Reddit Stories - UNVEILING a Lifetime of Love_ FULFILLING My Mother's Dream Journey with a HEARTFELT Gesture_

Episode Date: September 7, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #journeyoflove #motherdream #heartfeltgesture #familylove #unveilingmemories  Summary: A touching story unfolds as a person fulfills their mother's dream journey with a heartfelt gesture, unveiling a lifetime of love and cherished memories.  Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, journeyoflove, motherdream, heartfeltgesture, familylove, unveilingmemoriesBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Covered the expenses for my mother's long-awaited trip as a gesture of gratitude for all the years she dedicated to raising me on her own. Unfortunately, she decided to bring along her impolite relatives and insisted that I bunk with the children. Ditched them there. I, 29F, recently got promoted and with it came a significant raise so I asked my mother, 52F, if she'd like to take a vacation with me to Greece.

My mother was pretty much my best friend while growing up because I didn't have a dad. My father passed away from a terminal illness about two or three years after my birth and I barely have any memories of him. It was mainly my mother who took care of me and raised me along with a little help from my grandparents. As a single mom, it was tough for her but she never made me feel like I was a burden on her and I'll always be grateful for that. So when I received this promotion, my very first thought was to take a holiday with my mother to repay her for whatever she'd done. I could have asked my friends to come along but I didn't, because that's how much my mother meant to me. However, as soon as I asked her if she wanted to come along, she told me that

she'd accompany me but only if she'd be able to bring her husband and step kids along with her as well. For context, my mother married her current husband, 49M, three years ago after being in a relationship for two years with him. I had no idea that she was dating this man and neither did anyone else, including her own parents. She sprung it on us with the news of her engagement and we barely had any time to adjust to this when she told us about her relationship because by then, they were already engaged to be married and within six months, they got married too. My stepdad wasn't an unpleasant guy, but I just never got along with him for some reason. Maybe it was the fact that now he and his kids were suddenly my mother's first priority,

or maybe he just never made an effort to connect with me or my grandparents, but for whatever reason, we just didn't get along well, and whenever I'd visit my mother, we'd avoid talking to each other as much as possible. He also happens to have two kids from his previous marriage and they're both in their teens. The oldest is a 16-year-old girl and the younger one is a 14-year-old boy. I don't know for sure why his ex-wife left him, but as far as my is concerned, his divorce took place because his ex-wife was a conniving and selfish B-word who didn't care about him or the kids, which is why she doesn't have custody of them anymore. She hasn't elaborated further and I haven't asked her about it either because it doesn't

concern me. My stepdad had been married for six years and had been divorced for almost two years when he finally met my mother and decided to be with her. All of them seemed to be quite together so I didn't question my mother about her decision to want to include her family. Of course, it is be a lot of hassle and expenditure to book four flight tickets instead of two and two hotel rooms instead of one. And I'd probably not be able to spend as much time with my mother as I'd thought I would, but I was fine with all of that because the purpose of this trip was to make my mother happy and sort of repay her for everything that she'd done for me throughout my childhood. So after a few days, I agreed to let her bring her family along. Luckily, I could

afford that easily since I can afford to splurge a little after the raise. After almost two weeks of planning, we finally boarded our flights and landed in Athens last afternoon. We were all jet-lagged and tried to catch some sleep in the afternoon here and at the time, the kids napped in my room while my mother and stepdad took the one beside ours. I was surprised that the kids had chosen to crash in my room because I'd expected my mother to share a room with her family but I didn't say anything since I'd assumed that this was just for the sake of convenience and once they woke up, they'd moved to the other room. Even after we were all done napping, they didn't move but I didn't mind because all of us went out to have a look around locally yesterday.

