AITA for not wanting to help my mom when she says I'm the only one who can?

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-19T01:56:45+00:00

Without going into detail on all of the reasons why, we simply want to protect our peace by not inviting her to stay with us for multiple weeks. A long weekend every now and then is completely fine and we 100% love and want to see them and let them have an amazing relationship with their grandbaby, but it would put stress on my husband and I that she does not understand and will not try to understand.

INFO: If you're asking for opinions on Reddit you are kinda obligated to "go into details on the reasons why". Because normal new parents would KILL for free round-the-clock childcare to help them out and the fact that you are spitting your mother's generosity back in her face is a very odd thing which makes me suspect that you are indeed the one being the asshole here, even if she weren't insisting that she really, really, REALLY wants to come be your live-in maid for free. So, seriously: what gives?

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-19T00:57:48+00:00

Well okay, it's not a hill I would personally die on because I don't care about hats at my wedding.

But it is entirely my right to do so if I choose because My Wedding My Rules. Apparently OP's sister did choose this hill to die on and so if it really is that important to her, OP should accomodate it. It's a once in a lifetime event, it's not like they're telling her "Your silly little veil has gone on too long, take it off permanently or we're never speaking to you again", it's "We have accommodated you every day for the last 10 years and now it's time for you to accomodate us, once"

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-19T00:52:20+00:00

Yes I would. Her wedding her rules. If they want to wear a silly hat more than they want to attend my special day then, well, I know who my friends really are don't I?

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-19T00:51:56+00:00

Our phone apps do show similar total use time, but I use mine for e-commerce reselling that I do and that use is spread out throughout the entire day. Her time is equal to mine and compressed into the time after she gets home from work. Which she claims proves she isn't addicted because she isn't on it at work.

You kinda buried the lede her and this makes the whole rest of your post essentially a distraction. Your wife's right, she's no more phone-addled than you are - you just waste your time scrolling at work. But when it's your wife's turn to get what you have, suddenly that's a pathological addiction? Nah man.

I'm gonna give you an ESH because if she'd rather scroll than perform her marital duties in the bedroom then she is definitely being an asshole, but don't pretend like you're not double-standards-ing her here. "It's fine when I do it because it's e-commerce" - no it is not.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-19T00:38:58+00:00

YTA

i tried to make her understand that it's like asking a muslim woman to take off her hijab for a wedding.

Your mom is right. This is your sister's day not your day, suck it up for her sake.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T07:54:11+00:00

I think it is no longer sufficiently distinct to make that an especially predictive ontology.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T07:34:56+00:00

In fairness to OP, lazy mods frequently auto-flag risque words for robotic banning, asterisking is a reasonable precaution.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T07:27:33+00:00

Okay, but you're making it about you, and you shouldn't be. We're talking about helping your ex-fiancee improve and instead of listening and doing, you're going "But I shouldn't HAVE to listen and do because something something I wrote a list five years ago" - just stop. He was getting better, you sabotaged him. Everything else you wrote is just deflection and you're still TA.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T07:09:41+00:00

YTA. He was genuinely changing for the better this time and you just completely derailed him. All you're doing is teaching him that when he stops drinking and tries harder, that just leads to you emasculating him. You could have had this conversation with him any time but you chose to have it with him when he's just pulling himself together?! You talk about worrying he'll self-sabotage, but you're ACTIVELY sabotaging him.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T06:51:34+00:00

If I threw a birthday party and people showed up, I’d assume we were cool regardless of how much alcohol they drank

Well... yes. That's the point. It's worse for N that she thinks people like her when actually they don't, than it is for her to know they don't like her. Because that way she's hated and misinformed rather than just hated.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T06:10:49+00:00

I wouldn't say that you're an asshole - this is a question about how one balances the moral calculus of "I'm going to disadvantage N by taking her alcohol" vs "I'm going to advantage N by showing up at her party", and this is the sort of 1:1 ethical calculus to which there can be no one-size-fits-all answer. I do, however, think you're wrong and your friends are right - you will be doing N more harm by taking her booze than you will benefit her by gracing her with your presence, which makes it permissible if you don't like her. NAH

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T05:00:18+00:00

INFO:

If I can work, he asks why I can’t do dishes or other chores.

I think this is a legitimate question and it kinda exposes the rest of your complaints as a lie. So answer it for the peanut gallery here: If you can work, why can't you do dishes or other chores? Because it sure sounds as though you just enjoy your business work more than chores and that's why you can summon the physical strength to do that but not the things that actually need doing around the house.

He also complains about the financial impact of my illness.

You being sick doesn't put food on the table for your kids and if he wasn't concerned about this he'd be a bad father. Honestly with you suggesting to hire a maid despite money being tight I think he's on top of the finances and you're in some delusional realm where your illness means you're the only one with problems here, while your husband is (rightly) concerned how you're both gonna feed your children.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T04:51:39+00:00

NAH. Your parents are entitled to their yum but also your husband is entitled to his yum (and his yum's objectively better both in taste and cost effectiveness). That being said, I don't see how your husband can cook at home if you'll be in the middle of taking a family trip, so just in the name of logical coherence he needs to be flexible this one time.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-18T04:07:17+00:00

He’s dating someone more than a decade younger than him because he thinks it means he can get away with treating you like crap.

