u/TopicEducational6913

This is my (30, F) first time posting on Reddit so please be kind. It’s difficult to decide where to start especially because if I were to include everything- this might take days to read. So, i’ll start with the smaller things that others have argued against in favor of my mother. Growing up, I was always told that my mom loved me but “in her own way”. My way would have been supporting me, saying she loves me, saying she’s proud of me, hugging me, etc. Her way was judging me, making fun of my hair or makeup, laughing at me for missing spots on my legs the first time I ever shaved (not that she ever showed me how), and denying that any of my personal issues were valid or mattered in any way.
When i was in fourth grade i was told by my parents that they were getting a divorce because my mom doesn’t love my dad anymore. At 10 years old my dad decided that he could talk to me like a friend and i was given all the details of their failed marriage and infidelities on both sides. They didn’t get divorced until about 4 years after all of that. Mom immediately brought around her “new” boyfriend, (found out later they had been together for the entirety of her marriage to my dad- 14 years) and when my sister and i protested that we were uncomfortable with a stranger moving in with us she asked us, “don’t you guys want me to be happy?” okay narcissist.

Let’s fast forward five years, i’m 19 and my sister is 13, mom and boyfriend have a son about 5 at the time, and they have planned a trip with a bunch of their friends to mexico. and my sister and i actually get to go this time. night two of this vacation and i order myself an alcoholic beverage, this is exciting to me because at 19 in america i cannot legally drink but in mexico i can. I do not know my limits or have any real experience drinking. stepdad and his best friend and i are sitting at the outdoor bar chatting and they keep buying me more drinks and shots. i am essentially drinking at the pace of two full grown men as a nineteen year old petite girl. this is when i start having black spots in my memory. and where it gets very hard for me to type this.

memory 1- we are in the discotheque and i am dancing with a confidence never felt before as i’ve never been drunk before
memory 2- still dancing but now moms boyfriend is dancing with me and is too close for comfort and even touching my ass
memory 3- my bandeaux top is off, my chest is fully out, and boyfriends friend leaves the club leaving me with only boyfriend. neither man has decided to cover me up, stop getting me drinks, or in any way protect me.
memory 4- i am outside of mine and my sisters hotel room screaming for her to
let me in and moms boyfriend is behind me. i am on all fours.
memory 5- waking up i notice my underwear are on inside out. i remember the previous night. to this day i do not know if the assault escalated to r\\\*pe and i thank my brain for that protection. i pour out all of my antidepressants and tylenol knowing that i cannot go on with my life after my mothers boyfriend felt me up touched me everywhere and potentially r\\\*ped me.

i tell my mom what happened. she tells me i am lying.
“what do i possibly have to gain from lying about this? if you don’t believe me then go ask your fucking boyfriend!” she does. they both come back to my room and boyfriend is in tears. he claims he doesn’t remember anything but he’s sorry. she tells me i should not have drank as much as i did. she fully believes that it is my fault and i am the only one in the wrong. she gathers all of my pills and leaves the room.

one year later i am sitting on a beach in florida watching them say their i do’s.

three years later i am calling 911 after my drunk “mother” attempts to bring little brother upstairs to bed but is so drunk she misses a step and they both come crashing down the flight of stairs. i can still hear the thuds. brother is profusely bleeding out of his head and i see red. i scream at mom and stepdad as they drunkenly tell me that he is just fine and they just need to put him to bed. are you fucking kidding me? putting a small boy BLEEDING FROM HIS HEAD to bed? i call the police. stepdad speaks to police with sharpies penises on his face that mom and friend drew on him when he was passed out on the couch before the incident. brother is taken to hospital and given six stitches. mom kicks me and sister out that night. we leave. she later attempts to gas light us that they were not that drunk and brother would have been just fine without the ambulance.

three years after that i am living with my fiancé who we’ll call E (a genuinely incredible man whom i have loved since we were 14) and we are about to give birth to our first born miracle daughter. fiance had testicular cancer and after beating it was told he would most likely never be able to have children. plot twist, we have two beautiful girls now. :) we are only allowed one person at a time in the delivery room and i have chosen E’s mother J. she has taken better care of me and cared to actually know me more than my mother ever has. i also feel infinitely more comfortable with her seeing all the bits and jits of my ladydom than my own mother. however, my mother has decided that she needs and deserves to be there for our daughters birth. we do not want her there. i tell her i have the max amount of people there. she comes anyway. J is kind enough to leave to let mother into the room. at this point i have been in labor for close to 30 hours. i am exhausted, scared, and in so much pain. she is the last person i want to be forced in a room with. my nurse is an angel in scrubs and can see my discomfort and decides to tell my mom that i really need to rest and visitors should respect that and leave. hours later i get a call from my sister telling me that mom is extremely drunk and blaming me for her almost getting a DUI because she was so heartbroken that i made her leave the hospital and all she wanted to do was be there for me and she drives drunk to a store to buy things for my baby. i do not care. when our girl finally comes, after an emergency c-section and just truly the scariest moments of my life, mother shows up the next day to meet her. she does not ask me how the birth went, does not tell me she’s proud of me, does not even make eye contact with me.