We then came back to the hotel and the kids headed straight to my room, which is when I decided to talk to my mother and stepdad about it. I pulled them aside in the lobby and told them that I thought it was about time the kids switched rooms and they needed to say something to them. But my stepdad just laughed in my face and told me that if I wanted to give my mother a vacation that bad, then I should have also taken into consideration that she'd need babysitting services as well. He said it while laughing too, as if it was a hilarious joke. I didn't understand what he was talking about and so he explained that since this was a vacation that I'd organized for my mom, so she could have some time off from her day-to-day exhausting life. Then the least I could do for her was look after the kids and let them share a room with me. Then, both of them smiled at me,

thanked me, and left me speechless in the lobby. I was already doing the least I could do by taking her on vacation with me. How many kids would do that for their parents in this day and age? And honestly, I was doing the most I could because I was putting up with her family even though I'd only wanted to take her with me. And on top of that, I was the one paying for everything so for them to expect me to babysit their kids as well was just ridiculous. If she'd wanted a break then she should have just left them all at home and come with me by

herself like I'd planned for her too. So after a while, I went up to their room and tried to talk some sense into them again, but once more, my stepdad intervened and this time he was a lot less sweet about it. He told me point-blank that I had to share the room with the kids because they'd earned this break and then, he shut the door right in my face before I could even say anything. And the best part was that my mom didn't even say anything to him even though he was being extremely disrespectful and rude towards me. It was also ridiculous that he believed that that they'd earned this break when it was actually I who had earned that promotion and the raise that had led to them being on this trip at all. And instead of being grateful for

whatever I'd done, they had the audacity to be so disrespectful towards me. I was fuming when I got back to my room and saw the kids on the bed beside mine. I thought I'd try a different tactic and I asked them if they'd be willing to shift to the other room, hoping that they'd say yes, but they didn't. They told me that their parents had told them to stay in whichever room I'd be in, and that's why they'd taken it for granted that they'd be sharing a room with me. I didn't say anything to them because it wasn't their fault that their dad was being a jerk. So I let them be and thought about what to do next for the next couple of hours until at around 10 in the night. When I realized that the kids had fallen asleep, I'd thought about it long and hard

and I realized that the only way out for me right now was to just leave without notifying any of them and leave them on their own. They'd been really disrespectful and selfish and there was just no way that my stepdad was going to boss me around on a vacation that I was paying for. I didn't think twice about it and before I knew it, I grabbed all my bags and had made a run for it. I hadn't unpacked yet so that was easy for me and the hotel staff didn't care much either since I'd told them that I was checking out and that the rooms would be paid for by my mother and stepdad. It was a little past midnight, but after searching for a while, I found another hotel a little distance away from the one I was in. I was lucky enough to get an Uber without waiting for long and within half an hour, I'd checked

into the other hotel which was better than the previous one because now that I'd managed to get rid of my mom and her I could finally afford to spend all that money on myself. I had a good night's sleep and the first thing that I did this morning was book myself a full-body massage at the hotel spa to put myself at ease and fully be able to enjoy the vacation that I'd intended to have after several months of working myself to the bone for this promotion. I'd already blocked my stepdad and mother the night before, so I wasn't too worried about hearing from them and there was no way they'd be able to find out where I was. I was having the time of my life so far, but that was only until a couple of hours ago when,

at lunch, I finally heard from my mother. She'd made a fake account on Instagram to get through to me and had sent me a message about how I was being cruel to all of them, especially her. She said that abandoning my family wasn't the way to go and if I'd really felt so offended by the events of the previous night, then I should have waited until the morning to confront them and discuss this like a family until we came to a conclusion that everyone would be pleased with. But instead, I chose to abandon them in a strange country knowing that they didn't have any money on them at the moment since their cards wouldn't work internationally and the hotel

staff was already hounding them for money since they'd been talking about checking out once they discovered that I'd left in the middle of the night without telling. Any of them anything about it. So essentially, they didn't have any money and would soon be thrown at out of the hotel as well if they couldn't confirm that they'd pay for the room since I'd transferred the rooms to them instead before I left so I couldn't be held responsible if anything went south, which I knew it would. My mother told me that she was incredibly disappointed in me and said that she hadn't expected this sort of juvenile and immature behavior from me and demanded that I come back immediately to sort things out and bail them out. It was that exact entitlement

that pissed me off and in the heat of the moment. I messaged her back saying that she was an adult and could sort things out on her own and to ask her husband for help since he's the one she relies on for everything now. And that pissed her off because, after that message, she told me that she wished she'd never even agreed to accompany me on this vacation at all and that she should have known that I was jealous of her new life and her new family, which is why I was going out of my way to trouble them. I don't think this is my fault at all and my reaction was probably how any sane human being in my situation would react to something like this in the same way. I'm not jealous, I'm just disappointed that she's not putting them before her own flesh and blood, but even that's okay

since I'm an adult now. What I'm not cool with is being disrespected by people who are counting on me and are not even bothering to stand up for me when her husband is being so rude to me right in front of her. I'd offer abandoning my mother and her family in a different country because my stepdad tried to force me to share a room with my step-siblings on a vacation that I paid for. Update 1, Hey, guys. So I didn't apologize to my mother and neither did I get back in touch with her after I went through the comments here. I don't owe her as much as I thought I did and the fact that I even offered to take her on vacation should have been enough for her to appreciate my efforts, but she just had to take it way too far. Not only did she demand that I let her bring her family along, but also that I give up my personal space and privacy to accommodate her stepkids.

