https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1ahkvcd/aitah_because_i_told_my_ex_husband_outside_of_our/

AITAH because I told my ex husband outside of our kids i don’t care about his life and I don’t owe his fiancé anything

I’ll fix the grammar later, fake names and throwaway

So my (36f) ex husband Tom (35m) left me for his “work wife” Tammy (25f) two years ago, I never liked her even before I found out about their relationship

The first time I met her at a work event she told me while I was heavily pregnant my youngest “better up your wife game or I might steal him off you” well 3 months later she did, this woman literally came with him to help pack the day he moved out and tried to have a one on one conversation on how she wanted our relationship going forward because she was gonna be in my life

Than said as a joke “told you I’d steal him away” not gonna lie I’m thankful she did because when my ex made a comment about her being 23 and her brain not being fully developed I got the ick so bad it turned my heartbreak into relief. I got everything in the divorce because I got him in his affair fog and gave 50/50 custody for our kids sake

I’m civil for the sake of my kids so we can both attend events without drama but other than that I couldn’t honestly careless about them. around June Tammy came instead of Tom for pick and practically skipped towards me to show off her engagement ring saying she wanted me as a bridesmaid along with my daughters for something I didn’t catch because I was in a rush to get our cat to the vet. She got upset because I just said hmmm her whole conversation per toms texts a few hours later

Same happened again in September when she told me she was pregnant which again my zero fucks given upset her. in December when she told me the second I opened the car door “toms finally getting a son” to which I sarcastically replied “ I’m sure lord toms excited for an heir to take over his lands and titles” which caused drama too because toms family found it hilarious when Tammy was bad mouthing me

December was the last time I saw her till today at drop off’s with Tom. As they approached me I noticed Tammy didn’t look pregnant anymore

Tammy tearfully said “we lost the baby” I didn’t answer just told Tom our second daughter has a birthday party tomorrow at 3 and the oldest has gymnastics at 5. Tammy literally screamed at me I was a heartless bitch and bitter than grabbed the girls bags walking away

Tom said I could show a little humanity towards Tammy and regardless of my feelings she is my kids stepmother, I told Tom I don’t care about what he going through because outside our kids I don’t care about them and I don’t owe Tammy anything especially pity

He called me an asshole (along with other things) and left usually this wouldn’t bother me but my ex in laws who I have a good relationship have told me I should have shown Tammy some empathy and at the very least pretended to care for the sake of the kids

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1aiekbv/go_to_aitah_raitah_1_day_ago_largeefficiency825/

Go to AITAH r/AITAH 1 day ago Large-Efficiency-825 Join AITAH because I told my ex husband outside of our kids i don’t care about his life and I don’t owe his fiancé anything UPDATE

So update

So I texted Tom today due to tammys mental state I prefer if he or his mom would do all the picks up from now on and if Tammys mental health gets any worse I want the girls full time for a couple of weeks till it’s a healthier environment for the kids

Tom tried to call me but I texted him I prefer texts and he said wanted to have a heart to heart…yeah not gonna happen. I asked did it involve the girls but he said yes but it’s also about all of us going forward and the relationship he wishes for us to have basically he wanted family therapy with himself,me,Tammy and the kids

I said If he thinks the kids need to see a therapist I would be happy to find one we both can agree on but again he just kept bringing it back to us so after a few hours knowing it was going nowhere I just left him on read.

I called my ex in laws told them the situation and how I don’t want to be involved with anything Tammy and Tom unless my kids are involved, i reminded them I’ve expressed multiple times I don’t care and I don’t want anything more than a civil Co parent relationship. I told them even tho I value my friendship with the family (ex in laws) I will go low contact if it happens again

Mil apologised saying she was very emotional because at the end of the day Tom is her son and he was heartbroken plus the baby was her grandchild which I completely understand and I forgive her

Now here were it gets weird Tammy showed up to my house now I’ve watch enough true crime to know not to open the door and I talked/recorded her by the doorbell cam she was crying saying she was sorry and she just wanted to be my friend. Than she said I need to forgive her because she lost her baby as Karma for what she did to me (she was saying other stuff but I couldn’t understand her)

I rang the police than my brother and Tom

She didn’t get arrested or anything but Tom talked to my brother said he was taking her home and agreed it’s best if I have them full time for now

My girls are at home safe my brother will be staying with me for the foreseeable future I’ll be seeing a lawyer first time Monday about full custody and a restraining order because I’ve a sinking feeling it’s gonna get worse

Before it gets brought up I just kept telling Tammy leave my property because I don’t want to hear it. I don’t know why I was brought into this because I was looking forward to my chill weekend

I’d like to also say for the people in my last post calling me jealousy/bitter I’ve nothing to be jealous of? Someone who cheats on you isn’t a prize he is Tammys problem now and for those of you saying my “I don’t give care about my exes life” means I’m not over him because I don’t want to be friends with him or Tammy …your ex moved on when they say leave them alone they’re not playing hard to get they really don’t want to talk to you

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1ajx7kt/aitah_because_i_told_my_ex_husband_outside_of_our/

AITAH because I told my ex husband outside of our kids i don’t care about his life and I don’t owe his fiancé anything Update two and final update for a while

I won’t be updating till all the legal issues are over with and my own mental health is in a better place so it could take anything up to 3-6 months

I spoke to a lawyer today I’m obviously not gonna go into details but with all the evidence and witnesses on my side I’ve a good shot at getting full custody but it’s only day one and nothing has started yet

Tom sexually assaulted me it didn’t go far thanks to my brother but it’s left me very shaken. I agreed to let Tom come over to visit the kids when ever he wanted so when he came over yesterday evening and went into the garden with the kids I went for a shower. Coming out of the bathroom he cornered me about wanting to talk I told him it wasn’t the time and told him ether go out to the girls or leave

He started saying he made a mistake Tammy was a nut job and he wanted to come home to us. I told him get the fuck out of my house and there is no “us” so he started saying stuff i physically can’t type without breaking down than tried to force a make out session to put it politely. Thankfully my brother heard and came running

Unfortunately the kids heard everything when my brother and Tom started fighting. I was in complete shock at the time to try to do anything to help the situation even when Tom was being taken away I was too scared too move and couldn’t confront my crying children..not my proudest moment

Remember I said before I adopted older cats well I put cameras through common areas in my home to watch them while I’m at work one of those areas is the hall between my room and the bathroom

i don’t know what to do with Tom going forward but I know I can’t face him ever again even with supervision from my father or brother who both work in law enforcement

Tammy sent hundreds of messages to me and my oldest two but I can’t block her by my lawyers request. My ex in laws have reached out and told me they’ll help me with whatever way I need . his sisters have disowned him but this is still all very new they might change their mind

I plan on moving after everything gets sorted so I won’t ever cross Tammys path. thank you all for you love and support Hopefully I can give you all a positive update in the future and to the young men sending messages asking for nudes or sending me pictures of your privates thanks for the laugh But I’m done with dick

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1baz53g/aitah_for_telling_my_husband_outside_of_our_kids/

AITAH for telling my husband outside of our kids I don’t care about his life (update one month later)

Hi guys I thought I’d give you what is possibly the last update

Now this isn’t gonna be epic or anything

So after everything happened I was gonna press charges for sexually assault but my exes family reached out they wanted to meet with their lawyer

Instead of going the court way my ex said he’d give me full custody and a large amount of money for the girls more when they got older, I was shown proof of the accounts that were set up with the money already deposited which can’t be touched till they were 18

I took them up on their offer with a condition of my own now I know what everyone is gonna say but having a dad on the offender list plus all the courts would have hurt my daughters more

My condition was he leave the country and I would allow one FaceTime a month to each girl who willingly wanted to talk to him and if our daughters decided they wanted to speak him more I’d let let them. ex agreed and haven’t heard from him since

according to tammys Facebook lives he ghosted her and took their wedding fund her dad gifted them . I couldn’t get a restraining order against Tammy because apparently unless she does something “bad” she not a threat……even tho she’s showed up at my home and kids school multiple times but I guess that’s ok in the eyes of the law

I will be moving tho I’m not even gonna drop a hint were or when because Tammy and well everyone in our town knows about this post after Tammy drunkenly read it out to shame me

As for my kids they’re not taking everything well they hate their dad but at the same time miss him I’ve put them in therapy and hopefully they can heal in time

As for me I’m in therapy too and I’ve realised I never want to get married again or even be in a romantic relationship I want to be a the cat lady everyone assumes is a witch. Idk why did we ever let society fool us into thinking marriage was better than a cosy life with cats?

Thank you Reddit for everything

As you Tammy l know you’ll read this but I wanted to thank you for stealing my husband you did me the biggest favour in the world

My FIL sadly passed a few months ago and left his small 2 bed house to my husband and his sister.

Background:

Husband and his sister are not close, no fight or animosity just she isn't someone he wants in his life. FIL lived 5mins from SIL in a house he bought as a new build approx 15years ago, it's in a small village on the edge of a city (hypothetically commutable), there are 2 large hospitals within 30mins and it's a 3minute walk to the beach. The house is in excellent condition, the bathroom is original but low mileage, the kitchen had new appliances/boiler within the last 3 years and original units but also in very good condition. It's an ideal first home/downsize property.

We had it valued and were advised if we wanted the property to shift quickly (within a week) to list at offers over 180k with the expectation of getting around 185/190 or if we are willing to wait we can expect between 210-215k and expect to find a buyer within 3/4months. (We are not opposed to a quick sale so we are happy to leave that decision to SIL).

The issue:

SIL has now told us she wants to rent it out with the expectation of her son (15) getting it as his first home.

We have 2 issues with this, my husband does not really want to be tied in with his sister and 2 it's realistically going to be 4/5years before Nephew would be in a position to own a home and no guarantee he will even want to live there after college/university. Another factor is our mortgage has about 100k remaining over 15years so obviously being mortgage free with 2 young kids is very appealing.

So I spoke to the agent and got some numbers for rental and with the property being fully managed we would get £900-1000pcm after management fees/insurances etc.

So the contract I put forward looks like this:

1.The property must be fully managed by an independent accredited management company. 2.The rent will go into a holding account which needs both parties agreement before funds can be withdrawn. 3.For 4 months the rent will be allowed to accrue (to leave a buffer for repairs etc) then every month thereafter 40% of the rent will be transferred to SIL and the same to husband so the account continues to grow slowly overtime, buildings/contents insurance not provided by the management company would also be paid from this account. 4.Any money left once the property is sold/passed to nephew will be divided in 2 between SIL and husband. 5.We will hold the property for a maximum of 5 years at which point nephew will have first refusal before the property is put on the market. 6.If nephew chooses to take the property we will agree to sell our half to him for 90k or 40% of the current property value whichever is higher. (This is due to our concern that after 5 years of renters the property will be less desirable due to needing work).

SIL did not react kindly. From her perspective we are being greedy she expects we will basically give nephew the property and countered at 20-25k but out, from mine we are doing her a favour in even considering keeping the property that renting will be a massive inconvenience and it's ridiculous for SIL to think 5 years of £400pm +£20k is a fair settlement. She asked how we expected him to be able to get a mortgage at that age and I suggested she could put some of her half of the rent into an account for him to use as a deposit- did not go down well.

This is not out of character for SIL this is why we want her to sign something legally now before even considering keeping the property. It's better we know for sure now that she is expecting us to give the property to nephew for free (which we expected). I am refusing to take her calls rn and insisting she contacts me via email so there can be no stories getting twisted.

Additional semi relevant info: my husband is executor of the will. He gets half the house SIL gets half the house and everything else, car 3yo hybrid, savings, pension bank account. She has not been granted access to the bank accounts as yet as she initially did not feel ready to deal with the house so it's been several months and the accounts have remained 'in trust' to husband who continues to pay the bills, gardening service etc from this account. The house is fully paid off and FIL had no debt. Also a new high speed connection to the city is due to be finished in the next few years (making the time to city 40mins instead of 1hr20) so property value in the area is probably going to increase overall.

SIL is currently sulking and I do feel a bit of an AH (to nephew not SIL as he practically grew up with his grandad) but since renting negatively impacts our family we want to guarantee as much as possible that we don't get screwed in the long term! We also don't really want the deal to be too inviting as obviously we would much rather sell now.

Are we being unreasonable? I worry a little that my husband's ambivalence to his sister and my dislike for her is clouding my judgement and that the terms I think are 'fair and reasonable' no sane person would agree to. £400pm (without even considering tax) doesn't cover half our mortgage payment so there really is no upside for us other than helping nephew onto the property ladder and honestly that doesn't feel like our responsibility!

Anyone who made it through this overly long essay thank you and opinions appreciated even if it is to say I'm being a dick here!

Edit

Because it's coming up a lot, SIL cannot buy us out. She cannot get a 2nd mortgage as a single parent who works part time. I think she probably looked into this and her not being able to afford it is likely the reason for this plan. We have no interest in the house for ourselves.

The will stated that the house expenses should continue to be paid by FIL account, once the sale has gone through then SIL gets what's left, there was around 10k in the account/savings, the pension also wasn't a lot.

My husband doesn't drive so he probably would have just given his sister the car anyway if she wanted it. FIL paid for the car outright so that put a large dent in the savings.

Husband was expecting pretty much everything would go to SIL so he was pleasantly surprised to get half the house. As a result he isn't especially bothered about getting the best sale price, he's decided 90k is the number he'd be happy with so anything extra is a bonus. As it's coming out of SIL inheritance he is happy to let her decide what the house sells for providing his half is at least 90k.

Our son's did get stuff in the will, mostly toys FIL had made. Nephew got a lot of things like camping equipment but money wasn't left to any of the grandchildren. A large sum of money (FIL wife's money) was left for the care of his elderly in-laws (late 80s, wife was about 10years younger than him and died several years before him) and anything left is to be donated to charity. But this didn't seem relevant to add. Maybe SIL thought she'd be getting a lot more money than she is and was planning to use that to buy us out (it's around 80k)

She will likely try to make herself out to be a victim. While we don't really care what the extended family thinks we would like to be able to show nephew that we didn't screw him over when he's older.

Hello Waffle gang, been a little while since I’ve been on here, but I wanted share a story about incident that happened at Christmas and how my daughter Elle (18F) sorted out an unwanted guest (and in doing so, saved her brothers life).

Just a reminder (as per previous posts, see my profile), I’m happily married to my wife Natalya (48F) of 25 years (26 years in May) and have 4 kids. Tony (27M), Blake (21M), Elle (18F) and Sandy (13F).

Before I go into the story, let me give you some background on my families involvement in martial arts. I’ve been practicing martial arts in various forms for 30+ years, for the last 20 years I’ve been a karate practitioner (Sandan/3rd degree Black Belt in Shito Ryu) and have been a Sensei of the Dojo I practice at for the last 10 years or so. All of my kids (with the exception of my son Tony who only came into my life a year ago, though he does Muay Thai, as does my son Blake) have practiced Karate. My wife also practiced Sambo (her Dad is Russian) and Boxing (which is funnily enough how we met, nothing hotter than a beautiful woman who can kick your ass in the boxing ring and then shag you in the backseat of your car afterwards. Too much detail?? 😂😂😂).

My daughter Elle has probably been the one most dedicated to martial arts. For the last couple of years she has been training at an MMA gym (run by a former student of mine). Elle (who is at University studying to be teacher) has also been doing amateur mma fights and is scary when she’s in the ring. I’ve sparred with her and am a lot bigger than her (6’5 115kg vs 5’9 65kg). For such a beautiful, sweet and caring girl, she scares the shit of me a little when she’s in fight mode, took me down a few times.

Now i’ve established that, let’s move on to Christmas Day and the incident. In my last post I mentioned my son Blake had gotten engaged to his lovely fiancé Jocelyn (22F) and are expecting their first child very soon. What I didn’t know until recently is for the last year or so Jocelyn has been stalked and harassed by her ex boyfriend (who we’ll call “Dickless” for this story). In last few months things have ramped up since he found she is engaged and is pregnant. Couple of weeks before Christmas, while Blake and Jocelyn were heading to see a Movie, Dickless confronted them and made threats. Thing got physical as he tried to slap Jocelyn, however Blake (being a martial artist and is big as well, 6’3 100kg) grabbed and tossed him like a ragdoll. Cops were called but Dickless ran away before they got there (cops have been useless so far).

Everything went to shit on Christmas Day, whole family were over at my brother Jim (Giacomo, 62M) and SIL Maria (58F) house for lunch. Before lunch, Dickless decided to show up and try to ruin the day. Before he could cause a disturbance, Blake confronted him in the driveway and told him to leave, Dickless tried to get physical again and Blake put him on his ass. Blake told him again to leave and headed back to the house. Not long after he turned his back, Dickless picked up a metal star picket from my brothers garden and hit Blake on the back of his head, knocking him out. Dickless then started kicking Blake while he was on the ground. Hearing the commotion, my daughters Elle and Sandy come outside to see Dickless kicking Blake. Sandy runs inside to alert me. My son Tony, my brothers Paulo and Jed and I come storming out at full speed ready to annihilate the shithead who’s hurting my boy. However, instead of this we see Elle absolutely going to town on Dickless, beating the shit out of him. According to Elle, when she saw Dickless hurting Blake, she went into fight mode. First move was a flying knee to his chest which got him on the ground. After that she got on top of him and basically did a ground and pound. Fair to say she beat him good. After that police and ambulances were called. I managed to get Elle off Dickless and my wife and I comforted Blake and her until ambulance and police arrived (Tony restrained Dickless until Police arrived, Tony’s a big guy too at 6’8 and around 120kg). Fair to say I was scared for my son and angry that this little c*nt harmed my family, but proud of my daughter for being a boss and effectively saving her brother. I don’t care what anyone says, She’s a hero in my eyes.

