AITAH for telling my mom to cut ties with my dad?
For background info, my (24f) mom and my dad divorced when I was a baby because he cheated (not for the first time). Even before that, my dad was quite often emotionally and verbally abusive to my mom and my siblings, and after he left the family, he was largely absent. The rare times he was there, he was incredibly negligent and at times, abusive.
Just to give you an idea; as a small child, he often made random people (some he barely knew) look after me when I was supposed to spend time with him. He also constantly criticized me for my appearance, even as a child. When I was 16 and severely underweight because of an eating disorder, he told me I shouldn’t gain weight. He tried to tell my mom to put me in a mental institution as a teen because of my anxiety.
I haven’t talked to him in a long time, probably years at this point, but my siblings and mom still speak with him somewhat regularly. It’s a choice I don’t understand, but in the case of my siblings, I really can’t blame them for still wanting to have him in their lives, even if it hurts them.
Anyways, last week it was my dad’s birthday, and my mom said that she wants to take us all out for a dinner to celebrate. I told her I wouldn’t go, and it quickly spiralled into an argument. There were some intense emotions, and I ended up telling her that it hurts me greatly that she still has a relationship with my dad at all and I really wish she’d cut ties entirely.
Now, I do realize it’s not my place to police my mom’s relationships, and just to be clear, I’m not mad at her for potentionally forgiving my dad for the pain he caused her. That’s her business and her feelings. What I’m upset about is that he’s hurt me and her other kids consistently throughout our lives, for which there was never any real pushback from her. And now she wants to go out of her way to celebrate a man that did nothing but cause problems for her and her children, like we’re one big happy family.
Part of me feels like I’m being unfair and trying to manage my mom’s life when it’s not my right to do so, but I can’t make myself to feel bad about what I said. It’s been difficult to watch my mom let my dad walk all over me with very minimal consequences, and I really do wish she’d just stop talking to him.
AITAH?
Posted Jul 27, 2026, 7:15 AM UTC · locked