After 10 Years of No Contact, My Family Invited Me to Visit My Sick Mom—What I Discovered

After 10 years of no contact, family reaches out to invite me to see my sick mom. What I discovered upon arriving left me horrified. I, a 32-year-old female, live with my husband, Jason, and son, Graham. They are my only immediate family. We’re still connected to my husband’s side of the family, but I went no contact with my mother’s side almost 10 years ago.

My mother gave birth to me when she was 15. I never got to meet my father. My mother was not physically or mentally ready to raise a child. Abortion was not an option for her because she openly condemned it as a sin. After birth, I was raised by my mother’s parents. So, I grew up with my mother like a younger sibling. My grandmother was a wonderful woman and she held me tight throughout the early years of my growth.

I have no complaints about my mother’s absence during these years. She was unprepared for a baby and when it popped out of her, she was confused about how to cope with it. The problems between my mother and me started when she moved out of her parents’ house. Firstly, I had no interest in moving away from my grandparents since they raised me.

My parental affection was towards them. The thought of staying away broke my heart. Secondly, my mother was a total stranger to me. We had rarely spent some quality time together. Her life was filled with friends, school, boyfriends, and other teenage stuff. I was not in her priorities, so that was almost like moving in with a stranger.

But my mother was adamant that to be independent, she had to move away from her parents. When I moved in with her, I saw all of my fears materializing before me. My mother had a job then, but her starting time was later than my school time. So on most days, I woke up early and got myself ready. Looking back now, I’m grateful for such experiences as they have made me self-sufficient.

When I was 15, my mother married again. Since she was very irregular at work, she had to change careers frequently. By her marriage, my mother and I were living more like roommates. There were days when we rarely met or talked, even though we stayed in the same apartment. The conditions didn’t improve after marriage.

I developed no close connection with her husband. I lived there for three more years and then moved out with my now husband Jason. We started dating while we were in high school. Jason knew how situations were at home. My mother’s behavior started to change when I moved out with Jason. She tried to enforce a familial bond that was missing in the first place.

She called me daily and visited us at least once a week. She gave us multiple invitations for dinner at her residence. She didn’t back off even though we often skipped her plans. I felt like she was trying to create the image of a good mother in front of Jason and her husband. 3 years later, Jason and I got engaged.

Around the same time, my mother got pregnant with a baby. It was her first pregnancy after me when her due date coincided. With the date we had planned for the wedding, she requested we delay our marriage by a month or two. I didn’t want to do it, but Jason wanted both our families to be present during the wedding. My mother also made my grandmother request I change the date, so I gave in.

She was struggling with high blood pressure issues throughout her pregnancy. During the eighth month, the BP issues got complicated and she suffered a miscarriage. My mother and her husband were devastated. I went to meet her in the hospital the next day. When I was in the hospital, she requested that I postpone the wedding due to her miscarriage.

The wedding was still 3 months away. She told me it would be cruel if I celebrated something soon while she was mourning. I decided against it in my mind, but didn’t show it outside. After reaching home, I shared it with Jason. He was ready to wait for my mother. But I realized that if we kept postponing our wedding for her convenience, she would manipulate us into living our life according to her terms.

So, I decided to go forward with the wedding. As a result, my grandmother was the only person present as a family for my wedding. This first incident made me think about cutting ties with my mother’s family. The few months after the wedding were peaceful for me, as my mother rarely visited. She called Jason to inquire about me so I didn’t have to manage her.

But when I got pregnant, our dynamics changed again. She began to frequent our apartment. She would stuff me with pregnancy care books and force me to read them. She would also lecture Jason on how to take care of me. She even showed a willingness to move to our apartment to take care of me, but we refused the offer. After the miscarriage, my mother and her husband moved to a new house.

Her husband had started using alcohol to cope with the loss. There was general unhappiness in their life. Even after a year of the miscarriage, they badly wanted a baby. But she was nearly 37 by now. During the beginning of my third trimester, my mother got pregnant again. There was hope again. Though there were not many complications during my pregnancy, my son was born prematurely.

I gave birth to him 4 weeks before the due date. People who have gone through it might know that the care demanded by a premature baby is much higher than the one born through standard delivery. My doctor advised me to ensure the baby is not exposed much to other people. He was strict about nobody kissing the baby. So whenever there were visitors in the hospital, Jason shared the doctor’s advice with them, but not with my mother.

When she first visited, she didn’t even wait for Jason to explain the baby’s condition. She went straight and touched him, then she kissed him. I was sleeping when Jason told her about the doctor’s advice. She retorted with a lame reply along the lines of my son and her showing the same jeans. This repeated once again when I was sleeping.

