'AITA for not being overly excited that my SIL is pregnant after my miscarriage?' UPDATED 2X

Grief doesn't disappear over night, and hiding it when you're triggered can be difficult, and even impossible at times.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she was wrong for not being overly excited about her SIL's pregnancy announcement. She wrote:

"AITA for not being overly excited that my SIL is pregnant?"

So I (23 F) and my husband (23 M) got married in November. We are both happy and live in the house we bought before we got married. We are not currently trying to have a baby but we aren’t necessarily opposed to getting pregnant. We have been talking about it for about a year and we both agree that we don't want wait a super long time to start trying.

Last month I had felt off and had super bad morning sickness. So I decided to take a pregnancy test and it was positive. I was super excited and so was my husband. I made a dr. Appointment and when I got the bloodwork back, it was determined that I had a chemical pregnancy. Editor's note: A chemical pregnancy is a very early miscarriage that happens within the first five weeks of pregnancy.

I had gotten myself so worked up that I was heartbroken. We decided not to tell our families because my mother is the kind of person that thinks you should be married for at least a year before trying to have kids. So I really didn't want to get into it. A few weeks later, we had to go to the bank to get my mom's name off my bank account (its been that way since I was 17) and put my husband's name on it.

My mom offered to pick us up since she would be driving past our house to get to the bank. We agreed and didn't think anything of it. On the car ride there, my mom started talking about our finances. She said that we spend too much money and need to start budgeting.

She says this pretty much every time we see her but this time she was getting onto my husband saying that he needs to do a better job at supporting me and suggesting that he get a second job.

(Side note, he just had started a new job after being let go from a job where he made $26/hr for reasons that were not his fault.) I decided that I was not going to put up with this and it soon turned into a screaming match between me and my mom. Once it calmed down, she said “I know about you OBGYN appointment. I hope you aren’t pregnant.“

I immediately burst into tears and said “I was but now I'm not”. He response was “good. It breaks my heart to think of you having a baby right now. You are too immature and not financially stable enough.” The rest of the car ride was silent. Now, this past weekend, by brother (25 M) and his wife (24 F) who have been married for almost 3 years, announced their pregnancy and my mom was beyond excited.

She was screaming, jumping up and down saying “my first grandbaby!” I acted the best I could and hugged them both and congratulated them. I excused myself to the bathroom when everyone was talking. No one was paying attention to me so I didn't think anything of it. I collected myself and went back to join the party. Everyone was still excited and happy I assumed everything was fine.

The next day, my mom calls me and proceeded to say how rude I was and that I made everyone uncomfortable and therefore stealing their spotlight. I didn't even know what to say so I just said I'm sorry and hung up. I haven't said anything to anyone since but my mom is still texting me demanding I apologize to my brother and SIL. So am I the A-hole?

Redditors had a lot to say.

EducationalState4374 wrote:

OMG! You're an adult. Your husband is an adult. Your mother doesn't get to have a say in your and your husband's important life decisions! She only gets to give advice and that's even ONLY WHEN ASKED! You need to have a conversation with your mom about how now that you are trying to build your life together with your husband, she needs to let you do just that.

Tell her you'll ask for advice when you need help, but let you do this on your own first. Honestly, she doesn't sound like the kind of person who would understand/listen to this, but I don't know you or your mom, so I'm trying very hard not to say "cut her off!" NTA, OP!

Edit: I had a miscarriage at 6 weeks (chromosomal abnormality, something incredibly common) and I grieved so much. I was excited and overjoyed about the pregnancy just like you were. When that's gone, of course we grieve! I just can't understand why your mother can't see that you were hurting and why she can't have empathy and compassion. Like someone said, she's a bully!

OP responded:

I don't want to cut her off because she is my mother. My husband even said to cut her off. But I like this idea better.

FanKey30 wrote:

How did she know about the doctor visit?

OP responded:

She was stalking my bank account.

sickandopinionated wrote:

Why the hell did you let her on your account? She sounds toxic as f*ck!

OP responded:

It started as a student account when I was 17 and we just changed it. I wanted to change it sooner but i was living at home and basically walking on eggshells. So now she has zero access.

RefrigeratorRich9007 wrote:

OP, you don't have your own vehicle and you only just removed your mother from your bank accounts. Perhaps you have more room to grow before starting a family. However, your mother is exhausting. I hope you get therapy and learn how to deal with people like that. NTA. You didn't do anything wrong.

OP responded:

I do have my own vehicle and the bank account wasn’t an issue until recently. I don't think no contact is going to happen anytime soon but definitely LC. And that's been something that I've been thinking about a lot. Right now, I'm still trying to process everything. She wasn’t always like this and I'm praying that over time everything will calm down.

My husband thinks that she's just upset because he last child or “baby” if you will, is leaving her. But at the same time, I have always been the sibling that no one really pays attention to. My brother has always been the favorite and not just with my mom. That’s something I can live with. It doesn’t bother me. It just throwing me off with how she’s been acting since I got engaged and married.

After receiving lots of feedback, OP jumped on with a small update/clarification.

Edit: My husband was at the announcement. According to him, no one even turned around to see I wasn’t there. They were all talking to each other. My mom is the only one who noticed so there's that.

