u/voidberrylady

So, I was venting to my mom about a relationship problem I was having, and she was REAL TIME texting my boyfriend what I said and “confronting” him while I was sitting there talking to her (this was super unnecessary for her to do. This was a chore argument; he was not beating me or abusing me).

My boyfriend called me in the middle of talking to her and told me what she was doing, so I left crying without speaking to her and I have not spoken to her since then. That was 4 days ago. Luckily me and my boyfriend had the talk about chores and are okay, but no thanks to her. He says she was probably trying to break us up, which makes sense because my mom is BIG into politics (she has no understanding of history or politics, but has multiple pictures of a certain living President in her house) and my boyfriend + his mom are publicly not the same party as my mom, and my mom recently got into a heated argument with my boyfriends mom on Facebook about politics.

I have not spoken to my mom since this incident, and honestly she wouldn’t be in my life at all (due to previous experiences) if it weren’t for my little sister. I love my sister very much. She has been texting me since this incident happened wanting me to bring her cookies (I bake), to go to the gym, and to just hang out, but she lives exclusively with our mom. Even before this incident, my mom would rarely let me take my sister anywhere. She would often agree in the moment but change her mind once I get there or once I call to confirm I’m about to head there (which I started doing bc my mom kept going back on her decision to let her hang with me).

I don’t know how to go about this. I don’t know if I should save face and “forgive” her just so I can see my sister. I don’t think I can tolerate looking at her or being around her. My mom can be super mean and pushy if she thinks she has you wrapped around her finger, so if we move on from this and she gets confrontational with me or begins to bully me, I don’t think I could bite my tongue anymore.

Edit: my sister is 14

I (23F) have always had a rocky relationship with my mom. I believe she is mentally ill, which has lead her to say and do some pretty despicable things in the past. It got a little better for me once I moved out at 18, but not from her changing, just the physical distance. All this to say, things are still pretty rocky.

I would have likely cut her off by now if it weren’t for my little sister, who is 14. Her dad tragically passed when we were younger, and it was hard for everyone, but especially her. My sister is attached to my mom at the hip and despite my mom’s cruel nature, my little sister seems to not let mom get under her skin as much. I like to joke that she is traumatizing mom back. However, I can attest I have not seen my mom being as cruel to my sister as she was to me (my mom literally begged me to kms and showed me multiple ways to kms when I was 16, and shortly after that she killed my pets and blamed it on me. So the bar is literally in hell).

All of this to say, I worry if I block my mom that I will lose access to my little sister who I love very much, so I want to make sure I’m not making a mistake. I worry about my sister not having someone to rely on if my mom goes off the deep end at her.

Today, I was having a rough day and I asked my sister if she wanted ice cream. Those plans turned into lunch with my mom, but it’s what my sister wanted so I obliged. When I got there, it ended up just being me and my mom because my stepdad left and my sister went to take a shower. So me and my mom started talking about my day and I told her I was in a rough situation with my boyfriend. I told her about how I had been meaning to discuss a problem with him that we’ve had repeat issues with in the past (nothing crazy, just chores) and how I felt like I could not talk to him about it because he’s had bad reactions in the past. I told her that I hadn’t found a good time (last weekend we were on vacation for our anniversary, weekend before that he had a really rough week, weekend before that I had a really rough week, so on so forth) and how this weekend I was going to talk to him, but we both ended up with serious car troubles and he will be spending all weekend fixing our cars. I expressed I felt like things would blow up in my face so I wasn’t sure how to talk to him about this issue again.

Meanwhile, my mom is texting him the things I’m saying and confronting him. I’m talking to her and she is real time texting him. I find out because my boyfriend calls me mid sentence and asked me what my mom is talking about and told me some of the things she texted him (the texts from her were aggressive and confrontational). I looked up at my mom and said “you’ve been texting him?” And she said something I didn’t register and I told my boyfriend I’ll call and explain in a second, but that I was leaving my mom’s. He agreed, and so I left sobbing.

I called him after and we talked about it. Luckily we are okay, but he feels disrespected that I would talk about him in a negative light and I feel betrayed by my mom and embarrassed because I love my boyfriend very much and don’t want him to ever think I’m thinking negatively of him. It was supposed to be private and just to vent. I really didn’t mean it in a bad way, I just don’t have friends or anyone else to talk to and this issue has been building up inside me for years. I have spoken to my boyfriend about the issue on a handful of occasions, and I didn’t feel the issue was fixed and I was beginning to have built up emotions surrounding the issue that were affecting our relationship.

My mom continued to text and berate my boyfriend for over an hour after the incident. She blamed him for making me cry and for this situation. I asked my boyfriend to block her, and said that I would probably need to do the same.

My boyfriend is now asking me if I blocked her yet. I intend to because I don’t want to cause more of a rift between us, but I just worry this is too far if it means cutting contact with my little sister in the process. My mom has blocked me on her phone before and I worry about not being able to talk to her/ her not being able to talk to me if she needs me.

So, WIBTA if I block my mom on social media and text?