Family situations can be complicated, so it’s not surprising that some people avoid talking about them.

So, what would you do if a parent you cut out of your life ended up in the hospital, and your partner encouraged you to go see them? Would you open that door again? Or would you stand your ground and refuse, even if it causes tension?

In the following story, one young woman finds herself in this predicament and decides against going. Here’s how it all played out.

AITA for refusing to take my partner to see my mom in the hospital?

I (19f) and my partner (22nb) have been dating for a few months now. I moved to NYC last year to go to uni after growing up in a heavily Mormon community back in BC.

Our relationship is really steady. I’ve met their parents, and we’ve been living together since the second month of us dating, but I’ve never really spoken to them about my family, nor have I taken them to meet my parents.

I don’t really like talking about how I grew up. I don’t think my childhood was normal in any sense of the word, and I no longer have contact with my family back in Canada.

Out of the blue, her mother called.

My mother (39f) was incredibly controlling and cruel towards me and my sisters (18f, 14f).

I remember that throughout my childhood, many women came and went through my house, and my father often had my cousins or aunts staying with us. I cut them off as soon as I moved to New York, and I haven’t heard from them since. Until late November of this year, at least.

I was on the way home from work when I ended up getting a call from a BC number. I thought initially it was just some kind of spam call or some kind of wrong number situation.

Her sister called to tell her that their mother is sick.

It ends up being my sister, who, for the sake of this story, is named Amelia, calling to tell me that Mom is in the hospital and it’s really bad. My mother is one of those Mormons who believes in faith healing and refused to believe in any sort of modern medicine growing up.

Apparently, she’s been diagnosed with pancreatitis, and it’s only getting worse because of how long she went without treatment for it.

Amelia’s begging me to come home, I don’t know how she found my phone number or who she got it from, so instead of speaking to her, I just hang up.

I go home that night to my partner, and my partner can tell when something is wrong with me, but I don’t talk about it at all that night.

Even though it’s been months, the tension is still there.

A week goes by, and after a really hard day at work, I end up cracking and telling my partner everything about my mother having pancreatitis. They offer to help get us plane tickets to go back to BC, but I firmly refuse.

My partner gets confused, and I refuse to elaborate. I just tell them that we’re not going to see her, and especially not during the holidays. This ends up escalating into an argument over my never talking about my family to them, and how they feel like I’ve been really secretive about a lot of things in my life.

I’m just not comfortable with talking about my home life, but I didn’t communicate that well enough. Obviously, it’s been a while now since December, but things between us are still really tense and kind of awkward when it comes to my family.

AITA?

Yikes! That’s actually a lot to deal with.

Let’s check out how the readers over at Reddit feel about this whole situation.

Here’s someone who suggests sharing some context with her partner.

For this person, the behavior is immature.

Here’s someone who thinks she should tell the story in small steps.

This person thinks she’s wrong for a different reason.

She needs to come clean because it’s not fair to leave her partner in the dark.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.