Reddit Stories - My child phoned to inform me that she COULDN'T attend the HOLIDAY GATHERING

Episode Date: August 2, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #familydrama #holidaygathering #parentingwoes #communicationbreakdown #familyconflictSummary: My child phoned to inform me that she COULDN'T attend the HOLIDAY GATHERING. It sparked family drama, highlighting communication breakdowns and parenting woes.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, familydrama, holidaygathering, parentingwoes, communicationbreakdown, familyconflict, childrearing, familyrelationships, holidaystress, familycommunication, parentchildconflict, familybonding, familyevents, familyissues, familyunity, familytimeBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. My child phoned to inform me that she couldn't attend the holiday gathering as her spouse was unfaithful, and to my shock, the third party involved turned out to be my second child. Been secretly seeing him for two years I blocked her. I am a mother of four children, two older sons and two younger daughters. All of them are adults and have moved out a long time ago. I have always been close with my daughter Sally, while Penny has always liked to have her own space.

Which I don't mind, they're both beautiful, talented young women that I thought I couldn't be more proud of. We're having early Christmas this year. First week of December I was inviting everyone around for Christmas dinner, gift-giving and the lot. When I phoned Penny yesterday to clarify a few things she mentioned that she and her husband would not be coming. When I asked, she said that they had separated for now as he had cheated. I said that it was surely better to spend time with family if this was the case and maybe she should come home for some time. She hummed an odd but then eventually she told me he had an affair with stink bug and they had been seeing each other for the past two years. I felt sick.

For the past six months in our talks, Sally has alluded that she had been seeing someone and was typically girl in love. I uninvited Sally to the Christmas gathering and blocked her. I don't know if I'm able to deal with her before Christmas, but this is a little bit of but this is family time and family can't hurt each other like that. I'm at a loss in all honesty. Penny is now coming, which is good, because at this time she needs stability of people who love her emo. The problem is that Sally naturally thinks I'm in the wrong.

It's none of my business and as her mother I can't block her and remove her from the family. My sister thinks I shouldn't get involved in their personal lives, which I think is BS. My daughter needs us right now. But then she tells me I have two daughters to think about, which I think isn't true. Sally has forfeited that right ATM. Thankfully my husband is liaising with Sally ATM, but he is also in solidarity with me. So are we in the wrong for uninviting a daughter for Christmas? Edit, Penny's Mill found out.

While me and her have only spoken a few times, she did dote on Penny and I know Penny got along well with her. I haven't spoken to her personally, but I know that I know that she's not. she phoned my daughter and was really supportive and crying. My sister said that if Sally isn't invited then she isn't going either. Which is fine by me, she wasn't invited in the first place due to the pandemic. Otherwise I've been working and doing some crochet so it's been quiet smile update one. Hello all. My Christmas gathering was yesterday and my son and husband wondered if I would post an update for you all. It's been rather uneventful, but I've been

equally surrounded by warmth and love while also feeling heartbroken and lonely. My daughter Penny has been staying with us. She works from home. My husband and eldest went to get some more of her stuff from her old house. Penny's mother-in-law, Jane, was there and was very helpful and sweet. She also bought some mint-hot chocolate for our Penny and Christmas candles. I know they're her favorite. From what Penny has told me, Jane is having similar feelings to me.

A lot of guilt over our children's decision to hurt people we love. I think at this point we have to accept that we did our best raising them, but they're adults now so we can't beat ourselves up. Penny and Jane are going to stay in touch. I think Jane truly does think of Penny as a daughter-slash-friend. On to some more negative things. I wrote my letter to Sally during this time. I expressed that I was extremely disappointed and also disgusted.

While I will continue to have a relationship with her, she won't be welcome to any family gatherings with Penny present unless Penny has met a point in her life where she feels comfortable. I told her what some of you had said, that not taking a side would be a side and that she had for all intents and purposes, already uninvited herself when she was so cruel to her sister. Sally had apparently come up on Friday and knocked on the door. I was out shopping at the time. My husband spoke to her. Apparently, Sally and Michael, my son-in-law, are going to continue their relationship. I will not support it in any way or form.

She may be my daughter but that man is not welcome. I am supporting Penny through the divorce, and if Sally ever expects money for the wedding or a house then she's a very naive girl. My husband sent her away, after which Sally said we'd have to get over it someday. Otherwise, the Christmas gathering was lovely. It was strange not getting drunk and playing board games due to COVID, but still a pleasant time. My hip hurts from the cooking but husband and Penny did the cleaning up so who's the real winner? I hope you all have a wonderful day.

