u/PirateDry4992

So here’s the situation.

My mother is elderly and lives in my home country in South America. I live in the US, and I needed someone I trusted to accompany her during the international trip because she gets overwhelmed with airports, immigration, connections, luggage, etc.

A friend of mine agreed to help bring her here.

Because she was doing me this huge favor, I decided to fully cover EVERYTHING.

And I mean EVERYTHING!

I paid for:

• both of their international plane tickets
• all luggage fees
• airport lounges
• meals during travel
• buses/transportation
• an Airbnb before the flight so they could rest and freshen up
• literally any travel expense that came up

On top of that, while my mom stayed with me for 2 weeks, I ALSO paid for my friend to fly to Miami so she could visit her sister and have her own little vacation while waiting to fly back home with my mom.

Again: airfare covered.

She arrived with my mom, stayed at our house one night, flew to Miami for her personal trip, came back 2 weeks later, stayed another night with us, and then flew home with my mom.

Now here’s where I started getting annoyed:

During one of the airport stops on the way back, my mom didn’t want food. My friend DID want food, but apparently didn’t want to spend her own money on her own meal… so she asked my mom for MY credit card (the one I had given my mom for travel expenses) to pay for her food.

That already rubbed me the wrong way because… seriously? After all of this, you can’t pay for your own sandwich at the airport?

But today I woke up to a text from her saying:

“Hey, can you reimburse me for the Ubers I paid to go to and from the airport for my Miami trip?”

HER Miami trip. The one I already paid flights for.

And I don’t know why but that was my breaking point. It suddenly felt like no matter how much I covered, she still wanted to squeeze every last possible expense out of me.

Now I’m sitting here feeling incredibly irritated and honestly kind of used.

AITAH for being pissed off about this and wanting to confront her?

EDIT: FORGOT to add a very important detail: Mom's trip was arranged around my friend's and her sister's availability of dates.... Mom would come when my friend would have free time to take a vacation to the USA. The friend also came here and created content for her instagram and everything. I didn't hire her! I asked when would she be available to take a vacation to the usa so my mother would be able to come with to visit me.
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TL;DR: I paid for a friend to escort my elderly mother from South America to the US...covered international flights, meals, lounges, luggage, Airbnbs, transport, and even a side trip to Miami for her personal vacation. After all that, she still used my credit card for her own airport meal and then texted asking me to reimburse her Uber rides to/from the airport for HER Miami trip. Now I’m pissed and feeling used. AITAH?

I’m sorry if this is long. If anyone takes the time to read it, I really appreciate it.

I think I need to start with some background.

I grew up in South America and my childhood had a very strong sense of shame attached to it. We were poor. My mom was extremely frugal …sometimes to the point that it affected me socially. Looking back now, I understand she didn’t really have a choice. She was doing what she could.

But as a kid, it was hard.

I wore hand-me-down clothes and shoes.

I never had birthday parties.

Sometimes she wouldn’t buy required school materials and told me to borrow from classmates.

She even arranged with the school principal to let me attend without the proper uniform, so I was the only kid dressed differently.

I would cry out of shame constantly. One time we had secret Santa at school and it was required for me to participate in so she got me a bar of soap to gift my secrets Santa. I handed the gift crying to the person and said I’m so sorry. Also gave my own gift to him as an apology and to make it up for mine.

I stood out. And because of that, I was an easy target for bullying.

There were many situations like this growing up. Too many to list here.

On top of all that, I’m also gay, so there was already this built-in feeling of not belonging anywhere.

Fast forward about 30 years.

I moved to the U.S. I now have two master’s degrees and a PhD. I work for NASA. I’m married to my husband, who is the love of my life. I’ve done a lot of work to heal and build a life I’m proud of.

But here’s the problem.

My mom still lives alone back home, and I feel a lot of guilt about that. So I try to do nice things for her. I take her on trips. Right now she’s visiting us here in the U.S.

And somehow… every time I spend more than a few hours with her, I get extremely angry and impatient.

Like right now I’m literally sitting on my bathroom floor crying because I feel so frustrated and I don’t even fully understand why I’m so angry all the time.

She’s not a bad person. She’s actually very kind.

But something about being around her triggers me constantly. Even small things that would be totally normal to other people make me feel irritated or defensive almost immediately. Sometimes it honestly feels like we are two completely different people who aren’t even related. I grew as a person and she still have old woman behaviors that is rooted in her origins of being poor.

And then I feel terrible for feeling this way.

I don’t want to be angry at her. I don’t want to feel like this.

Has anyone else experienced something like this with a parent?

What is this reaction? And what can I do about it?