There are way too many stories on Reddit that begin with “this is the first time my partner has acted this way,” but through info and clarification requests, we learn that things have seem to have been headed in a not-so-great direction for quite some time.

In this case, OP is engaged to a man who, until now, seems to have been pretty chill and relaxed.

I’ve been seeing my fiance for 4 years now and I came in to the relationship with 2 boys. My boys are now 12 and 9. Once a year me and the boys go to my families vacation home with the entire family and up until this year, my fiance did not attend.

But now that we are engaged and merging families, the family asked that he come too (they all get along great with him anyways).

Still, when he decided to accompany her and her children on an annual vacation with her side of the family, she felt the need to warn him ahead of time that things would not be as they were at home.

Mostly, it was that the children would not have a bedtime while on vacation. OP is their mother and feels that it’s only once a year and not a big deal.

I explained to him prior to us coming to our family retreat that during our week stay with the family, my kids do not have a bedtime. We do a lot of night activities, such as night swimming in the pool, karaoke, fires, nightly strolls through the neighborhood, etc etc. So during this week, my kids absolutely do not have a bedtime and this is how it has always been.

I made it clear that bedtime was not to be enforced like it was at home because this is vacation and time with family and I’m not making my kids miss out on the nightly activities.

I also explained that due to this, some nights they are up until easily 11-midnight. It’s once a year, it’s no big deal.

So he was fully aware and please note that this is the only time I’ve seen this side of him that I will mention below.

Things blew up on the vacation, though, when the fiancee could not or would not keep his mouth shut about the kids and their bedtime – even after OP pulled him aside more than once and told him to knock it off.

We get here the first night and you can tell he is already uncomfortable with the boys staying up past their bedtime. He was stressing out because the boys were still in the pool at 10pm and he felt they should be in bed already.

I reminded him at least twice that we were not enforcing a bedtime here and he let it go the first night.

The second night 9pm rolls around and the boys were still up and my fiance was dropping comments like “you’re lucky you’re even still awake right now, you should be in bed”. Saying it right in front of my mom, who looked mortified that he had such an attitude.

I told him to cut the f**king s*%t, in private. He tells me he thinks it’s f**ked up and that it’s going to be terrible trying to get them back on their schedule (never been an issue in the years prior).

I stood firm and told him to knock it off and let it go.

Eventually she lost it on him completely, calling him an embarrassment.

But then last night my fiance starts angry sighing every single time he looks at my kids still awake and I finally pulled him aside and told him he was a f**king embarrassment because he keeps saying these comments in front of my family, which leads to awkward silences and judgemental glances my way.

I warned him prior to coming here and if he had an issue that he can’t control for a week than he needs to leave because he’s ruining our trip with his passive aggressive BS surrounding a bedtime.

He told me I’m an AH for making him feel like garbage over wanting to keep the kids on a schedule because it’s “best for them”. AITA?

Did she go too far? Should he get a say since he’s going to be the stepfather?

You know Reddit is going to weigh in!

The top comment urges OP to take this incident seriously, as things will likely not improve.

This person says there are way too many folks out there waiting until after marriage to show their true colors.

This commenter had a bad stepparent experience and is sharing it as a warning.

Other stepparents, like this one, say he’s definitely overstepping.

Whether she knew it or not…

This poor woman will become “those poor kids” if she goes through with the marriage.

Man, Reddit really knows how to do a number on your trust in others, right?