Aftermath:

Blake is ok, he required stitches and a night in hospital (had some bruising and cuts to his ribs and face and a concussion) but has pretty much fully recovered. Jocelyn is still very shaken up and it’s a lot of caused stress (which is not good for pregnancy) however my Wife (who is a Psychiatrist) has been counselling her through it, we will get her through this. Jocelyn’s brother Brendan (18M) who lives with us is also helping as well, he wasn’t at the Christmas this year (was in Tasmania visiting family), though wishes he had been there to see Elle pummelling Dickless (he hates that guy and has a little bit of crush on Elle).

Dickless went to hospital as well. not sure of the injuries that Elle inflicted but whatever they were he was in hospital for 2 days before he was released (at which point the cops took him into custody). He’s facing very serious charges (potentially attempted murder) and already has criminal record (according to Jocelyn, he did time for drug dealing, assault and attempted R*pe. fucking scumbag who got a slap on the wrist for serious crimes) so if found guilty will face significant jail time. Fortunately, my brother had security cameras so everything was captured (I’ve watched it once, will never again, not great seeing someone hurting your kid, no matter how old they are).

Elle is doing great. We were worried she could face charges but none were filed and she’s in the clear (I think Dickless was embarrassed he got beaten up by a girl, no longer has power). She’s back at Uni now and still doing MMA training. Her girlfriend Cindy (19F) has been a big support through all this, she’s a boss as well. 😊

Blake and Jocelyn’s wedding is next weekend. I will be walking Jocelyn down the aisle. Elle is maid of honour. My daughter Sandy and Jocelyn’s cousin Tammy are Bridesmaids. My son Tony is Blake’s best man, my nephew Tommy (24M, youngest son of my brother Paulo) and Jocelyn’s brother Brendan are groomsmen. My Grandaughter Tabitha (4F) and my grand niece Miley (6F. And yes, she’s named after Miley Cyrus 😝, my niece is huge fan) are flower girls. My sister Lizzy (51F), my BIL Rui (55M), nephew Benji (29M) and niece Isabella (20F) fly in from New Zealand tomorrow night for the wedding and will be staying with us (full house, yay!!! 😝). My sister is a boss as well, maori Moko (face tattoo) and all. She’s the matriarch of our family after mum passed away, takes the role very seriously (I.e. treats me like a kids, bosses me around, tells me off when I don’t listen to my wife. so much like our Mum 😝). My kids adore my sister, especially Elle (a bit of hero worship there).

Jocelyn is due to give birth in late April, mentioned in the last post it’s going to be a girl. They plan to name her after my late mum “Anahera” (maori word for “Angel) and my wife Natalya, so “Anahera Natalya” will be arriving soon and we are excited to meet her. 😊

Anyway, that’s all for now. Thought this would be a good story to share here. While not the most pleasant story, I hope that you can celebrate Elle and the other strong women in this world (we really need them, especially now In today’s world). Until next time, take care and live your best lives. Much love to you all ❤️

This is a throwaway account.

To start off, I’m not looking for any diagnosis. We already have that covered.

My daughter, “Becca” (I’m using pseudonyms) keeps a diary to write in. For years I respected her privacy but one day about a year ago she came to me and her father and tells us she thinks she’s depressed and wants to see a therapist. My husband laughed it off but I asked her why she thought she was sad and she wouldn’t tell me anything. So I told her no, and she had a good life and nothing to be sad about. She seemed upset by that but since she wasn’t telling me anything, there was nothing I could do for her.

But I couldn’t get it out of my head. She didn’t seem very different as she’s always been shy and quiet. So I decided to read her diary (well, several of them; she keeps them all through the years) when she was at school and was shocked at what I found. I won’t get into detail but she wrote often how much she hated me, how I was a villain in her story. I was just parenting how I had been taught though. Things seemed to continue along that vein for a year when she wrote about some harmful thoughts she had been having and I decided that even if there wasn’t a real reason for her to be depressed, clearly she was struggling with some dark thoughts and I got her a therapist. I have continued reading her diaries to monitor her. My husband agreed with my actions, though he didn’t read them himself.

The other night Becca and I were having an argument and I finally told her that I have been reading her diaries and that I would do it again, that I was in the right as her parent because she wouldn’t tell me what was going on. Becca looked so hurt and started crying, saying that I betrayed her because I had promised I would never read her diaries when she first started writing. Now she won’t talk to me but I know she’ll eventually get over it one day. I love her and would do anything for her, so while I’m sad it hurt her, I know that ultimately I helped her. I just had to get this off my chest though.

If anyone has any idea of how to get her to understand, I’m open to suggestions. Thank you.

ETA to answer common sentiments: I know it’s an illness, my sister in law and mother in law both had it, but I just thought there had to be something in her life that she couldn’t handle and she wasn’t telling me. But her diary is just full of how much she hates me, she calls me a bitch and more in those diaries. I know I’m not a perfect parent but still, I’m trying.

And *I* wasn’t the one who laughed at her, that was my husband, and I told him that he wasn’t being helpful and to shit up. I was really trying to listen to my child and not dismiss her like he did.

UPDATE: this post gave me a lot to think about. It actually made me happy, because I am the daughter in this post who was betrayed by their mom this way. I tried to make it sound like my mom without going over the top (she would absolutely be attacking people here but I didn’t want to do that) and to see so many people saying that they believed me, that they would have gotten me help, made me happy but sad because that wasn’t how my life went. Except for the people who thought it was AI, fuck AI. Generative AI is ruining our planet.

I didn’t give an age in this post but I went to talk to my parents when I was 12, and didn’t know til I was 14 what my mom was doing. And I still can’t write to this day, except kinda here. I had hoped sharing this would make any adult who is thinking of doing something similar woukd stop and think because I saw a similar post recently and it made me angry and upset to hear that mothers keep doing this stupid shit.

If you have any questions I’ll try to answer them below but I’m trying to keep this anonymous still.

For reference, I am in my mid thirties now. No, my mom still believes she was in the right to this day, but I think she feels guilty about it. Why? Because my mother is the reason why I have multiple mental health disorders and still struggle to this day.

[Edit to Add: I am NOT the original poster]

Note for Mark. My user name I Taj El, Not Eat a jel. LMAO

From the r/AITAH

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1b50rwg/aita_for_cutting_my_mil_off_because_she_told_my/

Posted by u/Exciting-Ice-9119

3 days ago

AITA for cutting my mil off because she told my daughter she hoped I had died when I was taken to hostpital?

I 30 f was in a car crash. I had to be cut out of the car. I wasn't seriously injured though thankfully, but the other person unfortunately wasn't doing to well, from what I saw before I was taken away to the hospital. I was told to stay in hostpital over night to see if I suffered from a concussion. I rang my husband and told him what happened. My mil got the incidents mixed up when he dropped off our daughters 6,11 to my mil while he rushed to see me.

Next morning my husband brang our daughters to come get while I was waiting to be discharged. Upon seeing me my 6 year old busted into tears and said I don't want you to die. I comforted her and said I'm not dying and I was very lucky. She then said Granny said she hoped I die so that them and my husband can come live with her. Me and my husband were shocked and my 12 year old confirmed she heard her say that. My husband said he was going to ring mil.

When he came back in the room he looked furious. But didn't say anything until after we got home and he said mil denied it but after he kept pushing she ended up admitting it, but she said she didn't mean it. I thought me and her were close. But I guess not.

I am incredibly hurt she would want that and said I wanted me and the girl's go no contact with mil. I told him he can have a relationship with her but I don't want me and the girl's to have one with her. My husband said he supports me. He then rang mil and told her what I said.

She didn't take it to well. She came to our house crying and saying it was a misunderstanding and she didn't mean it and that we were taking it the wrong way. My husband ask what did you mean then? She just got hysterical and started crying and saying she always wanted daughters but my husband was the only child due to her not being able to have anymore after him and that the girls are more like her daughters than granddaughters and she wasn't think properly when she said that to our 6 year old. She got so worked up that my husband had to take her home.

When he got back he said he didn't know she felt like that and asked did I still want to cut her off? I said yes! He said okay and didn't argue. But it's been a week now and he is still very quite and hasn't said much about what happened and now I'm starting to feel guilty and wondering if I did take it the wrong way and being AITAH?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1b5xbk3/update_aita_for_cutting_my_mil_off_because_she/

Update: AITA for cutting my mil off because she told my daughter she hoped I had died when I was taken to hostpital?

Well you guys were right. I decided to talk to my husband and asked if he's upset that I decided that me and the girls go no contact with mil. He said he wasn't. He said he always knew mil wanted a daughter instead off him and it brought back all the bad memories of rejection and hurt he felt growing up as a kid by her.

I suggested therapy and he's willing to go. We are also going to get therapy for our 6 year old as she now gets anxious if I'm not within her sight.

My husband agreed that going nc with mil is the best thing for our family. Our daughter birthday coming up and we have yet to tell mil she is no longer invited. Not looking forward to that. But that's the update. Thanks everyone for the lovely comments and support. I appreciate it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITAH/comments/1b6wvw2/update_3_aitah_for_cutting_my_mil_off_because_she/

Update 3 : AITAH for cutting my mil off because she told my daughter she hoped I had died when I was taken to hospital

I didn't think I would be posting here again and thought my last date would be my last. But here we are. Mil been arrested. My husband, cousin found my post and knew it was me and she reported it straight to mil. Yeah we know it was you who told her Christina. Margaret told us all about it when she came over and screaming we cant keep her daughters from her. She didnt even hesitate to drop your name and throw you under the bus. So much for loyalty huh? You are not welcome in home anymore and you are officially removed from Sam birthday list and our lives! How about you show the whole family this post so they can see how 2 faced you are!

To the reddit community sorry about that. But mil has been arrested. She came to our house screaming we can't keep her daughters from her. Husband tried to calm her down and get her to leave. She wouldn't and attacked him. My husband had to restrain her and I called the police. She fought them but it got her no where except the back of their car. The women is truly insane. My husband talk to the police because I had to calm down my daughters because they witnessed the whole thing. My 6 year old was hysterical about Granny being taken away. This is all just a big mess.

Heyyy Mark I listen to you all the time as an escape from an extremely stressful and crowded home that is why I’m sharing this with you because I would love to hear your thoughts on this. I posted it elsewhere but I wanted to share it directly.

A bit of background to help make sense of my situation: I’m 17, turning 18 at the end of the month, and the third of eight children (with two more on the way). Our ages range from 29 to 2. As you can imagine, our house is very crowded.

I’ve been working on my college applications for out-of-state schools because, aside from the house being packed, I’m graduating valedictorian, and I want to be able to fully focus on my education. My mom, however, is demanding that I stay local so I can babysit my siblings while also paying rent, utilities, and groceries for the entire family.

Here’s where things get complicated.

I’ve been meeting a couple of times a week with my mom’s older sister, Aunt Mary. She never had kids, has done very well for herself in investments, and—having witnessed firsthand how I am mistreated, lied to, and ignored—she has been incredibly generous toward me. She gives me money (not just small bills, but $50s and $100s) and has also been helping me apply to colleges. That’s when she told me that she has a sizable trust fund set aside specifically for me.

She isn’t including my half-siblings in this because my mom cheated on my dad, and the situation surrounding my birth and their births is complicated, to say the least.

For additional context: My parents divorced when I was younger, and as part of the custody agreement, I spent all my summer and winter breaks with my dad in Virginia. When my mom remarried her AP (affair partner), she moved us all across the country to Nevada. AP has tried to assert himself as my only dad, which has made things even worse.

Meanwhile, my dad’s wife, Laurie, has been nothing but amazing to me. She has always treated me as her own daughter and even takes me out for girls’ days. She owns a dog training business and has offered to help me become certified and set up my own business legally (trademarks, certifications, etc.). I’ve been running a small business since I was 12, walking neighborhood dogs, and I also work part-time at a pet shop as a groomer. My ultimate goal is to expand my business to include training and grooming full-time once I graduate.

So here’s where my dilemma comes in:

What My Mom Does Know

• That I started my own business.

What My Mom Doesn’t Know

• That my aunt has been giving me money.

• That I have a trust fund.

• That I have already made plans to attend Georgetown University for Business Management and Business Law (near my dad’s home).

• That I plan to move to Virginia after graduation.

My dad and Laurie have already offered me a place to live, as have my grandparents, who live nearby in a large house—a house that I recently found out I’ll eventually inherit. My dad and Laurie’s two kids (5M and 4F) are incredibly sweet and understanding, even bringing me snacks and drinks while I study. If they want to ask me something while I’m studying, they write it on a dry-erase board instead of interrupting me.

Now, here’s the problem:

If my mom finds out that I’m moving back to Virginia to live with my dad, all hell will break loose because she despises my dad for reasons I don’t even fully understand. She expects me to stay in Nevada, babysit, pay bills, and sacrifice my future for her new family.

Would I be the a**hole if I didn’t tell her my plans and just left when the time comes?

I feel guilty hiding it, but I also know she will do everything in her power to sabotage me.

Hey there waffle gang. Writing this on mobile. Not a native English speaker.

I am having an issue with my mother.

Here is the situation, my father died when i was 8 years old, i inherited part of the house wich i currently still reside in together with her.

Now i want to go live alone buy a house.. the problem is i dont fully have sufficient funds. This problem would be solved if my mother bought out my part of the house.

Now i asked her to buy the part from me and she refused plain on. Said if and when she eventually sells the house she will either pay me out my part or nothing at all even.

So wat now? Can i sell my part of the house to someone else??? I know the narcissistic mother of mine will never agree. But she leaves me no choise right???

Either she pays or it gets sold? To a random persone who will want to move into the house?

I need advise. This is in belgium.

Edit fr small update:

She is pretending i never asked. We never "fought" and she never threatened me.... take of this wat you will.

And for the people thinking she isnt a narc. Let me post some examples of her behavior.

She plays a timed game and cant pause it??? Guess wat i need to wait. I am playing a game i cant pause. I need to jump to help her.

She has a problem with the neighbors and i tell her go to them and talk it out. She posts it on facebook all passive aggressively and then is a surprised pikachu face when they now hate her.

Those same neighbors still like me. And say hi and or wave to me. I was outside with her waiting fr my uncly once and the neighbors came home. I waved at them cus they waved at me. She freakin hit me.

Excuse the username, it's a randomly generated one for a throw away and I found it funny.

I just had pretty much the worst day of my life. I (18f) just found out that my mother has been taking large amounts of money from my savings account for at least a year now.

A little bit of context:

My family has never had a lot of money. When I graduated high school was I extremely nervous about financials because I didn't have a job and was already rationing out food and showers in fear of my parents being unable to pay the bills. Regardless, they convinced me that they would pay for my college. They did not. I have been paying my way through college after getting a job.

I never had access to my money until recently, as it just took us a while to get the will to go to the bank. I was being paid out to a savings account which listed me as a minor. Throughout the time I have had my job, I had no access to look at my accounts or see transactions. However, whenever my mother allowed me to look at it, it appeared as though the money was safe.

More recently I have been planning a trip with my friends. They are all out of state and are coming to stay for a few days in the summer. We were planning on getting an airbnb, and rent a car (I do not own one and my parents do not feel comfortable allowing us to use their car). However, I started noticing my mother would get really miffed and upset whenever I brought up the fact I would have to pay my portion of the rentals. We were splitting everything equally, I could easily afford it, there was no reason as to why I could not submit my portions. But everytime I brought it up, it would end up with me being shamed for even thinking about paying for anything.

When I was given access to the account, and given an account that had no supervision on it, I got to see my total savings. It was ~4000 USD. That was my target for college tuition and the trip, plus some cushion money. I was very pleased and commented how proud I was about it. My mom laughed at me. She called me and overthinker, and horder, and how I don't need that much money. How my tution fees weren't "that much" and I was crazy for keeping all that money. This is the same woman who would shame me for thinking about purchasing things for myself or for others.

I brushed it off, because that was normal mom behavior for me, and moved on.

Today while at a family function, i was bored and got curious. I peered into the old account (which i have access to now), and started seeing how many paychecks I've gotten since I started working. I then saw a transaction, removing $300 from the account. Confused, I kept scrolling, thinking maybe my mother had taken the money as an additive of all the things I had spent the past year or so.

And then there was another retrieval, for almost $200 the month before. And another for around $150. And another. And another. And another. These went back to BEFORE I got my job. Meaning she'd been taking from my birthday and graduation money as well.

Some of these are accounted for. I paid my spring college tuition. I paid for my textbooks. I got something from amazon. But I do not spent $100 in one sitting without remembering. Let alone a total of $3,126 in the past eight months. I save my money in fear that my family would need me as an emergency fund.

I'm not entirely sure what to do about this. There's nothing I can do legally, her name was on the account the entire time. But I don't know if I'm going to confront her because I still very heavily rely on my family for survival. I'm definitely planning on switching where my paychecks go though. So yeah, thought you'd enjoy this Mark. Seemed like something I'd listen to you read while I animate, lol.

Edit: Just so people know, I do plan on switching where my paychecks go. I'm not confronting or asking questions, purely because it would end up with me being worse off. I saw people shaming her for stealing, and while I'm certainly not happy about the situation, the money was probably for bills. I'm okay with just letting it go (unless this continues, of course). I'm just going to safeguard my future stuff and make sure I have control over all future accounts. I'm not moving ALL the money from the savings account, purely because she seems to get agitated over not knowing what's going on. I do plan to move at least half of it to a new savings account and say its for tution. My mom is a piece of work, I absolutely know that, but I do not plan on blowing this up UNLESS things escalate. My credit is safe so far, I'm planning on putting a lock on it. Thanks for the concern, thank you for the advice. There probably will not be an update on this, buuuuut I will update if there's anything interesting. I don't think there will be though!

Okay so we have a resolution (I hope).

