Salaam brothers and sisters,
I hope you’re all in the best of health in’sha’Allah.
I have a situation which I wanted to discuss with people, I don’t have much of a support system so I thought I would come over here and share my thoughts and feelings. I apologise if the message is quite lengthy, but I think the context helps for everyone..
Me and my husband just returned from completing our Umrah in March Alhamdulilah. It was both of our first times completing Umrah and it was a beautiful experience to do with my husband early on into our marriage Alhamdulilah. My mother-in-law and mother have never been, and when we were planning our Umrah, we said that in’sha’Allah next time we will take our mothers with us to allow them to experience this too.
Our anniversary is now coming up in July in’sha’Allah, and we were looking at destinations to go to celebrate. Many of the places we want to go to, we are unable to due to the flight being disrupted with the ongoing war between Iran and USA. Even flying locally was working out super expensive due to the jet fuel prices, and we decided that since we would be spending the same amount of money to go somewhere local, we might as well use that money to go back to Saudi and complete umrah again and spend time in the Holy City to thank Allah SWT for allowing us to celebrate this year of marriage. We also never know how ‘easy’ it will be to do this once we have children which in’sha’Allah Allah SWT will bless us with soon.
I had told my mom about the plan and she knew that this had been booked before the rest of my extended family knew. She did say to me, you and your husband said you’d take me next time (but this wasn’t in an upset way, it was more of an expressive way from her) and I explained to her yes in’sha’Allah we still will definitely take them if Allah hears us the tawfeek, and we had always said next year or another time in the future if Allah SWT invites us back. And I told her this was obviously an anniversary trip which is why it would literally be just me and my husband!! Plus my mom’s going on a family holiday to Europe anyway in July so she isn’t exactly sat at home alone… anyway, my mom was fine and said yes that’s really good that you’re going again and was super happy for us and even said that me and her should go somewhere for a weekend together in September to which I agreed and said I’d find us a holiday deal in’sha’Allah.
For context, my family dynamic is a little dysfunctional but I classify my “immediate” family as my grandma, 2 aunts (maternal aunts) and my mom, this is just due to the way my household is due to various unrelated issues these are the people I grew up with and lived with. My mom asked me that when I do tell the rest of the family, she wants to act as if she did not know, because as I mentioned my family is quite dysfunctional and toxic and would cause an issue over the fact that I told my mom first and them later, so I agreed and said that’s fine (to avoid any issues for her).
Yesterday we went for a family meal, and whilst we were at the meal my mom text me and told me I should tell the family now. So I said to them “oh by the way guys I use some news, me and my husband will be going back to Saudi in’sha’Allah in July for our anniversary!” (I explained all of the reasoning as I have above so I won’t repeat it!)
I obviously knew my mom was going to act ‘surprised’, but instead of just acting as if she didn’t know, she started saying things in front of my family like “ you said you were going to take me?” “ why would you go when you said that I would be going next time” and when I was explaining how next year we’d take her in’sha’Allah she was making comments like “oh whatever” .. she then started to CRY??? My aunts were all them more bothered about consoling her even though she wallah was completely fine with this whole concept and even told me to bring her specific colour abayas back from Makkah etc..
The conversation went so far, that she said “it’s fine I don’t want to go with you and your husband, I’ll go with my nephew and sisters instead” (my nephew is currently only 10.. so she would be waiting at least 8 years for that..)!
I just really felt so confused and blindsided in that moment because I understood she wanted to act surprised as if she didn’t know however, there is a stark difference in acting shocked and in completely twisting the narrative and making me appear like a bad daughter?
After things had “calmed down” at the dinner table, I texted her to say “wth was that all about?! That isn’t acting ‘surprised’”. On the journey home, I could see that she was going to reply to my message, but my nephew kept peering over her phone so she just closed the chat. We didn’t speak the entire car journey home even though me and her were sat in the back (with her nephew between us both). I said bye to my family generally, but not to her specifically as honestly, I was really angry and hurt at why she had acted that way?
I live about 30 minutes away from my home city, and she usually texts to see if I got home but she didn’t text me to check or to reply to my questions about why she behaved that way.
I’m feeling kind of crazy because I don’t know if I’ve done something wrong? But honestly I know she was 100% fine with it and if she wasn’t happy with something she would have said it to me prior.
Our relationship has never been the best growing up as she has always been quite an absent parent, but I’m just been feeling super anxious and having panic attacks since yesterday. My husband has been a great support, but I’m just very confused about if I’ve done something wrong.