Stepmom refuses to take 9 yo stepson on vacation. AITA? MAJOR UPDATE 1 YEAR LATER

When this stepmom is fed up with her stepson, she asks the internet:

"AITA because I (38F) don't want to take my stepson (9) on vacation? (1 year later New Update)?"

My husband (39) and I have been married for 5 years. We have two children of our own, both girls, aged 5 and 2. I also have a son (10) from a previous marriage, but I was widowed.

My husband's ex is barely involved in stepson's life at all. They got divorced when stepson was 2, and his ex wanted "a fresh start" so my husband did the decent selfless thing and had complete custody of their son, even though he'd wanted shared custody.

I got a bonus at work and I really want to go on vacation with just MY family JUST once. We've been on family vacations all together lots of times.

But just once I want to spend MY money going on vacation where I'm not looking after someone else's kid. I want stepson to stay with his mom while we go on vacation. My husband sees my point of view and is okay with it. I don't think I'm being at all unreasonable.

My mom found out what I was planning and says I'm being a complete AH. These are the reasons she says I could be the AH:

My mom says that if stepson's mom isn't properly involved in his life, I should be even more involved in his life to compensate (I think this is a completely unfair expectation).

2. She also says that I'm being a hypocrite taking my son, but I think that's totally different because my son DOESN'T HAVE ANOTHER PARENT. I'm all he's got.

If stepson's mom won't take him just for once then obviously he'll come on vacation with us. But I don't think I'm the AH to ask if I can have a vacation with my own family just one time. It's not like I hate stepson or something, he's a nice kid, he's just not mine. Am I the AH?

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

tahtacoe writes:

N T A, I see you want a vacation with just your family. I totally get it, meaning you don't see him as part of your family, how beautiful for you to think that and not expect to be called out as an evil no hearted step parent.

And such a loving husband to think the same about his son. Such logic, so genius, for someone with no common sense or humanity. Id say go pound sand but that's too good for you being the ah and think you'll get support.

misskty writes:

ESH, except your stepson and your children. Be honest with yourself and admit you and your husband are as bad as you SS's mother and want to get rid of him. It's not his fault if he was born in a shitty family nor he asked to.

You knew from the start that your husband had full costudy so he would be a package deal. So, dont try to picture yourself and your husband as good parents, when you clearly are not. I pray that your stepson has good grandparents or other relatives in his lifes that he can rely on, because I can only see a future full of pain living with people like you.

grave5 wrties:

YTA and so is your husband, your husband isn’t just an AH but also a horrible father for exposing his son to someone like you.

Your 10 year old shouldn’t be allowed to go on this vacation either because he isn’t your husbands son. so if stepson misses out, then so should your son. It’s only fair if we go off your stupid messed up logic.

I feel sorry for this poor kid, I bet he is left out of a lot of things. Toys? Treats? Food? God knows what else. You honestly disgust me….

fleet0 writes:

Wow, YTA. Also, just evil! So you and husband each married both bringing to the marriage a child from a previous marriage/relationship.

Let’s twist your story. Your husband gets a HUGE bonus. One that can take his family on a dream vacation. He tells you that he wants ONLY his wife and HIS children.

That you need to find a place where your son from your first marriage to stay while you are gone. I don’t care if you are widowed, he is not his son by your standards.

Let’s take the knife and twist it, your son hears how he cannot go because he is not “family”. How do you think a child would receive this message? He is pretty much abandoned by his mother, and his evil stepmother is also telling him that you are rejecting him as well.

Because of your actions, let’s go to the future. Your stepson is getting married. He tells his dad that he can come but you, the evil stepmother, are not invited and not allowed to attend. You are also banned from his children’s lives. Why, you will ask. Remember this day. It all started and began with YOU.

I’m betting he has his own stories he can share about you and your hatred for him. And shame on your husband for allowing this let alone staying with a woman who will never accept his child.

And how do I know this? I’m an adult now but grew up with stepmom like you. Step fathers as well. I don’t call them my parents, just AHs

Edit: Thank you for the awards for my comments. The greater reward is for the OP to grow up and become a human that has a heart.

trivkid writes:

YTA. As much as I want to say "this cannot be real, no one can be that much of an asshole" I know people who grew up with evil step monsters like this.

He IS your kid. You married someone with a child, a YOUNG child. He doesn't have a mother who wants him around and now he gets to watch his siblings get treated like gold.

You don't have to like him. You don't have to consider him your son. You don't have to enjoy being around him... But he should never know this. He should never suspect, for a second, that the adults in his life find him annoying. That is what it means to marry someone with children.

