Sometimes you’re biggest haters are right within your own kin.

What would you do if your own cousin tried to berate you in front of the whole family? One guy recently shared exactly how he handled this situation on Reddit. Here’s what went down.

AITAH for being “catty” to my cousin who tries to emasculate me?

I am a short dude who had problems with my masculinity growing up.

I have a lot of cousins who are hypermasculine, and steered me away from a lot of “feminine” things.

I also grew up in the south as a black man, and I think that exacerbated things as well.

That’s a lot to have to work past.

My gf and I and were visiting some family, and a cousin I was close to as a kid and I were chatting.

He asked me what is new with me, and I told him about our new kitten we got.

My gf loves cats and I always liked them but grew up with dogs but she changed me completely to being a diehard cat person.

Real men love cats!

I was kind of gushing about how cute and well behaved our cats were when my cousin goes “Ew! A cat? You really let your gf force you to get those things?”

And I said it was a mutual decision.

I forget what my cousin said exactly but it was along the lines of how nasty cats were.

That’s every shade of a red flag.

I got really annoyed and said that my cats have never had an accident but his dog just shat on my mom’s shoes not 10 minutes ago.

I could tell my cousin was annoyed but we tried to change subject.

Later, I asked if my gf could grab my chapstick and she got me those slightly tinted generic tubs of chapstick.

My cousin made a face again and made a joke of me needing my own chapstick and not my gf’s lipstick.

That’s certifiable hater behavior.

I told him this was one I picked out.

He said: “What’s next? you’re going to go on hygienetok (not sure what this is tbh) and be like those teenage girls?”

I didn’t really anything smart to say and just said “You literally terrible and are ashy and you’re trying to make fun of me?”

That couldn’t have gone over well.

He got aggravated and started raising his voice about how I’ve changed and all this and that about women changing men blah blah.

Some of the older adults in the house were scolding me for escalating a holiday event, and it made me feel like an AH for not just taking it but idk.

Seems like the older adults in his family are conflict-averse. Let’s see how Reddit weighed in on this debacle.

Some boiled it down plain and simple.

Another validated the original poster.

One person made a valid point.

And emphasized what real masculinity is.

Real men don’t need toxic validation.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.