They say home is the place you can never go back to.

It’s tragic, though, to have to wrestle with that feeling when you’re still so young.

Like in this story.

AITA for not giving my mom and stepdad time alone for their anniversary?

okay so me (f18) my sister and my brother (f14, m7) have always went up to our nanas on the weekends since we were little to spend time with my nana and my dad since my parents are divorced and don’t get along at all (he lived with my nana).

about 2 years ago my dad passed away unexpectedly while me and my siblings were up there so we haven’t really wanted to go back for obvious reasons.

(it doesn’t help that we have to pass by the house he used to live in to get to my nanas house)

Then there’s the matter of the anniversary:

my mom and stepdads 4 year anniversary is coming up this weekend and they’ve never really celebrated it but this year they want to go to the movies.

my mom was totally fine with my sister and i staying home this weekend until she told my stepdad that we were gonna stay home.

now all of a sudden my mom is begging me to go up there and that my sister wants to and she really wants me to go with her (i’ve asked my sister and she said that she didn’t want to go)

Step Dad is clearly trying to clear them out for a while.

i’m pretty sure my stepdad is making a big deal about us not going up there because there were multiple times where the weekend was approaching and he’d constantly ask my sister and i if we were going up to my nanas.

(like it got to the point where we had our mom tell him to stop constantly asking us)

But they’re not feeling good about any of it.

it’s just frustrating because i understand they want alone time but my mom also said when my dad passed that we didn’t have to go up there anymore if we didn’t want to.

i’ve offered to watch my siblings for them to go out and spend time together but she’s always turned it down.

and now i know when she gets off of work today she’s gonna get mad, pressure me and make me feel bad for not going, telling me that my nana misses us and that we should go up there just for the weekend. so aita?

The comments chimed in:

Many asked them to consider the other side of things.

This feels concerning.

But some were far more sympathetic.

The writer clarified that they did see their nana and grandpa sometimes, they just didn’t go to their house anymore.

Personally, I think if you let that house and that area remain only a source of pain to be avoided as you grow up, you’ll regret it later.

There’s little worse than letting one loss domino into many.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.