'AITA for burning my mom's diaries and letters as 'catharsis' instead of giving them to my siblings?'

"AITA for burning my mom's diaries, letters and writings, because I don't want anything to do with her, instead of giving them to my siblings?"

You can probably guess that I had a strained relationship with my mother. She had an affair while married to my dad, and she ended up leaving my dad for her affair partner. My dad was a good man before the affair, but he took it hard and allowed it to destroy him. I was left to play son and parent to him while my mother started a new family.

It was hard to watch her play mom to her new children and pretend like I didn't exist. I might occasionally get a call from her, but she was so busy raising her new kids that she didn't have time for me. It was also hard to understand why those kids had so much more than me (we were poor) and why she was okay with that.

As I got older (teens) she did try to reestablish a relationship with me, but I wasn't interested. She was still trying to mend fences when she died last year, but I will at least give her credit for trying. She tried very hard to have a relationship with me, but my heart was too hardened for that to be possible.

One of the things she left for me was her diaries from the time she was a teenager. She also left me some letters she had kept over the years and some writings. Her hope was that I would read them and get to know her better. She wasn't expecting me to forgive her, but it was her way of trying to make up for the years when we had little contact.

My siblings knew about this and asked if they could make copies once I was done with them. I didn't promise them anything. Those diaries sat in my study/home office for many months. I didn't want to read them, but I felt like I needed to do something.

It was a friend of mine that suggested I burn them as a catharsis, which is what I decided to do. I went over to his place one weekend and we burned all of it. He was right. It did make me feel better. I feel like I now can be done with her forever.

When my siblings found out about it they were...upset. They told me that I had no right to do it and if I didn't want the diaries I should have given them away, but I told them that they were mine to do with as I pleased and I had every right to burn them if I wanted.

My wife said she agreed with them and thought my decision was spiteful. She said she felt like I might have even wanted to do it so my siblings could not have the diaries as a way of punishing them. She also feels like it could have been an opportunity for healing as a family that is now lost. My wife bases her opinions on the fact that I didn't discuss my plan with which she thinks is because I knew she'd urge me not to do it.

I don't agree with her take. I did this because I felt like this is what I needed to do to move on from this situation. But AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

[deleted] said:

YTA. If you didn’t want them, her other children, who they’d have held sentimental value for, should have had them. This was a really selfish thing to do which hurt your siblings and nobody else.

greenseraphima said:

"It was a friend of mine that suggested I burn them as a catharsis, which is what I decided to do." Catharsis? Nope. You did that out of anger and spite. YTA

russkayastudentka said:

YTA. You're trying to get off on technicalities because "they were yours" and "you didn't promise them anything." You knew they wanted them. They weren't personal private letters just to you. You could have made them copies and burned your set. You could have given them to your siblings and then gone no contact forever. I think you did it to spite your mom and siblings.

Amadai said:

I'm going to get downvoted to hell here but as someone whose mother did the same NTA. They lost nothing. You lost a lot. I did forgive my mother and now we have a half ass relationship 30 years later. If you feel better then it's your life.

OP responded:

That is actually one of the biggest issues we've have over the years. Because she was a great mother to them, they can't understand how she could be so bad to me. They have always done a lot to justify her behavior.

I am not saying I have always been the good guy or made the right choices, but I think if they were better able to understand our relationship and how much she hurt me they would have been able to at least understand some of my decisions.

Order66-Cody said:

Unpopular NTA. At the end of the day u were the one she hurt and gave u all her stuff to try to heal that pain. If you felt better burning them, then ur mom was able to help u heal. WHICH WAS THE POINT OF GIVING U HER STUFF. I wish u did scan them and give ur half sibs the copies but u are not TA for not doing it. They had their mom for their whole life, you didn't.

etotheipminusoneequa said:

Going against the grain here, I think NTA. Your mom made her choices and paid for the consequences. Those consequences now extended to her kids when she left OP the diaries. OP is perfectly entitled to do whatever he wants with them, that was the choice his mom made. And his half-sibling aren’t entitled to anything. They can ask, and he can say no. Might suck for them but you don’t owe them anything.

Dontevenbothermymind said:

How old are you? Sounds like a 13-yo thing to do, but you're talking of a wife..

OP responded:

I'm in my 30s.

tlcb84 said:

YTA and I think you'll probably regret the spiteful FU mom later on. She may have been shitty but as you get older you're going to have questions and think about how dumb that was.

OP responded:

I do have those doubts. I don't remember exactly what it was, but for my 16th birthday she wrote out a long list of things she loved about me and put it in a frame. I ripped that up and threw it in the trash, and there have been times where I wished I didn't. It was actually a really nice thought, and she even did drawings on it too.

pnkrckr625 said:

NTA. She left you to start a new family. From what you say it was almost as though you became an afterthought in her new little life. Therapy is probably a good idea; but at the end of the day they had her everyday and you did not. You owe them nothing. Your "inheritance" is yours to do with as you please.

Maybe one day you might regret not reading them but that's a bridge for you to cross when you come to it. You owe no one an explanation for your catharsis. Everyone heals in different ways.

OP responded:

I was definitely an afterthought. I wasn't even a thought really.