Update: AITA for not letting mom speak to my kids after she cut me off.

Not sure how to update so I’ll add it here I guess? Don’t seem to be able to link the original post? New to Reddit.

UPDATE: My mom’s younger sister, my aunt, called me. I expected more of “I don’t want to be in the middle as I am neutral, I support you, but you are incorrect about your mother”like she had been texting me earlier in the month. But I am still hanging on to the hope that I can repair and salvage the relationship with my mother, because I love her, if someone can get through to her. So I accepted the call.

I got what I expected, and some attempts to control my tone and voice. She tried to play the middle.

My aunt kept circling back to me needing to work on myself. That I should go to therapy first, then try to repair the relationship. I told her that’s what everyone keeps saying. “You should go to therapy.” “You should work on yourself.” As if I haven’t been doing that for years. In fact, it’s therapy, and the safety and insight it gave me, that unlocked all of this. The buried trauma. The repressed memories. The full weight of what happened. And when I approached my family the way my therapist suggests, clear, honest, direct, they don’t like it. It’s too intense. Too much. Too real.

Then she suddenly had a brilliant idea she needed to convince me of: Couples therapy between me and my mother.

She was surprised I didn’t shoot it down. In fact, I had to interrupt her multiple times to tell her I completely agree. I’ve been asking for exactly that kind of mutual accountability. She was flabbergasted. Thought I was being sarcastic. That tells you how distorted the family’s view of me is, when I calmly say “yes” to something healthy, they assume I’m faking.

She also told me there’s “no way” my mom will agree to individual therapy, because my mom “has no problem being unemotional.” That sentence alone tells you why this entire dynamic is what it is. I told her I never demanded that of her, I suggested therapy when she said she had no idea what I wanted her to self-reflect on. She has no idea what my mother will think of the therapy idea but said she’ll try to suggest it. And get back to me.