Reddit Stories - Mother was left by my BROTHERS and SISTERS after father PERSUADED them she

Episode Date: July 19, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #familydrama #betrayal #siblings #parentalabandonment #persuasionSummary: My mother was left by my brothers and sisters after father persuaded them she was a burden. Now, she is alone and heartbroken, abandoned by her own children.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, familydrama, betrayal, siblings, parentalabandonment, persuasion, mother, father, children, abandonment, heartbreak, familyissues, relationships, emotionalpain, familyconflict, support, forgivenessBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Mother was left by my brothers and sisters after Father persuaded them she was being unfaithful, but upon her passing, I discovered that Father was the true deceiver, and now my, siblings want me to forgive M. I'm not sure where to even begin. Things have been a complete mess for the past year and a half. I'm 23 now. This all started when I was 21. My family, on the surface, was the kind people pointed to as an example.

We were regulars at church, my parents were involved in the community, and my older brother, Joe, who's 28, my older sister, Jenny, 26, and I were all raised to believe in strong family values. We had dinner together most nights. It all seemed so stable, so normal. My dad was always seen as the head of the household, a strong figure, while my mom was quieter, more reserved, but always there. the picture, anyway. The first crack appeared about 18 months ago. Mom called a family

meeting. Just her, dad, Joe, Jenny, and me. She announced, very calmly, that she wanted a divorce. She said she wasn't happy and hadn't been for a long time, and that she wanted to spend whatever years she had left finding some peace for herself. She was 58 at the time. Her reasons were not specific, just this general sense of needing to be on her own, to be happy, as she put it. Dad's reaction was immediate and loud. He stood up, his face turning red, and demanded to know what was wrong with her. He asked what he had supposedly done to deserve this after all his years of providing for the family. He told her she was being incredibly selfish and was going to destroy the family. He kept asking why? Why are you doing this? When Mom just repeated,

quietly that she wasn't happy, he started shouting about her responsibilities, about God, about what people would think. For the next few weeks, the house was filled with tension. We'd hear Dad's voice shouting from behind their closed bedroom door, going on for hours. Mom rarely raised her voice back. Joe was mostly silent during this. He looked like he didn't know what to think, sort of lost. Jenny, however, took Dad's side almost immediately.

She had long conversations with Mom, but they were more like interrogations. Jenny told Mom she was being ridiculous, that she was throwing away a perfectly good marriage. She brought up their faith, how divorce was a sin, how Mom was supposed to be an example. Jenny cried, she yelled, she pleaded with Mom to reconsider this madness. Mom would listen, sometimes she would try to explain, but Jenny wasn't. really hearing it. Jenny kept repeating that mom wasn't thinking about anyone but herself. A couple of months into this, mom developed a persistent cough. At first, we all thought it was a lingering cold. But it didn't go away. She started losing weight. After a series CT scans and a

biopsy, the doctors gave us the news. Stage 4 lung cancer. No cure, they said. Palliative care to manage symptoms was the only option. This news changed the narrative for Joe and Jenny. Suddenly, mom's desire for a divorce wasn't seen as a choice anymore, but as a symptom. They decided the cancer must have been affecting her judgment. They told her, repeatedly, you don't really want this divorce, Mom, it's the illness talking. They used it to pressure her to halt any discussions about separation. They said she needed to focus on fighting the cancer, on staying with the family, as if the grim prognosis hadn't registered. Dad, in front of us, adopted a concerned tone, saying they needed to support Mom, but his interactions

with her remained cold. Mom's health declined steadily. She was often tired, weak, and in pain. The divorce talk had been pushed to the side by her illness, but the tension remained. One afternoon, Dad called Joe and Jenny over to the house. I was in my room, but the walls are not thick. He sat them down in the living room and, in a voice full of fake sorrow and anger, told them he had to confess the real reason mom had wanted the divorce.

