'My mom admits she resents me for needing therapy when she started blending our family. AITA?'

"My mom admits she resents me for needing therapy when she started blending our family with her husband's and I told her it was her job to help her kid. AITA?"

My dad passed because of a seizure when I (17m) was 6. My mom and I were were there for the whole thing and it was traumatic.

Mom started dating again a year later but she didn't meet her husband until I was 9. They dated for something like 5 months before they started doing stuff with me and his kids. I struggled hard with him and his kids presence. For me the hardest parts were changing things so that we had time for them and including them in the family.

It bothered me worse when mom wanted my paternal relatives to get to know them and treat his kids like they were more grandkids and cousins. For me that showed in really weird ways. I wasn't sleeping good and having bad dreams, I was losing focus in school and after a while I would puke whenever we were supposed to spend time with them.

It wasn't intentional either but I would get so worked up I'd puke a ton. My mom talked to me about it and I got mad about her letting them take over our life and I told her I hated how much we saw them and I didn't want that and they weren't my family and they needed to stay away from dad's family and stuff like that.

Mom walked away and didn't address it for weeks. I don't know how long it was exactly but she was distant for weeks and then she said she had decided to send me to a therapist. I did a few sessions alone with the therapist and she included my mom in two and then went back to just me.

She spoke to mom a few times and gave me a heads up in advance and asked if it was okay to share things I had said. I was fine with that so she went ahead and did that. Over two years I talked about a lot of stuff with the therapist and with my mom. I did different kinds of homework and eventually mom moved in with her husband and married him.

She stopped trying to involve my stepsiblings in my dad's family and I stopped resenting them existing in our space at all. Mom agreed to doing 1:1 time with me and doing things to remember dad on his birthday and Father's Day but she never did those things.

I agreed to spend time with her husband's kids to try and get along better and I did for a while but I stopped after a few months. Those things meant we lived together without fighting but we didn't blend either. I accepted her husband and his kids were with us now and technically a part of the family but I didn't work on developing relationships with them individually.

For the last two years my mom has been open about resenting me because I needed therapy. She said she feels like it was a waste of time because we never blended. But she admits to resenting me for not just being happy for her and being an easy kid who was happy to have more family and embraced it without the added stress.

I ignored her when she said those things for a long time because her side of the family would address them and remind her I wasn't her and as a parent it was her job to make sure I was doing okay. The other night she got really resentful after one of her husband's kids said something about not really knowing me.

My mom asked me what she did to deserve the difficult kid and the kid who needed therapy and couldn't be happy that his mom found love again. She told me I delayed her relationship because she "had to do the right thing" and it didn't matter anyway because I stopped giving them a chance.

I told her she broke her promises to spend 1:1 time with me and make time for us to remember dad. She told me those were very different things and I was making excuses. I told her it was her job to help her kid and that resenting me for needing that help is crappy and to still resent me for it is even s#$%ier.

Mom told me that wasn't supposed to be my reaction and I'm supposed to feel bad for the stress I caused her and the delays to her finding happiness again.

AITA?

Here's what people had to say to OP:

Alarmed-Audience-407 wrote:

NTA. Your mom is not only the AH, but she is very selfish and delusional. You are the kid. She as the parent should have been the one to be more understanding of your feelings and not rushing into things. You can blend with your step family, but you can also keep your father's memory alive.

I am so sorry your mom has not been more supportive of you. Once you turn 18 I would distance myself from your mom. Until she can grow up. Why does her happiness and feelings matter than he own child? It's not fair. Good luck!

OP responded:

My mom thinks her happiness and feelings should've come first because of how traumatic dad's death was. My aunt and my grandpa pointed out it was traumatic for me too and she wasn't the only one who watched dad pass.

We both did. But mom thinks her feelings mattered more around that because she was older and knew what was happening. I wasn't so young it was scary but I didn't really understand it all either. That's still a huge trauma for me though.

repthe732 wrote:

NTA. It’s wild that she doesn’t understand that her breaking promises is why your relationship fell apart. It’s wild that she thinks therapy was a waste even though she never listened to the therapist. She wanted therapy to just be the therapist telling you to do whatever your mom said and the reality is that’s not how therapy works. Good therapists would never do that especially when the mom is being this crappy.

star_b_nettor wrote:

NTA. She should have been putting her child, who also went through the trauma of seeing their dad die, first. She should have been a parent instead of expecting you to be the adult. She has no right to be resentful when she didn't bother to care about anyone but herself.

What a self centered birth giver. She hasn't been a mom, she is a birth giver and required by the state care giver. And you're welcome to let her see there are other moms out there who have no use for her useless and worthless behavior.

I_wanna_be_anemone wrote:

I would honestly not be surprised if your mom had some kind of personality disorder. A lot of people have heard about Narcissistic personality disorder, but there’s a whole host of other PD’s that are just as insidious. Not trying to armchair diagnose, just suggesting you look up some resources online for children/relatives of people with a personality disorder to see if anything rings true.

If it does, then I really hope you’ll find some help because you cannot reason with someone with a PD the way you would anyone else. I stumbled across a support forum for siblings of people with a PD and so much sounded identical to my sibling's hurtful erratic behaviour.

Told our mom and she raised it with sisters therapist, sister was shortly diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder by a whole team who took the time to validate any info with the wider family/friends. People with personality disorders widely view the world as if the universe revolves around them.

They suffer main character syndrome and cannot comprehend when the attention isn’t on them at all times unless it’s a sub plot to enhance their tragic backstory. In my sisters case she can’t be reasoned with, she will literally make up delusions and be convinced they happened, verbally mistreat everyone around her, neglect her own kids…but to total strangers she can be the nicest most helpful person in the world.

Because she thrives on the attention. Most of the family has cut her off completely for her own sanity when they realised she was putting everyone against each other. She sabotages friend groups for no reason except for the thrill of drama then panics when it collapses or people realise she’s the source of lies.

You cannot treat my sister like a normal person, or hold her accountable the same way or she will spiral dangerously into threatening her own life or others with violence. Plus, nothing changes. What works is the grey rock technique and cutting her off. Things I’d never have known about without her diagnosis.

Again, I’m hoping like crazy that none of this will sound familiar, or useful to you. But in the event it does, know that it is not your fault. People with PD’s are so utterly convinced of their delusions that it can feel like they’re right and you’re wrong. You have done nothing wrong. You tried, your mom failed you. I’m so sorry. NTA.

Awesome_Forky wrote:

NTA. And the last paragraph made your mom one of the crappiest people alive. "You weren't supposed to react like that"? "You were supposed to feel bad"? Guilt tripping level 1000. Holy shit that is manipulative as hell.

All the other people here, including you and her side of the family, are right. She had a job and she messed up. And that's only on her and no one else. I hope you can distance yourself and move out there as soon as possible. I wouldn't want to live with a person like that.