Thank you very much for your kind words when I last spoke to you. Update 2. Hello all. I hope this message finds you well. A lot has changed since I last spoke with you all, so I would like to update you because I am finding things a bit different. right now. First of all, Penny is doing well. She met someone new about a year ago, they're incredibly supportive and sweet, and they made such an effort in getting to know me and my husband. Penny was still living with me when she started seeing them, so I got to watch their

relationship develop, and although Penny is a grown woman I couldn't help but be reminded of when she was a child and having crushes. It was very endearing and I'm glad I got to witness firsthand the smile her new partner gives her. Penny also got a new woman. new job and has moved to Ireland with her partner. Sally and Michael have continued their relationship. I don't have a lot of love to give Michael. I am civil enough but frankly, it is difficult for me to become invested in their relationship at all. Michael recently asked my permission to marry Sally, which was disrespectful, to say the least. Penny still lived with me last Christmas, so again they were not invited. I am not hosting this Christmas

and I'm instead going to go visit my eldest son, he and his wife had a little boy at the beginning of this year. They've asked me to stay with them for a little while so I can help with the cooking and cleaning, as they have been struggling a little bit. Finally, my husband passed away nine months ago. He fell while on a walk and hit his head, and was there for some hours before someone found him. It's been a difficult transition, to put it mildly. Being a little bit on the older side, I've lost a fair few people in my life and while I did grieve, I always had the strength to continue. Losing my husband made me realize how much I relied on him. Not just to take the bins out, or pick me up from choir practice, but all the times I was angry, sad, and overwhelmed and he was there

for me. When other people passed away at least you get moments of respite in the grief, where you just sort of forget they've passed. With my husband, there are only reminders. Every time I wake up alone, when I now have to take the bins out, when I have to cook a meal just for one person. There's not really a moment of peace in this grief and I have found it very difficult to deal with. It's his birthday at the end of November, and there was another moment of grief as I had to get rid of my notes for birthday gift ideas in my notebook. Everything has just been so painful to deal with and I just cannot stop crying even after

all this time. I just can't even stand to think of the good moments I shared with him because, you know, because it just hurts too much. I know there's not a correct way to grieve or time limit, but I just feel like I've got to get up and start looking after myself for everyone around me. I really want to thank any of you that read this. It's been incredibly helpful just to be able to share my feelings a little bit. I hope you all have been doing well. Kind regards. Update 3, March 17, 2025. I wasn't quite sure how to respond to all the messages I received after my last post. It seemed like a mighty task to reply to you all individually. So although

I appreciate the well wishes, you'll have to settle for sharing that thank you message. So, thank you all for the advice and care you've shown since that one Christmas so many years ago smile when my husband passed I could not see another way to live my life. We had shared and created so much together, and I suppose I never imagined a life without him because I never wanted it. That being said my husband, quite selfishly, died and so after a year of stagnation it was time to live a life without him. I have moved closer to my eldest son and wife to help raise my grandchildren. It was difficult at first because, although the children keep me busy and gave me joy and purpose, I did sometimes wish to talk to someone my own age about my own interests and not just

Bluey. Serendipitously, I ran into an old, old friend of mine at the leisure center about a half year ago and she is also widowed. It feels like a light in my life has been switched back on, we reconnected almost instantly and it's a blessing to have someone I can rely on again. We are living together and she is pretty much considered co-grandmother. While I do still wake up alone, I now know that the kettle is already boiling downstairs Smile Penny is doing well. She has now moved to the Netherlands for work and she and her partner are still together. They've just recently gone back home after visiting for the week's smile Sally is also doing well. I know for some that will be disappointing to hear, including myself

sometimes. On one hand, as a mother, I'm glad she's happy, on the other hand, equally as a mother, I can't forgive her for hurting Penny. I also have some deeper resentments as my husband passed while he was also hurting because of the decisions she had made. Sometimes it feels unfair to hold that against her. We still talk and I still love her, but sometimes I feel like I'm going through the motions rather than caring for my daughter as I used to. It's also a really hard thing to talk about to other people. There's a lot of guilt and shame involved when sharing that sometimes I feel quite ambivalent towards my daughter.

