'AITA for telling my son to 'ghost' his mom after she stole his paychecks?'
"AITAH for telling my son that he could just ghost his mother?"
Ok-Visual-1265 writes:
I am 41 and male. My ex-wife, Maya, is 40. Our son, George, is 18. Maya and I got married early, and in all honesty, our marriage was a disaster. I hate to place all the blame on Maya, but virtually all of our problems stemmed from her inability to stop treating me like a walking ATM.
We separated when George was 14 and finalized our divorce when he was 16. We had 50/50 custody until he turned 18. When George was 16, he got his first job. A few paychecks later, he confided in me that Maya was taking half his earnings.
I was furious. When I confronted Maya about it, she said that he had to “pull his own weight,” and that if I didn’t like it, I could pay more child support. I knew that Maya would just take the extra child support and still continue collecting half of his paychecks.
George graduated high school this year, and he started going to college in September. When he moved away for college, I gave him a gift: all the money he earned from his part-time job that Maya took from him, plus a little extra to account for inflation and for just being my son. I had to do some napkin math, but I ended up giving him about $19,000 to do with as he pleased.
He bought a new Camaro pretty much immediately. When he drove it to Maya’s house, she noticed his new car and began barraging him with questions about how he could afford it.
George eventually told her that I gave him his “lost wages,” and Maya responded that that money would fall under his earnings for the past two years and, therefore, she was entitled to half. When he said he didn’t have any left, Maya tried to get him to sell the car so she could get her cut.
George came over to my house on the verge of tears. I sat him down and told him, “Listen, you’re 18. You can make your own decisions now. Your mother owes you nothing. You can make the decision to go no-contact with anyone you want, including her.”
He took me up on this, and it has been a month. He has basically ghosted her, other than two nights ago when he told her that he didn’t want to talk to her for the time being. He also opened up about my advice to him. Maya called me, shrieking about how I “ruined her relationship with her son” and that I went too far. Was I out of line here?
Here are the top rated comments:
IfIwerenyourshoes says:
NTA, text her and say. I didn’t ruin the relationship. You did by continuing to steal from him. Do better as a mother, and stop bothering him or me.
darkenough812 says:
NTA, she’s an abusive whacko.
wlfwrtr says:
NTA But you should also get him into therapy without it if anything happened to you don't know what kind of affect she'd have on his inheritance and any insurance policy that he is named beneficiary of. He may not have the strength to stand up to her on his own.
ExtremeAssistance595 says:
Absolutely NTA, you seem to be the only parent caring about his future. I hope you continue to be this supportive cause she seems like a nightmare.