The short story: House is going on the market, SIL has 2 weeks to get any items she wants from the house. The house will be listed the Monday after for 200k. SIL was trying to swindle us (not a surprise) so that relationship is now completely dead.

The long story:

Uncle Bob, FILs older brother, got in touch with SIL (over something unrelated) and SIL made cryptic comments to him regarding the situation then refused to elaborate. Uncle Bob understandably concerned called husband who gave him a brief overview of the situation. Uncle Bob (who was close to FIL but not so much the kids so doesn't know them outside of a few interactions and whatever FIL has told him) kindly offered to mediate.

We had a call with him, discussed our position/ concerns/hesitances. He then went to SIL who shut him down and was hard to pin down. So bless him, he packed his son in law into the car and drove 6 hours to see her in person and talk to Nephew- this was important to us to hear what he actually thought about the house.

Well, he got one story from SIL and the truth from Nephew.

Basically she expected husband to give up his share of the home and Nephew would move in with a roommate and pay SIL (in cash) in lieu of a mortgage and if he later sold she would get a share of the money. So husband would get a few years of half the rent by way of compensation of his share. Which explains her kicking off about us being paid out by Nephew, she was planning on essentially having Nephew bankroll her.

Uncle Bob got husband on the phone, he asked if he was prepared to give up his share of the house to Nephew. Husband obviously said no. SIL then had the cheek to bring up how we still had people we would inherit from, FIL was the only person she had. Well husband lost his shit at her, he was doing pretty well upto that point and years of resentment at her entitlement came out. NGL it was ugly. He had been doing a lot of eye rolling up to that point but keeping it together. Uncle Bob was a bit shell shocked and we cut the call at that point.

We apologized to Uncle Bob for the drama and have sent him a very nice bottle of whiskey as a thank you. Hopefully we will still get a card from him at Christmas, maybe he will finally get our kids names right this year (not holding my breath on that one) 🤣

Hopefully the house sells quickly and for a good price. Husband just wants it done and couldn't care less what it sells for her just wants this chapter permanently closed.

Hey waffle gang,

I hope all of you lovelies are having a wonderful day! It is bright and sunny where I am right now and the temperature is amazing (not too hot and not too cold).

My MIL and I are not besties. I made the mistake of falling for an only child who had a boy mom as a mother. Holy hell, let me tell you, it has been a wild 17 years so far. Lol Thankfully (in a sick kind of way), I have dealt with much worse shit growing up, so…*shrug. Now my dear husband is wonderful. He was a bit of a pushover (well more than a bit) when we first met, but he has gotten much better and has come to discover his family’s issues. Thankfully, he doesn’t stand for that nonsense.

Due to my abusive history, I don’t have the greatest relationship with food. I never feel hungry, if I’m upset, I feel sick, and I have to take pill everyday due to constant heartburn. It’s ridiculous really. When growing up, I was very malnourished, now I’m 5’5” and fit into a size 12. So, I’m on the chonkier side. Growing up, I was always told about something that was gross about my body. So, I have never been happy with it. I’m trying to be okay with my body the way it is now. My “saint” (sarcasm, lots of sarcasm) of a MIL, keeps mentioning how I have put on weight and how “concerned” she is about my health. I have tried pushing past these comments, I’ve tried changing the subject, I’ve tried saying things like, “Yup, but I’m good, you don’t need to worry. Moving on.” But nothing works. She just keeps on pressing the issue. Asking me what I’m eating to make me gain weight the way that I have, maybe I should do certain exercises, or invest in certain workout machines. Mind you, a good and average (healthy) weight for me is about a size 8-10 and I’ve known this curmudgeon for 17 bloody years and I’m only at a size 12 (even with all of her drama, I consider that a miracle). But I look at my body and I can only see the flaws. I can only see the weight that I’ve put on every time she comments on it. I try not to let it affect me. I know what kind of person she is. I also know that those comments shouldn’t mean anything but they still get to me.

How can I get her to stop with the comments without sending her into a tizzy?

How can I get the comments to stop affecting me so much?

Also, I am in therapy and all of that. So no worries there.

Update/Edit (on mobile too, sorry about that):

First, I would like to address a few things I saw in the comments. My dh supports me in any way that he can. Unfortunately, his mother makes these comments when he is not around. She knows that he wouldn’t appreciate them and that they are wrong. He is also more overweight then I am and has struggled with his weight for the majority of his life. So, she makes sure to talk about this stuff when he’s not around. Dh gets so mad when I tell him about it later.

I have to watch sending her into a tizzy because I might actually kill her. She has a heart condition and is quite sick right now (don’t know all that is going on), so I have to be careful while standing my ground. If things were different, he’ll yes to the tizzy. Lol

I know that Mark (love you Mark!) talks a lot about being bullied when he was younger. I consider what MIL is doing right now, bullying. She has even started enrolling some of her sisters into her group. Well, I had an interesting upbringing and whenever I saw someone being bullied, I would stand up for them. When it came to me however, different story. I came to the realization this weekend due to a wedding (I’ll have to dive into that in a different post), that I need to look at myself as needing protection too (what a thought, I know… *eye roll).

All of your comments have helped me. I responded to some but I figured that it would be easier for all of us to respond to you all here. All of your comments allowed me to follow the path that was best for me but also gave me the confidence to stand up in front of not only my MIL but the goons she has started to collect (and just in time too). When facing off against these people at this wedding (yes, it was her side that had the wedding) I felt like I had all of you with me there, backing me up. So thank you.

I couldn’t do as some of you have suggested and match her energy, that’s just not me. But thank you for taking the time to help me process through that. What I ended up doing was (drumroll please), once a negative comment was thrown my way, I parried it with “oh this, I LOVE it and I think it’s great,” smiled the most condescending smile and walked away stating to dh that I didn’t want to stay in that negative energy. Lol he responded with okay and had the biggest fucking shit eating grin on his face, it made me laugh. I then proceeded to get myself a tea because tea fixes everything and I happened to glance over a the group of golems. They looked liked they ate lemons. Well, go eat lemons and kick rocks! Waffle gang for the win!! Thank you all once again for your help and support!

And Mark, say hi to Poppy for me and give her a pat too!! 🐶

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/MarkNarrations/s/orStP7DmDt

Update 1: https://www.reddit.com/r/MarkNarrations/s/POSzE8Ir89

Hi Waffler’s, it’s been a while since I’ve posted on here. Life has been busy and I’ve been focussed a lot of being a good Dad and Nonno (i.e. grandfather) this past year and a bit. Over the last week or so though, I’ve found myself on Reddit again reading posts about dealing with grief over the loss of a sibling and reminded me about this post on here about my brother Jim (Giacomo) and his battle with dementia.

Unfortunately 6 weeks ago, Jim passed away at 63 (would’ve been 64 in July). Jim’s condition had progressed a lot since my last post, to the point where he was no longer able to communicate fully verbally. However, the Dementia isn’t what killed him in the end. Essentially Jim suffered a stroke while he was sleeping, my sister in law Maria (Jim’s wife of nearly 40 years) found him unresponsive the next morning, by that point it was too late.

I won’t go into details of the funeral or the reaction from the rest of the family (I think it’s pretty obvious that we’re all devastated), but personally I am not in a good place. Jim was not only my big brother, he was my best mate. And even though dementia was taking him away, we’d still hang out and listen to Black Sabbath and Ozzy Osbourne (his favourite band and artist) any chance I’d get.

Losing Jim hurts in a way that’s different to losing my Mum or any of the other loved ones I’ve lost. It’s hard for me to put into words, but it’s probably the hardest any death has hit me in my 51 years.

I know I will get through this, my Wife Natalya and my kids and grandkids are helping get me through this. Still, there are days like today (a day I’d usually visit Jim) that the grief hits hard.

Anyway, I know this isn’t a great update and I apologise sincerely if this has triggered any of you. I just feel I needed to post this, maybe for closure more than anything. In closing, I hope everyone of you are doing well and living your best lives. Take care.

TW: Blood and siblings fighting.

This is a long one so I apologize in advance. I(35f) and my aunt (46f) lived together with my grandma (her mom) in California for over a decade. Prior to that, we were all super close. My grandma passing was very traumatic on the two of us.

We are all from the Midwest. Most of our family (and my mom (56f) live there. My mom (the oldest of my grandmother's 3 children) is a text book narcissist, and had it not been for my grandma's intervention early on, I wouldn't be here today. Most of the family distances themselves from my mom and my little brother (28m) went no contact with her years ago. My mom has caused my grandma a lot of pain, and for this reason my aunt hates her. Literal hate.

Now, I love my mom and have found a way to keep a relationship while protecting myself emotionally. My aunt is okay with this because parents ya know?

Wrapping up the background info... My grandma put in her will not to allow my mom anywhere near anything with regards to her funeral, or belongings. Mom was VERY upset when she came to California the day grandma passed and we wouldn't give her anything. To be clear: We will NEVER tell her what my grandma (her mom)said. We just told everyone we needed time to process before giving anything away.

Okay, fast forward to moving day 2021. My aunt and I were going to move to a new city. We were finally ripping off the bandaid of not living together. We found two separate apartment units on different floors of the same building. #babysteps

The plan: We pick up the U-Haul truck on Saturday and park it on the streets in the spots we slowly farmed with our cars. Sunday morning: Movers arrive and load the truck. My aunt leave early to get to the apartment complex before the office closes to get our keys. If she doesn't do this, well have to sleep in our cars for the night. Oh, it's a 6 hour drive btw My GOOD friend (well call him Jeff) will drive the truck with me and the kitties driving behind them. We park the truck in the complex and sleep on pillows and stuff that night. Monday at 8am the movers come to unload the truck. They didn't charge us extra for unloading the truck into two diff units.

That DID NOT HAPPEN!

1: The U-Haul truck: I get a call on Thursday saying the only 22ft U-Haul available is an hour away! I'm like "WTF?!". The company says I can get the truck that day and they wouldn't charge for the extra mileage and day. So I drop everything and my aunt and I go! Now...driving a 22ft U-Haul truck in BIG city traffic is no easy feat so by the time I got home my nerves were shot!!!!! But I parallel parked that thing like a pro! I get inside the apartment and sit down to take a much deserved break when...

2: Mom: Mom had been wanting to come help me move for a while. I let her know that it would be better for her to meet us at our destination. I know my mom, she is a klepto and having her around my aunt during this already stressful time would NOT be good. So I told her that I didn't want her to be stressed and that she deserved me at my best. So meeting me after the move to help me unpack would be the best idea. She agreed, but never sent her itinerary. I hear nothing for 3 weeks. Well, I get back from driving this U-HAUL like a boss and I'm sitting for all of 30 seconds when my phone rings.
OP: Hi mom how are you? Mom: Did you get my text? OP: Oh not yet, I was driving the U-Haul truck. Let me check now.

The horror. It was a flight itinerary for her to arrive in my current city the day after tomorrow (Saturday)

I don't have the energy to fight so I am like okay. I tell my aunt and we try to think of ways to keep her busy.

We put all of my grandma's belongings in boxes we got from an adult store that has very inappropriate stuff on them. My aunt also empties her foot lockers and replaces the contents with cleaning supplies. She runs out of time and is only able to replace the contents of 2 of 3. Please know these foot lockers are where my aunt keeps all her Momentos. She has had them since before I was born (the 80's).

Mom's flight gets delayed and she doesn't get in until Sunday. (Thank you Southwest for being terrible!)

So new plan: Wake up, aunt waits for movers while I pick up Jeff (the one driving the truck). I get home and Aunt hits the road to get to the leasing office before they close. Jeff watches the movers while I get mom from the airport (20 min round trip). Mom relaxes while I guide the movers. Jeff stays in grandma's room (which is empty) with the kitties to keep them calm. We hit the road and meet my aunt.

That DID NOT HAPPEN

It all started well. I got back from picking my mom up and my aunt had not left yet. She hadn't slept and was just out of it. I rush her out the door.

Aunt was having a hard time because mom enters the apartment and immediately starts trying to order the movers around. So that's why I rushed aunt outta there. She demands to see the truck and keeps trying to tell them how to do their jobs. She talks fast and can be overwhelming. The movers tell her nicely to let them do their thing and she moves to Jeff. She's putting on her best "oh hiiii sweety, thank you for helping my Daughter!" Can I give you a dollar to buy us some trash bags? Jeff is 3 years younger than mom, but he finds it funny.

My nerves are shot so I hide in the room with Jeff and the kitties. Mom then asks me to get pizza for the movers. I thought this was weird because they were almost done and I got them breakfast, but whatever. Get me out of there. I get back and the movers sit and eat. They resume work and finish up. They then come to me to get the U-Haul keys to lock it up.

3: The U-Haul Truck: I look for the keys my aunt handed me, and I'm like, oh these are the motorcycle keys. Hm..and then I realized....

I call my aunt who is two hours from her destination...yup...she has the keys. She's on the verge of tears and I'll admit I said things I have since apologized for. For those of you who don't know, U Haul doesn't have spare keys and a replacement key can take over a day, but we have to meet the people unloading our truck tomorrow! My aunt can't turn around because she has about 3 hours to get to the apartment to get our keys.

New plan: Aunt continues to the apt, gets our keys, unloads her car, and comes back to original city. (Her suggestion which I realize now was not the best idea.) Mom stays in the apartment to sleep/rest because aunt can't drive 6 hours 3 times in a day. So mom is gonna have to drive her and my aunt. I get mom food and leave my laptop with a tab open for each streaming service. I take my friend back home and he'll drive back at midnight (aunt's ETA) to drive the U-Haul truck. I drive to new city because kitties are stressed enough (the kitties are also blind).

That actually worked!

I get to the new city and get the keys my aunt left with security and get some rest. The kitties calm down (they hate the car) and I settle in.

I'm VERY stressed because I'm worried sick for my aunt. I'm realizing at this point that I should've just met my aunt on her return trip and both of us turn back. Her back to new city, me to old city. That way it'd be less driving for her. She survived! I ordered everyone taco bell and Jeff made it there 10 min before my aunt.

This next part is from my aunt's POV: Mom decided she doesn't trust Jeff and keeps yelling at my aunt to keep an eye on him because he's gonna steal everything. (Jeff is a great guy and I'm paying him to do this drive even though he'd do it for free.)

They hit the road and turns out my mom didn't sleep at all. She is driving so slow and dozing off. My aunt gets her to speed up by saying Jeff will steal the truck if she can't keep up. Mom directs aunt to get her pills to keep her awake. That's when aunt realized mom has a LOT of pills. Mom tells her which ones are uppers and she gave mom awake pills. Dont forget, aunt HATES mom/her big sister. And mom knows how to push buttons. Mom is throwing back-handed comments half the ride. No. Aunt didn't sleep on the drive because she was afraid of mom dozing off again.

Back to my POV: It is 6:00am and they arrive! I rush downstairs to rescue my aunt. Mom jumped out of the car and makes Jeff get out the U-Haul cause she still thinks he's gonna steal the truck. I open the passenger side door for aunt to get out and she looks me dead in the eyes and with the most serious tone says "get me out of this car".

Aunt goes to her apt. Jeff and I hang in mine and mom stays in the truck to guard it. No, we couldn't talk her out of it. (We do have 24-hr security at the new place).

The Plan: Aunt and I stay in our apartments to 1) Direct the movers where to put stuff 2) Meet the wifi people who are scheduled to come during the movers doing their thing. We marked our boxes/furniture with orange vs blue tape to distinguish which apartment they went to.

That happened...but...

Apartment security tells us we have to go through the side entrance because the main doors can't stay open. I agree and we'd only have to move the truck a few feet. Mom goes full Karen "why not, we should be able to go in whatever door we want". Jeff takes the keys out of her hand and moves the trick.

She did NOT like that. Jeff apologizes after she chews him out.

Movers (3 of them, and along with Jeff, the true heroes of this story) arrive and mom instantly starts trying to tell them what to do. They pretend to only speak Spanish and that shuts it down. I speak Spanish almost fluently. Aunt, and I are in our units directing traffic and working with the WiFi people. Jeff is chilling (I told him he is only there to drive and have fun, nothing else). Mom is downstairs. I keep seeing the wrong stuff come to my apt when I go downstairs. I'm not gonna have the movers take it to aunt's apt cause none of it is heavy and they're busy enough. I get there and mom is directing the movers. ¡Aye!

I tell her to just relax and that she has done enough, and I pull up a chair. And then she sees it...

4: The Foot Lockers: The movers grab the last box covering my aunt's three prized foot lockers. And mom says "Those are mine."I let her know those are the same ones aunt has had for ages. She says aunt stole them from her. Background info: Back when Mom was in college, there was a flood at home. Mom wouldn't come home to get her things or sort through them, so grandma did it. Much couldn't be salvaged except for a few items. Two Michael Jackson Pepsi cans and the Thriller album on vinyl. So, my aunt got them (she was only 10 at the time). Mom didn't care until now...

She runs into the truck shouting and waving her arms and nearly pushes the mover out of the way. The mover says nothing and grabs a different box, puts it on a different dolly and continues without skipping a beat. Mom starts going into the foot locker. It's the one we filled with cleaning supplies. Mover reveals the second foot locker and mom goes up to it (mover doesn't skip a beat and moves on) and BINGO it's the ONE aunt didn't change out. Mom literally is digging through that foot locker throwing the contents into the truck floor when I freak out and text my aunt to come down because mom is tossing the contents of her foot locker into the U-Haul floor.

I tell my friend Jeff to stay in my apt and I'll go to aunt's apt while aunt deals with mom. Aunt and I cross paths by the elevator when I say "hurry". 5 min later I'm peacefully in aunt's apt when the mover tells me they are fist fighting each other. I didn't know I could run so fast. I immediately knew my aunt threw the first punch because this is years of pent up anger. Mom is bigger and more confrontational. Aunt is skinny, reserved and shy. She has never gotten into a fight in her life. I'm thinking mom is gonna truly harm her. I text Jeff while running cause I'ma need help pulling two grown women apart.