a year after our daughter is born, E and I have been given promotions at our jobs and offered the opportunity to move 2.5 hours north to run things up there. we jump at the opportunity and E’s parents who would have nothing keeping them there aside from us and our baby girl, decide they want to move with us. we end up buying a house big enough for all of us and live in a multi-generational household wherein our girls get to be with their grandparents daily and it’s a really beautiful situation we’ve got here. a month after moving in i have been bombarded with texts and calls from mother asking when she and stepdad can come visit. i finally tell her everything i’ve kept inside for years. i tell her how much she hurt me by choosing a man over her own daughter. how becoming a mother to my own daughter has made things clearer than ever and i would never treat my girl the way she has always treated me. how i can’t “agree to disagree” that brother needed stitches. how my contact with stepdad after mexico was a trauma response and fear of disrupting the peace. how i think it would be best to no longer speak. two weeks later she responds that she refuses to apologize for anything that i brought up to her and the past needs to be left in the past. i don’t reply. i block.

for the next year and a half the only communication i have with her is through my father, whom she randomly will call and cry and scream about how hurt she is and how much longer do i need to do this to her. a month ago she had an asthma induced medical emergency and ended up on a ventilator. ultimately she was completely fine but when it was iffy i called her and kept conversation light, giving minor life updates and basically for my own peace of mind telling her i love her just in case it’s the last time we speak. like i said, she is okay now. but she is taking my reaching out as an olive branch and now has gone back to asking me when we can facetime, when can i send pictures of my daughters, etc. i feel happier without her in my life. i would never trust her or her husband around my children. so, am i the asshole if i block her again and go back to being no contact?

This is my (30, F) first time posting on Reddit so please be kind. It’s difficult to decide where to start especially because if I were to include everything- this might take days to read. So, i’ll start with the smaller things that others have argued against in favor of my mother. Growing up, I was always told that my mom loved me but “in her own way”. My way would have been supporting me, saying she loves me, saying she’s proud of me, hugging me, etc. Her way was judging me, making fun of my hair or makeup, laughing at me for missing spots on my legs the first time I ever shaved (not that she ever showed me how), and denying that any of my personal issues were valid or mattered in any way.
When i was in fourth grade i was told by my parents that they were getting a divorce because my mom doesn’t love my dad anymore. At 10 years old my dad decided that he could talk to me like a friend and i was given all the details of their failed marriage and infidelities on both sides. They didn’t get divorced until about 4 years after all of that. Mom immediately brought around her “new” boyfriend, (found out later they had been together for the entirety of her marriage to my dad- 14 years) and when my sister and i protested that we were uncomfortable with a stranger moving in with us she asked us, “don’t you guys want me to be happy?” okay narcissist.

Let’s fast forward five years, i’m 19 and my sister is 13, mom and boyfriend have a son about 5 at the time, and they have planned a trip with a bunch of their friends to mexico. and my sister and i actually get to go this time. night two of this vacation and i order myself an alcoholic beverage, this is exciting to me because at 19 in america i cannot legally drink but in mexico i can. I do not know my limits or have any real experience drinking. stepdad and his best friend and i are sitting at the outdoor bar chatting and they keep buying me more drinks and shots. i am essentially drinking at the pace of two full grown men as a nineteen year old petite girl. this is when i start having black spots in my memory. and where it gets very hard for me to type this.

memory 1- we are in the discotheque and i am dancing with a confidence never felt before as i’ve never been drunk before
memory 2- still dancing but now moms boyfriend is dancing with me and is too close for comfort and even touching my ass
memory 3- my bandeaux top is off, my chest is fully out, and boyfriends friend leaves the club leaving me with only boyfriend. neither man has decided to cover me up, stop getting me drinks, or in any way protect me.
memory 4- i am outside of mine and my sisters hotel room screaming for her to
let me in and moms boyfriend is behind me. i am on all fours.
memory 5- waking up i notice my underwear are on inside out. i remember the previous night. to this day i do not know if the assault escalated to r\*pe and i thank my brain for that protection. i pour out all of my antidepressants and tylenol knowing that i cannot go on with my life after my mothers boyfriend felt me up touched me everywhere and potentially r\*ped me.