Jason entered our room to see that my mother was leaning over the kid in a position to kiss. He had always shown incredible patience to my mother, but this time he lost it. I woke up to him shouting at my mother. He immediately asked her to leave. He later narrated the whole incident to me. I knew my mother would do something like that, so I wasn’t surprised.

But Jason started getting calls from my mother’s husband and other family members blaming him for what he did. We were already going through so much. Instead of being supportive, they were waring against us. Now, when my mother made a post about the incident on Facebook, I decided to put an end to this. We waited a month to find a new place in the nearest city.

Jason got his transfer request sanctioned and we immediately moved out without letting anyone know except my grandmother. She was the only person I said goodbye to. This happened 10 years ago. During the first few years, my mother’s family made desperate attempts to establish a connection with me, but I talked only to my grandmother.

When they found my contact details on her phone, they tried to contact me again. So, I changed numbers, which ended the communication with my grandmother. So, I was surprised when Jason got a call from my mother’s best friend asking me to share my phone number. They told him that it was an emergency for my mother. He made sure that I was okay with it before sharing my number.

I learned from her that my mother had not been physically and mentally well. She didn’t elaborate much during the call, but she said my visit would be helpful. I never expected a call like this. Jason’s opinion was to visit my mother, but I was against it. In the next few days, I couldn’t sleep peacefully. My brain kept making up horrible scenarios about my mother.

Even if I was going, I didn’t want to bring Jason and my son. So, one sleepless night, I booked flight tickets to visit my mother. The scene that I saw was more horrific than any of the scenarios that I imagined. My mother had given birth to three children during the last 10 years. But over the years, her mental health began to deteriorate.

She started buying indoor pets for her house, stopped giving any attention to her kids. The pets were never fed or cleaned up. Her husband, though he was struggling with alcoholism, did most chores in the house and made sure that the children attended school. But two years back during the pandemic, he died suddenly due to health complications.

Since then, my mother has been staying at her house doing nothing. Her children have stopped attending school altogether. The school authorities are considering filing a case against her for educational negligence. Some of her pets have died. Others walk around the house everywhere. My mother rarely leaves her bedroom.

Her children stay up all night with her watching TV. Then they sleep through the day. My mother’s best friend had tried for a few weeks to get the children to school. She took a few days off from work to do this. But after she stopped, the children stopped going to school again. Her children had no social or communication skills.

They called me here to intervene somehow. My mother kept lying to them about everything. I visited the house when my mother was sleeping during the day. Her best friend had an extra key. I couldn’t stay there for a full minute without puking from the stench of piss. Immediately after coming out of the house, I called Jason and cried out loud.

I felt guilty for leaving her alone like that. I felt responsible for her condition. Am I the a-hole for going no contact with my mother, which may have triggered some mental illness in her? I tried to visit her while she was awake, but she denied my existence, saying she only had three kids. The condition of the kids is also prophetic.

I’m battling in my mind the urge to call CPS on her. After constantly trying for a week, my mother has given me some space. I couldn’t even recognize her at first. She’s mentally sick, but doesn’t take my advice to meet a doctor. She is in complete denial about everything. I communicated with Jason my plan to stay someplace close to my mother’s for a few weeks to take the children to school regularly. That’s my plan as of now.

I took the children regularly to school and brought them back. Her best friend and I tried to clean the place as much as possible, but the stench didn’t go away. I even gave my mother money to buy cigarettes. She had cut ties with my grandmother, blaming her for stealing my love and affection, so there’s nothing she can do here.

After doing this for 2 weeks, I asked my mother to continue taking the kids to school. But the last I checked, the kids were not in school continuously for the past 4 days. So today, I recognized that this requires an intervention from the side of the state. I had photos of her house in my gallery and more evidence. I didn’t ask anybody’s advice, but directly reported this to CPS.

It will be hard on my mother, but she left me with no choice. She has been notified about this. I feel like that’s the only option left now for the safety of the kids and the mental health of my mother. NTA. Your mother recovered from the trauma of turning a teenage mother very late. After that, she might have tried to enforce a relationship between you two, but the ways she used to establish that connection were regressive.

You did the right thing by going no contact. NTA. She might have experienced an impact when you left, but don’t blame yourself as the cause of this. Your mental health and your relationship with Jason, would have been put to the test if you had stayed. Good thing that you moved away. I, a 36-year-old female, am disabled and live with my father and my stepmother, both 66. We’ll call her Victoria.

My mother passed when I was seven, and my parents were married for 10 years before that happened. A year after my mother’s death, people started pushing my father to remarry, saying things like, “You need help with a special needs child, and a single man can’t raise a daughter, and that I needed a stable mother figure in my life.

” My dad resisted all this for over a year. Eventually though, he gave in and married Victoria, who has been obsessed with him since they were in high school. I hate her. We’ve never had a good relationship. She hates that I look like my mother, and she hates that I’m his only child. She hates that he only married her because of me.

