'AITA for telling my mom she's delusional think that my stepbrother would change magically?'
AITA for telling my mom she was the naive one who expected her husband's son to magically change?
Active_Confection_97 writes:
I (22M) was born deaf and was never a candidate for hearing aids. I was taught ASL, and my mom and others in my family learned ASL too. This is the only way I could ever speak or be spoken to. I don't lip-read or anything like that.
My dad wasn't in my life ever. When I was 9, my mom started dating Tom. Tom had a 10-year-old son, Cole, at the time. It was pretty clear from the start that Cole was unenthusiastic about us and had no interest in learning ASL to speak to me.
Tom and my mom decided we should all take "family" ASL classes and learn together in a fun environment, which the classes they found were. Cole had to be dragged, and he didn't take part willingly or eagerly. If anything, he'd intentionally do things wrong and make himself do worse than he would have naturally so he was asked less.
He did eventually take them seriously. My mom believed it was because he had really bonded with me and now cared about communicating with me. But that wasn't it. He had a new kid in school he wanted to talk to who was also deaf.
The new guy was his motivation for learning. Cole and I never talked enough for him to be motivated to learn, and he made lots of mistakes when talking to me, but I noticed his ASL was perfect with his friend.
It always felt weird living with someone who didn't want me around. My mom and Tom believed we'd blend eventually. I think there was some fight when Cole turned 17 and my mom and Tom wanted to go away for a weekend.
I remember everyone looked so tense one morning, and I was told I'd be going to stay with my grandparents for the weekend since it wasn't a great idea to leave me home alone when I couldn't hear if something was wrong.
My assumption is they wanted Cole to keep an eye on me and make sure I was okay, and he let them know he really didn't care what happened to me .Cole and I haven't seen each other since he moved out. My mom has asked a few times if we've met up or whatever, and I'm always honest and say no.
She finally asked me two or three weeks ago if things were good between Cole and me, and I told her she had to have picked up on the fact he never wanted us around and wasn't interested in things being good between him and me. She said she really believed that had changed once we got closer and brought up how he took ASL more seriously.
I told her it was clearly for his friend, not me. She was clearly shocked but brought it up again over the weekend, and she told me she thought I was very naive to think Cole didn't learn ASL for both of us and that him being resistant at first didn't mean he didn't grow to love me.
I told her she was the naive one to expect him to magically change out of nowhere. I told her if she wanted to be married to Tom that badly, it was fine. But she should accept it wasn't so perfect for me, and her claiming I'm naive about Cole shows how much she wants to overlook. Mom was not cool with what I said to her. She told me I didn't need to hurt her feelings. AITA?
Here are the top comments:
Bargle-Nawdle-Zouss says:
I cannot stand wishful thinking by parents who refuse to accept the evidence right in front of their eyes, never mind the direct words of their child(ren). You told her the truth. It's her problem if her feelings are hurt. That's just her deflecting her guilt about the whole situation back onto you. NTA.
GirlDad2023_ says:
It's sad how so many parents think that when they re-marry, the kids from both partners are going to magically become best friends and act like most brothers and sisters. My mom has (so far) been married 4 times and there are so many former step brothers and sisters.
I can't even remember their names let alone be friends with. Live your life, let your mom think whatever she needs to so she can feel better about her decisions. You are definitely NTA.
Accomplished-Gap2170 says:
NTA- This couldn’t have been news to her. I am sure she saw how you two interacted and had a general idea of how he felt about you. She just decided to ignore it.
TheVaneja says:
NTA if the truth hurts her feelings that's because she f^#$ed up, not because you told her.
What do you think?