Reddit Stories - Mother DEVELOPED a strong INTEREST in GOVERNMENT affairs and engaged in a deep

Episode Date: March 27, 2026

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #government #politics #family #interests #engagement  Summary: A mother developed a strong interest in government affairs, engaging deeply with political discussions and activities. This newfound passion influenced her family dynamics, prompting conversations about civic responsibilities and encouraging her children to be more aware of societal issues, ultimately fostering a sense of community involvement within the household.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, government, politics, family, engagement, interests, discussions, civicresponsibility, community, awareness, societalissues, dynamics, influence, passion, activities, conversationsBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6816713/support.This episode includes AI-generated content.

I hope you enjoy this story. Mother developed a strong interest in government affairs and engaged in a deep emotional connection with an individual over the Internet. She then proceeded to blackmail my father with a false accusation of rock climbing misconduct when he refused to cover her online expenses. After their divorce. I, 16M, have always been, or at least was, very close to my mother, I always knew that if I needed help, she would be there for me, regardless of what it was, my dad, 52M, on the other hand,

though we loved each other, and still do, wasn't as involved in my personal life as much, usually having to know how I was feeling through my mom. This, however, changed some months ago. Around January, my mom started to obsess with politics and Twitter, not US politics, as I don't live there, spending more and more time on the side arguing with strangers and being on the phone with some of the friends she made there. As time went on, she slowly started to isolate herself from her family and friends, closing herself in her room barely speaking with my dad and I, the relationship between my parents. Hasn't been the best for the last three years, because of different reasons, they became

distant and rarely talked, at times it seemed as if they were just roommates sharing a house and talking only when it was necessary. Between her and I, though, there have never been any problems, some occasional arguing sure, but nothing serious, so it really hurt to see how she pushed me out of her life. This went on for some months, until recently, about a month ago, by accident, I heard how she told one of her friends' things like I love you, honey, and I don't know what I would do without you. I exploded, I screamed at her, without insulting or being threatening. That said, I'm not proud of what I did and have already apologized for losing my temper,

and started to cry, I felt betrayed, and felt horrible for my dad, though in the end he didn't take it too badly since he kind of expected it. She kept telling me how this guy gave her the attention that she lacked at home, and how it wasn't cheating because they didn't have sex, it would have been pretty difficult since the guy literally lives in another island. I won't say where I'm from but know that most of the country is in Europe, but it owns a bunch of islands in the Atlantic, I told her that her excuses were stupid and to stop trying to justify her actions, and then my father came home, he found me almost having an anxiety attack, and after calming a bit told him everything. To sum up, they agreed to a friendly divorce and everything

was as fine as it could be. Or at least it was until a week ago, when because of a stupid thing, she wanted him to pay for the internet in the house, even if he didn't live there, my mother started to scream at my dad, telling him that she was fed up, that he always did the same and that he was manipulating me to hate her, when in fact, it was quite the opposite. She said some really awful things, threatened to falsely accuse him of domestic abuse, go to court to get my full custody and even pushed me because I was supposedly about to hit her, even though I would never dare to even think to hurt her. After a lot of screaming I had a full-on anxiety attack, I started wailing while she just kept

telling me, look what your father is doing to you, if he just paid, none of this would have even happened and if you love him so much, leave with him, but in the end you will understand that I'm right. Needless to say, I was a mess, I had never seen her act in such a way, and it hurt me a lot. We called my grandma and she asked me to give her a hug before going to sleep even if what she said was that bad, and so I did, not because I wanted to forgive her, but because my grandma would calm a bit. But to add insult to injury, before even apologizing, which she didn't do at that moment, one of the first things she said was that I should stop insulting the guy she found on Twitter because he respects me and my father a lot, to which I said whatever, but again, it hurt that,

even after all the things that happened that day, the first thing she could think of was that I insulted her boyfriend to whom I think owe no respect, someone trying to date a married person, because he knew she was. Married, doesn't deserve to be treated with respect if you ask me. And here I am, a week after this incident and still a mess, she has apologized for most of what she said, and has started to be really affectionate, giving me hugs and trying to talk to me more often, but I just can't see her in the same way as before, and she isn't even trying to change her behavior that much. She still spends way too much time on Twitter, and I don't know what to do, I don't think I want to cut her off. But every time I see her I get in a bad mood and just want to go outside. To take a walk or meet up with my friend, so that I can relax and think about other stuff. So what should I do? My dad and the rest of my family are encouraging me to value her efforts to recover our old relationship, but I don't know if I will be able to, or at least if I even want to leave