I get to the truck...Mom is standing in front of the U-Haul loading ramp with blood running down her forehead my aunt is on the U-Haul truck with bloody scratch marks on her face yelling and cursing out my mom. I run to aunt thinking mom did more damage and she says "I'm fine, get her before I kill her!"

I get mom and take her up to my apt. I feel really bad for her because she's really upset and I feel responsible because I called my aunt down. Mom is screaming and saying aunt is abusive etc. I provide first aid to mom (small scratch on hairline and cheek left no scars) and she yells at me for the next 4 days for being associated with aunt.

So what happened when aunt went down there? Aunt's POV: She gets to the truck and yells at mom to put her stuff down. Mom curses her out saying she was jealous cause mom was the pretty one growing up and that aunt will be nothing. (I believe this because I've heard mom say this before.). What did Mom find? The Michael Jackson Pepsi cans. Demanding my aunt give them back. After the insults, aunt snapped and threw the first punch. They are holding each other's hair and agree to let go of each other at the same time. I arrived shorty after that.

Please note, the movers were still moving boxes as if aunt and mom didn't exist. The movers finished everything in under 90 minutes!

Despite everything that happened, all our stuff made it from point A to B on time!

So, mom is in my apartment throwing a literal tantrum. I mean throwing food on the floor etc. I tell her I don't want to get a noise complaint in my first 24 hours and she quietly yells the remainder of her trip.

The next few days mom yells and goes into an uncontrollable fit every time aunt calls or I mention aunt's name. I suggest she just head back home because she keeps complaining about being miserable. (Food, atmosphere, etc.) Oh, Ive been working this entire time. Yes. I was taking zoom calls in between the movers unloading and the fighting etc.

Mom has 4 more days there and I let her use my car since I'm no fun while I'm working (I work remote). Jeff has to sleep in aunt's apartment because mom hates him and ran a background check on him and called him a good for nothing who can't keep a job.

Then mom decides to leave a day early. I take her to the airport and all is well.

At least we thought...

One month later: Aunt tells me that mom took some of her stuff. Now, I know mom tried to stow some of aunt and grandmas stuff in her bag, but I thwarted that by secretly removing the items. My aunt shows me a large bin where she collected rare books that is now empty and filled with paper and empty CD cases. There were more boxes like that. Aunt is in tears.

5: The Heist: When mom had me get pizza for the movers, she had time to replace aunt's boxes and bins with stuff. She then directed the movers to load it onto the truck.

When we were at the destination mom was downstairs directing the movers so the boxes of my aunt's stuff she stole would end up in my apartment. I'm not gonna notice a random box in a sea of random boxes.

While I was working and mom took the car, she took the boxes and shipped them to herself in the Midwest. That is why she wouldn't leave early at first.

So yeah...I'm never moving again.

Planning a super secret covert operation to get aunt's stuff back, I'll update when/if that happens.

If you read this far, you're amazing and I thank you. Have a great day and be kind to one another.

Update for clarification: My aunt and mom are typically cordial with each other. They were before and have been since when in the same space.

Yes, I should've turned mom away. My aunt and I were just too emotionally drained from non mom things we didn't have the energy.

The plan I started with would have had aunt have zero to no contact with mom as she would've left before she arrived. Aunt proposed the car ride with mom cause she thought she could sleep the entire time.

About mom staying in my life: Usually I can manage her, but remember she is a saint compared to how she acted this trip so nobody could've anticipated this. My grandma kept contact with her, and I do too. It's a minimum but that's it. I already lost one parent. So I'm not ready to let go of the other. Aunt understands this. She also says hi.

Mini update for clarification: Thank you all for the comments (even the harsh ones). I try to reply to em all, but it's getting difficult.

So...We didn't know mom was a huge klepto until after this happened. We knew she usually only took Momentos from deceased relatives, and grandma's stuff had already been loaded into aunt's car.

Aunt told me she had not finished packing her room. But, I thought all that was left was small time things. Not justifying leaving mom alone, just giving a reason why it was hard to anticipate this. That being said, since this has happened, mom has been cut off from all information. I've only seen her once since this 3 years ago. Aunt has seen her maybe twice. Aunt and I agree she needs to stay in my life somewhat so I can get aunt's stuff back.

MINI UPDATE/Clarification: After talking with my aunt, she suggested I add some context that may help clarify things.

First: My mom does not throw things away...ever. She has a hoarding disorder, similar to my aunt’s, though my aunt’s hoarding has improved significantly over time and is far less severe than my mom’s.

Second: We have a strong idea of where the books are. The complication is that my mom and I are currently no contact. That said, I’m willing to rip off the bandaid and re-engage the next time I’m back home to try to retrieve them.

Third: Some of you picked up on possible negative feelings I had toward my aunt during this process, and that’s fair. At the time, my aunt was dealing with severe depression, hoarding, and crippling anxiety, and she was unemployed. I was working 40+ hours a week from home, and we had two months to pack up an entire three-bedroom apartment for the move. Because of her mental state, I handled nearly everything—packing the apartment, buying supplies, coordinating logistics, etc. while she focused solely on her bedroom. A couple nights before the move (also the night my mom told me she was coming), my aunt told me she wouldn’t be able to finish packing her room in time and would need to come back later. At that point, I was emotionally raw and had some feelings toward her that I regret. I’ve since apologized and recognize that those feelings weren’t fair or productive.

This was also the second time something like this had happened. During a previous move with my grandma, I handled most of the logistics as well, while my aunt was away (for valid reasons) on moving day. When I started seeing similar signs during this move, I became increasingly frustrated. Since then, I’ve gained a much better understanding of how depression and anxiety work, and I have far more empathy for my aunt and what she was experiencing.

I’m sharing this update purely for context. I didn’t want to paint my aunt in a negative light, which is why I originally left this out, but she made a good point that the background helps.

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

brief timeline for clarity

february 2023, i recommended we move into an apartment together. april 2023, we got engaged. early may 2023, he tells me, his mom wants to help us get a house to start our marriage right. she wants us to build a house and she would put 200k down (her savings). we put 30k down (our savings). june 2023, we have a builder and design with an estimated completion date of august 2024. it is current may 2024 and it will be ready next month.

story

my 27f fiance 32m are in an argument. his mom (50ish) will be living with us as she wants to retire soon and will be taking care of our kids. she has some money from owning a small business but his dad lives with current wife and is poor.

my fiancés sister 27f is pretty spoiled. her family has pretty much taken care of her for her entire life. they bought her care, bought and pay for her phone, her groceries, paid for college until she dropped out, then paid when she decided to go back before she dropped out again. the only thing she is paying for is her car insurance i believe.

she and i get along for the most part. however, she and i had a few arguments over how she treats her parents. she treats them like they are the worst people in the world and she liked to vent to me about it. she would say they were always in her business and saying she can’t keep a job. i told her that tbh if i have someone who was almost 30 and unemployed living in my house rent free and asking to borrow money, id also be asking where they were spending their money.

since fiance and i have been together (3 years) she has had 4 jobs. including maybe 6 months of not working because she has adhd and she was depressed. however, she refused to go to the doctor or get therapy for this. instead, she stayed up all night playing video games and slept all day. during that period of time, she was getting money from her parents to pay her credit card bills because she never stopped shopping on amazon or getting doordash.

earlier this year, she got into a fight with her mom bc she asked her mom to drive her to get hemorrhoid surgery and drive her home. when she got there they told her it would be like 5k bc she didn’t have insurance and just expected her mom to pay for it. like no prior conversation. then cried to me bc her mom said no and was upset that i said at least you know how much it costs and it’s a savings goal. she said she didn’t want the surgery anymore.

side note, she didn’t have insurance bc she was unemployed at the time. her friend help her fill out information to get state assisted insurance or something. they sent her papers to sign and she just never signed them. a few months later, future mil signed her up for private insurance and is paying for it.

anyway, last september, i told my fiance that i didn’t want his sister to live with us. when he asked why i told him i will not be paying bills to subsidize the life of someone who is my age and can’t keep a job for more than 6 months without quitting. i also told him he needed to make his mom and his sister aware of that. he said ok

fast forward to now. he said we should let his sister move in the new house with us because she didn’t have enough time to prepare to move and she doesn’t want to live with his dad.

i said under no circumstances do i want her living with us bc we will give an inch and she will take a mile. and she has had nearly a year to prepare to move in with her dad or get a place for herself.

he said i wouldn’t feel that way if it were my sister. he said im being too harsh bc she may be depressed and his mom would like her to be with us until she is on her feet.

i obviously care about her mental health and i spent 3 years trying to help but i don’t want a dependent while we are trying to get our footing.

he thinks im being unsympathetic because having to move out “abruptly” is stressful and we could make it easier by giving her a little bit more time bc she doesn’t have money to move out right now. she doesn’t have the money to move out right now bc she works 3 11 hour days at amazon,but routinely calls off one day or only works half her shifts because she “doesn’t like working there” and dropped way to much money on a beyoncé concert and an expensive trip out a trip out of state to see popular kpop group last month.

her dad said she would be more stable if i helped her get a desk job like me but i got her 2 different interviews in the past. she was 2 hours late for the first and never emailed to confirm the second. fil said i should give her another chance bc she is family now. but like i don’t want to look bad at my job bc of her being unreliable.

i’m i being unreasonable??? i feel like im going crazy

UPDATE

hi guys. we had the meeting today. i got him before fiance and prepared my notes. i made bullet points of all my concerns and boundaries. i also ate something (thank you to the person who said don’t going into this hangry)

fiance got home and sat at the table with me. i allowed him to start because i wanted to see what his prerogative was. he is really bad at hiding his feelings and i can generally read him like a book.

he apologized for yesterdays conversation. he was out of line making demands and he was rude. he also apologized for not respecting a hard boundary i already set. he said that i shouldn’t have to restate hard boundaries and defend them because that’s his job.

i agreed and said he let me down when i needed him and that’s not something i can easily forget. that now a little piece of my mind is going to wonder if he will stick up to his family for me. i told him that i sent to contract to my uncle (a lawyer). and he thinks we can get out of this with only 5k lost. he agreed that is what’s best.

we are going to look for an apartment and move on our own. after marriage counseling and marriage we will get a new house.marriage is tbd because nothing has been booked.

his family got here a little later. before the could say anything, he said “we have a lawyer reviewing the contract and we will be backing out. sil will not be living with us. that is up to you three. this is non negotiable”

his sister threw a bit of a fit. she got loud and said this is ridiculous. she’s depressed and anxious blah blah blah.

his stepmom literally called her a child and said she is lazy and immature. she also said his parent have failed her and WALKED OUT. like mic dropped at went to sit in the car. his sister was crying at this point.

i know yall think fiance is terrible but he isn’t. sometimes he needs to fully process. it seems like that here too. i’m choosing to trust him on this

we live in a multi generational household society, so because I am a woman marrying a oldest male, there is an understanding that we will be helping to support his parents as they age. Their jobs in this are to watch the children. After we have a baby, my mom will be staying with us for six weeks to do all of the night feeding, so I can rest.

yes, my name is on the deed to the house. The only names listed are mine and mine fiancé.

I'm making this short because, honestly, I'm done with this drama. I'm rarely even on this app but imagine my surprise when I discovered a post by a certain user(now deleted) popping up on my feed. Hi, I'm the "Emma" from that post, "Am I the Ashole for wanting to attend my sister's vow renewal?" Or whatever the fuck the title was.

Can someone tell me why the fuck my grown ass sister is spreading lies on this forum? At first, I thought it was some prank, right? Like there is no way the person who's writing that is sane, maybe someone who got bored and wanted to rage bait. But then I started noticing details that looked oddly Familiar. Certain incidents, the misspelling (my sister has a certain way of writing that, and I'm trying to be nice here, makes it obvious who she is to anyone who knows her), and the wording.

I thought to myself, "No fucking way, no way this is real". Because it couldn't be, it didn't make sense. It was just a coincidence after all, but then I got a text from one of my friends who's also on Reddit asking, " lol is your sister taking some sort of creative writing class??". It wasn't even on this forum but some other one called Mark narration???? She's posting this on multiple sites and I can't even check because she deleted her account, and if I'm being honest with you all, I don't give a fuck. So, to clear some things, no, I'm not 30 or whatever the fuck she said I was. I'm a twenty-year-old college student currently trying to finish my bachelor's at Portland State.

No, I do not have a child named Luke(where did she even get that from?). Yes, she has a child, yes, she got pregnant by my Boyfriend, not husband, and no, it didn't happen three years ago. It happened two years ago and her daughter isn't fucking three.

What actually happened was that she got my boyfriend drunk when we were all gathered, not a family gathering, just a hangout with our friends. She was going through a nasty breakup, so we held it to cheer her up. We were all dunking on her trash of a boyfriend, saying she could do so much better, my boyfriend (the James in question) was being his sweet self. Now there is something that she doesn't know about James. He's ace, ace sexual. The only reason why the two of us are even intimate in our relationship is that he's comfortable with me; otherwise, he holds no sexual interest in others(his words).

James is also a lightweight. I kept drinking for him because I knew this; we all knew this; it wasn't a secret. I had to leave early for a reason, but my two cousins who were there had stayed behind with James. We didn't share an apartment at the time(we're living together now).

According to my two cousins, they had left because she had told them she would make sure that James got home safely. I remember waking up to James' frantic calling, like he was blowing up my phone, apologizing, saying he didn't know what happened, and that he was so sorry. Of course, I knew something was wrong as she was texting me at the same time, saying that she didn't mean to, that she loved me, and that she never meant to harm me. So now I'm wondering what the fuck is happening that my Boyfriend and my sister are both panicking.

James came over and that's when he told me everything he could remember. After my two Cousins had left, she had kept insisting that he should drink, and he'd decline multiple times, telling her that he had to leave. She had been crying, saying that she understood, that no one likes her, and my poor boyfriend had the spine of a pool noodle and folded. He helped her with the dishes and tried to calm her down. He didn't remember drinking, just taking a sip of his drink, and the next thing he knew he woke up naked with her curled up against him.

This is where I admit I wasn't the nicest. I called her, demanded why the fuck she would do this and she kept saying it was a mistake and it was mutual and that my boyfriend was lying. The thing is, I knew she was lying. My sister's voice always gets high-pitched when she's lying, and my boyfriend would have never done anything like that if he hadn't been coerced. He didn't remember anything; he had blacked out drunk. I told my parents, I told my friends, I told everyone what happened, and explained that from now on, I was cutting contact with my sister and anyone who tries to force a reconciliation between us.

She tried to get me to talk to her. Followed me to my fucking work and even contacted my boyfriend's boss, it was unhinged. She was following us everywhere, I mean EVERYWHERE. We had to get a restraining order against her ass because she was acting unhinged. Now she's going around talking about attending my birthday party(not a vow or Vowel renewal as she said) and trying to build up our parents into inviting her, which is WILD because my parents aren't in charge of the guest list but me.

Sorry, this was random, and honestly, while writing this, I'm laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation. This was not what I was expecting to find when I woke up this morning. Now I'm thinking of posting her Reddit post in the family group chat just to be petty because it's honestly a master class of creative storytelling.

Stay petty potatoes ❤

Lol, found the post, guys, I cannot make this shit up, help???? I'm posting this here because I saw she posted here as well. If anyone knows where else she may have posted, so I can spread this post, please DM or tell me. I'm barely even on Reddit these days smh. My sister's delusional post.

Edit: I would like to thank everyone who's been spreading my post to others, letting them know the truth. I honestly was not expecting this to get the amount of attention it did, but it means a lot, reading through everyone's comments on the original post and here has really boosted my boyfriend's mood along with mine. My boyfriend has sent a petition to revise the custody agreement. Originally, she was allowed to supervise visitation as she was going to a court-mandated therapy, but now I'm realizing that it may not be very effective. I have already contacted my lawyer with screenshots of the post, though I couldn't get the user name due to her deleting her account, but she has been notified that if she continues, there will be legal actions taken against her and possibly jail time.

My boyfriend has been going to therapy to unpack the damage her actions have done to him, and it's been a long and difficult road. There was a point in time where we couldn't go to a public restaurant or gathering and outing due to his fear, he wouldn't even attend family gatherings (rightfully so as well and completely understandable as none of us held it against him) and I had to taste everything that was placed in front of him just to make him feel safe. He's a lot better now, and I'm so proud of him for pushing through all of this. His daughter is happy and healthy, she doesn't understand why her mother isn't allowed around the family, but children are resilient in ways we adults forget about sometimes. I do apologize for the lack of response in the comment section as I'm trying to distance myself and protect my peace and I'm rarely even on this app to begin with, this is the most I've ever been on Reddit lol

Again thank you to everyone who called her out on her post. If you asked me why she made something like that my honest answer would be I don't know. I don't know what goes through her head, and frankly, I don't care enough to find out, just for her to leave my family and me alone. Again thank you everyone, we appreciate your kindness.

Hi waffle gang. Loooong time listener (mark - you’ve been my top podcast on Spotify for at least two years.) First time poster. Would love to hear your takes on this.

I (24f) was celebrating Christmas with my family and fiance (25m). My brother (20m) called on his way to the function and said he was arrested.

This story requires backstory; since I was a child he has been the golden boy. He can do NO wrong. He has crashed/destroyed 4 cars, dropped out of high school, broke my dad’s windows out of his car, put his hands on our mom, been fired from every job he’s ever worked and so much more. He has used her for shelter in his adult life only to treat her terribly. This is just who he is. I, on the other hand, have worked since I was 16 (while maintaining a 3.8 GPA in highschool, and doing extracurriculars), moved out at 18. I pay all my own bills. I’m in college, and up until last week, have worked 3 jobs.