He said, his voice cracking, that mom had been unfaithful. He claimed she was having an affair and that's why she wanted to leave him. He said he had proof but that he didn't want to shame her by showing it, especially now that she was sick. He painted himself as the long-suffering husband who had been trying to protect her reputation and the family's honor, but her selfishness in wanting the divorce had pushed him to this. He managed to sound both heartbroken and righteous. Joe and Jenny completely bought his story. They were devastated, then furious. Not at Dad, but at Mom. They went to her room. I heard

Jenny's voice. She called Mom a hypocrite, a liar. Joe, apparently backed Jenny up, asking Mom how she could do this to Dad, to the family, after everything. Mom was already so frail. She tried to deny it, her voice barely a whisper. She started crying, but they wouldn't listen. They told her they were ashamed of her. After that confrontation, they stopped coming to see her. They wouldn't answer her calls.

If I called them, they would give short, angry responses about how Mom had brought this on herself. Dad continued his charade of the concerned husband for any outsiders, but at home, he barely acknowledged Mom's existence. He spent most of his time at work or in his study. I didn't believe Dad. His story felt wrong. And Mom, even in her weakened state, had a look of genuine shock and pain when I asked her about it later.

She just shook her head and whispered, It's not true. I made a choice. I moved back into my parents' house, into the guest room. I became mom's caregiver. I cooked her meals, helped her bathe, managed her medications, crushed her pills when she couldn't swallow, read to her, and just sat with her. Some days she was lucid and would talk a little about her childhood, or books she loved. Other days she was confused or in too much pain to speak. She never went into detail about her marriage then, but sometimes she would just hold my hand and say, thank you for staying. Those

months were the hardest of my life. Watching her fade, knowing my siblings were out there, believing a lie, and Dad walking around like a martyr. Mom passed away in her bed at home, seven months after the diagnosis. I was holding her hand. Joe and Jenny came to the funeral. They looked appropriately sad, but they barely spoke to me. They stood with Dad, who put on a convincing performance of a grieving widower. A week after the funeral, Mom's lawyer contacted me. Mom had updated her will a few months before she died. She left all her personal assets, her savings, her jewelry, and her clearly defined share of the family home solely to me. This share was based on her premarital assets and a significant inheritance she had received years

ago, all of which she had meticulously documented as having been invested into the house. Dad was apparently furious about this when he found out from the lawyer, though he didn't say anything to me directly at first. This immediately created a tense situation, as Dad continued to live in the house and the practicalities of my inherited share, given it was the family home he still occupied, were something the lawyer said would take time and potentially a legal battle to resolve, especially if Dad wasn't cooperative. Joe and Jenny were also clearly shocked and unhappy about the entire will. A few days later, while I was sorting through Mom's personal belongings in her closet, the thing she kept in a small chest, I found a locked

wooden box. I remembered her having it for years. The key was in an envelope with my name on it, tucked into her old Bible. Inside the box, there were old photos, a few keepsakes, and a thick envelope, also addressed to me. It was a letter, handwritten by Mom in the last weeks of her life. The letter was 20 pages long. It was a confession, she wrote about her marriage to Dad, starting from the early years. She described decades of him being emotionally distant, controlling, and critical. She wrote about his temper, how he would belittle her, her ideas, her friends, making her feel small and stupid.

And then she wrote about his co-worker, a woman named Marie. Dad, she wrote, had been having an affair with Marie for over 15 years. It wasn't his first affair, but it was the longest and most serious one. He had been careless a few times, leaving traces, which Mom had found. When she'd confronted him over the years, he'd either denied it with extreme aggression, turning the tables and accusing her of being jealous or crazy, or he dismissed it, saying it meant nothing and that she was making a big deal out of it. He made her doubt her own sanity.

She wrote that the constant gaslighting and emotional abuse had worn her down. She wanted the divorce not because of a sudden whim, but because she couldn't bear it anymore. She had hoped for even a few years of peace. She also wrote that she suspected Dad would try to ruin her reputation if she ever actually tried to leave him, which is why she was so hesitant and vague when she first asked for the divorce. It was like all the pieces of a puzzle I didn't even know I was looking at suddenly clicked into place.

