'AITA for not posting any family photos with my stepson as per his mom's request?' UPDATED

"AITA for not posting family pictures with my stepson?"

I, 31F have a stepson that is 11M. I have been in his life since he was two and he lives with us part-time. That being said, I have a really great relationship with his mom. Ever since she got out a few years ago, we went to 50/50 custody almost immediately. We have agreed on everything and respected each other's wishes.

One of her wishes was that she no longer wanted my husband or I to post pictures of stepson online. Not a big deal, we know there are creepers out there.Fast forward to Easter time, I had some professional pictures of us as a family (myself, hubby, stepson, and baby son).

I don't ever spend money on professional photos, but I got a great groupon and since the holiday was a few weeks away, I figured why not? About 95% of the pictures were altogether. However, I got a few photos of just myself, my hubby, and baby so I could get a new profile picture for social media.

Anyway, we get the finished (edited) photos a few weeks later and I print a bunch! I give family photos to everyone including MIL+FIL, aunts/uncles, and my stepson's mother. She loved the photos and even hung one in her house.

After that, I downloaded the digital ones and posted the pics of myself, hubby, and baby. I was very careful not to put any pictures of stepson on social media (they all look alike in a folder), per his mother's request. About a day after I had posted it, I got a really aggressive text message from stepson's mom.

She said she didn't appreciate the fact I had posted "family pictures" and made her son feel bad. I texted back and said I didn't understand. She didn't want his pictures on social media, also how would he know about it when he isn't on social media? It has been over 24 hours and she hasn't messaged me back, but I took down the profile picture anyway. Did I cross some sort of line? AITA?

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

hyper12 said:

NTA, she's upset because you honored her wishes. There's no winning with some people.

TemptingPenguin369 said:

NTA. Sounds like someone forgot she asked you to do exactly what you did! Not at all surprised she hasn't responded yet.

[deleted] said:

NTA. Her silence is very telling - she apparently forgot that she made that request and is probably embarrassed for lashing out. Hopefully she calms down and apologizes (though a lot of people choose to double-down rather than admit fault).

Ok_Possibility5715 said:

NTA and she is not texting back because she knows she is in the wrong. I would probably also talk to your stepson about it why you didn't post pictures with him but make sure to have one maybe displayed at home and let him know that everyone got pictures within included (grandparents etc)

She later shared this update:

Thank you all very much for your posts and suggestions, I did take few to heart. My stepson and his mother Facetimed a bit ago and let me know what was going on. My stepson loves phone games, but per his mom's rules he does not have his own phone. He does use both her and our phones to play Angry Birds or one of those other games when he is bored.

He had apparently been logging on to mom's Facebook for awhile because she is only friends with family and he can see his cousins (on both sides), etc. He had seen me posting pictures of myself and my husband/baby for a long time. But he didn't think anything of it, because he was at his mom's house when he was looking at these pictures...of course he couldn't be in them!

However, this time when he saw the professional photos, he recognized them. Every single family member had gotten photos and had told him he was so handsome and how he looked great with his brother. But the photos on social media he had never seen before, I hadn't printed any because they were never meant to be printed. He realized that he had been 'kicked out of the pictures' and was devastated.

Mom couldn't get the full story out of a sobbing 11 year old, but knew that it had to do with photos. Since he had recently been with us, she thought I had shown it to him and made him feel excluded. When I had replied with my questions, she investigated more. Once she figured out the whole situation, they did discuss her policy and he was very angry with her about it.

This whole thing had occurred over many hours and she never got back to me. They were both exhausted and just went to bed afterwards. She admitted she was embarrassed about basically causing the whole issue, but honestly I don't blame her. The policy that she put in place was many years ago, before baby was born.

I read what you all said about thinking about what he would have thought about that when he eventually grew up. I probably should have checked up with her to see if we could update the policy and then respect whatever she chose, but since he is only 11 I didn't think it mattered age-wise. After discussing it with mom, she has agreed that we can post pictures of him once he is 13.

He is happy since she was planning on 18. Things are all good with mom and we are going to continue to coparent as normal. Thank you all for your help and support.
As for some of the questions, I will just answer them here:

- No, there were not any pictures of him, my husband, and I alone because we were in an outdoor hiking area and could not leave the baby alone. My stepson did get a few pictures of him and my husband, those were some of the ones he received.

- No, I do not think she is still in love with my husband. She is married with a little girl.
- As for whether or not my son 'noticed' he is not in pictures, he is in a ton of photos. Those photos just don't go on Facebook. They are given to his mom or on the digital album that has them on a slideshow. Trust me, he isn't neglected lol.