Mom calls son crying after stepdad leaves her alone on Christmas, son says 'this is karma.'

Reaping what you sow doesn't always feel good, but it's a fact of life.

In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a man asked if he was wrong for telling his mom she can't cry about being excluded from Christmas after she abandoned him emotionally. He wrote:

"AITA for telling my mom she can't discard me and her grandkids and expect me to invite her over for Christmas?"

My mom was a single mom to me until I (28M) was 7. She then met my stepdad Joe and married him. Joe had been divorced for 3 years and had two kids 6F and 4M at the time. Joe's relationship with his ex-wife was hostile, possibly the most hostile I have ever witnessed even today.

Joe's ex decided her and Joe's kids should never treat my mom with respect and she had them treating my mom like she was the other woman. I was upset for my mom at the time and she told me they would grow up and realize what their mom had done and they would come around, at least to the point of being civil. I think at some point my mom saw her stepkids as a challenge she needed to win.

She went out of her way to win them over and there were many times it came at my expense. The worse they treated her the more she focused on them and forgot she had an actual son who loved and needed her. Joe was fine but he worked a lot so I felt abandoned by my mom and I felt like my mom wouldn't even notice if I was gone.

When Joe's kids were teenagers their mom died and they moved in with us permanently. Before this, they were at our house every other week. Them moving in was hell. They would yell insults at my mom on a daily basis, would tell her they wished she had died instead of their mom, they called a disgusting, repulsive wh0re who infected everyone she met.

They spread a rumor around high school that mom had cheated on Joe and had infected him. Joe had his kids in therapy, he had talks with them, issued consequences for their mistreatment of my mom. But at no point did it stop and equally, at no point my mom gave up. When I moved out for college it became clear to me that mom was going to stay more concerned with her stepkids than with me.

She was disinterested when I introduced her to my wife (we met in college). She really didn't take much of an interest in our wedding planning. She was busy trying to get Joe's kids to see her because once they moved out they told Joe they would only see him alone. Once or twice his kids asked my mom for money and that kept her holding on.

When my wife and I had our first child, I gave up. My mom showed zero interest and didn't make any effort to meet my daughter for weeks and when she did meet her there was still zero interest. Joe went to his kids for Christmas this year and left my mom home. Mom sent me a text saying this and I ignored it.

Two days ago she left a voice message saying I should have invited her to my house for Christmas so she wasn't alone and could be with her son and grandchildren. I called her right back and told her she can't discard us and then expect me to invite her to Christmas.

I told her she wanted to chase people who would rather see her dead and would dance on her grave than her son who loves her so she can f#$k off and leave me alone and stop trying to make us her consolation prize. Mom claimed I was cruel and out of line with how I treated her. AITA?

The internet had OP's back.

Enough-Process9773 wrote:

NTA. Try asking her "Mom, if Joe and his kids had asked you to be with them for Christmas, we both know you wouldn't even be thinking of spending time with me and my wife and your grandchildren. You want your stepkids, you don't want me." She wants to be with Joe, fair play, he's her husband. She wants to be with his kids rather than with you. That's so hurtful. You say you love her.

It's possible that family therapy might work - you and your mom: it's more possible your mom needs therapy. But it seems clear that so long as she's focused on the most important thing in her life being her stepkids liking her, she'll never have enough time for you.

And I suspect that is because to Joe, his kids are the most important thing in his life, and your mom loves him, and wants his kids to feel a family connection to her. So she's lost the family connection she had - you, and the family you're making. Do you want her back in your life enough to propose she go to therapy to get over the need to obsessively try to build a relationship with her husband's kids?

Do you love her enough to consider forgiving her for the years she spent neglecting you, if she does figure out honestly that what she did to you was stupid and wrong and hurtful?

TarzanKitty wrote:

NTA. Your mom abandoned her own child to chase the children of her new husband. Sucks for her but those are the facts. Now, your mom gets the life she worked so hard for. She lost her own child. She never had her husband’s kids and her husband chooses the adult kids over his wife.

Hoplite68 wrote:

NTA. She threw away your relationship and now she's alone (even for a short time) she expects to come to you. You're not there to provide a service, to soothe the fantasy she clearly lives in. If the truth hurts then that's her problem, her actions are why it hurts, not yours. Ask her if she'd have even thought of coming to you for Christmas if her stepkids had said she could come.

Ask her questions about your life, your wedding, your child, and see how many she can actually answer. Her need to be loved has ensured that she has no children, and her failures as a parent is on her.

Whiteroses7252012 wrote:

My mother has always said that her repayment for decades of being there for me as a child is that now, at 40, I call her every day and see her multiple times a week. It’s not a big deal to me- she’s awesome. She’s viewed every day since I was born as an investment into our relationship now.

Your mom has had s**t priorities for most of your life. She invested nothing, and now she’s upset there’s no return. You don’t owe her a d*mn thing. NTA.

Like it or not, his mom is simply experiencing the consequences of her actions.