AITAH- my mother thinks I am an ungrateful child
I(22F) and my mother (46F) have a complicated relationship (from my point of view). She never sees any flaws in her parenting and never has. My father died when I was 13 from kidney cancer (he had it once too, one kidney got removed), so he's not been in the picture since then.
The divorce period of theirs was fucked up, because everyone tried to pull me on their "side" and I preferred my father, simply because he wasn't as impulsive as my mother. Ever since divorce until now, she mainly prioritized meeting new men and trying to make ends meet bc she does not have higher education. Thus, she put all of the pressure of having good academic achievements mostly on me. My brother too, but I think she realized by the end of his 8th grade that he won't do much. We both got yelled at, scolded, called names, especially if we didn't have "good enough" academic performance. After 9th grade I ended up in a vocational school, which I left after 2 years to go to a high school instead. My mother did not like that, but signed the papers for me (as I was few days short of becoming 18 when the signing deadline ran out).
When I graduated from 9th grade, she made it all about her ("why didn't I get a thank you card from school? You should've done more), when I graduated from 12th, I didn't even invite her bc she did absolutely nothing to support me. I had to work and study, she demanded I pay her rent and also cover my own expenses (nothing wrong with that, it's just my income was less than 300€/month) And she got angry at me, because how dare I not invite my mother to my graduation.
She gave birth to another child, my half-sibling, about whom I honestly do not care about because she put the responsibility of taking care of it on me and my brother when the kid turned 2. The baby daddy was there, but since he did not pay her child support, she forbade him to visit. I was 15 at the time. We also lived in poverty and everyone told her it's a bad idea, she didn't listen.
Anyway, now I moved to Germany, I have a good and kind boyfriend who partially nursed me back to health after my car accident and then she said she would come and visit last September for 3 days. Those 3 days were in fact 1,5, from which we spent together like 4 hrs max. She also brought me a lot of things, most of which I did not even ask for, since I gave her a list of items I need from former home. She then called me ungrateful (I did say thank you before that) and how she's done so much for me and I don't ever appreciate it.
To her I am now a "golden child". I don't live with her, but I 100% know she definitely is bragging about my studies in Germany, especially cause I'm studying for free and English philology. She always tries to take credit for things I do without her playing a part in it and it's driving me insane slowly, but I can't call her out bc I know what it will bring. She is somewhat obsessed with having this "picture perfect" family and if any of her kids don't behave like she expects to, she just starts yelling at them. To some extent I understand that she worked with what she had and I wasn't ideal child, but at the same time she just fucked me and my brother up and denies it fully by just saying that we aren't nice to her even tho she sacrificed so much for us.
I don't really understand which sacrifices, because from what she told me, she was the one to fuck her life up badly. She didn't go to high school, she decided not go to university after finishing vocational school, she gave birth to another child whilst living in poverty and was actively absent from our lives both physically and emotionally. Last time we had a fight (few months ago) she called me ungrateful, spoiled brat because I do not appreciate her enough. Since then I'm no-contact with her. So AITA?
Posted Jul 30, 2026, 8:28 PM UTC