All in all, the last couple of years have been a bit eventful. I would give everything to turn back time, but I can't and so I spend my time appreciating everything I still have. Once again, thank you all for your advice, care and well wishes. The help I received was invaluable for navigating a difficult time in my life. Next story. Mom secretly called wedding vendors behind my back to plan my wedding. When I told her to stop, she brought her own wedding dress to dinner, then crashed my

wedding after I uninvited her, so I had to cut off my entire family. I 32 recently started planning my wedding with my fiancé 31 and my mom immediately jumped to help us plan. I thought at first it'd be okay, but she will call vendors and vendors and venting. she likes, will give them my information so they call me about a scheduled time and my mom swoops in to say it'd be rude not to go since they invited you. It was obvious it was her after the third time when she wouldn't stop giggling and admitted to calling beforehand and making appointments. I wouldn't take issue with this but my mom and I have wildly different tastes. Every time me

or my fiancé tell her something like how want to have this color for the table clothes or these flowers she'll tell us that they look bad and will give us her own plan. She recently showed us a massive binder of different ideas she wants us to look through. It's exhausting, at every step she will insist on looking at her ideas and when we reject them she'll throw a fit and tell me I don't love her because I ignore all her wishes. I also want to add I think she's had it in her head since I was a kid she'd plan my wedding. Even before I came out and dated men she'd comment on how excited she was for the wedding and when me and when I told her my fiancé proposed she immediately started berating me about when we'd have the wedding so she could help us plan it.

Part of it is that when she married my dad it was a small courthouse affair because she was pregnant with me at the time and never got a proper wedding. My dad also died 17 years ago and she's dates sporadically but never for longer than a few months. The last time me and my fiancé went to see a venue she tagged along and made all these comments on how gross everything was, pointing out all the tiny things wrong with it all. The person showing us was getting annoyed. My fiancé was getting annoyed and so was I.

She eventually said if this were my wedding I'd never even consider this dump. Despite it being absolutely beautiful and within the budget I snapped and told her that if she wanted to plan a wedding so badly she should get remarried. It was cruel, but I was so tired of her trying to have her perfect wedding through me. My fiancé thinks I'm not at fault but the rest of my family doesn't. Ida. Edit, adding answers to a couple common questions, is she paying for the wedding? No, she's not paying a penny.

Why don't you set boundaries with her? We have, she doesn't listen and will cry and guilt me and my fiancé until we go along with her or look at what she's picked out for us update one. Hello, everyone, I took all of the advice to Hart and me and my fiancé had a sit down and looked at the comments together and we agreed we both need to grow spines. Our wedding planner is truly a saint and had no problem setting up passwords with vendors like some people suggested and it was a great suggestion so thank you. We then invited my mom to dinner and told her that she has to stop trying to help us with the wedding.

It started off bad as she brought her binder and had her own wedding dress in her car. Her dress is in very bad condition, would not fit either me or my fiancée and is quite frankly hideous. I would never say that to her face, though I've told her every time she's asked that I want to pick out my own dress and she should keep hers for if she wants to get remarried. She assumed that we had invited her to apologize and let her plan the wedding however she wanted. How she jumped to that conclusion I have no idea. We lied about not wanting her to get overly stressed and the hope she'd take it better than telling her that she's been causing problems and that she hasn't been helpful. She didn't take it well and started crying, and saying all she ever wanted was for me to have the perfect wedding and she'd already given up getting the perfect son-in-law and grandchildren so at the least we could let her plan the wedding.

It stunned us both as she has never said a bad word about me liking women, not when I came out, not when I got my first girlfriend, not when me and my fiancé got engaged. That put me over the edge and I told her that she wasn't going to plan anything, she was a guest and nothing more and I would be cutting her speech if she was going to behave like a child. She had a full-on tantrum so me and my fiancé paid and left her to cry and scream in the restaurant. That was all fine and dandy until our florist called to tell us my mom had called to try and get the flower arrangements changed behind our back. I called her and she tried to lie until she realized she was backed into a corner and admitted to doing it because

she knew what was best and was trying to help. Needless to say that I've now uninvited her from the wedding with the full support of my fiancé and my soon-to-be Mill and Phil. Update two, I'm so done, just so done with her. Three months of hell but finally me and my wife are happily married. Not once did my mom think of me and what I wanted. She wouldn't stop trying to call vendors, get things changed and try to guess the passwords. At one point we changed the passwords every week to random things so that she couldn't guess them. We didn't post a date anywhere and had on the invitations that the guests couldn't share the date and location yet somehow she got both. We even told her that the stress was too much and we were going to wait until the summer or later to get married

and she screamed at us, telling us that we were horrible and canceling it despite her. We blocked her phone number, reduced the wedding budget significantly so we could hire good security. Thank fucking God we did and gave them pictures of her because somehow she found out the date, time and location and came in her motherfucking wedding dress and demanded to be let in because it was her wedding. I am beyond done, I'm typing this as me and my wife are waiting to get on our plane to go home after an incredible honeymoon.

