My wife has decided to go permanently no contact with MIL, and low contact with much of her extended family. The only family member who has been supportive of us so far is her older sister (she’s truly a lovely person, I don’t know how SIL and my wife are such kind people despite being raised by MIL).
I understand I was wrong for making the gay cake comment, and that it only served to enrage my MIL, but my wife and I were talking yesterday, and she said she would have commented that the cake looked gay even if I hadn’t (though it definitely would have gone over better had my wife said it instead of me). We’re ultimately happy with the outcome, and that we no longer have to attend any incredibly toxic family events with MIL. As a side note, my wife has told me that she never felt terribly close to her mother (so my comment about them being close before our marriage was incorrect), but that the hour long calls she would have with her mother were just very one-sided conversations where her mother would rant about her day and our relationship, never asking or caring about my wife.
Wifey and I have ordered our own gay cake from a lovely local bakery (that is also run by lesbians) as a treat for the abuse we’ve had to endure over the years, and as a toast for better (MIL free) years to come.
Thank you to everyone who commented and gave their insights. I’m glad this was resolved so quickly. Yesterday I was feeling awful about my own behavior during the party, especially since so many extended family members we coming forward to argue on MIL’s behalf. I was sad that this event caused my wife to go no contact with her mother. Ultimately, I see that it was largely MIL’s fault and that my wife’s extended family are a bunch of sheep. Thank you again everyone!
Source
The boyfriend carries in the cake. Pastel rainbow flowers on top. Stripes along the side. The comment lands: “kinda gay.” A small beat. Then the volume rises.
It escalates quickly. Not a tight smile or a clipped correction. Instead: disgraceful. How dare you. Why are you even wearing those rings here? You know I don’t like to see them. Then, toward her daughter, that she isn’t right in the head. The words stack. The room tightens. They leave.
Later, in the quiet of the car, there’s no debrief. Just hands on the steering wheel. A phone screen lighting up. Another vibration.
The cake itself isn’t complicated. The joke wasn’t elaborate. But certain objects in certain rooms carry weight. Rings especially. They sit on the table, rest against a glass, catch light. They don’t argue. They just exist.
The narrator admits she meant to irritate. After hours of snide remarks, she chose to poke back. There’s a kind of tired humor that comes from that place half reflex, half challenge. It doesn’t ask permission.
Still, irritation and humiliation are not equal forces. The mother’s reaction doesn’t stay with the joke. It moves outward, broadens, turns personal. The marriage becomes the offense. The daughter becomes the problem. The rings become something that should have been removed before entering the room.
Then the second wave: relatives invoking blood pressure, accusing cruelty, urging restraint. Responsibility drifts. The spotlight shifts.
In all of this, one detail lingers: the annual visit. The deliberate holding back. The careful reduction of affection to something neutral enough to pass inspection. That calibration had been in place for years. The comment disrupted it.
The daughter’s decision to cut contact arrives quickly, but it doesn’t feel sudden. It feels like something that had been waiting for a moment solid enough to stand on.
Some conflicts look spontaneous from the outside. Inside, they’ve often been rehearsed in smaller ways over phone calls, over holidays, over what is and isn’t allowed to be visible.
The cake is cleared. The party continues without them. The phones keep buzzing.