It doesn't sound like he is doing anything other than existing in your home. You are acting like Petunia Dursley.

speakdelish writes:

YTA x 10,000 and your husband is an AH x 10,500 for agreeing with you. I can completely understand you not having the same feelings for your stepson as you do for your biokids, but what you are proposing is downright CRUEL.

All that little boy will see is his entire family goes on vacation and he gets left out. There's no amount of explaining to him or rationalizing to him that would make up for that kind of gut-level heartbreak and pain.

I can't begin to fathom why your husband would in any way be okay with this. A decent father would have shut you down 2 seconds after you suggested excluding your stepson. I feel so sorry for this poor kid.

owlcard writes:

YTA, big time. I'm sorry, I realize how much sacrifice is involved in parenting a stepchild but, that's what you signed up for. It seems mean and unnecessary to say your stepson has another parent (compared to your son's loss) when you explain stepson's mother gave him up and has no custody (and presumably little if any involvement in his life).

Think about this from his perspective - YOU want to take YOUR 'real' family on vacation and from his, but to him it would be HIS family vacationing without him while he stays with a parent who didn't want him. That's terribly sad and frankly seems like it could cause irrevocable harm.

Maybe there is some room for you to get a break from the responsibilities associated with his care, but your view that it's 'looking after someone else's kid' is toxic and sad - he is your husband's bio child and your stepchild, just as your son is your bio child and your husband's step.

Would you ever tolerate your husband saying the things you've said, that he wants to take HIS real family - excluding your son - on a big trip? Come on now.

Update 1:

After a couple hours of replies, I decided to show this to my husband. We sat down and had a really long talk about it. He told me he's never been comfortable with my attitude to stepson, but didn't know how to say to me before.

I don't want to be a bad person, I just never thought of stepchildren being "yours". I don't think it would be easy for anyone to accept this level of criticism, but all your replies have shown me I have a LOT of work to do.

As many of you suggested (and so did my husband) I intend to see a therapist to help me with that. As I said, I don't hate stepson in any way, I have never been deliberately cruel to him, I've just always thought of him as my husband's child. But I realize my mindset needs to change.

So I'm going to start working on that. I want my family to be the best it can be, and I need to accept that it includes my stepson.

I understand that now, and I'm going to start seeing a therapist to become a better person (we've also talked about maybe having family therapy too). I've also made up with my mom, and she is 100% behind the changes I want to make in my life.

Update 2 (1 year later):

In July 2023, I wrote a post on the AITA subreddit about taking a family vacation without my (step)son.

I wasn't given permission to post an update to my original post on the subreddit, because the replies I got were too heated, and the mods advised me to post an update to my profile instead.

When I made my original post, I was told by literally thousands of people that I was TA, and it helped me see how wrong I was and had been for the last 5 years.

I booked a therapy appointment the following week and started working through my issues. My own father died when I was less than a year old. I don't even remember him. My mother married another man when I was 7, but he left when I was 11 and I never saw him again.

It hurt me in a way I'd never processed before. I loved him, he'd been my dad, and suddenly he was just gone. That taught me that step-relatives weren't part of your family. They weren't forever.

I always thought I was doing better than my ex-stepdad. Because I provided for my (step)son and I stayed in his life, I was better than my ex-stepdad. But I made my (step)son feel the way my ex-stepdad made me feel when he left me and I regret it so much.

A little while after I started therapy, we started family therapy too. The therapist helped me explain to my (step)son the way I felt about step-relatives and why I'd always behaved the way I did.

He cried and said he was afraid that I just didn't like him, and we had the first proper talk we'd ever had. I told him that wasn't true, and I had just been a bad step-parent like my ex-stepdad had been to me.

My relationship with my (step)son is so much better now. We spend time together just the two of us, and except for this post, I never call him, or think of him as my stepson. He's my son. I accept now that he'll always be my son, that unlike my ex-stepdad, he's forever. Even if something happens between me and his dad, he'll still be my son.

Most of all, he always called me by my first name, but last Thanksgiving, he asked to start calling me mom. It made me so happy. I told him that I loved him and he said he loved me too. Since then, he always just calls me mom.

A lot of people also talked about the ways my husband needed to improve, to be more assertive and protective of his children.

He knows that. It's very easy to see the problems when they're presented to you all at once in an online post, but when things happen day to day, it's a lot harder to realise how issues are building up. But he's working hard, like we both are, to try to make our family the happiest it can be.

We both know we still have to keep working at this. I'm still in therapy and we're still having family therapy. But I'm grateful to work at it. I'm grateful to have all my children.

It's very hard for me to write this, to think about the way things were before I started therapy. It makes me cry everytime I think about it.

But I want to thank you all. I wrote my original post just looking for validation for my own point of view, and I never thought the internet could change my life this way. But it has. I feel like for the first time, we're truly a family.