this behind. Comments where Ope has replied, comment one, if it were me, I'd try to live with your dad. Even if you're not as close, I'd say he comes off fairly well in this story. Oop, I didn't make it clear in the post, but now my dad and I. are really close, when I began to feel sidelined he was there to help me and I value that a lot. Comment 2, be careful with how she tries to rebuild the relationship. She's obviously very manipulative and willing to lie to hurt others when she doesn't get her way. She may be blanketing you in affection to try and make you feel guilty and come to her side

and poison you towards your dad. If her affection is like this, it will be gone the next time you stand up for yourself or your dad. When that happens, remember that family is about helping when it's hard, not giving love when it's easy. Typically, the parent who deals with the divorce more responsibly and amicably is going to be the parent that you should look to for guidance and that does not seem to be her. Oop, I wouldn't say manipulate, but she's trying to play the let's leave everything behind card, which I'm not buying. Oop responds to a comment about guilt tripping. Thank you for the advice, and I'm sorry to hear what you went through. My mom is kind of doing the same in some aspects.

She has tried to guilt-trip me telling me how she had to leave her job and her friends to take care of me. I was a very sickly child and had to go regularly to the hospital because of it. But it makes no sense because it hasn't been like that for the last eight years, and has also talked shit about my dad and his, well, it's mine too, family, who she hates while also saying how she loves him but just not in a romantic way. Comment three, you don't have to save this. As much as it sucks, our parents are just people. They are stupid and make mistakes and have crazy thoughts and make bad decisions.

They are absolutely no different than any of our friends. At 16, you are very nearly as mature as many, many parents no matter what their age. You have values and knowledge of right and wrong. So yes, you can absolutely choose to judge what your parents do. and you can absolutely choose to not forgive them at any time. Before you choose to do this, try to look at your mother and your parents as an outsider, not as their child. Your mother has had an emotional affair. And some people see that as cheating and some just see it as a horrible warning.

Your parents have decided to divorce for this, you cannot fix it or go back. You will have to decide how to go forward, but their relationship is their problem, just as it would be for your friends. are going to have to get through this and somehow live with it, at 16 you still have to have parents. Try not to take this on as your problem. Look at her as a troubled person that has made bad decisions. You don't have to like those decisions or forgive them, but you cannot let them affect your every moment. Oh, O-op, I have learned that the hard way, since the moment I discovered that things between them were going south, I tried to act as a mediator between the too, which only hurt me in the long run because, you know, I was like 13 at the time,

and a kid shouldn't have to worry about these things, but still I chose to, despite my dad telling me not to. OOP responds to a longer comment about boundaries when it comes to his parents' relationship. It was usually my mother who told me what was going on, my dad tried to not get me involved, usually telling me to not worry, that this is not something I should be worrying about at this age, and asking my mom to stop telling me about this kind of things, that they are adults and I am, was, a kid, so it was them who should figure things out. I won't lie, though, and whenever the chance presented itself, I would snoop around and try to hear what they were

saying, even if it was none of my business, now I understand that it was wrong, but at the time I just couldn't stop myself from doing it. And I hope that my dad isn't crazy, from what I've seen it doesn't seem likely, he always acts calmly and in an objective, responsible way, but you never know. Update, so, uh, hi. I posted here nearly six years ago about how strained my relationship with my mother had become after she closed herself off from both me and my father because of her obsession with politics, again, not going to get into it. A lot of stuff has happened since then so I figured I could make an update. I debated for a while if I should even make this update since, all, it's been half a decade since I made the original post and it didn't even get that

much attention. In the end, though, I think it will give me a bit of closure which has been difficult to find otherwise. Oh, and again, English is not my first language yada yada sorry for any mistakes. For starters, I ended up moving out permanently from my mother's house not long after I posted. We had a couple big arguments about her behavior in which she kept insisting that she had done nothing wrong and I should not be upset at her. I tried using some of the recommendations I got from people here, some of which were. Questionable, to say the least, such as setting some clear boundaries with her, but nothing really worked. The straw that broke the camel's back though was when she told me that my uncles, her brothers,

cancer had come back only as a way to hurt me since she didn't mention it before to avoid causing me even more stress. She kept that information in her back pocket until I pissed her off enough to want to hurt me, so yeah, really nice of her. As I mentioned before I moved out, and I ended up living with my dad and my grandma a couple towns over. By then I was getting close to turning 18 so there wasn't much she could do to stop me, and to her credit, she didn't. After that last incident I pretty much cut her off, and it has stayed that way up until now with a couple exceptions. The main one being that my grandfather ended up passing away in 2022, so I re-established contact with her partly as a way to try to make my other grandmother happy after, you know, her husband died, and partly because in a way I did miss her.

