WIBTAH: not getting my mother a Mother’s Day present
Would I be the asshole for not getting my mother a Mother’s Day present?
My mother and I have a rough relationship. My parents have a toxic marriage that maybe long ago should have gone through divorce, but due to religion they stick together. Due to certain issues in their marriage, and them thinking that we are picking sides or wanting us to not get involved (even though they involve us), my relationship with my mother has been severely damaged.
I’m now 26F, and during the COVID pandemic I had to drop out of university because I was unable to maintain all my class work and help my sibling with her online school as she struggled to adapt, as well as help maintain the house and cook while she and my dad worked. Since I was 11 and my sibling was born, I have always helped with things beyond my age. And then after Covid they had another child and I also helped with that sibling.
Whenever my mother and I get in a disagreement, she always throws in my face the fact that I didn’t get a college degree and work part time in retail. It’s important to know that my grandma forced my mother, who came from a different country, to drop out of high school and start working. I feel like she doesn’t value the sacrifice of my college education being pushed aside to help my sibling and the household. Even with my part time job I always helped them with bills and payments. I’ve racked up plenty of credit card debt to help them buy necessities as well as I pay for some of her cards too. I pay rent now since we moved into a more expensive place, and she hasn’t worked since having her last baby. I pay half of the phone bill, when I only have one line out of 4. I pay the WiFi, I help with food and gas. I split the electric bill with them. It leaves me with barely enough for myself. And she uses that to throw the fact in my face that I don’t have any savings or plans for the future. Throws in my face that I’m unmarried and can’t drive when I haven’t been able to develop more of myself because I’m always helping them.
Today we had another disagreement because she did something inconsiderate (blasted full volume on car radio) to the youngest sibling to quiet them during a small tantrum that made them cry out in dis comfort because their ears hurt. When I told her that wasn’t okay she went off and threw all that stuff mentioned before in my face. It’s two days till Mother’s Day. I was hurt by her words. Literally the day after my birthday last year she told me I was nothing. She also had a disagreement with my middle sibling a week ago and called her a bunch of rude disrespectful insults and didn’t even apologize. Told her they were no child of hers. Then when my sibling was trying to be nice she says “oh but I’m not your mother remember?” So I jokingly said “well you saved yourself a Mother’s Day gift”
I remembered those words today as she took everything I did for granted and brought up all those things just to hurt me on purpose. All I did was lower the volume since it also hurt my ears. And she exploded and said all that hurtful stuff and blamed all her stress on me and said I don’t ever do anything for her
Would I be the asshole for choosing not to get her anything for Mother’s Day? Especially when she isn’t acting like a mother, but rather a bully following in her own mother’s footsteps? Especially when just this morning she told me what she wanted me to get her as a gift. Would I be in the wrong?