She Made It Clear She Wanted More Time With Her Mom—But Her Stepmom Took It Personally
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Blended-family relationships can get tense when affection starts feeling like a competition.
One teen girl has a decent relationship with her stepmom but naturally keeps choosing time with her own mother first.
The conflict surfaces when her stepmom admits those choices hurt and asks to be picked over Mom sometimes.
Check out the whole story.
AITA for telling my stepmom I will never choose her over my mom?
My parents broke up when I was 4 and before the birth of my younger sister.
Their divorce was pretty quick once my sister was born.
My dad met Sarah when I was 7 and they got married after a year of dating.
I got along okay with Sarah. But she was never special to me the way my parents were.
Fast forward to present day, and Sarah is upset that OP has always chosen her mom over her.
I’m now 17 and Sarah wanted to talk to me recently about how I choose my mom over her. She told me I never turned down time or doing something with my mom when she asked me to do something, yet I would turn her down for something with my mom.
Examples were both wanted to do something after a sports game I had when I was 13. Sarah asked after my mom did. I told her I had plans with mom.
Another time Sarah was going someplace with her nieces and asked if I wanted to join them. I told her I would let her know, made plans with mom in the meantime, and told her I couldn’t go. She found out I chose to spend the time with my mom.
I went to my boyfriends prom with him last year and asked my mom to go dress shopping with me and my friends. Sarah was upset about it.
Here’s Sarah’s perspective on the situation.
She told me all this not too long ago and told me it bothers her. She said she wants me to feel like I will choose her over my mom some of the time, in some things.
Then she told me that my sister said she didn’t pick her over mom either because she saw I never did and thought she should copy me.
She told me I might have been older than my sister when she and our dad met, but we had been kids and we could have and should have been just as much her kids as our parents kids and it upset her to not be treated the same, appreciated the same and valued the same.
OP is not about to start choosing her stepmom over her mom.
I told her I had not set out to hurt her feelings and I was sorry that it had, but I would never regret the time I spend with my mom, any more than I regret time spent with my dad (and it only bothers her if I choose to spend time with mom over her).
She asked me to choose her sometime though and not my mom.
Then I told her I will never choose her over my mom and I needed her to accept that.
Sarah’s pretty upset.
She’s mad at me.
Dad was confused when he heard and told me not to worry about it.
But he then argued with my mom over it (not a huge surprise) and Sarah told me I was cruel and a bully.
AITA?
Sarah is crazy to think that her stepdaughters would choose to spend time with her instead of their mother.
She will never be their mother, and she is only going to push them away if she tries to replace her.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
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This person thinks the stepmom is being unreasonable.
Her stepmom should’ve phrased it differently.
This person thinks the stepmom and the dad are both messed up.
She doesn’t need to put her stepmom first, but she shouldn’t cancel plans with her.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a friend group that’s split when one roommate backs out of their dream apartment.
Here’s the perspective of a stepmom.
She told her stepmom she never intended to hurt her, but she would not regret prioritizing time with her mother.
Commenters overwhelmingly backed OP, with several stepparents saying they would never expect a child to choose them over a biological parent.
Wanting a closer bond was understandable; turning it into a competition was the problem.
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