First of all, my girlfriend and I are both 28 and since we live in Miami, we visit Disney World often. Without getting too far into this, in April 2021, my uncle suddenly passed away and my mom took all his assets, sold his house and kept everything. We didn’t speak for over a year, but we rekindled things at my brothers wedding last June. So far, the relationship between us had been good, communicating daily and reminiscing on the past. She’s invited me and my girlfriend (who my mom has said some very nasty things to in the past) to drive up 5 hours to where she lives and visit Busch Gardens in Tampa. Well I was looking forward to visiting my 84-year-old grandmother at the same time, however, she never gave me a date to drive up after I had already asked her several times when we can get together.
At the start of this year, she invited us to Disney after making plans with my brother and his wife, as a last-minute after-thought, telling me “So I didn’t realize you knew I’m going up to Disney,” and asked if I wanted to go, but my girlfriend wasn’t ready to see her in person, so I made an excuse since I had an upcoming cruise that I didn’t want to get sick at Disney. She believed it and didn’t question anything else.
From the 18th to the 21st, we were in Disney for my girlfriend’s birthday without my mom’s knowledge until she assumed from my messages discussing Disney that I was presumably there.
Fast forward once more to the night of Jan 20th around 7:00 pm (my girlfriend’s birthday) and my own mom texted me this very rude message out of the blue. I will refer to my 12-year-old half-sister from my mom’s side as Dee. Also, Nel is Dee’s father and my mom and him separated a while ago.
Here’s her text message –
“Just left you a message on your hotel phone. You must really think I’m stupid. Dee witnessed the whole thing and will learn how to bust a cheating boyfriend. I’d have had more respect for you to tell me to my face that you didn’t want to hangout than to lie to me. Lying is one thing I will NEVER tolerate. Told my mother about it before I confirmed it and she had some choice words about it. Enjoy yourself and no need to ever reach out to me. No wonder you like Nel so much, he’s a lying piece of shit and written off as of Sunday. Cleaning house this year. Birds of a feather. No time for stupid shit.”
Personally, I think her comment about how my sister will learn to “bust a cheating boyfriend” was a weird thing to say.
My girlfriend and I were stunned. At first we didn’t even understand how she knew. However, there is a town center near Disney with 6 nice new hotels and I told her all about how great they are. She took the time to call the hotels one by one with her “suspicions” like a stalker and probably fabricated an emergency to get to my room phone. Somehow, the front desk revealed that I was staying at the hotel, and she left me a very sarcastic message on my room phone.
This is textbook definition stalking. Despite everything in the past, I tried my best to move forward but this woman makes it impossible. For her to always weaponize my elderly grandmother and young sister.. I’m so tired of that. Of course I just want to have a relationship with my mom, but even if I told her that I just wanted to have a private vacation alone with my girlfriend, she still would’ve taken it the wrong way and I’d still be in this position. I couldn’t even tell a white lie and have a private vacation.
It’s mentally exhausting to go through this. I love my mother dearly and I hate how she continues to do this to me. Sometimes it feels like she treats me more like a spouse than a son. All I wanted was to have a relationship with her, but honestly, she’s never been the same ever since I got together with my girlfriend in 2017. I don’t feel like it’s right to reach out, but if I don’t, then she never will. So I’m stuck.
Tl;dr – the relationship with my mom has been pretty dodgy the last couple of years, and after I told her I can’t join her in Disney, she called a bunch of hotels until she found where I was staying and purposely sent me terrible messages in hopes of ruining my girlfriend’s birthday.
7 comments
I’m sorry you seem to have a narcissistic/emotionally abusive mother. She IS treating you like a spouse rather than her child, which I guarantee is why her and Nel never worked out. Which is why she hates your GF so much. r/justnoMIL has a lot of these stories. Tbh it would just be better to go low to no contact and not entertain her.
ETA: please talk to the hotel management and let them know what they did. Because whoever did it can get uptrained/reprimanded/fired for that. She was absolutely stalking and the fact that they revealed private information to her is against any company’s policy I can think of.
You shouldn’t have lied about it.
“GF and I have plans for her birthday. I’ll be in touch when we get back.” Then turn off your phone.
Your mother doesn’t need to know your plans. She is not a part of your relationship with your GF.
Let her stew. Don’t reach out. You can thank me later.
Nice of her to involve all of the family, even a child. No doubt she is busy shit talking you to your half sister (and everyone else), as if that is in any way appropriate or healthy.
In situations like this I like to play the game “what would have been an appropriate reaction?” If a reasonable person had discovered that their adult child had fibbed about being unavailable at a later date so as to avoid your invitation to get together, what would they do? Would they react as your mother had? No. Obviously not.
A reasonable reaction would have been self reflection: why would my son rather fib than decline my invitation? Is it because of me? What would he be seeking to avoid by fibbing? Well, am I even sure that he was fibbing, or are there other possibilities? Did the cruise get canceled? Did they decide not to go? Had something came up? What does this mean? Was it malicious or is there another more understandable reason why? How important is this is the grand scheme of things? Does this demand my immediate attention? Or can this wait? What is the main issue that this has brought up within our relationship? And so forth.
Your mother is being very unreasonable here. To think this little thing is cause for a total blow up and to obsessively call around town and the family is not a healthy reaction. Sorry that you have to deal with that.
Just tell her “sorry I didn’t realize you knew I was going to Disney”. This is so childish. She should reflect on why you felt you had to lie. The fact she’s dragging a 12 year old into her drama tells me everything I need to know about her. You might want to just take a step back from the relationship. What she’s doing is not in any way healthy.
All your mom had to do was call each hotel and asked to be connected to your room until she found the one that said “hold, please.” It’s not difficult. I’m guessing this is what she meant by teaching Dee how to bust a cheating boyfriend. She taught her how to figure what hotel someone is staying at. They did the same thing in one of the Bourne movies.
If she’s going no contact then enjoy the silence. You don’t need her permission or to wait on her for when it’s convenient for her to visit your grandma.
Bw an adult. Stop lying to mommy. If you’d told her the truth, none of this nonsense would’ve happened.
But your mom is nutso, so time to go Low Contact and put her on a strict info diet.
So you told your mom you couldn’t go to Disney with her and your brother and your 12-year-old little sister, then you went to Disney with your girlfriend. Your mom is unhinged but also there was no reason to lie. Unfortunately, by lying you’ve given her ammunition to drive a wedge between you and your sister.
Unfortunately, if you want a relationship with your sister, you’ll have to placate your mother for a few more years. Reach out to your mom, tell her that you had a change of plans and now that you’re in Disney you’d like to see your sister. Ignore all the other bullshit. Like, literally pretend it never happened. Your mom is a narcissist so the only way you will win is by not feeding her drama.