How Do You Know When A "Prankster" Relative Has Gone Too Far?

Pranks are something that most people don’t really find very funny. Even good-natured ones can be annoying at best to the prank-ee, and the majority of people outgrow this habit by adulthood.

You know, because it makes it hard to keep friends.

This OP has an entire family who has failed to learn that lesson, though his brother seems to be the worst offender.

He’s always been a “prankster,” and since OP got married, has consistently harassed his new wife as well.

My brother, “Rob,” is a self-proclaimed prankster. He loves pulling pranks on everyone, including strangers. His pranks, in my opinion, aren’t funny and may land him in serious trouble in the future. His “pranks” are just antagonising someone until he gets bored and then calling it a “prank.”

Rob’s behaviour has seriously affected my relationship with him. When I first started dating my wife, “Halle,” he made it a habit at every gathering I would attend with her to prank her; not just an average whoopee cushion or a rubber snake – like hiding her glasses for hours on end, or pouring vinegar in her tea. He claims he does it to make Halle “less posh and uptight.”

My family is like him as well, a bunch of self-proclaimed jokesters. I don’t speak to them much.

OP and his wife had a baby recently and his family is upset at the minimal time they’re received with the wee one, not understanding that their need to annoy OP and his wife has something to do with it

My wife, “Halle,” gave birth to our beautiful son 6 months ago. According to my family, we’ve been “rationing our family visits,”(The first time they saw our son was when he was 4 months, and they haven’t seen him since.)

My family isn’t very happy with this arrangement and they’ve been spamming me with calls, texts – and even emails asking (begging) to see the baby. They want weekly or even daily visits, but that just isn’t possible.

When the brother asked them to his birthday party and requested that OP’s wife make the cake, OP was hesitant.

His wife wanted to do it in an attempt to smooth things over and make his family feel better about missing baby time.

Rob invited us for his 30th birthday and asked Halle to make his birthday cake. Not just any basic, simple vanilla cake, but one of those fancy, detailed, decorated cakes that require lots of time and effort. I was hesitant to go (and even more hesitant to let Halle make the cake,) but Halle assured me that it would be alright and attending the birthday might ease my family off our back.

Rob paid her- upfront – for the cake that he specifically wanted. Halle also made cupcakes, just because she wanted to.

The brother paid for all of the ingredients (though presumably not the wife’s time), and when they first arrived, things were going well.

That is until the brother doused OP’s wife with cold water while she was holding his cake, then proceeded to get angry when she dropped it.

Halle and I arrived at my brother’s house earlier than everyone else and when everyone arrived, I was pleasantly surprised with how well the whole thing was going. They were very excited to meet my son and they were very respectful towards Halle. Rob kept telling Halle to “watch her back.”

I had no idea he meant it literally.

While my wife was handling the cake, he came up behind her and poured cold water on her body. This obviously scared her a little and caused her to drop the cake. Rob, got extremely pissed, claiming that she “dropped the cake on purpose.” Halle started to apologise for dropping the cake, while soaking wet, but I wasn’t having any of it and I admittedly lost my temper a little.

OP took his wife, the baby, and the extra cupcakes she’d made home.

His family – especially his brother – felt as if the cupcakes should have been left, at least, since he’d paid for them.

I yelled at Rob for being irresponsible and irrational, grabbed the cupcakes that Halle had made (which were untouched) and left with my family. It was a little dramatic.

The next day, I woke up to a string of angry texts from Rob, telling me I had no right to take the cupcakes away from him because he had rightfully paid for them and this wouldn’t have happened if “Halle could handle a little cold water.”

Halle thinks that I should at least apologise in the hopes that it would make everything go away.

Is OP wrong for stepping in to protect his wife? Or should he just let it go in the interests of keeping the peace?

Reddit is weighing in below!

The top commenter says that OP needs to have a serious talk with his family and advise them they should not expect to see his family until they promise to cut out the pranks for good.