Trust is fragile in families, especially when private information has a habit of traveling straight to the people you’re trying to avoid.

This woman says her relationship with her maternal grandmother started off surprisingly well after they reconnected a few years ago. Despite a painful family history involving abandonment and abuse, they slowly built a bond through regular dinners, holidays, birthdays, and major milestones. Her grandmother even attended her wedding.

The problem wasn’t their relationship directly, it was everything surrounding it. OP’s family has intentionally distanced themselves from certain relatives due to years of toxic behavior, boundary-crossing, and interference. Because of that, one request was made very clearly to Grandma: please keep family matters private and don’t share personal details with those relatives.

According to OP, that boundary was repeatedly ignored. Private conversations, photos, and family updates allegedly kept making their way to the exact people they wanted distance from. So when OP became pregnant after a long journey trying to conceive, she made a difficult decision: keep the news limited to only the people she fully trusted.

AITAH- For not telling my grandma I’m pregnant

Bit of brief background- I (28F) met my maternal grandma (80F) for the first time a couple of years ago, to cut a long story short both her and my mum’s dad were in an abusive relationship and they both abandoned my mum and her siblings.

It’s had been going well the first year as we would invite her over every week or every other week for dinner. Celebrate birthdays, holidays etc. She even came to my wedding which was lovely.

The thing is we don’t have a good relationship with my mum’s siblings as they are toxic and my mum has removed herself from them to the point where we don’t disclose our personal business to them. This is because they have always tried to get involved in our business, sabotage or disrupt our peace either directly or through extended family.

Woof.

We explained we would appreciate her to respect our privacy whenever she would go visit them and not disclose our business and vice versa because we don’t want anything to do with them at all.

She agreed to this but has repeatedly broken it by telling our business to them over the years as well as disclosing their business to us, to the point where we’ve had to remind her several times.

She would tell them what we discussed at the dinners, show pictures from the birthday events and celebrations etc.

Wow, not cool.

Just the past few months she’s been making excuses not to come we’ve even tried to re-arrange for another time, to ask if we could come over to visit her but she has always said she’s not up for visitors or feeling unwell or just said no.

We caught her in multiple lies where she’d told us she was feeling ill but then showed us pictures of her going out for dinner with my mum’s siblings.

We’ve never once said to her to stop visiting them or said anything bad about them but after a while we stopped trying to invite her over as she always made an excuse and then couldn’t keep up with her lies.

How biazrre.

When I got pregnant I decided to only tell my family and my in laws only and kept it a secret from her until I gave birth this week.

I really wanted my pregnancy due to trying to conceive for a long time with my husband and was unbelievably happy when we were expecting.

I didnt want to deal with the feeling of constant stress or being on edge that my extended family would find out or maybe even go as far as to harm me or the baby if i was to tell my grandma.

Fair enough.

When we told her this week she started crying and was angry she said loves us all so much and she was upset that we kept it a secret from her throughout the whole duration of the pregnancy, she said she’d understand if it was a few months but not the whole duration.

Then she said we haven’t been inviting her over that much for dinner or celebrating holidays etc.

We tried to explain to her she had been the one making excuses and things but then she hung up the phone.

Reddit largely sided with NTA, with many commenters saying this situation was less about secrecy and more about consequences. From their perspective, OP’s grandmother had multiple chances to prove she could respect boundaries and repeatedly failed to do so. Because of that, many felt OP was justified in protecting her peace during such an important and vulnerable time.

A lot of commenters sympathized with the grandmother’s hurt feelings, especially given her emotional reaction after learning she had missed the entire pregnancy. At the same time, many pointed out that trust isn’t maintained through intentions alone—it requires consistent behavior. Repeatedly sharing private family information after being asked not to naturally led to fewer privileges when it came to sensitive news.

The overall consensus was that while the situation is sad, OP didn’t create it. Her grandmother’s pattern of broken trust and shifting stories made this outcome feel inevitable to many readers.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a stepmom who says stepson isn’t doing enough, despite the fact that he’s working 12-hour shifts to pay for his own college.

This person says they did what was right for them, period.

This person says the guilt-tripping is far too much.

And this person wonders how many chances a person needs…

When someone repeatedly proves they can’t keep your private life private, they shouldn’t be shocked when they’re the last to know.

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