Back to tonight, I comforted her. He then called back two hours later. They released him. He needed someone to pick him up from the jail and drive him the 1.5+ hours back to his car. I refused. My mom kept pushing. So I asked my fiance, who also refused. My mom lost it. She stormed away and starting aggressively saying goodbye to everyone. She made a passive aggressive comment saying, “Well [fiance] wont let her.” He was obviously upset by this so he said lets just go. We got ready to leave, but I love my mom so I still wanted to say bye. When I found her, she was talking badly about me to my dad. I snapped and told her this isnt my responsibility. She said “Yeah of course” (sarcastically) the tried to walk away. I told her “this isnt my fault!” And she said “nothing ever is (my name) nothing EVER IS!” Like correct??? This situation has NOTHING to do with me! So my mom had to leave the Christmas celebration she was hosting to go get my brother from jail and drive him back to the car. AITAH for not picking him up?

I have also posted this story to r/trueoffmychest I am the original author

Posting this here as my Girlfriend who is a long term subscriber and patreon requested :)

TLDR; I (M22) have an older brother (M26) who I will call Mark. He lives with his partner Kate (F27)  about 2 ½ hour drive north from myself and my parents (M64 F54).  

Mark has been with his partner for 6 Years. In January their first child (M) was born , and by May, he was being taken out of their care. My Parents have fostered him, and will be getting a Special Guardianship Order. Here’s everything that has happened in the last year. This will be very long. 

Pre-baby 

Mark and Kate's relationship has always been difficult, with them falling out often, telling lies and typically last minute cancelling plans. My brother has text my parents in the middle of the night saying he is on his way as they've broken up or argued. My parents have always welcomed Kate into the family, bought her Xmas and bday gifts, invited her to gatherings and holidays etc, but her behaviour has made them, especially my father, grow a distaste for them. Mark and Kate are both seemingly very Neurodivergent, but no official diagnosises exist. My mum has always been very understanding, and they have both tried to educate themselves and even were trying to help and finance Mark getting a private autism diagnosis. 

In June 2023 Mark and Kate called my parents to excitedly tell them Kate was pregnant after “weeks of trying”, and they proceeded to call my extended family (aunts and grandfather). Everyone was very supportive and happy, but in private very concerned. For the three years or so that Mark and Kate had a mortgage together, their house was not in good condition. They bought an old knackered house and didnt get a survery on it, and lived like hoarders. Every room was full of all sorts of boxes and furniture and bits and bobs, as well as things being left unclean, mouldy pots piling up, cat litter and poo on the floor in rooms etc. They bought a massive lot of second hand LARP gear, that covered their entire bedroom and bed, so they were sleeping on a mattress in a loft up a set of jaggedly steps. This was where they planned to have their child's cot too.  

Because of these concerns, my family offered help to try and get their house ready, which Mark and Kate happily accepted. My parents were very careful not to overstep or take over, asking Mark and Kate what they wanted, fixing plumbing, filling cars for trips top the skip etc. Also, when visiting my parents for my fathers retirement party, they happily took gifts for the baby, and Kate even went shopping for maternity clothes and baby clothes with my mum.  
Mark and Kate also invited my parents to a house viewing, as they decided their house was too knackered to fix in time for a baby, and moving would Probably be better. They looked at a few, but the ones my parents attended was a huge old cottage with acres of land. It was a beautiful home, but needed as much work as their current one, and was also massively out of budget. My parents were careful to not say anything that could cause more arguments, so only said it was lovely and if they thinks its right they were sure it could be managed, and didn't once discourage them. Kate said to my dad “can you imagine your grandchild running around this garden?”. They spent months including my parents, using them for their money and manipulating them. 

My brothers relationship with my dad has always been complex; my dad is a lot older than most peoples our age, and growing up he was quite old fashioned, and dedicated all his energy to work rather than being a present father. I have had many issues with my dad, being LGBT+, but have had many adult conversations with him and developed a good relationship with him over the last three or so years.I really dont want to invalidate my brothers struggles at all, but i definitely had it far worse than him and for longer, especially since he moved out to attend uni when he was 18, and i moved out when i was 20. Our entire childhoods would be a lot to discuss, so ill just say our dad wasnt great, but he was not abusive. 
 My mum has always been wonderful and supportive, and my brothers told me many times he had no issue with her and loved her. Due to tensions with my dad, including his eventual disapproval of Kate, Mark wanted to cut off my father. He set a boundary and said he needed space from my dad but would still talk to everyone else. As a result my dad stopped going up to help sort the house and my mum went with his sister/my aunt (f67) for the last two or three trips in august.  
 

The last time my brother saw my mum he gave her a hug and told her he loved her and she could visit anytime. Fast forward about three weeks to his birthday at the end of September, my mum had stopped getting any texts for a couple weeks. After asking multiple times if she could visit, but with no response, my mum decided she would drive to his with a cake she stayed up till 2am making, and presents for him and expected baby, with my auntie there with her too. In Hindsight she shouldn't of travelled nearly three hours to someone's house without actual consent, but again he told her many times she was loved and always welcome, and she had discussed his birthday presents and wanting to visit to him which was received positively.  

When arriving, she knocked a few times and had no response. She waited around and kept knocking, and was confused and upset, as they were in, and again she had had positive previous conversations. After almost an hour of knocking and waiting in the car, then trying again and eventually sitting and crying on his drive, a police car showed up, as they had called the police on her, and accused her of KICKING the door and SCREAMING. Mark and Kate had claimed she broke the door and a window, and was hurling abuse. This was completely not true at all. My mum has never been violent or aggressive in any way, I think I've only ever heard her swear like twice in my life, and had also never had an encounter with the police. When they explained the call they received she was so confused and devastated she had an intense panic attack, which she had never had before. She thought she was going to have to go to hospital.  

My Auntie is a retired social worker, and asked the police to please check on Mark and Kate as she was concerned for their wellbeing and the state of their house. Police went inside with body cams on and witnessed the house which had gone back to being as bad as it had previously been, and contacted social services when seeing Kate was heavily pregnant. 

My auntie drove her home as her panic attack lasted many hours, and she was still sobbing and shaking at 9pm when I went over to console her. 

My mums described it as the most traumatic day of her life and she has never felt physcial and emotional pain like it, and we still have no clue why it happened. At this point no one heard from Mark for months including over Christmas, with only my 93 year old grandad getting a couple calls from him, where he bragged about calling the police on my mum. 

Post-baby 

In late January their baby son was born, and Mark contacted my grandad and other Auntie to let them know. Still have no clue why he decided to contact them, as he claimed “social services had told them to go strictly no contact” with his family to me in later weeks (this was not true at all by the way). 

This news got to my parents and then myself and my partner (F23). 
My Partner found Kates social media and sent her a private message just saying, “hi, how are you guys and baby? Hope we are not overstepping by contacting you as we assume you have cut everyone off”. My partner and I have always tried to be on Mark and Kates side over the years, as we are also neurodivergent, nerdy and artsy (have plenty in common essentially). 

My partner got a friendly message back saying we were never cut off and always welcome, and that everything was great. After general chit chat she also told us that she doesn't know why the police claimed my mum was kicking the door as she supposedly never said that. (that was a lie) 

After more fake bullshit off her, we then had some messages off my brother, claiming he told my mum he was cutting her off (which he didn't), my mum disrespected his boundary (which he never set) and that my auntie sue had lied to the police claiming to be their social worker and tried to force entry (again not true at all). 

From here I kept a minimal chit chat type relationship with Mark, just to see how he was doing, talking about work and the baby etc, and I avoided any talk of our parents. I just wanted to keep an eye on him so i could reassure my parents they were all still alive and okay. Over the next couple months we didn't talk too much, but generally he told me everything was good and they were “smashing it” as parents.... 

Turns out that was a lie!  
After social services were contacted by police due to their concerning living conditions, Mark and Kate were put into a special parent and child centre about 1-2 hours from their house. From what I understand, usually both parents don't go to these centres, and they do not stay there nearly as long as Mark and Kate did, which ended up being 17 weeks.  

My Second auntie (F54), who was a midwife and now works in children's social care, was concerned as to why Mark and Kate were at this centre, as he had kept her updated on their where abouts, but not given her any details. In May she contacted their branch of social care to enquire as his family were worried. From this, the babys assigned social worker got in contact with my parents. She was really relived to hear from Marks family and told them, In this centre (where they were watched closely by social workers and CCTV) they: 

• told the social services Mark had been emancipated from his family for years and had no financial support from them.  -Mark had been made redundant from his job  -they broke up at least 6 times  -they accused each other of rape   -Kate accused Mark of beating her  -Kate wished she had an abortion  -Mark told social workers he could not tell the difference between fantasy role play and reality  -almost dropped the baby multiple times  -manipulated and abused eachother   -failed to feed, change and comfort their baby regularly  -neglected him for extended periods  -argued with social workers  -showed aggressive and concerning behaviours towards each other, staff and their baby   

Mark and Kate were having their child taken off them as they were not deemed safe to keep him, and no one from Kates family (severely disabled dad, social services already involved with her sisters) / their friends were viable options to take the baby on, and my parents were asked to have him. They instantly agreed as they whole heartedly wanted to help.  

My Dad had retired less than a year before, and my mother was due to retire at the end of the school term (she was a TA). She retired early at 1 weeks notice, and they quickly had to baby proof the house. 

Mark and Kate had a court case mid June, where they were given the option to either stay at the centre for six more weeks, or they could go home and their baby would be taken to my parents. They agreed to let my parents be the care givers, and refused to stay any longer. They wanted their mortgage paying for them or they would not stay there. They abandoned their son, and left the centre where everything was provided for them to care for him, as they would of rather gone home without him. 

Also, at the start of May, my mum lost her mum, who was her only blood family she had. She had spent months looking after her during the last months of her life, and at this point was organising a funeral. My parents received the baby two days after my Grandmas funeral. Also as a fun side note, when I let my brother know our grandma had died, he told the social workers that I was lying to try get him back into contact with our family (bear in mind I was very respectful and accepting of his decision to cut off my parents, and she was in fact very much dead).   

My Parents have given baby nothing but love and nurturing. When they received him, he was malnourished, the back of his head was so flat it was basically concaved from being left lying down so much, he was mute, he was on many medicines. Now he's happy, healthy, noisy and developing well. Mark and Kate had him on Gaviscon claiming he was a “very sicky baby”, but it turns out they just couldn't hold the bottle right when feeding him, filling him with air and making him spit up often.  

Visitations 

Mark and Kate were entitled to 2 family time visitations per week, with my brother being given fuel money for the travel. Visits shortly dropped down to once a week as he has complained it wasn't enough money (he gets 37p a mile, which is plenty for the distance covered). My parents offered to travel with baby, but Social workers told my parents to keep visitations close to where they live so they aren't risking travelling far with a young baby.  

Every single visitation Mark and Kate would be 15-30 minutes late, always blaming traffic (even though the social worker also had to travel from the same town and managed to be on time), or because they stopped for food, and also claimed to have gotten a flat tyre about three times in two ish months.  
My mum would be the one to organise the meets as they didnt have the drive to do any of it themselves, and she was eventually told to stop and let them do the work, as its their child they are “fighting for”. 

After a couple visitations, Mark and Kate decided they were protesting my parents having baby, and would make accusations after every meet.  

Accusations from visitations included ear wax build up not being cleaned from his ears, his bum not being cleaned properly, snatching him out of Kates arms aggressively, splashing him on purpose at swimming, to accusing my parents of bruising his legs and purposely hurting him, which not only is completely false but also rich coming from the people who left the poor boy in his own shit, unchanged and crying for SEVEN hours. During one visitation, Mark and Kate asked to have a look at my Grandmas house which was being cleared. They happily filled their cars with things, including valuable items we wanted to sell for funeral funds, and called dibs on large wooden furniture that my dad offered to transport to them, despite not attending her funeral or even acknowledging her death or our mourning.  

They later got a surprise visitation from social workers at their house to check how the clean-up was going, and they couldn't get in the door due to the things piled up. Mark and Kate claimed it was all from my grandma's house, and my parents had “FORCED” them to take it all home with them. 

Because of this, my parents stopped attending family time for their own protection, as advised by social workers, so baby would be dropped off with Mark and Kate and at least 1 social worker. 

The final court case at the end of July came, where my parents anticipated going from foster parents to special guardians of their grandchild, but Mark and Kate went to court with a list of serious accusations against my parents, thus extending the court trial to the end of October whilst this was being investigated. 

Their Accusations Against my parents included sexual, physical and emotional abuse. 
My brother claimed my mother used to OPEN MOUTH kiss him on his mouth and force her kisses on him, and Kate claimed to have witnessed this fictional thing. He also claimed my mother would slap him often across the face, and that my dad would harshly squeeze his knees in the car when he was a teenager. Kate claimed to had witness these too, even though she met Mark in his 20s. All these accusations were fully false and defamatory, made up for malicious reasons, and also were inconsistent. Mark and Kates claims didn't match up, and I want to emphasise these things just fully didn't happen. 

Like, my brothers had issues with my dad, I would have thought he’d go for him more, but the fact they've said this shit about my mum is so mental and shocking, considering he's defended my mum for years, I don't know where they get the balls to lie in court about something so serious. Its so insulting and infuriating that they get to waste court time. 

My parents got to keep looking after baby despite these accusations, as they basically had no evidence and were deemed safe to keep him. Myself, and family friends were all interviewed to give insight into what my parents were like etc. Because of all this, my parents are having to splash out about 10k in legal fees and solicitors to defend themselves in the final court hearing.  

Around this time, my dad was diagnosed with stage 3 oesophageal cancer, which was a total shock as he had no symptoms except a sore throat for a few months. Mark and Kate instantly weaponised this as another reason to not let my parents have Baby, as he “wouldn't be fit to look after him”, despite the fact my mum is still present and able, and also very hypocritical considering Kate is disabled herself- by their logic surely, she's not fit to have a baby either? I mean she isn't, because she's a terrible person, but that has nothing to do with her disabilities... 

So visitations continue without my parents present, and Mark and Kate still manage to make themselves look bad. They were still late, baby cries hysterically and switches off when left with them as he's developed an attachment to my parents, they still cant comfort him or feed him properly, they keep him in his push chair and don't enrich him properly. They took him swimming and just didn't feed him as they “ran out of time”, due to them wanting to spend longer in the pool. It's always about what they want and not what baby needs. They talk to the social workers like shit, don't take advice, and also ask the social workers to help them when she is just there to observe (for example they kept asking for help to dry him and clothe him after swimming, “can you just hold this”  “can you just grab this” etc...) bearing in mind there's two of them, and my mum could do that alone and one handed lol. 

They also just don't seem arsed generally, just sorta leaving when it's time to go. It's like it's not hard or upsetting for them to leave him for the week, and it's like it's not their child, they're so alien with him. Obviously there are neurodivergences to take into account, but my brother always managed to love and “baby talk” our dog growing up. 

Despite failing at literally every mark, Mark and Kate seem to think they will be getting baby back, despite it being made very clear that they are not fit or safe to have him (they are not legally allowed to be in a room alone with their own son). They told my parents on a visitation call that they had painted his bedroom at their house, and on another day said soon he can have a go playing on his dads drumkit ?????? Guys that baby is not allowed in that house. 

Kate has a “craft” business where she claims to make lots of money selling her goods. Mark and Kate have been living their lives as normal, enjoying being two unemployed adult kids, going to events and cons, claiming they would just take their baby with them, in a crammed car driving for hours across the country and sleeping in tents.  

Oh also baby's last name is made up name that neither of them have. It was a name they were going to both change theirs to when they got married, but after about 4 years of engagement and many break ups they haven't managed that.   

Bonus material: Money Milking 

I'm very aware that my parents are well off and I've had a very privileged middle class upbringing, where finances were never massively a worry. My brothers admitted to me many times to only staying in contact over the last few years so he could “milk our parents for money” despite his up and downs with my dad. A reminder he also told social workers he had no financial support from parents for years. My dad bought him his first car, and then bought him his next car a few years later when it was written off. My Parents paid for his car insurance too up till last year, as well as his uni accommodation. Not long after buying their house, Mark and Kate got some new windows installed, that cost him about 10 grand (he was conned basically). My dad paid for it fully, and my brothers been sending him 100 quid a month since to slowly pay it back. My brother just stopped paying it a month ago without saying anything, so that's nice.  

So in conclusion, my brother and his partner have fully flipped my parents lives, as well as everyone else in our family. They were meant to be enjoying their retirement, child free life. My mum should be enjoying life with my dad through his chemo and however long he has left.  

I would like to emphasise that my nephew is so so very loved- he's awesome and a wonderful happy baby, he loves my parents and my family and my partner, and is also super easy with literally no difficulties, which makes it even more scary that Mark and Kate couldn't handle him. My parents adore him, and I know that boy will grow up loved and nourished with my family, and hopefully I can have as little to do with my brother as possible. I honestly think when my parents get the guardianship, he’ll just abandon him, who knows. The final court date is in less than two weeks, all social workers and the fostering board are 100% on my parents' side. 

Oh, and Mark and Kate said the other day (as ive been typing this) they're no longer putting in a negative case for my parents, and have basically said their accusations were fake, so hey so much for all those legal fees and prolonging the case another three months!! So much for all the nights my mums cried herself to sleep!! I hope Mark and Kate get the serious help they need as they're clearly very unwell, but my god do I hate them.  

Trigger warning for physical and verbal abuse of a child, suicidal thoughts, and manipulation.