The comments kept rolling in.

ThisInvestment7483 wrote:

OP, misery loves company. Your mom isn't happy with herself so she's choosing to take you down with her. She knows that you'll take whatever bs she throws at you, without question...because she's your mother. And that's betrayal. That's not something that you just live with just because someone gave birth to you.

She's not worried about losing her last child, she's worried about losing her footstool. Have you ever considered that she puts you down in order to make herself feel better? Once you got engaged and married...you pulled that footstool out from under her. Before your husband stepped into your life, who in your household protected you and gave you an escape?

StatisticianSea2200 wrote:

YTA only because your brother and SIL were not the cause of your mood but you have at least 2 more trimesters to get auntie excited. Your real question is "am I TA my mother says I am?" And the answer is no. You're wonderful, you're smart, you're loveable! You will be a wonderful mom when you decide to be one. What was your grandma like?

Did she treat your mom the same way? Is this a generational thing that you have to break? My mom did this to me. She loved me she just didn't love me emotionally.

When I figured out that my mom didn't know any better because her mom left 6 (of 9) of her children to live on the other side of the country during a time where siblings did not live with single fathers and were usually split between relatives or went to orphanages (my mom's dad did keep all 6 kids).

Anyway, I started to pity my mom and then I found that the things she'd say didn't sting as much. It's not perfect but it will help when you are at a get together with her and other relatives.

OP responded:

It’s definitely a generational thing but mainly in a “don't bother people your problems, no one cares.” Way. My grandparents are amazing. But my whole family is SUPER religious. And I'm not.

So they have always favored my brother over me. Usually I just get a “why cant you be like SIL and my brother” and I just ignore it and walk away. But I think this hurt extra because I know my mom will never be that excited for me.

capmanor1755 wrote:

NTA but it's time to put tremendous distance between you and your mom. No more communication about jobs, money, health status- nothing. You decide how much you want to see her. Might be once a month, might be holidays, might be never.

neoncactusfields wrote:

NTA - you are still grieving from your own news that you weren’t pregnant. Also, your Mom has no idea why you excused yourself to the bathroom. For all she knows, you had something for breakfast that upset your stomach.

The bigger issue here is that your mom is a Grade A bully. She’s over involved in your life and super critical and controlling. You would be much happier if you went low contact with her for awhile or maybe even permanently.

Almost a year later, OP jumped on with a major update.

After everything happened, I decided to take a step back and stop talking to my family unless it was in a large group gathering like Christmas or something. I really think that helped greatly. I got all of my financial information figured out and made sure i had her taken off of everything.

The space was very beneficial and I think it helped me grow a backbone. Fast forward, I found out that i was expecting our rainbow baby back in September and my husband and I were over the moon. It was definitely hard at first but we couldn’t be more excited. We decided that we were going to keep everything a secret for a little while to figure out how to tell everyone.

That worked out well because about a month later my nephew was born, so that helped get in idea about my mom’s attitude and emotions. It seemed like something had changed. She still made a few comments here and there but it was nothing too bad. Later me and my husband talked and decided that we would tell everyone at Thanksgiving.

That way, if anyone had anything negative to say, EVERYONE would hear it. So we came up with cute was to tell both of our families.

I had made a onesie that said “the turkey is not the only thing in the oven”, and held it up during the family picture so when you looked at the picture you could see it.

Surprisingly, everyone was excited! Including my mother. She instantly started crying and gave me and my husband huge hugs. It was a huge relief since i had been stressed out about it since I found out. But of course I stayed skeptical since she was in front of the whole family.

But to my surprise, she called me the next day telling me that she is so happy for us and asking how im feeling and how far along I am and telling me that if we ever need anything to call her. Which to me, is something ive never heard. Going forward I continued to keep my distance, but i still talked to her when she called. Which she called A LOT!

She called me every few days asking how I'm feeling since she knew I was having a hard time eating because of morning sickness (more like all day sickness). That really meant a lot to me. And she still does that. I'm now 22 weeks pregnant with our baby girl and finally feeling better. We painted the nursery this weekend and she was over the moon when I asked if she wanted to help.

And she has already offered to watch our dog and cats when the baby comes so that my husband and I can have some time to bond with her. I will continue to place boundaries but it's nice to have a mom that actually makes sure im okay and offers help. Thank you everyone for the support and I can’t wait to meet our baby girl.

Redditors jumped on with questions and comments.

SyntiumWasTaken wrote:

Congratulations on your baby!

Did your mother ever apologize for her vile comments?

OP responded:

No, but I honestly don’t even want to bring it up.

Ok_Tip_513 wrote:

Girl you should have made your mother apologize. This is just slept under the rug and nothing at all is resolved. Don’t be surprised when she does it again, you’ve allowed it.

sarahhxmargaret wrote:

Yay! Great update! I hope this positivity and support continues! Your mom just sounds like one of those people who is really set in her ways and needed a kick upside the head to knock some sense into her. Congrats!

wybo76 wrote:

I love updates like this. Congratulations.

Hopefully, OP's mom can keep up the nice streak when the baby girl is born.