Mom refuses to attend son's halloween party after he uninvites 'immoral' sister. AITA?

When this mom boycotts her own son's halloween party, she asks internet:

"AITA for refusing to go to my son's Halloween party since he won’t invite his sister after what she did to her BF?"

In our family we rotate who hosts the family event. This Halloween party is being done by my son and everyone was invited but his sister. She (Amy) cheated on her long distance boyfriend about four months ago. I don’t approve what she did, it was bad of her. Now I'm not going.

Now my son has taken her cheating personally, extremely personally. I had to tell him to shut up about it multiple times. Now today I was talking with her and she didn’t know when the party was. I called up my son and he told me she isn’t invited. I told him I will not be going if everyone in the family is invited besides her.

This is when the argument broke out. He called me some creative names for defending the sl&t of the family. I hung up after that. I told my husband what happened and he is also not going now. My son is angry and I am getting messages for not going to the party.

He is 28 and she is 23. I have talked to him about it, he can’t stand cheaters his exact words. He has never been cheated on from my knowledge. She already did that ( apologized), and then they broke up. She didn’t hide it. His attitude about this makes me think this will be a problem with him for a long time. AITA?

Let's see what readers thought.

jumpinspy writes:

NTA. Her cheating was between her and her partner at the time, sounds like she apologised and they broke up - finished. Unless her partner was a good friend of your son, then he really had no skin in the game - so it shouldn't be impacting his relationship with his sister any more.

sgha9 writes:

YTA. I think you need to bud out of who your son invites into his own home.

Your daughter was unfaithful and wrecked her relationship. That's a shitty thing to do and you seem to agree with that.

Your son disapproves of this behaviour too and, for now, doesn't want to socialise with her/doesn't want to invite her into HIS home to a party HE is hosting. You need to respect your son's wishes for his own home.

I do think that if this a family event, that you could tell your son that since he isn't planning on inviting the WHOLE family, that it's best that he doesn't host any family events until he is happy to host every family member.

And then volunteer to organise this event yourself, in your own home. Your son can then choose to not go if he doesn't want to be around his sister, but you can invite your daughter.

gamblde writes:

NTA. This comes down to three main points for me. Yes, it's his home, he's allowed to invite or not invite whoever he wants. But that doesn't absolve him from being an asshole based on his reasons for inviting or not inviting a given person.

You, equally, are allowed to decide whether you want to go at all, and for whatever reason. That doesn't absolve YOU from being the asshole depending on your reasons.

His reason for not inviting his sister is, frankly ridiculous. It's sl&t shaming and misogynist and yes, he's taking it way too personally. In the absence of additional context, in my opinion, this is just a bad reason to leave out a family member from a family event and makes your son a total asshole.

YOUR reason for refusing to go, however, doesn't seem at all ridiculous to me. This isn't about whether your daughter cheating was right or wrong, imo that has genuinely nothing to do with this.

It never should have come into play. You're showing support for your daughter after she's been shown utter contempt by her brother, who weaponized a family event to try and shame her. NTA and regardless of what your daughter has done, I'm glad she at least has her parents supporting her.

gamblege writes:

YTA Good for him tho, he doesn't need shitty people in his life. Tell your precious little daughter that she has what she asked for. And both you and those idiots in the comments need to learn that actions have consequences. I wouldn't associate with someone who kicks puppies and he doesn't want to associate with cheating trash. That's his right and I would prefer his company over your shitty daughter.

Also, the stupid "it has nothing to do with him, it's between her and her ex" are straight up infuriating. If thats the case, someone being beaten up isn't your business either. Someone got murdered? Well tough shit. Who cares, it has nothing to do with me.

dateah writes:

YTA Your daughter cheated, your son disapproves. You want what, exactly? You can not magically make your son have more respect for your daughter, just because you say so. You also can't force him to invite anyone to his home.

Say your son did bend to your will, just because you say so... so your daughter walks in, says 'thanks for inviting me' and your son will say 'you're only here because mom made me, I would rather not see you for a while.'

You'd be pissed off too. So what you REALLY want, is for your son to pretend, or even better: just change his feelings. Good luck with that. Your daughter knew social disapproval would happen, as it's part of cheating. You can't make everyone magically forget.

The more you push this, the longer it will take for your son to get over his disappointment in his sister (and yes, he's allowed to be disappointed) The best you can do, is tell your son to be cordial to his sister when they meet at your place. If you force more, he'll resent you for it too, and probably go absolutely no contact with the both of you. (In which case, you'll probably pretend it's his fault and unfair, but you'd be wrong)