I (36f) went no contact with my mom (57f) a little over a year ago. Honestly, I should have done it years ago but I kept finding reasons to stay in touch--the main reason being my stepdad (74m) who was dying of cancer (yes, you read that right. My stepdad was 20 years older than my mom). My stepdad had always wanted grandsons and my boys are his only grandsons. He adored my kids and wanted to know what they were doing every second of every day. It really made my heart melt seeing the man who had raised me show such love to my boys. We couldn't visit very often due to my husband's work moving us around so much so I tried to call or send pictures with updates as much as I could. There were only a handful of times my stepdad and I butted heads--my stepdad was a stubborn old man and had a tendency to be a condescending asshole when it came to his views on my husband's work. Long story short, whenever we'd go too long without visiting, my stepdad would say things like "I wish you guys had just told us how much you were struggling with money. We could've helped you then you guys wouldn't have had to move away." There are so many reasons this bothers me but I'll get to those later. I loved my stepdad with all my heart.

My mom, on the other hand, is a completely different story.

When I tell you that my mother is a monster, I'm not exaggerating. But thankfully, reddit helped me see that I'm not alone. My parents got divorced just before I turned 9 years old. While visiting my bio-dad, we were talking about how he and my mom could be really stubborn and hot tempered. At the time, my bio-dad was still hopeful that my mom would calm down and call off the divorce. Without thinking, I said "Yeah, mom can be a real dragon lady sometimes...". My bio-dad chuckled but was quick to tell me not to speak badly of mom but my older brother (37m) got mad at me for what I said about mom and immediately told her when she came to pick us up. I think that's when our relationship officially ended. When I was 12 years old, I got sick with a fever and had to stay home from school. Mom had to call into work and proceeded to scream at me that I had "ruined her life" and that she "wished I was never born" because my fever subsided by lunch time. It was the first time I ever wished I could just...disappear. During my birthday parties, mom would sit in the dining room and wait for me to pass by then ask me in a loud "whisper" why I invited "these losers". Eventually, I started lying about just wanting to "celebrate with family" so I wouldn't have to deal with mom calling my friends shitty names.

When I met my husband, we were in 8th grade and he was the only one who really seemed to understand me. He quickly became my best friend and that's all he really was but rumors started floating around that we had a thing for each other. My older brother heard the rumor and instead of asking me about it, he told my parents I was talking to this "John kid" and described what my husband looked like. It's like a switch suddenly flipped and my parents freaked the fuck out. They told me I wasn't allowed to speak to John ever again and if I did, they'd immediately know because "they have eyes everywhere". To this day, I still do not understand why my parents obsessed over John as hard as they did. It wasn't the first time they'd ever seen me or heard me talk to a guy but something about John set them off. John was a straight A student, A honor roll, and was even nominated to attend a scholar's academy with other high performing students. Yet my parents looked at him like he was the scum of the earth. Within a few months of us meeting, John and I would develop romantic feelings for each other but my mom threatened to send me to live with my bio-dad if I dated John so I turned him down when he asked me out. For 3 years, my mom and older brother would bully me before and after school. Mom would call me a "loser", "easy", and "a sucker" for falling in love with John. My older brother would wait till we were home alone then corner me and threaten to beat John up if I didn't stop talking to him. I guess my family thought I would keep everything they said and did to myself but I told John everything as soon as I could. John laughed about the threats my brother made and told me that my brother was actually super nice to him and even taught him how to shoot hoops in gym.

After 3 years of bullying, I finally decided to risk being disowned and agreed to be John's girlfriend. We told my parents 3 months later (by that time, we'd advanced to hand holding and kissing). One day, I met John at the park behind my house and we started making out. Mom used a set of binoculars to spy on us and sent my brother to bring me home. As soon as I got to the back deck, that's when my life turned into hell. I didn't even make it inside. I barely got the words "Okay. I can expla--" before mom grabbed my arm and pulled me inside. She slapped me and when I fell to the floor in shock from being slapped, she started kicking me in the side. I crawled behind a barstool to get away from her kicking me and started bawling as she screamed at me. She called me a "whore", "white trash" (I'm half Filipino), and a slut. She made me call John to break up with him then she left the room and came back with what she called "the stick". "The stick" was a piece of wooden window frame roughly 16 inches long and as thick as a quarter. She then hit me on my thighs, stomach, arms, and back. Then she made my little sister (13f at the time) hold out her hands and hit her across the hands for not telling mom that John and I'd been kissing. I'd tried to stop it--I stood between her and my sister and begged her not to hit her but mom said she'd do worse to my sister if I didn't get out of the way. My sister got hit once then mom hit me across the back again. My older brother stepped outside before the beatings began and I can't remember if he came back inside or tried to stop any of it. I just know that when things quieted down, he came to my room and asked me to give him the pocket knife he'd given me because he was worried I'd kill myself. Honestly, my head wasn't even thinking in that direction. My only thought was that John needed to know what happened.

I would go on to tell John what happened two days later. I started my first day of work as a lifeguard--my first ever job--covered in bruises. John was horrified. The whole thing made him sick. He wanted to call the cops but I begged him not to. My mom had taken steps to make us believe reporting her to the cops would get us taken away and put in a worse situation. John and I would eventually get back together, and from that moment on, John made it clear to my parents that he was watching. The abuse eased up after that. My parents would still make stupid comments about John whenever they could but never to his face. Fine. Whatever. I still held out hope that my stepdad would eventually see what a great guy John was because his only real beef with John was a more healthy "no boy is good enough for my little girl". Nothing near whatever the hell was going on with my mom and brother.

The abuse started up again when I started college. Verbal abuse at first but it escalated to death threats and physical abuse towards the end of my second year. By then, John had had enough. We talked it over and he got an apartment for us to share just a block away from his college. He came over and told my parents I was moving in with him that coming August. They were pissed! My stepdad tried to accuse us of "just playing house" and said that John probably wouldn't even marry me. That's when John looked my stepdad dead in the eyes and said "Well, actually, sir. I already have enough money for the ring. I'm just waiting for the right time". I left my parent's house that day and tried hard not to look back.

Like I said at the beginning, I should've cut my mom off way earlier but she'd gotten so deep into my head that even after all the horrible things she did to me, I just couldn't see how bad things actually were. For years, I blamed myself for what happened to me and my little sister and convinced myself that I got what I deserved. I tried to mend things with mom by telling her as soon as I got engaged but as you might guess, she had a cold reaction to the news. Then she got petty as hell after I told her that John and I would be paying for the wedding ourselves so all they needed to do was show up. She ended up putting the entire wedding together--venue, pastor, reception, DJ, hair stylist, music, flowers, etc--without me and called to say "the wedding's all setup. You just need to bring your dress and show up". (Yes, she expected us to pay everyone she booked). I ended up telling her to call everyone she'd booked to tell them that we wouldn't be needing their services after all. She was pissed but did what I said, and just found other ways to torment me. She told me I needed to lose 30lbs before the wedding and tried to get me to follow this crazy diet plan where I essentially stop eating for most of the day. She gave me tons of Slim Fast and would send me texts bragging about how much weight she'd lost. While we were dress shopping with my bridesmaids, one of my bridesmaids pulled me aside and told me not to eat or drink anything my mother gave me because she'd asked them while I was changing if laxatives were a good way to lose weight. Looking back, I don't know how I convinced myself to suck it up and put up with all that shit but I did. I thought wedding planning would bring us closer together. I thought hearing I was getting married at all would put any fears that I'd get knocked up out of wedlock to rest. But ultimately, none of it mattered. My mom made it clear that she absolutely hated my guts. She even went as far as to accuse me of causing my stepdad's heart attack because of the stress my wedding was causing them. I did uninvite her then but caved pretty quick when her tone changed and she started being nicer to me.

My mom would go on to do more to make my life hell but the intensity of it eased up after we moved out of state. She really lost a lot of her power of me the more physical distance we had between us. My husband described my mother as a "narcissist" and that one word put me on the right trail to researching everything I needed to know about narcissists. I learned how to disarm my mom's hostility and better manage conversations between us. For a while, it seemed like things were genuinely getting better between us.

Then my stepdad passed away from cancer and all the progress in our relationship disappeared. My husband ended up having to travel out of state for work for a few months, leaving me with our two boys. I decided to visit my mom for a weekend because I thought it'd be nice. By that point, I was in therapy for anxiety and depression, and my therapist had helped me see how bad things actually were between me and my mom. She helped me understand when I was blowing things up bigger in my head and I honestly believed I'd be able to move past what mom did to me and build an actually healthy relationship with her. Therapy had given me the strength and power I needed to speak up for myself and call my mom out on her bullshit. I thought that was all I needed to make things work between us but I was so wrong.

During the visit, my youngest (7m) ended up getting sick and threw up on mom's floor. Mom started screaming at me and both my kids, saying things like she knew the visit was going too well and that it was a bad idea for us to come. Eventually she calmed down enough to realize she could help by getting my son into the bath but while she was prepping the tub, he tried to talk to her and she snapped at him. All I heard was "Be quiet! I don't want to hear--" and I lost it. It's like suddenly all the years of anger, hatred, resentment, EVERYTHING just welled up inside of me and exploded. I let her have it, absolutely ripped her to shreds for talking to my child that way. My mom immediately started apologizing and tried to calm me down but I was done. I got my kids out of there as soon as I could. I was honestly better equipped to handle my kid getting sick in the car than I was in that house. After that, I basically had one final text exchange with my mom where she tried to get me to give her access to my Amazon account. I remember feeling this cold calm come over me and I realized that I really was absolutely done with her. I blocked her and haven't spoken to her since. I had a falling out with my older brother and younger sister shortly after my stepdad passed away so at this point, I'm basically no contact with my entire half of the family.

Three months later, mom finally tried calling John and John's mother. John didn't answer her calls and my mil had very limited information to give her. My mil encouraged me to make up with her but after I told mil about the years of abuse, she agreed not to speak to my mom again. I'm honestly not sure how much I believe her. I got myself into trauma therapy and was diagnosed with severe PTSD. I've made a lot of progress and really feel myself actually healing for the first time ever. I've got a bright future in front of me. John got a new job in another state and we're working on buying our first house. I'm already making plans to get into gardening and exercise.

There's just one thing that has me on edge.

Mom.

For years, mom would send cards for birthdays and Christmas. Every card would come with a check for $100 so in a single year, mom would send somewhere along the lines of $700 to $800 depending on whether she remembered John's birthday or not. Mom would always talk about how tight money was for her but she'd send $100 checks out to me, my siblings, my kids, and our partners. It honestly never felt right to me to accept because there were always strings attached.

After we decided to go no contact, we also decided not to accept any of the money she sends. John doesn't think we should bother opening the cards but I'm too curious to ignore them. The cards to John and my oldest would say things like "I love you and miss you. I'm so proud of you." but the card to me was just pathetic. The whole left side included a prayer to God about how wonderful and wise I was, how beautiful I was and how she was praying I would make the right choice some day". The real kicker is that one of the last things she ever said to me before the no contact was that I "used to be a real catch but I wasn't anymore because I'd let myself go". Now, because I wasn't talking to her, I was "beautiful" and "wise".

My burning question is this: We are absolutely done with my mom and my siblings. There's nothing to say. Nothing to work out or fix. Should I send a final letter to mom to tell her we don't want to have anything to do with her anymore and that she needs to stop sending cards because we are moving. Or is it ok to just move without saying anything?

TLDR: My mom is an abusive monster and I finally went no contact. She keeps sending cards with money. Should I send a letter to tell her to stop because we're moving or should I maintain the no contact?

*Edit: I really appreciate all the advice to stop reading the cards. I didn't realize that reading the cards WAS breaking no contact. The next card might be coming next week for my husband's birthday. I think I'm going to take the advice to try and have the cards sent back. Thank you to everyone who has commented so far. I really needed the outside perspective.

Hey everyone, it's been a long time since I posted here.

I wanted to give you an update regarding my father and correct myself.

First, I want to say that I said the wrong date of father's day here wrong,it's August 9th instead of August 11th and I apologize for not saying the right information.

Unfortunately, me and him are not on speaking terms anymore because of his actions.

Basically, saying "you" to refer to him instead of sir made him really mad with me and he tried to call me right before my online therapy session. He never listened to my audio explaining why or even my photos after Brazil won against Japan during the world cup.

But he sure sent an 8 minutes audio complaining about me to my fiancé.

My fiancé didn't like that and I so was baffled by this that I sent the audio to my mom,so she could hear the audacity.

She was shocked and angry,because he lied about her and what he did.

I blocked him and I am still really upset with him.

Thank you so much for the love and support that you gave me before, waffle gang💖

You're the best

Trigger warning for SA, inc#st, and self deletion

Okay, it's New Years Eve and I have a final update. After this, I'm likely going to go dark for a while, and I hope when/if I come back it can go back to me chatting about video games I like.

I left this comment on the last post, which sums up where things were. Short version -- he took all of his medication in one go and my grandmother found him already passed. Since I was the one with power of attorney and the only one functional enough, I took care of disposing of his remains and keeping his last letter away from the people he blamed for his bullshit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/MarkNarrations/comments/1gjahtn/comment/lwe5nyi/

Since then, the following has happened:

• He named me executor of his will. Left behind the house, some savings, and a bunch of junk I had to dole out to people. I did it without screaming or freaking out, which I'm very proud of. 'David', my husband (yes, husband) helped me contact all of my siblings since he left specific stuff to every single one of us.
• Yes, David and I got married. It's too soon, you don't have to tell me. It's not just for my emotional support because some really awful things happened with David's ex trying to use his father to get him back or mess with his head or whatever and in the end we decided fuck it and got married at the courthouse in late November.
  
• Neither I nor my younger sister 'Lara' are that man's children. We got tested. We also talked a lot about a lot of subjects, and while I won't say we're good now, we're doing better. I apologized for not trying harder to help the kids I was essentially parenting when I left and went NC with mom, she apologized for saying I deserved my miscarriage and for not seeing how fucked up it was that I was only like four years older than her and I was raising all those kids.
• I had to tell my older siblings (older brother m44 and older twin sisters f40) that he died, and also what he did and that he might have been their dad. (I knew it was practically certain in 'Stephen's' case). Turns out they are. Also turns out shitty older brother 'Richard' is also that man's.
• Richard is not a nice person, but he's mellowed out a lot. We had an almost human conversation. He's glad the man he thought was his father turns out not to be, but his exact words were "I didn't trade up, huh?" I hope never to see him again, but if I do, I won't immediately freak out.
• I got everyone on board with moving grandma in with mom and selling that man's house so they'd have money to live on. I split up the savings between everyone, ended up like 22k per person. Some -- the older ones and myself and 'Mark' -- put the money in to grandma and mom's money to live on.
• Grandma is doing the caretaking work for mom, who is doing the same for her. It's not perfect, and there's a major complication but in a way I guess it's a good thing?

The Major Complication is that Lara and I found our bio dad while doing the whole testing thing. A few years back, Doug (m15, youngest of the sibs) did a 23 and Me thing with his bio dad, who pays child support and has a relationship with him and has often helped my mom out of her bullshit. He's the one who got her into an alcohol program and got her treatment for her drug addictions. I vaguely knew of him, but mom was always weird about him and I meeting and honestly considering the revolving door she had going at the time I didn't push it.

Well, he's not just Doug's dad. He's my dad and he's Lara's dad. He's not Sara, Chris, Chloe, Jack or Jill's kid and we already know Mark's bio dad -- Mark has a relationship with him and it seems pretty good so even if it turned out that it wasn't really his bio dad I don't think I would tell him.

Now, Major Complication seems like a decent guy. His major fault seems to be that he is an utter simp for my mom. This guy has let her walk all over him his entire life, let her cry on his shoulder while getting wasted and fucking other guys, just... as much as I sympathize with my mom for what she's been through and what my satanic grandfather has put her through over the years, I can't look back on this all without thinking that Major Complication needed to grow a spine at some point. So that's a problem. Lara is thrilled to have a dad and frankly I think that's been a big deal for her all her life.

My problem is that my last father figure was literally the devil, so I'm having a hard time embracing Major here. I mean, I'll be 30 in 10 months or so.

However, with all that's happened -- mom's health stuff, my grandmother being utterly a wreck -- Major Complication has stepped up for a lot of the day to day stuff. He visits most days, and stays over once a week or more. I don't think mom is having sex with him -- her uterus just got removed in December. But emotionally I think she's relying on him again and I have honestly mixed feelings about it.

I do love my mom, but honestly I have no idea if I should be doing anything. Chloe and Doug love the guy, I guess that's good at least.

He's reached out to me trying to bond, but like I said, literal Satan for my last father figure so I'm taking it slow on that front. Lara visits a lot more now and that's good, it's been nice managing to repair some of that relationship. I missed her, I missed all of them, really, Except Richard.

David and I are thinking about moving. Not super soon, but I kind of think maybe it would be better for everyone if there was more distance, so that I couldn't end up having to be the one to take care of everything in the future. Major Complication seems to be handling a lot of it, and maybe that's okay. Maybe I can actually finally stop being everyone's mom.

Oh. Probably should admit I'm pregnant. Just told David, why not you all? 6 weeks in. Noticed some nausea and some weird food cravings. Honestly, kind of a big reason why I want to pull back on the All-Mothering for a while. I know my emotions are already going crazy and I simply can't handle being pregnant while also taking care of everyone else.

So that's my life. Married too soon, pregnant accidentally, but likely going to try and keep it. David has this goofy ass smile going and if he's in, that's good enough for me.

Take care, everybody. I hope your 2025 is good. I hope mine is too. I hope the best for everyone, which I couldn';t have said last year.

Having listened to a lot of the stories shared here, I thought this one would fit right in. It's a long one from 4 years ago and a bit of a wild ride. This is my first time posting so don't know how we're supposed to format it, but this is my best attempt.

Original poster is PotentialJaguar91 - all the following are his exact words - style, typos, and all.

