The wife gets angry over not including her son in a single photo of the kids

Navigating interactions with children may be particularly difficult in co-parenting and blended families, as one man found recently when he took a picture of his children on vacation. The unnamed man claims he irritated his wife when he took a photo of his children during their first family vacation – but he didn’t include his stepson in the picture.

The man claims he was taking the photo to send to his ex-wife, the mother of his children, and that’s why his wife’s son wasn’t in it, but this hasn’t made things any better. Not knowing what to do, the man resorted to Reddit for help, asking fellow users if he was an a**hole for snapping the photo.

He stated: “We married during covid, and we just returned from our first family vacation with all of the kids (we both share custody with our exes). I have two sons from my former marriage (7 and 6 years old), and my wife has one son from her first marriage (7yro). The boys get along well. We have a one-year-old daughter.” Obviously, we took a lot of pictures of the kids on our vacation. Then I told my sons to pose for their mother [sic]. My wife became angry and told me that I should not exclude my stepson. I told her I’d take pictures of all the kids, but I needed to take one of my sons for my ex.

“I took the photo, sent it to my ex, and then we shot a lot of pictures of all the kids, as we had done for days. My wife questioned me about the photo I took of my boys after the kids were asleep, and I told her I didn’t think it was a big problem. I’ve taken pictures of all the kids, of just our daughter, of just the boys, of the kids individually, and so on.”

He goes on to add that his wife believes her kid is being “excluded,” and that the boy “shouldn’t have to beg for his stepfather’s love on top of everything else.” The father continued: “I told her I thought she was overreacting because it was just one photo and none of the kids gave it a second thought. We eventually got into a fight.”

Hundreds of people have since commented on the page, with many believing that the father had done nothing wrong. One person stated: “She is exaggerating. This has nothing to do with her son/your stepson. This is due to the fact that you were doing something for your ex. This is jealousy.”

“Yeah, I feel that the photo is only a symptom, but not the reason, of her reaction,” another said. A third was posted: “So you’re telling me that folks can have a nice co-parenting relationship?! It’s an actual thing?”