As you might guess it did not work out. At first thing seemed to be going slightly better than last time, since she didn't push as hard for my affection and seemed more respectful of my boundaries. That was until Christmas of that same year, when she told me that she was going to commit suicide once her mother died since there was nobody in the world who loved her, not so subtly implying that it was my fault. That obviously shook me, but more than that it made me angry. I realized that it was most likely a bluff to guilt me into forgiving her for everything, and that even if it wasn't, it was not a burden I should have to carry on my back, so I cut her off again, this time for good. Other than that and for me personally, these years have been a bit of a roller coaster,

with quite a few highs and lows. I finished high school, got into college, gained 40 kilograms, lost 25 of them, got really depressed, slowly crawled out of it, made some new friends, lost some old ones. Right now though I'd say that I'm better than ever. I turned 22 a few months ago, and for the first time in a while I look forward to the future. I just graduated from college, I'm officially a historian now, I already got into the master's I want to do, I have a pretty chill job, and next year I'm planning on staying for a few months in Belgium, thanks to a EU program.

Things are not perfect, of course, but I have a strong support system which has helped me not completely fall apart these last few years. My dad in particular has been my rock all this time and our bond is stronger than ever. Even though him and I are very different, and he didn't always know how to help me, he really gave it his all and I couldn't be more thankful. So yeah, these, almost, six years ago. years have not been easy, but I feel like I have come out on the other side happier and stronger. Thanks again to the people who gave advice last time, and have a good one.

Comment where OP has replied, comment, I'm glad to hear you're doing, relatively, well, and congratulations on the college graduation and master's admission. You may want to check out for more support, even if your mother isn't diagnosed narcissist. We help people with lots of situations of self-centered parents who don't support or even undermine their children, whether minors or adult children. Oh, O. O.P. Thank you. And I have already lurked there from time to time, but I always felt that my experience was somewhat different from what people usually post there. I don't really know how to put it into words, but I have always felt that the awful things that

my mom did slash said to me did not come from a person who thought she was the center of the world, but rather someone who was fundamentally broken, and who instead of seeking help and trying to improve would rather lash out and hurt those around her once they eventually got fed up with her antics. Still, thank you for the recommendation, I think it's great that support groups like this one exist. Next story, spent my entire childhood to raise my sister after our parents failed us, but when I lost my job and became homeless, she refused to let me stay with her for even a few weeks, so I cut her off completely. My sister, 26F, from a young age has that only one person to rely on and that person was me, 29M. We come from a broken family with one parent that was only

around till I was five and the other who was stuck in a cycle of addiction. Because of our situation I grew up very quickly and shielded her from as much as I could, she obviously was aware of what was going on but she was not in the crosshair. I started with stealing from our mother to make sure we had food and bills were paid. I got a part-time job at 13 because we couldn't rely on our mother and when I graduated I immediately got two jobs and we moved out. I had to push my sister through high school, she wasn't an easy teen for obvious reasons, on top of going month to month trying to get as much money together to pay our bills. At 19 she finally graduated after being held back a year, she changed her tune a lot and she started working as well and had her own

place when she was 21. I finally got a shot to do something for myself and got a degree, as a result I got a much better job but unfortunately that was right before the pandemic hit so I pretty much went from hire to fired as I was a new hire. Now the reason I am saying all that is not to pat myself on the back but to stress why my reaction is the way it is. I was out of work, on the brink of losing my apartment and only had one person who I expected I could turn to, my sister. She was recently married, lived, still lives obviously, with her husband, so I asked if I could stay a few weeks at most a few months until I got a new job, it was a no. I was taken aback, but it remained to be a no. A week or two later I was kicked out of my apartment,

