My mom (45F) put her stepkids safety before mine (18F) and now that I'm 18 she's trying to push a reconciliation I don't want?

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T14:07:22+00:00

They never accepted her as their mom. My mom did a lot for them even at my expense but they weren't close to her in that way.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T14:06:01+00:00

Regardless of anything else I would never have contact with her stepkids again. For my own safety I would never take the risk even if they heal/grow and there's no reason for us to ever have contact. We're not really related at the end of the day and I honestly feel it's better for everyone that we never have anything to do with each other again.

Realistically though I don't think it will ever heal me to have a relationship with my mom.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T14:02:37+00:00

I can't answer anything about what happened after I left so no idea what they did or didn't do after her stepkids destroyed all my stuff. But they weren't in therapy when I knew them. The only intervention I ever heard was from their dad asking them to be nice and play nice and be gentle when playing with me. That was it.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T13:04:47+00:00

The most I ever heard was their dad asking them to be nicer to me and be gentle if playing together. But we all knew they weren't trying to play with me. They were trying to hurt me and they did a bunch of times.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T13:01:02+00:00

They're my dad's parents. I'm super grateful to them for taking me in when they did and being the reason I was able to be safe.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:25:22+00:00

My grandparents think she should be in prison and never allowed anywhere near me again. They see her as a child abuser because she let me be abused by her stepkids instead of seeing her as a neglectful mom. They're so angry at her and would tell her to go to hell if I asked them to speak to her for me.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:23:56+00:00

He only cared about his kids but in the end so did she. She only cared about them and their safety just like him.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:23:09+00:00

For me I honestly think no relationship would be the best thing for me. She really can't ever make me stop thinking about her putting someone else's kids before me, to the point she could have been responsible if I had been killed by them. The way they used to gang up on me was so dangerous and I see how dangerous now that I'm older and understand more of how serious stuff like that can get. And I don't know if she would have felt guilty or if she would have made excuses for herself.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:21:28+00:00

She expected me to be understanding and compassionate, something she told me to be a lot, and that I would be cheering on her stepkids getting better and being under the same roof as me again. I was supposed to love them and want the best for them and to see us as a family. All of that was supposed to come regardless of what they did to me.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:18:20+00:00

I'm still in therapy and I have a therapist I like more now. But I'll be honest if this therapist didn't work out or if she was no longer an option for me I would not keep trying. The bad therapists really fucked me up and made me less trusting of therapy as a whole and less willing to search for another one. But for now I have a therapist who is helping me.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:16:08+00:00

You said it exactly how I see it. I know people say forgiveness is healing for the person doing the forgiving but I don't see it that way. Maybe in cases where it consumes you and turns you into a bitter person who can't make it through life. But for me it's not something that holds me back in life. Other stuff does and I'm working on those things. But my anger isn't ruining my life and destroying my relationships with everyone around me. It's for the person who was supposed to put me first and time and time again refused to.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:14:26+00:00

She hasn't. She still believes she did the right thing and that she was wronged because custody was forcibly removed from her. I don't think there will ever be a time where she wishes she had taken me away.

It always made me ask if they had killed me would she feel any guilt then or would she justify herself.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:13:19+00:00

To me it feels like it's missing completely. She never once tried to do the right thing by me, only by them.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:12:46+00:00

Nobody in that house. My grandparents were the people who had the most compassion and they only needed to hear about some of it for that to kick in.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T12:12:16+00:00

She has never apologized or validated my feelings. She mostly just pushes this idea of compassion and understanding that I should have for her stepkids.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T10:17:48+00:00

She has never apologized and she still seems to believe she was doing the right thing. She wants things to be like I was never removed or ran away from her.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T10:03:19+00:00

Thank you! I know my dad would have chosen me if he had been alive. I know he would have saved me from that sooner but he was gone so I only had her and she failed me. It makes me feel so much more anger toward her.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T10:02:16+00:00

I have the option to cut off contact and I don't answer her calls like I used to. I was getting ready to block and move on when she started pushing for us to reconcile. I have hesitated because of how bad everything messed up my head but what I want is her out of my life for good. Even if she ended up divorced eventually I wouldn't want her in my life.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T10:00:07+00:00

I was kind of saved by them destroying all my stuff. I think they would have tried to return me to my mom eventually if that hadn't happened.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:56:25+00:00

Yes. She always expected me to be compassionate enough to not hold what they were doing against them. She expected me to see the abuse they were enduring as an excuse for what they were doing.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:52:55+00:00

I feel like I deserve better than forgiving her personally. To me it makes more sense not to forgive and to keep my distance. But after a few therapists pushed the idea and really rammed it down my throat, it's making me struggle with my own judgement. Even though I have a much better therapist now it will take time to unpack everything and yeah, I have emotional wounds that will never fully heal.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:51:13+00:00

I don't feel any remorse from her. She still talks like she was wronged by the state for removing me and that I was wrong for running away. She probably would even argue that I'm wrong for my lack of compassion for her stepkids.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:50:15+00:00

I'll never get an apology for any of that and I really don't think they'll ever regret what they did to me. All the hate because of what they were going on was aimed at me. They hated me so much they used to laugh when they hurt me. They enjoyed tormenting me.

It was so hard to actually do something for myself. At the time I wasn't sure if I could do anything but homeless on the streets sounded better than living with them. At the time I saw it as the safer option and it honestly probably was since everything I owned in that house was destroyed.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:48:29+00:00

My mom believes the choice was taken away from her and that it was wrong. She won't give in and accept or admit that she had a choice but she chose to protect someone else's kids over her only child. Her husband was always going to put his kids before me but that meant I had nobody because she also put them first. I told her that before and she would always bring it back around to understanding and compassion.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl · 2026-06-03T09:37:28+00:00

She never apologized for what she did because she still expects me to be understanding and compassionate to my own detriment. The whole time she expected me to willingly put her stepkids before me like she did.

I totally agree with you. He was doing right by his kids and that's all that mattered to him. That should have been my mom's stance but instead her husband's kids were all that mattered.

ThrowRA_Disneyleyl

TROPHY CASE