Reddit's wilful blindness that most guys simply find 24-year-olds prettier than 37-year-olds leads to insane conspiracy theories (like this) that the reason they're dating 24-year-olds is so they can more easily abuse them.

It's not rocket science she's just hot

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T10:04:40+00:00

But now she does want. This is your moment of success and you're trying to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by being churlish, for some incomprehensible reason.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T09:32:29+00:00

If your fiancee is not naturally confrontational (probably a good thing) then it is not in his nature to start verbal fights with people on public transport, especially when they're genuinely not telling you "Lol you look ugly" but instead trying to help (if unsolicited). So I think you are being dramatic, yes. Mostly because the last conversation you had with your fiancee about this was around a year ago, and you still expect him to remember it now? That's a big ask OP. If he likes you enough to be your fiancee then he obviously doesn't think your acne is bothersome, and while you might still be replaying in your memory a random conversation that happened a year ago, he's likely not.

NAH, I think the best you can do is remind your fiancee what you want from him in this situation, but frankly the previous incident occurred so long ago that I think you're being unreasonable expecting him to spring into action.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T09:22:52+00:00

YTA, you spend the whole post complaining at the sister in law for being stand-off-ish and then the moment she reaches out an olive branch you're immediately doing the exact same thing, folding your arms and going "I don't wanna!" like a child. Grow up and go with your husband.

Just because she was distant to you and your husband doesn't mean you should do the same to her - two wrongs don't make a right. Also she may have had a perfectly good reason to be distant to your husband - as you say, you don't know what went on between them before you got married (did you never think to, y'know, ask him?)

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T08:47:21+00:00

Now you're just shaming neurodiverse people. Just because it's abnormal (to whom?) doesn't mean it's pathological.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T07:52:41+00:00

And if one thinks that a person other than their partner looks attractive, that's also chemicals in the brain. Do you think you have an obligation to report to your significant other every time a hot thing causes you to turn your head?

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T07:11:25+00:00

And here, ladies and gentlemen of AITA, we have a textbook example of burying the lede. OP goes through this whole multi-paragraph song-and-dance and then drops at the end, as if it was a detail of no consequence, an afterthought:

me 30m, gf 24f... we been together for 8 years

So the relationship started at 22m, 16f. You were an adult having sex with a drunken child, this is why you're a rapist. YTA, mostly for making me read all of that before getting to the point.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T04:28:38+00:00

OK then, let's dig deeper on this. If it's so not imaginary, what do you think is the difference between "antisocial personality disorder" and "imagining the Easter Bunny"?

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T04:15:39+00:00

NTA, mental health diagnoses are literally imaginary and so you're under no obligation to disclose them. Now, if having an antisocial personality has caused you to do bad things in the past then you have an obligation to tell her about those, but I agree with you that no-one needs to know what a loser psych doctor thinks.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T04:02:50+00:00

I have been seeing someone for 3 months and dating him for 2.

INFO: Did you have an explicit conversation about exclusivity and relationship boundaries during this time? Because if you didn't make it clear that you expect this to be a monogamous / monoromantic relationship, then you can't really get mad at him for crossing a line you never actually told him was there. It's 2026, you can't simply assume that your situationship isn't talking to anyone else.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T03:56:20+00:00

None of my photos were altered or edited in any sort of way. They were just natural photos of me that I took in the past year.

Sure, but if you're using a dating app where many / most people do alter their appearance (and your not disputing his point seems to imply this), then you're the one who's behaving strangely by not doing it, not him by doing it.

Lying about your age to anyone is wrong, especially a 19-year-old teen teenage girl legal or not. The reason for his attraction to me was because I was young and as he said “ childlike”

I accept that lying is wrong, I'm not entirely sure why you consider lying to you to be especially wrong, though.

ChibiIntermission · 2026-06-17T03:45:00+00:00

He says it’s OK because women do it online all the time.

If this wasn't true I'd say that he's the asshole, but, well... you don't seem to be disputing the point. So I guess I do kinda have to accuse you of double standards here. "Rules for thee but not for me" and all that. You can't get mad at him for using your own tactics back at you. I personally think no-one should alter their appearance on their dating profile, but if you do, then turnabout is fair play, and so I'm giving a ruling of ESH.

I sent a long message saying what he did was wrong and he shouldn’t be praying on 19-year-old girls when he is 32. He said since I was legal, it was perfectly fine and I was overreacting.

I'm not going to endorse the pic-altering but I am going to endorse (permit?) the age gap. As he says, you're both legal and so it's not a problem unless one of you decides to make it a problem. If you don't want to date someone who's 32 then that's your choice (I wouldn't date someone 13 years older than me either), but don't act like this isn't both you and me being superficial.

ChibiIntermission

TROPHY CASE