Her sadness, her vagueness about the divorce, Dad's immediate rage, his quickest. to slander her. It all made a horrible kind of sense. I sat there for hours, just rereading it. I felt sick. The anger I felt towards Dad was immense. He hadn't just lied, he had systematically destroyed her spirit for years and then defiled her memory. I didn't confront Dad immediately. I didn't know what I would even say or do. He was still playing the role of the grieving husband, receiving sympathy from everyone in their church and community. I focused on getting Mom's affairs in order, dealing with the lawyer, the bank. Joe and Jenny contacted me a few times, mostly about the will. They thought Mom had been

unfair, that she had punished them. Jenny even suggested Mom was not in her right mind when she changed it. I told them the will was Mom's decision and I would respect it. I didn't mention the letter. I didn't feel they deserved to know, not then. They had made their choices. The next few months were a blur of legal paperwork and a heavy grief. I had moved out of my parents' house almost immediately after the funeral and back into my small apartment. The house was now just dads, despite my legal claim. The lawyer was slowly working on the house issue, sending formal notices to Dad about my inherited share, but Dad was, as expected, not responding constructively. I avoided him as much as possible. Our interactions were

minimal and purely transactional, mostly about mail or bills. He tried once or twice to talk about how much he missed Mom, and I just walked away. I couldn't stand to be in the same room as him. I didn't speak to Joe or Jenny at all during this time. They would text occasionally, testing the waters, but I kept my replies brief and cold. I was just trying to get through each day. About six months after Mom died, I got a call from an old family friend, a woman from their church, who sounded very uncomfortable. She hesitantly told me that people were talking because Dad had a woman living with him. It was Marie, the co-worker from Mom's letter. He had moved her into the house mom had lived and died in, the house that was still partly

hers according to her will, though the legalities were still being sorted. He didn't even wait a respectable amount of time. Around the same time Dad moved Marie in, Joe and Jenny must have heard about it too. They started calling me. me, asking if I knew what was going on. They were confused and starting to sound angry at Dad. This time, when they pressed me about Dad's behavior and why Mom might have really wanted the divorce, I decided it was time. I scanned Mom's letter and emailed it to both of them. I just wrote, You Wanted to Know About Mom. Here's her side. The fallout was explosive, but this time it was directed at Dad. They confronted him. He apparently tried to

to deny it, then got aggressive, then tried to justify his relationship with Marie, saying he was lonely. They told me he was a completely different person than the father they thought they knew. The man from Mom's letter was now visible to them. And now, they've turned their attention to me. For the past few weeks, Joe and Jenny have been calling and texting me constantly. They are full of apologies, saying how sorry they are for believing Dad, for abandoning Mom, for how they treated her.

They say they were manipulated, that Dad is a monster. But mixed in with the apologies of these accusations. Jenny told me I should have told them about the letter sooner, Joe said that by not telling them, I let them continue to be awful to Mom. They've both said that I tricked them by withholding the information and then dropping it like a bomb. They are now saying they want my forgiveness. They want us to rebuild our sibling relationship.

They keep saying we only have each other now, meaning, not dad. But their apologies feel tainted by this blame they are trying to put on me. It's like they are sorry, but also sorry for themselves and angry that they look like fools. They are pressuring me hard. Every conversation ends with them asking me to forgive them, to move on together. They don't seem to understand the magnitude of what they did. They chose to believe the worst of mom when she was at her most vulnerable. They chose to abandon her.

I was the one who held her hand while she died, listening to her cry about her absent children. Now they want a quick fix. Am I the asshole for not being ready to forgive them, and for feeling like their apologies are more about their own guilt than about genuine remorse for what they did to mom and, by extension, to me? Update 1. It's been about a week since I posted. Thank you all for the messages and comments.