And most days I think that she hates that I breathe. With my disability, I can’t drive and I move with a cane. On most days, I take a few extra seconds to process. Victoria calls me slow and in general just take a little longer to do things. This past Saturday, I was due at the library for my twice monthly DND session, and my dad was unfortunately stuck in an emergency call at work.

So, Victoria took me to the library. While I was leveling to take on Strad, she was spinning her own tail about what a good stepmom she was to the librarian. and a few other ladies. I ignored it, even though I was really wishing my bard was a barb so I could rage out. As everything was winding down, one of the ladies who had stopped to talk to her was saying about how my daughter should aspire to be as good a stepmother as Victoria was.

After nearly 5 hours of listening to her version of our lives, I just snorted and said, “No one should aspire to be a stepmother who destroys her stepdaughter’s crossstitch, steals her predecessor’s jewelry, and constantly belittles her stepkids.” What I didn’t know was that my dad, not knowing that Victoria had stayed, had gotten home and knowing I would need picking up, came in the Baptist as I let loose.

Victoria is now saying that I caused the big fight they had, that I am a horrible person, that she has tried everything she can think of to make me like her, and that I just want my father to be alone. The gossip spread to her and dad’s church, and dad’s been sleeping on the couch. I didn’t lie, and I do hate her, but I see dad sleeping on the couch and hear the arguing, and more than one person has said I’m ungrateful.

So, Aayita called her out for lying, protected yourself from possibly dad, and made everyone realize the abuse she’s put you through. Quite honestly, great job. You only feel bad because you love your dad and don’t enjoy seeing him in this predicament. But guess what? You’re his daughter.

He’s doing right by you. And those calling you ungrateful. Exactly what do you have to show gratitude for? A cold woman who never hid her dislike for you. No, I don’t believe for one minute that being disabled means putting up with unkind caregivers. This is not something to be grateful for. NTA. NTA. You should probably talk to your father and explain to him that you do want him to have the love life of his dreams, but if his choice has anything to do with you, please don’t do you any favors because it will never work out the way he thinks

it will. My wife is pretty pissed at me right now. So, we had to move in with my mother and her husband due to some financial setbacks. I really don’t need judgment for this, I feel like, but it was the most logical solution, and living here hasn’t been too bad. My wife came to me concerned about a week ago and said she wanted to get a hotel to spend Christmas or at least Christmas morning in.

We have really cut back financially and our children will be receiving very modest gifts this year. She feels bad that there won’t be much for them and doesn’t want them to wake up at my mom’s house and see the pile of gifts under the tree that aren’t for them. I gently explained that a hotel costs a lot of money, especially for Christmas.

We’ve been saving and doing so well, and I really don’t want to spend the money. She even said we could come back and do Christmas dinner with my family, but she doesn’t want the kids there in the morning. I explained that I feel like that is ultimately unhealthy and we can’t shield them from reality and really Christmas shouldn’t be about gifts.

Here is where I might be the a-hole. My wife brought it up again in front of my mom and my mom chimed in about how nice that would be for her and she would love to have Christmas morning alone with her husband. I immediately felt mortified because I don’t want to be somewhere I’m not wanted. My mom has also done a lot for us and doesn’t ask for anything in return.

So, I felt even worse that she just wanted to be alone on Christmas morning. I told my wife in private that I would consider it and she blew up. She said it made her feel like and that I would do it for my mom and not her and that I’m being cheap and a mama’s boy and we shouldn’t be spending money to make my mom happy. YTA.

You would pay money for your mother who doesn’t need financial support to stay in a hotel but not to give your wife and kids a break. That’s not very nice to your wife. NTA. You guys are in a financial crisis and are technically homeless. A hotel on Christmas isn’t a necessity. This ideology that everyone deserves an amazing Christmas is why so many people are crippled with debt.

Sometimes you have to make hard decisions in the best interest of your family. Now, the hard part. Your wife is a problem. Calling you cheap when you guys clearly don’t have disposable money. Also, the mama’s boy comment is childish. She needs to understand that even after your mom’s suggestion, you still don’t want to fork out the money, but are forced to do so out of guilt and embarrassment.

Maybe explain how you want your kids to enjoy their Christmas, but you aren’t willing to jeopardize their future for it. Your wife has good intentions, but possibly a near-sighted outlook on the future. Just because you can afford something doesn’t mean you can actually afford it. Also, it seems like a lot of people believe you are caving and paying for a hotel for your mom to stay in.

Also, the wife is kind of toxic for bringing it up in front of your mom. Completely calculated the decision. It’s sad that it actually worked and now she’s pissed that she might get her way. Huge red flags for me, but I’m only judging this one situation filtered through your