Imagine losing your mom at a young age and your dad remarries. Would you eventually come to think of your stepmom as your mom, or would she forever be your stepmom?

In this story, one teenage boy is in this exact situation, and he will never think of anyone as his mom except for his late mom. This makes his dad and stepmom furious!

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for not seeing my stepmother as my mom after 10 years when I know she wants to be?

My mom died when I (16M) was 4. I don’t remember her that well but I remember her some.

When I was 6 my dad remarried to my stepmother. They told me back then how excited she was to be my second mom and she swore to me that she’d always do what she could to earn the title of mom instead of stepmom.

My dad told me I should think about calling her mom eventually because she’d be around for a long time and would raise me more than him since he worked a lot.

They were also like any kids we have together will be your siblings and we better not hear half because you’ll be punished for it.

He didn’t do what his dad told him to do.

I never called her mom. I use her first name all the time. That’s all I call her when we talk and if I’m talking about her I’ll say she’s my stepmother.

And they were honest about punishing me for saying half siblings because every time they hear me use it they give me consequences.

She was honest about trying really hard to earn the title of mom. It’s OTT at times because she tries to be involved in everything to do with me, even my relationships with people who aren’t her. It’s my friends, their parents and my whole extended family on mom’s side.

If his stepmom weren’t so pushy, it would be so much better!

My extended family hate her for pushing herself into our relationship.

It makes me uncomfortable but she doesn’t care because she sees herself as my mom and she thinks she needs to be involved to end the relationship if it’s no longer one she approves of, and she tried that at one point because my aunt (mom’s closest in age sister) told her she’d never be my real mother and she was just an imposter.

But dad got legal advice and it was a whole thing where my stepmother was upset that her want to keep me away didn’t matter overall.

For what it’s worth I don’t think she’s an awful person or anything. But if anyone ever asks me about my mom I tell them she died when I was 4 and I talk about the few things I can remember.

Why can’t his stepmom just accept the fact that she IS his stepmom and not his mom?

The older I get the more upset my stepmother is that I only talk about mom and I never talk about her when the question of my mom comes up.

She’s less upset by me calling her by her name but it’s something that hurts her feelings too.

But it’s the fact I don’t see her as my mom period that makes her upset.

She asked me a few weeks ago what will happen when I grow up and move out and get married to someone. She wanted to know if she’d be treated as my mom then or would she be basically just my dad’s wife and a glorified babysitter because she doesn’t feel like she’s viewed as a parent to me at all.

His stepmom thinks she knows better than therapists.

She told me the therapist I saw several years ago told her it might always be this way, that the family therapist we saw told her we might never have a closer relationship but she thought they were wrong and I would see her and love her enough to see her as not a stepmother but a mom and a real parent.

But she said she feels more like a babysitter when it comes to me, and she hates how I go to other people before her when I need an adults advice.

I told her I don’t go to dad either and she said she didn’t care. He’s not around so that makes sense. But she has always been there for me.

I told her I won’t ever see her as my mom. But if she wants us to be closer she needs to back off and let me breathe and she needs to accept that the woman she tries to forget existed is my mom. And she needs to accept that my extended family are important to me.

He stood up for his aunt.

She told me she should be important to me and I shouldn’t be so willing to defend them when one of them (my aunt) called her an imposter and said she’d never be my mother.

I told her she might not have liked that but it was true, at least to me.

It wasn’t what she wanted to hear so she yelled and I was grounded for three weeks.

His dad is completely unreasonable.

My dad told me I should have reassured her that I love her and she’s equal parts my mom as my mom is.

I told him I wasn’t going to lie and that ticked him off so bad I thought I’d be grounded again.

They asked me why I don’t care that it hurts her feelings.

And I asked why they don’t care about mine.

Their answer was ridiculous.

They told me mine are wrong and they are limited to biology.

I said it’s more about who was there first. That mom was there before my stepmother and I had that bond with her already.

Dad said something about how I cried for mom every day for four months after she died and he thought my stepmother would fill that hole.

His dad was foolish to believe that.

I said nobody else could.

My stepmother got upset and told me it’s my cowards way of telling her she’ll never be as important to me and she doesn’t think it’s fair because 10 years of parenting makes her my mom.

AITA?

Stepparents should never try to force a child to think of them as replacement parents. That is almost always going to backfire.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

It’s up to him what he wants to call his stepmom.

Here’s a suggestion of what to tell his dad and stepmom.

His dad and stepmom really are being horrible to him.

Exactly. She’s NOT his mother.

He should move out as soon as possible.

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