It's been helpful to see outside perspectives. Many of you asked for more details about how Dad manipulated my siblings, and why I didn't show them the letter immediately. To clarify, Dad's manipulation wasn't just a single conversation. After he told them Mom was supposedly cheating, he kept reinforcing the lie. If they ever expressed a flicker of doubt, he would become either incredibly sorrowful, talking about his broken heart and how he still loved her despite her betrayal, or he would get explosive. I once overheard him yelling at Jenny on the phone when she must have questioned

something, his voice so loud I could hear it through her receiver from across the room when she later recounted it to me in tears. This was before they entirely cut Mom off, but during the period they were already swayed by Dad. He would say things like, how can you defend her actions? Are you taking her side against your own father who has only ever loved you? He was very skilled at making them feel guilty for even questioning him. He presented himself as the victim. Mom did try to deny his accusations to them. In those awful confrontations they had with her, she did tell them Dad was lying.

But she was so sick, so weak, and they were so aggressive in their accusations, so thoroughly convinced by Dad's performance. They told her she was delusional and making things worse for herself with her denials. They chose to believe the strong, seemingly heartbroken man over their dying mother. Regarding the letter, I found it about a week after Mom died. I was in shock, grieving, and trying to process not only her death but this new, horrific information about my father and my family's entire history. Honestly, my first instinct wasn't to share it with Joe and Jenny.

They had shown such cruelty and monumental lack of judgment. Mom addressed the letter to me. It felt like her final confidence, and I needed time with it. I also knew that if I showed it to them then, while their grief for mom, however complicated by their beliefs about her, was still fresh, and their anger from Dad's lies still potent, the emotional explosion would be massive and probably misdirected. I waited until Dad moving Marie and became public knowledge. This event created a crack in their certainty about Dad, a space where they might actually

be receptive to the truth about Mom. The core of my original post, and what I've been wrestling with, is this. I'm not the bad guy here. I did my best to support my dying mother in an impossible situation, standing against a manipulative father and siblings who were, at the time, incredibly hostile and deluded. My mom deserved a loving husband and children who would stand by her. Joe and Jenny failed her. If she hadn't written that letter, they would have gone to their graves believing dad's lies and vilifying her. I considered what forgiveness would even mean in this context. For them, it seems to mean wiping the slate clean and pretending we can be one big wounded but happy sibling

unit. For me, their actions are not something that can be easily erased. They weren't just bystanders, they actively participated in mom's suffering based on lies they chose to believe from a man whose anger and controlling nature they had witnessed for years, even if they hadn't understood its full extent. Their accusation that I let them treat mom that way by not revealing the letter earlier is particularly hard to stomach. They are adults. They made their choices. I was a young adult myself, dealing with my mother's terminal illness and her daily care while they were actively causing her more pain. My priority was mom's peace, not managing their delusions or protecting them from the consequences of their choices. After a lot of thought, I decided I had to

respond to Joe and Jenny directly about their demands for forgiveness and their accusations. I sent them both a long message. I acknowledged that they had apologized. But I told them that I was not ready to forgive them, and that their attempts to blame me for their actions were unacceptable. I wrote that their focus should not be on when I told them the truth, but on why they so readily believed lies about mom, and why they chose to be so cruel to her when she was dying.

I told them that their behavior during mom's illness was the central issue, and that their current apologies didn't demonstrate a full understanding, of the harm they caused. I explained that I needed space and that their pressure was making things worse. I stated that I wasn't interested in a relationship with them under these current terms, where my grief and mom's suffering seemed secondary to their need for forgiveness. Their reactions were predictable, but still disheartening. Jenny called me almost immediately, and she was angry. She accused me of being cold, unforgiving, and of trying to destroy what's left of the family. She said I was holding a grudge and acting holier than thou. I reiterated my points

calmly and then ended the call when she started shouting. Joe sent a text message. It was more subdued but still reflected lack of deep understanding. He wrote that he was sorry I felt that way and that he hoped I would change my mind eventually. He said he understood I was hurt, but that they were hurting too. Neither of them acknowledged the validity of my points about their blame shifting. Their responses just confirmed that I had made the right decision. There was no sense of relief in this, just a deep sadness about the whole situation. The chasm between us feels wider than ever. For now, I need to protect my own peace, the peace mom so desperately wanted for herself. Edit, as for the house, it's an ongoing source of stress. My lawyer is pursuing my claim to mom's share,