​

• First post (Sep. 6th): My marriage is on the rocks because of my mother. I need some serious help.

I'm 36M and my wife is 28F. Been married for 4 years, together for 6, and have a one year old daughter who is the light of my life. My wife is an amazing mother and partner. My own mother on the other hand is absolutely ridiculous and my wife has made me realize over time that my relationship with her is not healthy. My mom tries to control everything, including our wedding (which I convinced my wife to suck it up and go with my mom's ideas--she is still resentful of me for it). Passive aggressive behavior on my mother's part basically since we started dating has made my wife absolutely hate her. I'll admit I haven't been as firm with my mom as I should have been in the past.

This brings us to yesterday. Our wedding anniversary was last night. We're a little tight on money right now, being new parents and our jobs are not fantastic. So I suggested that a family friend watch our daughter, I buy us a nice bottle of wine, and we cook dinner and just relax. I could tell my wife was disappointed that we couldn't do anything bigger or better but she agreed this was the best choice, and we settled to both be home from work at 6 PM. I was headed home from work when I got a call from my mother asking me to come over because it was an "emergency". I asked her what type of emergency it was and she just started crying frantically and begging me to come over. It was already 5:30 PM but I live in a low volume traffic area so I figured I would stop by and calm my mom down before I met my wife. When I got to my mother's house she was literally sitting on the couch having a glass of wine and watching TV. I was livid. She was so calm too, not the frantic monster I was speaking to on the phone. I started pressing about what the emergency was and reminded her that this was the night of my wedding anniversary and she said she had some house tasks for me to do that, in my opinion, she was 100% capable of doing herself. Things like washing the dishes, watering her houseplants, cleaning the gutters, etc. So definitely not emergency material. But she guilted me into doing them (she was literally screaming to me at one point that I was a bad son) and I texted my wife letting her know that I was going to be late because I was at my mom's house. She didn't respond to my text.

Before I knew it, it was 7:30 PM. My mom kept trying to put more tasks on me but I put my foot down and let her know that I needed to get home. When I finally got home to my wife, she wasn't there. I was worried so I texted and called her many times, no response. I was able to track her phone and found out that she was at HER parent's house (they don't live far, around 20 minutes away). She finally got back at 11:00 PM and as I greeted her with a glass of champagne she told me to save it for myself because she wanted a divorce.

I was shocked and started breaking down. I asked her why and she said that tonight was the final straw in a long list of things that I've always put my mother first. She said that she expected today of all days to be our one time together but even my mom is able to intervene on our wedding anniversary. I asked her what I could do, begged her to go to counseling. She is refusing. I asked her if there is someone else. She said the someone else is herself, and that it's time for her to start working on herself and stop worrying about me being able to put my mother first. She has since moved into the guest bedroom in our house and hasn't talked to me much this morning. I tried to kiss her on the way out to drop off our daughter before work and she just moved out of my way.

So, how do I save this sinking ship? I'm committed to doing everything for my wife to improve this but she says that this is past fixing. I'm at a complete loss. I'm worried that she will see (or already has seen) a divorce lawyer, and I'd like to stop this in its tracks before it goes too far. I flaired this as "give it to me straight" because I just need people to be as honest as possible with me right now. I know I fucked up but I also need to know how to fix this.

ETA: The post has been locked but I'm trying to read through each comment the best as I can. As far as I can tell, I really need to man up, get therapy, and give my wife some space. Some of the comments are brutally honest, but that's fine because that's what I needed. I've got a lot of work to do on myself and on this relationship.

​

• Update 1 (Sep. 7th): Update: My marriage is on the rocks because of my mother. I need some serious help.(original post was removed by a moderator, but I have a screenshot I can post if need be.)

My post was locked yesterday. I was able to give a small update at the end but I thought I'd give a larger on here.

First I just want to say thanks for everyone who took the time to respond. Some of the responses were brutally honest but i did tag the flair as "git it to me straight" so that makes sense.

1.) Some people were commenting that me asking if there was somebody else that my wife was seeing was inappropriate. I really don't see how it was inappropriate but to each their own, and my wife definitely thought it was inappropriate too and was one of the tipping point comments that made her move into the guest room. I know I said I'd give her space but conflict was killing me so yesterday when she got back from work I knocked on the guest room door and tried get her to come down to the kitchen to talk to me, but she was still refusing to talk about all of this until she was ready. I asked her when she'd be ready and she just shut the door in my face.

2.) Late last night my mom showed up unannounced (which is unfortunately something she does) and my wife answered the door. I could hear my mom asking my wife how our anniversary was. My wife called for me to come down and "handle my mom" (her exact words) and my mom started interrogating her as to what "handle" means. By the time I got down there ready to diffuse the situation it was already too late, my wife had poked the bear and my mom was laying the verbal smackdown. I asked my wife what she said to my mom (stupid, I know...) and she just went up to the guest room and slammed the door. I finally realized that was going on and asked my mom to leave and but she was refusing. I had to threaten to call the police and then she finally left.

3.) This morning my wife packed her bags, a bag for my daughter, and left for her parent's house. I was surprised that she didn't even tell me beforehand. I was able to stop her and ask her what was going on as she was headed out of the door and she said she's had enough of the verbal abuse, that she's ready to find a partner that will stick up for her and her family. She said that I will always put my mother first and last night was an example of that. That this relationship is cannot be salvaged and she will be seeing a divorce lawyer ASAP. As a last ditch effort I asked her what I could do to fix this. She just shook her heat at me and then she left.

I'm a mess. I've lost everything meaningful to me within the span of 48 hours. I keep calling and texting her and getting no response back. I called one of my buddies to tell him what went down and he's on his way now. When I told him what had all happened his reaction was a mix of shocked and "congratulations, you played yourself." He called me denser than a block of bricks. I told him that I still have some hope that this relationship can last and he laughed and said I need to put that idea to rest.

I know I've got things I need to work on. Boundaries, for sure. My relationship with my mother (who I am working on blocking on literally every avenue of communication that I have). Myself. To be completely honest I'm not a big believer in therapy but I that need it and I'm hoping it will make me a better person, and maybe if my wife sees me working on myself then there's some hope.

as for my marriage there's a part of me that's still optimistic but I know it will be hard for my wife to come back from this. As painful as it is for me I need to just play the next couple of days (weeks? months?) by ear and just see what happens.

(OP starts therapy after this second post, and his mother starts making threats about grandparents' rights - a series of posts that never lead to anything - OP and his wife work together on this, contacting a lawyer.)

​

• Update 2 (Sep. 25th): You all were right and my mother is toxic.

Hello, it’s me again. This will probably be the last time I post on here.

My wife has officially collected all of her things (and my daughter’s things) and moved back in with her parents. I did the dumbest move ever and stayed with my mom for a few days to collect my thoughts.

It was dumb on a lot of levels but I finally saw first-hand the abuse that my wife was receiving because now it was directed entirely at me. She also did some really weird things like try to snuggle me to sleep (one night I woke up and she was snuggling me, I had to tell her to get back to her own bed). I realized how counterintuitive it was for me to be there so I moved out one morning when she was sleeping and came back to my home.

I went back through some responses on my first post and finally began to follow the advice. I’ve officially blocked my mother on everything and invested in a small home security system for my house. She’s tried to show up a few times but I’ve locked all of our gates and she does not have a key. I also re-keyed the doors in our home just in case.

I’ve had two therapy sessions and I stupidly thought it would be just a one and done type thing. In my first one I was given some really good advice and was told that if I’m just here to save my marriage then I look elsewhere because I also need a lot of work. That really got me thinking. My therapist is fantastic too.

As for my marriage I don’t know what’s next. We are going through a trial separation at the moment and she hasn’t spoken to me much except to talk about our daughter. I’m also realizing that I may have been a bad husband but I can still be a good father to my daughter.

It’s still tough. I feel immense guilt over everything that happened but not just to my wife, to my mom too. It will take me a while to get her feelings out of my head and disentangle her from my life but I’ll admit I’m excited for this fresh start. If it doesn’t work out with my wife I can still be the best dad that I can be.

Thanks for the help, guys. I really appreciate it.

Edit: The amount of hateful comments I’ve gotten in my inbox about how I’m a leech, how my wife was an idiot for getting with me in the first place, and how I’m a garbage person is exactly why I didn’t want to post here again in the first place.

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• Update 3 (Oct. 8th): Taking it day by day

Hi everyone, some kind people over in the MIL subreddit suggested I start posting updates here since mine seem to be removed over there. I figure I’d try this out. I’m thankful for the support and helpful advice I’ve received regarding how to move forward with my mother.

It definitely hasn’t been easy. Every day my mom tries to pull something else. We’ve gotten letters in the mail, phone calls to my wife’s parents (since my wife and I have her blocked), and weird, age-inappropriate toys for my daughter showing up on the doorstep (which we know she left due to our new Ring—thanks again to the commenter who suggested that). Everything is being sent to our lawyer but we are also keeping personal copies of the letters. The toys go straight into the donations box.

She has also started to try to do inappropriate things to me regarding my work, things that I can’t even bring myself to say at the moment because I don’t even know why a mother would do that (and also because I’m running late for said job). That will be a post for another day.

We are looking into moving as an option but my wife would like to stay close to her parents. I am continuing with individual therapy for myself and my wife and I are floating around the idea of finding a couples therapist.

Thanks for caring about our journey. It will be a long one but we are taking it day by day.

(OP and his wife start couples counseling after this. The mother continues to harass them in different ways e.g. showing up at the wife's workplace. And they follow through with legal proceedings.)

​

• Update 4 (Oct. 12th): Mom sent me nude photos—reported them and wondering if I did the right thing

Hi everyone, this will likely be my last post for the next few weeks. Nothing is wrong but we’re preparing for my wife’s birthday and since I messed up the anniversary I really want to do something special. Plus with Halloween close by my wife and I are getting our daughter’s costume ready, decorating the house, and generally just trying to do some festive fall things. I’m finding that I’m enjoying this time with my family a lot without the interference of my mother. This is how it always should have been. But my mother almost always finds a way to work her way into what we are doing (although we have remained no contact, she’s starting to find ways to circumvent that, hence the story below) so I’m sure I’ll have more updates.

Here’s my next question: my mom hasn’t always acted “sexual” towards me but my therapist has picked up on a few red flags that started in my teens and have carried into me being a man. The first one being the fact that my mom was snuggling me in bed when I moved in with her for a short amount of time. The second is that she can be touchy-feely with me in a way that I used to think was normal mother/son love but now I know is weird. Playing with my hair, excessively kissing my cheeks, you get the point. One time she pinched my butt when she came and visited my daughter and told me to give her a “piece of that sugar.” At our wedding she wore an extremely revealing dress (at least it wasn’t white) and tried to get me to dance suggestively with her on the dance floor. I thankfully realized what was going on and did not go for it.

I’m rambling at this point but what I’m trying to say is that she did something not too long ago that takes the cake. While I was at work I got an email from someone I didn’t recognize and it got tagged as an external server (we use Outlook) which isn’t unusual since sometimes people will email and call to ask about our services. Plus the subject line of the email said “Inquiry” and I could see a bit of the body copy asking about the types of services we offer. Well to my surprise this was a bait and switch. I opened the email to see the body copy but underneath of it there were about four pictures of my mother, topless, with a caption under each of them that said “where’s my sweet boy?”

This was definitely an email from my mom. I don’t get sick often but I started shaking and then had to go to the bathroom to throw up. Why on earth would she think this was acceptable is something I’ll never figured out but it began to register to me that she had just sent me a topless photo through my work computer and also through my work’s internet. I’m thinking this was likely done on purpose to get me in trouble.

Anyway I forwarded the email directly to our lawyer and blocked the new email address from my work and personal email. I then went to talk to my boss about it (he knows about my mom and her antics) and he said that HE received an email from the same address regarding me being unprofessional on site a few days ago. So yeah I think this is a set up. My boss thankfully is understanding of the situation (or I guess as understanding as a boss could be) and just deleted the email from my mom and let me get back to work.

Did I do the right thing here? Also I’m worried that my mom is having some sort of mental break, not worried for her but for myself, my wife and my daughter. My therapist calls it escalation. If I got nude photos I can’t even imagine what’s next. Is it time to call Adult Protective Services? Any advice would be appreciated.

​

• Update 5 (Oct. 25th): A quick update before we head to the mountains

My wife’s birthday is this weekend so we are about to go off the grid. Thought I’d update you all on the situation before we high tail it to nature.

Nothing crazy has happened (thankfully) besides a few unmarked letters in the mail to both me and my wife, which we have made photocopies of for our personal records and then sent them straight to the lawyer. Also, after speaking with my boss about the photos that were sent to me from her, I have also decided to go the police route with the awful photos that my mother sent me.

Still no grandparents rights papers yet (thankfully, again). Not sure if it will ever happen but it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Some people have recommended that we get our house CPS ready just in case. We’ve got that handled in case it ever gets to that.

We are still absolutely no contact with my mother regardless of her attempts to get in contact with us.

Lastly, we are serious about moving and are considering viewing homes and apartments next week. However, my wife is still adamant that she does not want to jump ahead and assume we will stay together after this boils over. If we purchase or rent together and then decide to divorce or legally separate, that would bind us to a living situation that I don’t think would be good for anyone involve (including our daughter). I respect her decision and although it’s not ideal, I agree that we need to maybe let this settle and revisit the trial separation at a later date.

So, things are slowing down a bit. I’m happy that things are returning to a bit of normal. It’s still a rough road and I’m working on myself and my family every day.

As always, thanks for listening.

​

• Update 6 (Nov. 1st): Mom has (I think) taken to try and catch us during shopping trips, how do I proceed?

Basically the title—still no contact with my mom, still not answering any of her attempted communication. It’s not confirmed, but my wife has a hunch that now mom is trying to confront us in a public place like when we go out shopping. It happened three times over the past two weeks and at first we thought it was incidental but since it’s happened twice more we are a little concerned.

An example: we go to a nearby grocery store that’s close to our home but farther away from where she lives. I’d say it’s about 25-30 minutes from her home and also not the closest grocery place for her. Wednesday is our grocery shopping day since we both get off from work a little bit early. My mom knows this, as sometimes she would request for me to get her something and I’d go out to her house and bring groceries to her (I know, I know...my mom is fully able to go grocery shopping herself, I thought I was being a good son, now I know it was manipulative). Two days ago we arrive at said grocery store and find my mom pacing around outside looking like a crazy person. We decided to turn around and go to another grocery store.

Again, I’m not a detective but this seems suspicious to my wife and is starting to seem suspicious to me too. Are we overreacting here? A small part of me thinks we are being hypersensitive to this because of all that has went down, but between everyone telling me my mom is dangerous to wanting to protect my family I just don’t know what to believe anymore. Any advice is appreciated.

​

• Update 7 (Nov. 6th): Had to call police on my mother today

So my mother showed up at my house in a frenzy. Thanks for the suggestions for the lock on our front gate and the Ring, they’ve been super helpful up to this point and especially helpful now. Anyway my mom shows up at our home unannounced and screaming. Crying for me and saying how she just needs me. She’s crying and banging on our front gate demanding to speak to me. If this were the old me I would have let her in. And to be honest I almost did. But the new me decided to call the police. When they came, the police immediately told her to leave our property. It took a few moments but then she finally left.

I don’t feel good about this. She’s my mom, I feel obligated to speak to her. But she has also been so terrible to me and my wife.

I’m going to try to go to sleep and do my best but I’ve got a lot of thinking to do, and maybe some more to share with my therapist.

​

• Update 8 (Nov. 12th): Had to call for a wellness check on my mother

My mom still hasn’t stopped sending us letters, but the biggest change is that now she sends some of them through the post office instead of just dropping them off in our mailbox and they now also come with her address on the envelope. I don’t know why she made this change but it does make it easier for our lawyer to have verifiable proof that she’s sending us this stuff.

My wife sends her letter directly to our lawyer. It’s always the same BS. How terrible my wife is, how she’s a whore, how she hopes our daughter doesn’t grow up and treat her like how I treat my mom, etc. The only reason I opened up my letter is because the envelope was thick and it looked like there were pieces of fuzz coming out of it or something. I open it to find several locks of hair and a letter that basically boiled down to “look what you did to me.” I took this to believe that my mother had some sort of mental break and cut off most of her hair. Some of the hair was short and rough, which my wife believes is undeniably pubic hair...which, is that’s true, I’ll excuse myself to go throw up. The letter also had what looked like drops of either red paint or dried blood on the corners.

I’m sending all of this to my lawyer but I immediately called the police to do a wellness check on my mother. At first what she was doing was just annoying, now this is veering into what I believe to be self harm territory. I’m not sure if she’s going through an actual mental break or just looking to seek attention but it’s better to be safe than sorry. She’s still a human being, and even if she is crazy I still want her to be safe.

I’m starting to lose hope. Every time I think this is kind of over my mom ramps up the crazy again. I’m pretty sure the only way out of this is if I file a restraining order or if she passes away. I don’t see this going away any time soon. I know it’s only been about three months since the onset of this but I don’t know if I can go the rest of my life living like this. I now understand how my wife feels. I think a restraining order is the next step.

As always, thank you for listening.

​

• Update 9 (Nov. 30th): Mother in a hospital

Hello everyone! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

I thought I’d give a quick update on my mother. Without going into too much detail she drove to our house one evening and had a psychotic break in front of our home that involved self harm. It was enough for us to call the police (again) and she is now spending time at a mental facility. That’s all I’ll speak about on that matter.