I asked again and it was a no. At this point I am homeless and the only reason I didn't end up sleeping on the damn street was because I could crash at a few friends until I got a temporary job, I rented a room with a bunch of roommates for a while, eventually got a job in my field again and am now doing fine. That said, I have not spoken to my sister since, she has called, messaged, banged on my door, sent crying voice messages, apologized dozens of times, tried to explain herself, tried going to my job, tried going to friends, everything. I haven't said a word to her it's been over a year now, she recently had a child and she is still desperately trying to reach out. She claims her husband refused to let me stay,

he even reached out several times to beg me to reach out, but to me the one time I need her she basically tells me to F myself, I feel like it was the last push I needed to just end that chapter of my life. I feel bad but just, not bad enough, I guess. Even my friends and my girlfriend are on my case that I should forgive her and that they understood it at first but now think I am being an asshole, what would you guys do? Update, so I had a huge amount of people inquiring as to what ended up happening and asking me to make an update should anything happen and while I wasn't sure if I would or even should I eventually decided to just go ahead and do it. Let me start by apologizing to the people who commented on my post. I made my post and it didn't seem to gain much traction at all so I more or less stopped looking at it for about a day I think only to figure out the next day that I had gotten a lot of comments.

Unfortunately when I decided to reply to a lot of the comments I had been reading I realized that this subreddit locks the comments after a search. amount of comments have been made or karma has been reached, I am afraid I was not aware of this admittedly very odd rule so that's on me. I did end up reading most comments and would like to thank everyone offering advice or just saying something supportive. First to answer a couple of questions that I was unable to answer along with addressing some incorrect comments in the previous post yet I saw asked quite a few times. One, the first few knows were without reasonable explanation, I was not aware of her given reason that her husband was not okay with it until later.

2. She did not know she was pregnant when she declined and most of it happened before she would have even been pregnant in the first place. I mean most of this took place over a year ago, I even put that in the post so I am not sure how that math would even work. 3. I am not an anti-vaxxer or dirty or something. There were quite a few comments that theorized this would be the case for her refusal, I got my two vaccination shots the moment I could them in well while my personal hygiene is not exactly anyone's business I shower once a day in my apartment is spotless.

4. A lot of advice and comments seem to be from the perspective of functional families with a functional family structure. That is not the case here. The primary reason I am so gutted about this entire situation is exactly that. This isn't a case of well I don't want my cousin to stay in my house. He can stay somewhere else. This is a case of me having sacrificed my entire youth and a significant portion of my early adult life for someone that I played no part in creating or have any parental responsibility for and the first and only time I ever asked her to do something for me is the only person I could reasonable fall back on and her not doing that. That's more than a familial spat, that is a straight up betrayal. That's also an answer to the people saying that

she owes me nothing because I chose to be a parent. Anyway, with that out of the way, I decided to follow some advice given by several people. I told my girlfriend and a friends who involved themselves or were involved by my sister to back off or to lose my number, they do not understand my perspective and they likely never will and I need to get that through my head as I have a tendency to talk about my life as if it is a standard, but it is a standard only to me, luckily most people don't go through any of that. I obviously had a longer and face-to-face conversation with my GF and with individual close friends, but it boils down to that. One friend kept pestering me about it and I ended up dropping him as a friend but my GF was apologetic and most friends were either apologetic or said they'd drop it. I ended up writing a long email to my sister and while I will not copy and paste the entire thing here as it contains a lot of personal information and far more horrible stuff that I am unsure will even be allowed on a sub like this it more or less boiled down to me explaining to her how her refusal to take me in for what ended up being a few weeks made me feel and I detailed a long list of things I had done to take care of her. I ended up finishing my email telling her that even if I take her version of the story as truth and her husband as the cause of me not being allowed to stay that it is entirely irrelevant to me

because that just means she didn't fight for me at all. I also informed her I have no interest in meeting her child as of this moment and I have no interest in reconnecting with her and if that changes in the future I will be the one to contact her, I told her to let this be a lesson to her as it has been a painful lesson to me. Boiled down I have decided to move on and keep the door. on the tiniest of cracks. She has responded a lot since that moment. She seems unable to accept it, but I have not responded since. I don't have anything else to tell you I am afraid and since the sub only allows one update well it is what it is. Again, thank you all for taking the time to

respond to my post and thank you all for your insightful replies.