I don't even understand why exactly she'd expect me to sit with them and discuss things like a family when they're not even my family in the first place. Like, her husband is her husband and not my dad and her kids are her stepkids, not my siblings. So I don't owe it to them to have any discussions with them of any sort. And I only abandoned them because they'd been incredibly disrespectful towards me even though I'd been the one to even organize this vacation for them all. So the least they could have done was show some gratitude and respect to. to me, but they chose not to and I really don't see anything wrong with what I did. The only

place I'd say I went wrong was the fact that I even let my mother convince me to let her bring her family along with her on the vacation. They're not my family and I don't owe it to her to let her enjoy the trip at my expense, but I thought that I needed to repay her, which is why I let myself be pushed around like this. She'd been a good mother to me, but that was no excuse for her to act so entitled now and that's just my opinion. It's been one whole day and I haven't responded to her, but she keeps texting me on and off. I haven't bothered to check her texts and neither have I blocked her since then she'll just make another account to bother me. So it's better to just let her ramble on and on since I've muted her and won't be bothered now. I'm enjoying my trip solo now.

Update 2. L.O.L. My mom just showed up with the rest of her family at the hotel I'm staying at and threw a tantrum in the hotel lobby when they refused to let her up to see me or even tell them my room number which is just normal hotel policy, I don't know why she was surprised at that. But anyway, when I went down to check out what she was here for, she was furious and pulled me aside before yelling at me for what I'd done. Apparently, they'd somehow managed to check out of the previous hotel by coordinating with their bank and paying them off somehow, but now, they wanted me to answer them as to why exactly I'd abandoned them. I didn't think I owed them an explanation at all, but I still told her the exact reason that I'd left her and watched as her husband's face

became more and more sour looking. By the time I was done talking, he looked like he was ready to burst with annoyance at me, but I didn't care. It was his own fault that they had to suffer like this, and if he'd just been nice and polite to me then I wouldn't have run away at all so it was pointless to make faces at me to try and guilt-trip me. It was also pointless to lecture me about family values and morals, which is what my mother chose to do. She told me that what I'd done was unacceptable and the way I'd chosen to deal with

this situation was not only humiliating for them, but it was also a pathetic move on my part because it made me look like a coward who was too afraid to talk to her own family. I was already pretty pissed off and when she brought up the whole family thing yet again, I had a bit of an outburst and told her that we were not a family at all. Because first of all, she'd lied to us and hidden this so-called family of hers from us for a long time and had only deemed it important enough to let us know when she was about to get married. Not only that, but also, she and her husband had never made an effort to make me feel like family at all, so it was really entitled of them to expect that I'd treat them as such. She should have just been glad that I offered to take them on

vacation for her sake only, but if she was too blind and entitled to even appreciate that then, so be it, I didn't owe her anything either then. I told her to her face that now, I didn't want to see her anymore, and I wanted them to leave me alone for the rest of the vacation. She tried to man that I booked their flight tickets back home, but I refused since, like I already said, I'd done what I'd promised, but if they couldn't appreciate that then I wasn't some fool who was going to go out of my way to help them. They were both adults, they had their own money, and if they were going to take me for granted, then they could kiss my offer goodbye. There was some more bickering after that, but then my stepdad had the good sense to intervene

and took them all away, all the while shooting me the nastiest looks that he possibly could. as if I'd even care. A couple of hours have passed since then and right now, I'm on my way out for dinner with a friend of mine who lives here and reached out to me when she found out that I was visiting. Hopefully, my mom and her family will just go back home and let me enjoy the rest of this trip on my own because I really have no interest in continuing this unnecessary fight. Update 3.