We even looked at job openings and apartments that are at least six hours away from where we currently live because my loving mother has taken to sending us letters calling me a horrible daughter and sending packages that are piles of pictures from when I was a kid and I loved her unconditionally with notes asking why I don't love her anymore and why I banned her from her from her wedding, how excited she was for it, how it was her right as my mom to go. She tried to guilt me, she cursed me out and what? Thought I'd give up, let her do whatever she wants and run my life for me? And act as if she's not been a pain in my ass since I told her that me, that me, and my wife were beginning to plan the wedding. My best friend who was house-sitting got the honor

of opening them all and sending us the contents. She hand delivered the first one the day after the wedding while we were on the plane. I know because the ring doorbell caught it and all of the other ones she delivered as well as the ones the mailman delivered. I'm fuming, I'm pissed and I was to scream because what the fuck? She tried to ruin my wedding. My own mother tried to ruin my wedding and is trying to make me feel bad. She tried to plan my wedding for me, through a tantrum when I asked her not to, tried to sabotage it and then crashed it.

But sure, I'm the problem here. Comment where Op has replied, comment her, Op, match a state to a guest and tell them you are moving there. When mother comes back stating she knows where you're moving, you have your FM, Op, we're considering doing something like that. Part of her planning the wedding

was figuring out who wouldn't tell her about the wedding, so very few family members on my side and friends who know about all the chaos she's caused. But someone still told so we'll be finding out who and cutting them out of our lives along with my mom. Update 3. Context, I got married a few months ago, while planning the wedding my mom tried to steamroll over me and my wife's decisions and basically have her own wedding because she married my, dead, dad in a courthouse. We tried to tell her gently she couldn't she went on a homophobic rant slash tantrum in the middle of the restaurant we'd met at. tried to crash my wedding, in her wedding dress, and then tried to guilt me and my wife into feeling bad for not letting her in. So, I found out who told my mom where and when the wedding was. There was no grand plan, we'd wanted to do that after getting a little more settled into our new

lives. I went back recently for work and invited one of my cousins out to lunch, picking somewhere my mom wouldn't go to so that there'd be no accidental run-ins. Me and this cousin are really close, were similar in age and she was one. one of the bridesmaid. She's like a sister to me. She's also the most timid slash shy slash non-confrontational person ever. Big red flag, I know. So we went out to luncheon who showed up. My mother. She showed up and was all like, oh hi. I didn't know you were in town. Why didn't you call me? Lovely day we're having. House, wife, Mill and Phil. Have you two started talking about kids yet? She was being civil. I wish she'd screamed and cried so I could have looked

like the same one. My cousin wouldn't look at me, not only did she tell my mom that we would be going out to lunch. But she told my mom about the wedding, she tells me that her mom, my aunt, and my mom pressured her into it. Since they knew she'd know if the wedding was actually pushed back. And she told them. She told them despite knowing how crazy my mom is and how much crazier she's become. I'm not even angry. I just feel betrayed and so, so happy that me and my wife didn't tell anyone where we were moving so my mom couldn't show up at our door. I've had to cut off my cousin, the girl I saw as my sister because she couldn't keep her fucking mouth shut despite knowing. And I can't reiterate this enough, every detail about how my mom was when she was helping us

plan the wedding. I'm cutting contact with my entire family. It's not worth it. If you let in a little crazy they'll let in the rest of the crazy. Comment where Op has replied, comment her, Your mom knew your cousin was weak and walked all over her, sounds like a bully, plus the way she tries to bully you. Good thing you aren't letting her walk all over you too, I would cut her off too. Op, before all this started my mom and her mom would walk over us both. Coming to Reddit helped me realize that my boundaries weren't boundaries and my mom was continuing to walk over me. I managed to grow a spine, she's not. I'm hoping going NC with her like I am with the rest of my family will make her realize she needs to stick up for herself.