i tell my mom what happened. she tells me i am lying.
“what do i possibly have to gain from lying about this? if you don’t believe me then go ask your fucking boyfriend!” she does. they both come back to my room and boyfriend is in tears. he claims he doesn’t remember anything but he’s sorry. she tells me i should not have drank as much as i did. she fully believes that it is my fault and i am the only one in the wrong. she gathers all of my pills and leaves the room.

one year later i am sitting on a beach in florida watching them say their i do’s.

three years later i am calling 911 after my drunk “mother” attempts to bring little brother upstairs to bed but is so drunk she misses a step and they both come crashing down the flight of stairs. i can still hear the thuds. brother is profusely bleeding out of his head and i see red. i scream at mom and stepdad as they drunkenly tell me that he is just fine and they just need to put him to bed. are you fucking kidding me? putting a small boy BLEEDING FROM HIS HEAD to bed? i call the police. stepdad speaks to police with sharpies penises on his face that mom and friend drew on him when he was passed out on the couch before the incident. brother is taken to hospital and given six stitches. mom kicks me and sister out that night. we leave. she later attempts to gas light us that they were not that drunk and brother would have been just fine without the ambulance.

three years after that i am living with my fiancé who we’ll call E (a genuinely incredible man whom i have loved since we were 14) and we are about to give birth to our first born miracle daughter. fiance had testicular cancer and after beating it was told he would most likely never be able to have children. plot twist, we have two beautiful girls now. :) we are only allowed one person at a time in the delivery room and i have chosen E’s mother J. she has taken better care of me and cared to actually know me more than my mother ever has. i also feel infinitely more comfortable with her seeing all the bits and jits of my ladydom than my own mother. however, my mother has decided that she needs and deserves to be there for our daughters birth. we do not want her there. i tell her i have the max amount of people there. she comes anyway. J is kind enough to leave to let mother into the room. at this point i have been in labor for close to 30 hours. i am exhausted, scared, and in so much pain. she is the last person i want to be forced in a room with. my nurse is an angel in scrubs and can see my discomfort and decides to tell my mom that i really need to rest and visitors should respect that and leave. hours later i get a call from my sister telling me that mom is extremely drunk and blaming me for her almost getting a DUI because she was so heartbroken that i made her leave the hospital and all she wanted to do was be there for me and she drives drunk to a store to buy things for my baby. i do not care. when our girl finally comes, after an emergency c-section and just truly the scariest moments of my life, mother shows up the next day to meet her. she does not ask me how the birth went, does not tell me she’s proud of me, does not even make eye contact with me.

a year after our daughter is born, E and I have been given promotions at our jobs and offered the opportunity to move 2.5 hours north to run things up there. we jump at the opportunity and E’s parents who would have nothing keeping them there aside from us and our baby girl, decide they want to move with us. we end up buying a house big enough for all of us and live in a multi-generational household wherein our girls get to be with their grandparents daily and it’s a really beautiful situation we’ve got here. a month after moving in i have been bombarded with texts and calls from mother asking when she and stepdad can come visit. i finally tell her everything i’ve kept inside for years. i tell her how much she hurt me by choosing a man over her own daughter. how becoming a mother to my own daughter has made things clearer than ever and i would never treat my girl the way she has always treated me. how i can’t “agree to disagree” that brother needed stitches. how my contact with stepdad after mexico was a trauma response and fear of disrupting the peace. how i think it would be best to no longer speak. two weeks later she responds that she refuses to apologize for anything that i brought up to her and the past needs to be left in the past. i don’t reply. i block.

for the next year and a half the only communication i have with her is through my father, whom she randomly will call and cry and scream about how hurt she is and how much longer do i need to do this to her. a month ago she had an asthma induced medical emergency and ended up on a ventilator. ultimately she was completely fine but when it was iffy i called her and kept conversation light, giving minor life updates and basically for my own peace of mind telling her i love her just in case it’s the last time we speak. like i said, she is okay now. but she is taking my reaching out as an olive branch and now has gone back to asking me when we can facetime, when can i send pictures of my daughters, etc. i feel happier without her in my life. i would never trust her or her husband around my children. so, am i the asshole if i block her again and go back to being no contact?