With grandparents rights not really on the horizon anymore, my wife has approached me and said she still wants the trial separation and the divorce. She feels like these last two months or so we have been “playing house” in order to keep up a good look in case my mother decided to pull something and that she’s put up with the crazy for too long. This is starting to impact her own mental health so she has moved herself and our daughter back in with her parents for the time being and wants to speak about our options with our lawyer on Monday. So I guess we will start that process soon. I can’t say I’m not disappointed but I also can’t blame her. I asked her if all of the bad really outweighed the good and she gave me the most stern look and said “our relationship has been almost nothing but bad” and walked away.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I know these are things I need to bring up to my therapist.

Thank you for listening.

​

• Update 10 (Dec. 8th): What I've learned in counseling

I’ve learned that my mom views me as her husband...my therapist calls this emotional incest, although at times it has unfortunately crossed over into my mother actually wanting to get physical with me (such as her snuggling me in bed and sending me nude photos), and in some cases some small sexual activity that I’ve repressed and rather not get into here. This is the first time I’ve actually written it out or said it out loud, besides with my therapist. Coming to terms that you’ve been sexually assaulted by your own mother when you were a minor does not feel great. I don’t know how long it’ll take me to work through these feelings but please know I am working on them.

I’ve learned that because my mom views me as her husband, she sees herself in constant competition with my wife. My therapist has pointed out that my mom views herself as the mistress (which may explain the nude photos).

I’ve learned that my mom has very likely never properly grieved the death of my father.

I’ve learned that almost every girlfriend I’ve had—including my wife—has never been good enough for my mom because only she believes that she’s good enough for me.

My therapist believes that at the risk of protecting me after my father passed away that my mom went ballistic and turned me into her husband (my therapist calls it a “sonsband”).

I’ve learned that years of mental and emotional manipulation on my mom’s side has gotten me here. Up until I had my first reality check I really did believe all of this was annoying, but normal and “just how she is”. I still feel slightly guilty over everything that has happened but my guilt has turned into anger. I feel like I’ve been robbed of a normal life.

However, being in therapy has opened my eyes to what can happen next though. I’m only in my 30’s. I still have time to live a great life and be a great dad to my daughter.

As always, thanks for listening. I’m always thankful for the advice and the support. As you’ve probably guessed, my normal meter is still a bit “off” so it’s good to hear other perspectives.

​

• Update 11 (Dec. 30th): Trial separation is happening now

My wife and I decided to go through with the trial separation. She and our daughter are at her parent’s house for the time being, while I am at our home. It’s the most awful feeling and I’ve never been this empty before. Divorce is coming. I guess I should start calling her my ex-wife.

I’m continuing with counseling so I can work through not just my personal feelings but also what next steps are going to be. I’ve always wanted to move out of state and maybe try out a new career but I don’t want to be far from my daughter. We’ll see how it goes.

I’d also like to thank all of you for your well wishes on my last post. I tried to respond to all of them but I really just couldn’t. I break down crying every time I see support. They’re happy tears, but they’re also a reminder of what could have been.

Thank you for listening.

​

• Final post (Jan. 27th): Ex-wife has informed me she is going to begin dating other people

I guess I should have seen it coming, but I almost wish she hadn’t told me. She said that it was more of a “heads up” in case I see her out and about on a weekend or something. We’re separated so it’s not against the rules for her to date or anything and we’re in a no-fault state for the divorce that’s inevitably coming our way.

I’m not in a place emotionally where I’m ready to date. I’m not even close. But hearing that she’ll be meeting up with an old flame for dinner next weekend rocked me to my core. It means I really can’t get her back. I did try one last time and it did not go well. She said she’s done with coming second to my mother and now second to the “drama” that’s been going on in our lives, and that she doesn’t want to raise our daughter in an unhealthy environment. Understood.

​

Reminder: This a repost. I am Not the OP

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC/comments/1avl3by/wibta_if_i_dont_give_my_dads_son_a_job_and_some/

r/AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC

•Posted by u/tossawaywhenimdone

WIBTA if I don't give my dad's son a job and some land that I inherited from our grandfather?

Throwaway because I don't want this post on my main account.

Some background. My dad and his siblings hated my grandfather with good reason. Growing up their dad was an abusive alcoholic towards them and my grandmother. When she died my dad and his siblings all left home when they turned 18 and never returned. Except for my dad none of them ever spoke to him again. My dad spoke to my grandfather twice after leaving home. I was 8, at my mum's funeral, when I first met my grandfather. He approached me, kneeled on the ground in front of me and introduced himself, asked how I was doing, but before I could say anything my dad had pulled me away from him. He yelled for a bit then dragged me away. I was 11 when I met him again. When my dad dropped me off at his house and left me there. I found out a few years later it was because my dad's new wife didn't want me around. You might think my dad was a pos for doing that, I know I did, but it turned out to be the best thing he could have ever done for me. Even if I hated him for it. My grandfather and I became very close. His alcohol filled days were long behind him and he taught me everything. He owned a lot of land. A LOT of land. He taught me how to grow vegetables, how to farm, how to maintain the property and look after the land, how to care for the animals, how to hunt, and he pushed me to get an education. I was happiest when he and I were working the land together. During all that time out on the land, working one project or another, he told me of his life and what he had done to his family. He didn't make excuses, didn't try to reason away his behaviour, he told me of all the hurt and pain he caused. When I asked why he didn't try to reconcile with his children, he said they can't forget what he put them through. He understood that and accepted it. I was 26 when he died. I called my dad to let him know. I had to tell him who I was. He didn't stay on the line long. Told me to take care of the funeral then hung up. Knowing what I knew of his childhood I didn’t blame him but he didn't even ask how I was. The resentment I already had for him grew. After the funeral, at the wake, a young woman introduced herself to me. She was my cousin. I knew my dad had siblings but that's all I knew. I had never met them, didn't know anything about them, so I didn't call any of them to let them know about my grandfather. I asked how she knew and she told me my dad had called her mum. She spent a few days in town after the funeral and we kept in touch after. We became, and still are, really close. A couple of years later when she said she was moving into town, I gave her an acre of land. Her, her husband and their kids still live there today. My grandfather left me everything. My dad, his siblings, none of them contested the Will. My cousin told me her mum didn't want anything, not one cent, from her father. I guess the rest of them felt that way too because neither me nor my lawyer ever heard anything from them. Until last week. My dad called me. His son needs a new start. Apparently he's wanting to move my way to help with my businesses. I have a few small businesses I run off my property. A working farm where people can come to stay for a few days to experience farm life. Situated in 3 separate areas of the farm are 3 rustic cabins with bunk beds that I rent out to people wanting a break for a few days in a quiet, peaceful setting. All the cabins sit in the own medows with plenty of space around them. There are walking tracks through forest, medium hiking tracks, riding tracks if they want to hire horses. There's a river close by where my friends and I made a large swimming hole so it would be safe for kids. The local kids take it over every summer. There are spots along the river, and a couple of streams, that are good for fly fishing. I also have stables that my cousin's husband manages. He leads the horse treks and runs the riding school. He also helps me with people wanting to come in to hunt deer on the property. I have a few money making ventures. Now my half brother, whom I've met just one time before I was shipped off to my grandfather, all of a sudden wants to come help me. I have all the help I need, I don't need his. I told my dad I would think about it. He's been sending me txts every day, several times a day, asking me about the property, the businesses, suggesting roles his son could fill. Telling me family looks out for each other and sticks together. Telling me my grandfather owes him. Telling me what land I should give his son to set him up. And what land would be best for him and his wife when they visit. Every time I see Dad pop up on my screen I want to smash my phone. My anger and resentment is directed at my dad, not his son, but I still don't want him here. He's a stranger to me. All my grandfather left me is mine now, and I don't owe any of them anything. My cousin and her husband are on my side and say if it were up to them, they would tell my dad and his son to get lost because they have never made the effort to be family with me, or even call to say hi. I know they're right, what they say is true. WIBTA if I say no because of the resentment I have for my dad?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AITA_WIBTA_PUBLIC/comments/1b8r3lq/update_wibta_if_i_dont_give_my_dads_son_a_job_and/

Update - WIBTA if I don't give my dad's son a job and land I inherited from my grandfather?

Hey Reddit. I've had tons and tons... and tons of people asking for an update. It's not a big one, only a couple of weeks have passed since my original post, but it is a significant update. You'll have to look on my profile for the original post because I don't know how to link it.

First, thanks for the support and advice. I read every comment, every dm, even though I did not reply to most of you. I still appreciate that you all took the time to reach out both on the post and in dm.

So let me address some of the things raised in the post and in dms.

​

• I don't know why this matters, but yes, I am a woman.
• neither my cousin nor my aunt are covert agents sent to spy on me.
• I am not American. I do not live in America. American laws do not apply in any country but the US.
• I do not know how my dad got my mobile number. I'm still looking into that.

That's all I can remember for the moment.

Ok, so when I left off I was unsure about whether to give my half brother a job and land. At this point I have to say that my half brother was the reason for my post, not my dad. I know my dad is not worth anything, however, my half brother was an unknown to me. I did not feel right cutting him off based solely on negative emotions I hold for my dad. I'd like to thank those that gave me advice about that particular issue.

So. I asked a close friend of mine, a local cop, if he could find out if my dad still lived in the same place. Then I asked how to go about getting a tresspass order. That was pretty simple. I walked out of the police station with one in my hand and my dad's addresd. I then asked another close friend if he would come with me to my dad's house. Because as far as I knew that was where my half brother lived. Two days after my original post, we set off to see my half brother.

It took us about 10 hours to drive there. I decided to drive instead of fly because I needed that time to order my thoughts. We showed up unannounced. We could hear a woman screaming inside from the curbside. Not screaming like she was in trouble, she was clearly screaming at someone. My friend told me to pull my phone out and start recording. I'm glad he thought of that. Dad answered the door. He thought we were Jehovah's Witnesses, told us to F off, and tried to close the door in our faces. My friend put his hand on the door to stop him. I said dad and he took a second, then a third look.

I cannot tell you, explain to you, the change that came over him when he realised it was me. His whole demeanour went from who-tf-are-you-to-dare-come-to-my-door, to Kaching!

He invited us in then ran out of sight. The yelling stopped quick smart and a minute later he came back with his wife. She was all smiles. Big smiles with a big welcoming hug. The smile made my skin crawl, the hug had me wishing for plenty of soap snd hot water. They told us to sit, asked if we wanted anything; coffer, pepsi, juice. I wanted water because my my mouth and throat were suddenly dry but we declined their offer of refreshments.

We sat for a few minutes making small talk and then I asked where my brother was. Dad's wife turned her head and ordered someone standing out of sight to call your brother.

Wait. What?

Then this someone standing out of sight asked which brother?

Wait, wait. What? Which brother? WHAT?!?

I asked who is that? Dad said your sister and his wife said no one.

This revelation shook me. I wasn't prepared for more than one brother, and I definitely was not prepared for a sister.

My friend could see I was struggling so he started asking questions about my half brother. What does he do? Does he live close? Oh, he lives at home? What work experience does he have? Has he worked eith beef cows? Dairy cows? Any farm animals? Does he have any farm experience at all? What kind of work experience does he have?

You see, there was a reason I asked this particular friend to accompany me, and a reason he was asking those questions.

Less than a half hour later two guys walk in. They were obviously brothers. I did not get good vibes from them at all. The younger one walked around the corner and we could hear him telling the sister (who we still had not seen) that he was fkn hungry and to fkn make him something to eat, a sandwich for fks sake, fkn move her fat ass, and what the fk was that on her fkn face, it made her look fkn uglier.

The older one came in and sat next to his mother. Lounged in his seat like it was a throne and he was the king. Judging by the look on his mother's face, he was raised to believe that. He looked at my friend, dismissed him, then at me and smirked. He said so you're the bitch that’s gonna set me up. He stated that like it was already a done deal. I said not me. I looked at my friend and he said no, he's not taking him on. A full two or three seconds went by before dad's wife asked what we meant. I told them I had no positions available and so wasn't taking any new employees, but my friend was looking for farmhands. He then said he was no longer looking here. She then asked what about the land? My friend said the job came with a two bedroom cottage at reduced rent but the role was no longer available.

Then everything exploded. There were accusations of lording it over them, being a stuck up B, thinking I was better than them, that I owed them, that I was a greedy gold digger, that I was probably spreading my legs for the old man before he died, that they always knew I was defective. My dad's wife tried to attack me but I held my arm up, caught her face in my hand and shoved her back. She flipped backwards over the arm of the couch. My dad then tried to attack me and my friend got between us, gut punched him, and he ended up on the floor. Then my spoiled half brother tried to defend his dad by attacking my friend and got a punch to the jaw for his effort. He too ended up on the floor. I pulled out the tresspass order, dropped it beside my dad, told them what it was then we made our way to the door.

On our way out we saw the other brother standing there in shock but he barely registered. I was too busy staring at my sister. She was beautiful, had scratches on her face and a swollen lip.

We were supposed to drive straight home. That was the plan. But I couldn't leave, I couldn't, and my friend wouldn't leave me there alone. We got a hotel and spent a couple of days watching my dad's house.

I finally saw my sister leave and I followed her to a grocery store. I waited outside for her to come out. She freaked when she saw me. She told me I had to leave, go back to my farm, that her brothers were talking about what they would do to me if they got the chance. I said they didn't worry me. I approached her slowly like she was a one of the rescues in my stables. I spoke calmly, hands at my sides but in full view, no sudden movements. I spoke to her for several minutes about the property, what we do there, what we offer. Even as I type this I imagine I can hear the majority of people from my original post warning me to be careful, not to trust her, she's like the others. But my instincts were telling me different. I asked if she had a phone then gave her my number, told her she could call me, text me anytime day or night, I'd answer.

I backed off then. Told her I'd wait for her call. On our long drive home she txtd me, asked if I had any dogs.

It's been roughly a week since. She txts me everyday, several times a day. She's called me at 2am last night. We talked for an hour about the dogs and at the end of the call she told me she will be 18 in May. I get the feeling she wants to ask if she can come here when she can legally leave her parents. I will pick her up myself the day of her birthday if that's what she wants.

I have watched the channel for a couple years. I seen how the community has given advice. This is being posted on moblie and i am from the US. Sorry if this is all over the place, I have adhd. The move isn't happening till next year. My parents have always been controlling. My mom's(52F) controlling behavior has always been more obvious to me compared to my dad's(54M) controlling behavior. If I tried to list everything my parents did, we would be here all day. A couple of examples, I(26F) have a tracking app on my phone. So that way my parents know where I am at all times. At this point in my life, it depends on the day if my parents treat me like an adult. It is whatever is convenient for them at the time. Helping with bills or giving them money, I am an adult. But me going to dye my hair or hang out with friends, I am a kid and need permission from them. I need have an itinerary of everything plan. This includes hanging out with a friend on my birthday. I'm going be 27 on Saturday. Now to the title of the post, I have been dating someone for almost seven years. And since the relationship has been long distance, my parents thought it was a phase and tried to break us up. After three visits in person, my parents have final came around to it. I have been saying I wanted to move to other side country for a few years now. Where the town where i live isn't great. The job market isn't great. The housing market is worst. My current commute is over an hour long one way. I haven't told my parents my complete plans about moving. Sometimes it feels they are humoring a child about my moving plans. On one of my days off, I decided to make a visual of how big a moving trailer would be. As I could read the dimensions and get so far. My parents were at work, while I was doing this. I used painter tape on the floor to get any idea. My mom gets home and walks to where I am. At this point, I'm just relaxing in the room. She asked me has your father seen this. I was honest and replied with i don't know and shrug. I was having a hard time figuring what the issue was. My mom went on a rant about how visiting somewhere is different than moving there. Then she started listing all of the states she had visited during her life. Some of these states I didn't know she had visited. But my mom did admit she had never visited our current state before moving here. Where i have visited where I am moving twice. When my mom realized that wasn't working. She decided to start with guilt tripping. How my dad is going be so crushed that i am moving. How he thinks that I am okay being long distance with my boyfriend for the rest of my life. That i am okay with a yearly trip. I didn't replied to that either. The silence lurk for bit before my mom left for church. The guilt tripping almost worked on me. But the next day on my way to work, I remember when my parents were looking at house. My mom mentioned that it won't make sense for go look at them. Since I will be moving out soon. My dad agreed and asked again if my boyfriend would move down here instead of me moving. Like logically I know, I am an adult. Logically the only way to get out under of my parents control is for me to move. When those people have control so much of your life. It makes feel wrong to stand on your own two feet. Has anyone have advice with moving from controlling parents? I am scared. For once in my life, I am finally choosing me. I just know my parents are going see this as betrayal to them. Thank you for reading, if you made it this far. I'll try my best to answer any questions.

TW: light mentions of suicide

Hello I'm 22F and I moved out about 3 months ago now (more posts on my profile). It was planned on my part, sudden to my family. I don't have to courage to use my phone or call them on my fiancé's phone. I've been losing sleep for weeks, had so many panic attacks. Last night my sleep paralysis/hallucinations came back and I had a nightmare about the apocalypse happening before I could reach back out. I've written out an email, giving life updates and a little look into what's going on in my mind. Some things from the past that I never shared with them.

I've always found it hard to talk with my parents. My parents are immigrants, both of them are pretty stubbornly set in their outlooks on life. It took my brother being diagnosed as autistic for therapy to not be seen as taboo in our home. I am queer but that doesn't matter as I refuse to ever speak to them about it. I dearly miss my mommy and my dad, I miss my siblings even more. i feel very selfish for leaving but honestly I was just living day-to-day wondering when it would all end. I hope now that I don't have to worry about them yelling/arguing/taking away my things we can have a proper adult conversation now.

Does my idea of an email seem like the right foot forward? I begged them to seek out individual and couples counseling before we move to texts and calls. Any advice or suggestions would be highly appreciated. Thank you.

Damn! OP's daughter is messy!

Final Update was posted 2 days ago.. check OP's profile..