Woman brings middle school bully as date to Thanksgiving, mom says 'sit in the back.'
When this woman thinks her mom is being too harsh about her Thanksgiving date, she asks Reddit:
'AITA for bringing my SO to my mom’s thanksgiving dinner despite knowing my mom doesn’t like her?'
so the backstory, in 5th-7th grade there was this girl named Sarah that made my life absolute hell to the point where my mom would still use her as an example of the stereotypical personification of a spoiled child for years, needless to say my family hated her, and about 5 months ago I moved back my hometown because I wanted to live near my dar who is getting pretty old and I want to help him and my mom out.
then by coincidence I ran into Sarah at an event and we started talking about school and other things, she’s now a med school graduate and has done pretty well for herself, she apologized for everythat happend back then.
We basically laughed at the dumb cringeworthy middle school drama and we ended up spending a night together and after some time I took her out on a proper date and it was amazing, needless to say im really happy and into her, can’t say the same for my mom though.
my mom has been calling her a snake and making snarky remarks whenever I bring her up, saying that people don’t change and she’s gonna double cross me eventually I just have to wait and see.
I got into an argument with my mom over this because no matter how much I tell her that im happy in this new relationship she keeps doing this and it was starting to piss me off.
Then one time I went out to dinner with my parents, and my mom said I should 'be with one of my more attractive friends.' And that I haven't given any other girl in my hometown a real chance so I don't know whats out there.
then yesterday (thanksgiving) I invited Sarah to join us as my sister also invited her fiance as well.
My mom was overall nasty and rude to her the whole time and kept giving both me and her dirty looks and being mean in small ways.
for example my mom told her to sit in the back instead of pulling another chair up to the table and she made snarky comments about how Sarah was dressed more then once. She said ' I don't want her in my house.'
after awhile Sarah took me to the back of the house and asked me if we could leave and I did, I said goodbye to everyone and so did Sarah including my mom.
mom called me afterwards and we argued about it, she blames everything on Sarah like always, but genuinely she hasn’t done anything bad and I told my mom she should apologize and she said she won’t, my mom is just being childish and I don’t get it. AITA?
Let's find out.
idp1640 writes:
ESH. I think it’s great that you’ve found a way to forgive Sarah, but it doesn’t mean your mom has to.
It’s not easy for any parent to know or see that someone is mistreating their kid, whether it be an adult or another kid. I’m sure it hurt your mom to know that someone was bullying you for ~2 years and she couldn’t do much about it.
Yeah, Sarah was a kid, but at that age, kids know right from wrong and on some level she knew she was bullying you. It seems reasonable of her to distrust Sarah.
However, the way she treated Sarah was outrageous. She doesn’t need to be making snarky comments about Sarah to you, nor does she need to be openly rude to Sarah’s face.
So your mom is definitely an AH in that regard. If your mom is unwilling to move on, then the least she could do is keep her negative thoughts to herself, because it means a lot to you.
YTA for bringing Sarah to an event where you knew she was unwanted. Even if you think your mom is being ridiculous, it’s her house, and she hasn’t been shy about not liking Sarah for most of your life.
Wouldn’t it have been reasonable to suspect she wouldn’t appreciate Sarah’s presence, and thus take it out on Sarah?
raven1331 writes:
ESH. Sarah apologized to you for her hurtful past behaviour…..but did she ever apologize to your mom? Sarah hurt your mom too.
Your mom had to see her child hurt when you were living through “hell” as you said because of this person, and your mom helped you through it. That is hard. Now she is still worried you’ll be hurt again.
Yes people can change, but sometimes awful people stay awful. I think if Sarah sits down with your mom and explains how bad she feels about her past behaviour and apologizes your mom will be able to move on.
urmomquf writes:
OKAY LOOK, I don't want to say it but I do think YTA.
But not because you're genuinely an asshole, you don't seem like one.
What you did here, however, was to essentially set your partner up to be abused by your mother.
Imagine how that must have felt for Sarah.
You did this in rebellion against your mother and I fuckin respect that, hon. I really do, but you put Sarah in an incredibly uncomfortable position while doing absolutely nothing to change your mother's mind.
Your mother isn't going to change her opinion because she is presented with new information on this subject because she has a fixed idea of what she thinks of Sarah.
You're not going to change her mind. If she does change, it has to come from her.
All you can do is set a boundary with your mother. Every time she says something mean about Sarah? You up and leave.
Until she can behave like a decent person without Sarah even being present, you need to keep Sarah away from that woman.