but Dad is being obstructive, essentially ignoring legal communications or having his lawyer send back vague delaying responses. His moving Marie and has just made it feel even more like he's staking a claim and daring me to fight him for what Mom rightfully left me. It's a slow, expensive process, and another battle I have to face because of him. Update 2. It has been approximately four months since my last update. A lot has happened with my family, specifically concerning my father and my sibling's relationship with him. Following my last communication with Joe and Jenny, where I told them I wasn't ready to forgive them and needed space, they did, for the most part, reduced their direct pressure on me. However, they apparently took Mom's letter, the one I had sent them,

and confronted Dad with it in a much more direct and sustained way than their initial shocked reaction. They told me about this confrontation in separate, reluctant calls. They described going to the house, finding Dad and Marie there acting like a long-married couple. Joe and Jenny presented the letter. Dad, according to them, initially tried to bluster his way out of it. He called Mom a liar, said she was sick and delusional when she wrote it. He shouted that they had no right to question him after all he'd done for them. He apparently became quite explosive, throwing a glass against the fireplace,

something he used to do during arguments with Mom when we were younger, a detail that apparently shook them to see directed elsewhere. When they didn't back down and kept pointing to the specific details and dates in Mom's letter, Dad's demeanor changed. He apparently broke down, but not in a remorseful way. He started ranting about how Mom had never understood him, how Marie truly appreciated him, and how he deserved happiness too. Then, he finally admitted it.

He confessed that everything in Mom's letter about his long-term affair with Marie was true. He admitted he had been with Marie for many years, that he loved her, and that mom was standing in the way of his happiness. Then came the part that even I wasn't expecting, though it explained the indecent haste of Marie moving in. Dad announced to Joe and Jenny that Marie was pregnant. She was apparently already several months along. This was his final justification for everything.

Marie was giving him a new family, a fresh start. He told them this as if expecting them to be. be pleased for him. This confession, combined with the pregnancy news, was the final straw for Joe and Jenny regarding Dad. They told me they left the house in disgust and haven't spoken to him since. They are, by their own accounts, completely horrified and feel utterly betrayed by him. The father they had defended, the man whose word they had taken over their dying mothers, had revealed himself to be exactly who Mom said he was. A week or so after this major confrontation with dad, both Joe and Jenny contacted me again. This time, their apologies felt different. They were subdued,

and there was no blame directed at me. They talked about Mom, about how they had reread her letter multiple times, about specific memories they had where Dad's behavior now made a terrible new sense. They said they were sorry, truly sorry, for not believing Mom, for hurting her, for abandoning her, and for the pain they caused me. They said they understood. now why I'd been so distant and why I couldn't just get over it. They didn't explicitly ask for forgiveness this time, but the hope was there in their voices. I listened to them. I acknowledged their apologies and told them I believe their remorse was more genuine this time. However, I also told them that Dad's horribleness becoming so undeniable to them doesn't magically

erase what happened with Mom. The damage was severe. Their actions had very real consequences for Mom and her final, suffering months of life. I told them that while I appreciated their understanding and their sincere apologies, I still needed significant time. I asked them to please respect this and to leave me alone for a while, I suggested at least a year of minimal contact, so I could continue to process everything that had happened, and so they could spend that time truly reflecting on their actions regarding mom,

not just reacting to Dad's betrayals. I said that my priority was healing from the trauma of the past year and honoring mom's memory and peace, and that constant rehashing of their guilt wasn't helping. They were quiet, but they agreed. Joe sounded like he was crying. Jenny just said, okay, I understand. Thank you to everyone who read my story and offered support. It's been a very difficult journey, and writing it out, even on an anonymous subreddit, has helped in some small way to process the sheer awfulness of it. Things are still very raw. My relationship with my siblings is obviously shattered, and I don't know if it can ever be truly repaired.

Their recent shift in attitude is noted, but the betrayal of mom cuts incredibly deep. As for Dad, he has made his choices and will now live with them, and with his new family. I have no intention of having any contact with him. For now, I am focusing on myself, my work, and trying to build a life that is calm and as free from this family drama as possible. This will likely be my final update on this particular situation. I appreciate the space to share.