So, turns out I was wrong about my mother letting go of this as easily as I'd thought she was going. I thought that two days back, I'd seen the last of her since we got into a really bad argument and I pretty much told her that I didn't owe her anything so I thought that she'd leave me alone but clearly not. Today, right before I was about to leave and roam a little around the city on my own, I received a call from reception saying that my mother was back here to visit me again. This time it was just here so I decided to go see her because I just wanted an end to this TIF so I could have fun on my vacation. I didn't have any idea what to expect when I went to to speak to her in the lobby, but she looked more upset than angry, so I knew that at least

today she wasn't going to be as awful as she was the previous time that she'd come over to meet me. She started off by apologizing to me for losing her temper and acting entitled because she apparently didn't even realize that she was acting that way. She also told me that she and her husband had been looking forward to a break from taking care of the household and the kids and the finances and everything all at once because they'd been having a very tense and rough patch before I invited her to accompany her on the vacation and she'd thought that she could use this as an opportunity to build. Lasting bonds between all of us because she loved all of us equally and wanted us to be a part of each other's lives. However, she didn't know if that was

the right way to go anymore because clearly, I don't get along with her husband and her husband doesn't seem to like me either. They got into a very nasty fight over what I'd done after they left the hotel the other day and he accused her of raising her terribly and crossed a line when he told her that his ex-wife had been a better mother than she had been, which was saying something since his ex-wife would regularly abandon his kids by themselves at home for hours at end while she'd go out. That's the reason they got a divorce because he finally found out what she'd been doing and at the time, they were too young to be left alone in a locked room by themselves even if it was just for three or four hours. And for him to compare my mother to a woman like that, all because

I had decided to stand up for myself was taking things way too far. I don't think anyone would have tolerated that, but my mother says she loves him so she's okay with that. The reason she'd visited me today, however, was to tell me that they were all flying back home the next day and said that she was sorry about her behavior. She'd been really stressed out regarding her relationship with her husband, which is why she'd already been on edge and what I did just made it all worse. So she was apologetic for that, but she also told me that she wanted me to keep my distance for a while, which meant that I couldn't call her regularly to talk about life like I used to earlier. I didn't plan on calling her and talking to her while I was on vacation anyway,

but to know that I wouldn't be able to have the same relationship with her ever again for the foreseeable future kind of stung and all because of her husband. It sucked, but I told her I understood and we had a really awkward and cold hug. If I'm being honest, I wish she'd just not contacted me at all and hadn't bothered to apologize and stuff at all. Because this just makes me feel worse about what has to be. happened. Like I know she messed up, but she's still my mom and she was my best friend while growing up so losing her to this new family of hers actually did feel like I was losing the

only part of my childhood that I still carried around with me. It hurts, but there's not much that I can do and there's really nothing that I even want to do, given the circumstances. She's the one who wants to pick her husband and her stepkids over me so really, what can I even do? I'll just try to enjoy the rest of my stay here because I'm paying a bomb to stay at this expensive hotel, ha. So that's that. Update 4, hi, so I came back home about three days ago and I'm supposed to resume work tomorrow. I tried to make the best of my trip and it was quite fun. I almost forgot about my situation with my mother until last night. When I heard from my grandparents that she decided to leave her husband because they were going through a bad phase

anyway and they'd realize that they couldn't work things out anymore. So the family that she put me second to is now no longer her, which is a little strange and sad to think about because she picked them over me but she doesn't even have that anymore. We haven't spoken since she left me at the hotel that last day that she visited me and I haven't tried to reach out to her either because it just seemed pointless. And after a while, I forgot about her because I was having fun on the trip. Even after coming back, I didn't think of her a couple of times but she didn't talk to me so I didn't try to talk to her either. I didn't want to force my presence someplace where I wasn't wanted and she'd made it very clear that she didn't want to talk to me at the moment.

And maybe she won't change her mind in the future either, from the looks of the situation now. I mean, she didn't even tell me that she decided to file for divorce and that's pretty big, so I think this is pretty much the end of the road for my mother and me. And hypothetically, even if we do reconcile someday, things will never be the way they used to be. I'm okay with that now because I was a good daughter to her and I tried my best until I felt like I couldn't anymore. So I'm cool with whatever happens now and I wish the best for her because I'm too old to hold grudges against anyone, let alone my own mom. I'll try to move past this as well now, I guess.