AITAH for breaking contact with my mother?
(29M)This story is going to take long to explain.
My mother sent me to live with my father when I was 14, her excuse was that I was getting very rebellious, I was just a normal teen with some school performance issues due to multiple school changes in a very short period, a new acquired taste for heavy metal, not wanting to be Christian, and wanting to spend more time with my father and grandparents.
She spent my whole childhood using me and my brother as a bargaining chip to get more allowance money from my father all my childhood, and at that moment she was forbidding us to see him just for the same reason, I insisted that I wanted to see my family and that it was what was agreed upon after their divorce.
She then decided to send us both me and my brother to live with him, a year later we went back to live with her, She sold the house my father bought for us, and we moved to another state, things went bad pretty soon, I dropped out of middle school for a brief time and managed to get my degree doing self study, this and the constant fighting made me decide to go back with my father, she was pushing me to work because she ran out of money.
My father welcomed me with open arms, my brother followed me two months later, we started high school, and finished with good grades without changing schools, then I started college and graduated, I did friendships that have lasted all these years, during those years my contact with my mother was very unstable, sometimes we talked good for a few months, then she started asking me for money, often inventing a very catastrophic situation, of course I didn’t have much, I was just a student, her response to this was calling me a bad son, we broke contact, then we communicated again, this went on all of my high school and college years.
Even after this I invited her to both my high school graduation party and my college graduation, She refused both telling me She wouldn’t go if my father and grandparents were going, but of course they were, in the end they were the ones supporting me in my studies.
Even after this, I tried keeping contact, after college I managed to get a job in finance, which didn’t pay much, but I started sending her some money every month, bought her a fridge when she needed one, and kept visiting her when possible, things went well for two years.
When I was 24, in the midst of the pandemic, she started saying that the neighborhood she lived in was very unsafe, and started asking me for more money, I told her I wasn’t earning enough to even pay rent for myself, and to hold tight, during that time she started dating an old friend of hers, this made me happy for her, and I thought this would bring her some peace.
She moved in with her boyfriend, and then one day shit hit the fan, she told me things were hard and she needed to move out as soon as possible, I explained her that I was very short in money after getting sick and spending a lot in doctors and meds, She then told one of her friends we never supported her and the woman called me urging me to support my mother, even when I already did, I sent my mother the last 20 dollars I had to finish the month, she told me this was not enough, and I told her it was all I had, a few hours later she called me to say she exaggerated things and that she was OK, here I knew she was lying again.
So I decided I was done, I was not going to allow this anymore, a few weeks after I got better she texted me asking if I was better now, I decided not to reply, and She didn’t write anymore, I understood that silence and moved on.
Five years passed, I stumbled through most of my 20’s, went to therapy for long periods, but then, finally at 29, I started getting a grip on things, I moved into a better paying job, started a very loving and healthy relationship, and things kept going smoothly, one day I received a text from her, it just said “good afternoon X”, I felt the mail was even colder than corporate mails, and I knew she was up to something, I told my dad and my brother about the text, my brother kept contact with her all these years, they told me how she was asking for money because she needed to leave her boyfriend because he was cheating her, I didn’t believe a word, my father insisted me, as many times before that she was my mother and I needed to sort things out with her, I told him his intentions were good but I had enough of her a long time ago, and the people I’m supporting are the ones that helped me when I needed it most, those being him and my grandparents.
Knowing her intentions I just wrote her she was a parasite, a manipulator, and a liar, and to never contact me again, then blocked her.