Chew with your mouth closed.

Keep your elbows off the table.

Stop making the forks kiss each other, they don’t feel human love.

These are the rules most all of us are familiar with at the family dinner table; but what happens when you reach a cultural impasse?

AITAH for not having dinner with my wife’s family?

So a little context my wifes mom and dad have come to stay with us for about 3 months now and won’t be leaving until November to help out with our 1 year old as our daycare don’t take kids under 1.5 years old.

The problem is all the noise.

I was always raised not to chew with my mouth open or make slurping sounds, my wifes mom and dad are from China and i just can’t stand the sound, nice people and all but i can’t be present when they eat its nails on a chalkboard to me

It’s important to note that some people are extremely affected by noises like this. It’s called misophonia, and it’s not just being picky.

Imagine trying to have a nice dinner with someone blasting an airhorn in your ear and you’ll be close to understanding the experience.

My wife says i can suck it up and i have for the first 3 months but i can’t take it anymore.

Wife says I’m being too picky about manners so I just eat before or after them.

Am I the [jerk] here? I’m continuing on being nice and welcoming and i think it’s a fair compromise.

Let’s see what the comments make of this:

But even if it’s not a diagnosed condition, what’s wrong with this?

Seems like you’ve got a built-in excuse anyway.

There is a cultural difference at play here.

Seriously, though. Misophonia. Look it up. Have some empathy about it.

If you liked this post, check out this story about an employee who got revenge on a co-worker who kept grading their work suspiciously low.