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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Jacketbruhthrowaway on 2023-07-18 10:14:23.
For context:
My wife and I have been dating for 3 years, married for 1. After college, I moved to a different city where I met my wife. Most of my college friends stayed in the city I went to college in. Some of them have met my wife before but not for all that long. Last month, my wife and I moved to the city I went to college in because both of us found work there. Since my college friends, who are my closest friends, all live and work here, I pretty much seamlessly reentered my friend group and introduced my wife to the whole group, which is a roughly even split of mid twenties men and women.
Up till now, the move to the old city has been great. My wife perfectly slot into our old friend group and my friends all love her and she really likes them. The issue that happened was that at a recent hangout, a few of my friends used the r-word. My wife frequently volunteers for organizations that help out people with disabilities and feels very strongly about the word and hates any and all usage of the word and therefore doesn’t associate with people who use the word. For the record, I do not use the word myself. My wife is incredibly strong in her convictions which is one of the things I like most about her.
The problem we’re running into is that so far, my wife genuinely loves my friends and would love to keep being friends with them if it weren’t for this one issue. She explicitly says that she thinks they are good people except for the fact that they use the r-slur.
My wife wants me to no longer be friends with my friends. That feels like an unreasonable ask since these are probably my closest friends in the whole world and she genuinely likes them and would be friends with them if it weren’t for this issue. She also says that this is a really tough situation so she’s unsure of what to do here but the current solution is the most obvious solution.
Who is in the wrong here?
Also apologies for the choppiness of the post. English is my first language, I just suck at writing.
The slur is “retarded”. Formerly it denoted an intellectually challenged individual. Its meaning has been co-opted to insult a person by proposing they lack intelligence. Usually it will be cast in noun form rather than adjective: “Whadda you a retard?!” With a strong emphasis on the first syllable. Modern vernacular has dropped the first syllable altogether: “Johnny is a ‘tard.” This has now morphed in definition to mean anyone who is a fan of something: “I watched the new James Cameron movie with the rest of the avatards.”
Thanks. English being my second language I miss some references still