u/mildlyinvestedatbest

TL;DR: I’m 24F and 7 months pregnant. After announcing my pregnancy, years of toxic family dynamics finally came to a head. My sister repeatedly tried to insert herself into my pregnancy and joked that she’d have to “get pregnant to steal my spotlight.” She became pregnant shortly afterward. When I confronted my parents about their lack of support and their habit of minimizing my feelings, they dismissed me and continued talking about me behind my back. I’ve now cut all three of them off, and they say I’m the one who “tore the family apart.”

For context, my parents are extremely dysfunctional, emotionally immature, and have severe hoarding issues. My sister has always been controlling and competitive, but I maintained a relationship with her because I wanted to be involved in my niece’s life.

There’s a lot of history, but one relevant example is that when I was planning my wedding, 2 years ago, my sister became pregnant. I told her we were having a child-free wedding and she could stay home if attending wasn’t feasible. She took it extremely personally, repeatedly harassed me throughout her pregnancy, accused me of being selfish, and ultimately brought the… premature, newborn baby anyway. She spent much of my wedding experience making things about herself and her baby and told me I was selfish because I said I just wanted to have the spotlight for this one day. Overall, my wedding really sucked behind the scenes because of this drama and I cried multiple times that day. I just wanted to celebrate with my husband and the whole day was about catering to her.

When I found out I was pregnant, this year, she was actually the second person I called. Almost immediately, she wanted to control my pregnancy milestones — baby shower, gender reveal, telling my parents, etc. I set boundaries and she got angry.

During our last actual conversation, she said:
“I guess I’m going to have to get pregnant to steal your spotlight.” Directly mocking me for the wedding stuff. Given our history, I hung up.

Meanwhile, my dad barely acknowledged my pregnancy. He had a minimal reaction when we told them at 5 weeks pregnant. My mom was excited and checked in occasionally, but neither really showed much true interest outside of Mom really wanting to post it online. My dad’s only calls were basically to yell at me about things he was missing from his hoarding pile, and was accusing me of throwing things away over a YEAR ago. Then he’d hang up.

Around 8-9 weeks pregnant, I finally called my mom and spent 30+ minutes explaining how hurt I was by the lack of support, the constant minimization, and the complete lack of accountability in our family. She minimized everything and acted like she didn’t understand what I was saying. My dad was listening but refused to speak to me.

I told them that I needed accountability and that if they couldn’t have an honest conversation with me, I was done.
My sister found out about the conversation through my parents, lashed out at me for “cutting off family,” and I blocked her.

A few weeks later, my mom told me my sister was pregnant.
The timing was extremely suspicious to me given her previous comment, and apparently she conceived on the first try. I obviously can’t prove she got pregnant specifically to compete with me, but the timing was upsetting.

My parents were thrilled about her pregnancy and continued largely ignoring mine. Eventually, around 5.5 months pregnant, I had lunch with my parents because my mom begged to see me and talk about how pregnancy was going. First time seeing them since about 7 weeks pregnant. In 1.5 hours, they asked me maybe two questions about baby’s name and due date. The rest of the meal was spent discussing their lives and my husband politely holding conversation while I sat there, almost silently.

At the end, my mom told me I needed to talk to my sister. I explained why I wasn’t ready and why I was hurt. Instead of addressing any of that, they told me my sister was “high risk” and that I needed to support her or I’d regret it.
I’m also high risk. I didn’t tell them because they didn’t really ask about me at all. I left crying. They just walked away and did not hug or really say goodbye to me either.

The next day, I told them how hurtful their behavior had been, in separate messages. (See last pic for what I said to dad). They didn’t respond. My mom continued texting me like everything was normal, while my dad completely ignored me.

Then, around 25 weeks, I found out my dad had been talking about me behind my back to my brother and portraying me as the villain. My parents had also told my sister about my theory regarding her pregnancy.

She exploded in the family group chat, along with her husband, accusing me of essentially wishing bad things on her pregnancy and emphasizing that she had conceived “in one try.” It was extremely self-righteous and manipulative.
At this point, I’ve had enough.

I’m now 7 months pregnant. I told my dad that my child won’t know him, that I don’t feel like I know him anymore, and that I don’t want a relationship with him. He didn’t respond… again. My mom still occasionally contacts me and guilt trips me, especially about baby items and opportunities to save face and show up to the shower - since she very obviously has not been sharing/showing off my pregnancy on her Facebook… and you can tell that how people perceive her and her life socially is really the only thing that matters to her.

My parents and sister insist that I tore the family apart.
But I feel like I finally stopped participating in a family dynamic where I’m expected to tolerate hurtful behavior, have my feelings minimized, and then be blamed for reacting. I feel like I’ve had to be harsh bordering on hateful to get my point across which, not my best moments in these texts tbh, but the torment and manipulation has driven me over the edge of being polite or neutral. They are much more hateful in person too, especially my dad.

I guess I’m wondering if I am overreacting to any of these things and if the benefits of cutting them off will truly outweigh the possible guilt of me/my child losing those relationships? TIA…