I (20F) graduated high school almost two years ago and it's been exactly that long since my dad and stepmom started expressing anger at me and my siblings whenever we spoke. They also pulled away from the three of us. Because of my sister I already knew what was going on with them to some level and I didn't want to engage with that so I didn't say anything or ask what was going on.
This has festered for them over the last two years and they confronted us the other week about saying nothing all this time and for not asking why they were angry at us. We told them we already knew it was because they were upset I mentioned my late mom during my graduation speech and paired with the fact my stepmom is still STEP. My sister admitted she heard them the day before my graduation and put the pieces together when they were angry after graduation.
For those who wanna know more. Mine and my siblings mom died when we were 5 (me), 7 (brother) and 8 (sister). Our dad remarried fast, within in months of our mom's death. We all got along with our stepmom but none of us saw her as another mom. It seems my stepmom put most of the hope in me to one day start calling her mom and consider her my mom because she raised me. There were times her or my dad would try to find out if we had grown there. Like for Mother's Day when dad would ask us if we wanted to buy the MOM card for our stepmom. Or when she would ask if we wanted a photo of her for school anytime we were asked to bring in a photo of our mom. But for the most part they didn't push us and I never felt more singled out than my siblings on it.
But when they started acting weird after my graduation and my sister told us what she heard, it clicked for us. And the thing was I couldn't say anything to change how she felt because in all this time I still considered my mom to be my only mom. My stepmom is my stepmom. To me that's different. Everyone else can consider it differently and I know people who do and others who don't. I still mentioned her with my dad in the speech I made. But I won't ever forget about my mom. I won't stop bringing her up because she is missed, I do wish she was here, I want to remember her and if my dad and stepmom don't like that and want the focus to be only on my stepmom then they won't ever really get it.
My stepmom said she felt like I at the very least should have wanted to ask them and talk it out. She told me I would have far more memories of her than my mom and that for most of my life she has been acting in the role of the mother. And she said if after all that I can't choose her back then she feels like she wasted her time on all of us. She said the fact not one of us loves her back in the way she wanted confirmed she wasted her time. She asked how not one of us could even consider her a second mom alongside mom. She asked why we had to only have one.
They brought it back around to the fact none of us asked them about it and we just let them be angry. I told them I knew nothing I could say honestly would change it and I wasn't going to lie to make them less mad.
AITAH?