No matter what parenting style someone follows, it seems like we should all be able to agree that our No. 1 job is to love our kids and show up for them when they need us. As parents, we hope for our kids to grow up happy and to lead lives that fill them with joy. We want them to find someone they love, build a life together, and go on to make beautiful memories. Most of us can't imagine missing the chance to be part of those beautiful memories, especially when they involve getting married!
Although that should be the goal, not all parents are quite there. With raising kids, it really is more complicated than it seems because there can be a whole slew of other issues in the mix. That’s the case with one mom who’s not seeing eye-to-eye with her daughter after feeling like she was lied to for many years.
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Unsure how to move forward, the mom took to Reddit to share what happened, hoping to get some advice.
Posting to Reddit’s AITA community, the original poster, or OP, gave some background information before jumping into the details of her current dilemma.
“About ten years ago, a close friend of our daughter's came out as gay,” she began her Reddit post. “This friend in particular slept over at our house so much that she was almost like a daughter to us. We even had a separate bed in our daughter's bedroom just for her.”
After the friend came out to OP and her husband, the two talked about if that changed anything. “When we found out she was gay, our husband and I had a discussion about whether we should continue to let her sleep in our daughter's bedroom, or if we should move her to the guest bedroom,” OP explained. “We were hesitant, but we had a conversation with our daughter, who was 17 at the time, and she told us that even if her friend tried anything, she would shut it down because she was straight.”
To them, that made sense. “We believed our daughter was trustworthy and responsible, and so we allowed the friend to continue sleeping in her room.”
Everything was going well. The two graduated high school and then went to college.
“They finished senior year and went off to college. We never suspected anything,” OP wrote. “Everytime they would come home for the holidays, my daughter brought a boy with her and my daughter's friend brought a girl with her.”
But things were not what they seemed. “Come to find out, that the boy we thought our daughter was dating was actually dating the girl that we thought our daughter's friend was dating,” OP explained.
The way OP found out the full story was less than ideal, which didn't help.
“The way we found out is because one day I get an invitation in the mail,” OP wrote. “To a wedding. For our daughter. And her friend. I was so confused.”
She didn’t even know her daughter was gay or that she was dating this person OP knew for such a long time. So she called her daughter “thinking there had been some type of typo or something.”
Her daughter didn’t answer the phone, so OP called the friend.
“I call the friend and I can barely ask, ‘What's going on?’ before the friend breaks down crying and confesses that her and my daughter have been in a relationship for a decade, which was around the time we agreed to let her sleep in our daughter's room.”
That’s a lot of information to sort through in a short time.
OP didn’t take the information well, and she told Reddit her husband had the same reaction.
“My husband and I felt – feel – so betrayed,” she wrote. “Our daughter gets on the phone and says, ‘Mom, Dad, I know you're upset and I promise we'll talk after the wedding and I'll explain everything.’”
OP explained to Reddit that she told her daughter that was fine, that they’d talk after the wedding, and then she hung up the phone.
“The next day she calls me. I pick up and say, ‘Why are you calling me? I thought you didn't want to talk until after the wedding.’ She said, ‘We are, but I wanted to know what times you're available so we could go get measured for our dresses,’” OP shared.
And that’s where the confusion came in. OP thought her daughter would speak to her after the wedding, meaning the two wouldn’t talk before that.
“You don't [think] that your father and I are going to your wedding, do you?” she asked her daughter on the phone. “You lied to us for ten years. For no reason. And you expect us to just automatically disregard that? We'll talk after the wedding."
OP hasn’t talked to her daughter since she said she wasn’t going to the wedding.
“I haven't spoken to my daughter since then and the wedding is sometime this month,” OP wrote. “My husband and I have been getting a lot of calls from family members on both sides telling us that we're being ‘selfish’ for ruining our daughter's special day over something that ‘happened ten years ago,’” she continued.
OP then turned it over to Reddit, hoping people would have some advice.
“She lied to you for 10 years," one Redditor noted. "Not only lied but actually made up stuff and had random guys coming to your house pretending to be her other half. Lies lies and more lies is all you have got so I completely understand why you don't want to go.”
“If you've made your child feel so unsafe that they keep a relationship secret for 10 years you've f—– up,” another person wrote. “My mother made me feel so unsafe that I didn't tell her about a 2 year relationship that was extremely significant to me because she made me feel scared.”
“Really dig deep down and think about WHY she'd hide her relationship from you for ten years,” someone else suggested. “You're leaving things out of this story for sure.”
“She lied for a reason you don't know yet because you both apparently are okay with just… not talking about it until after the wedding,” another commenter added. “Which is really weird to me, but that's up to you obviously. I don't wanna give a judgment without knowing why she didn't tell you for so long, because it just seems so strange that I can't help but think there might be more to the story.”
That’s the feeling we get, too. OP hasn't provided the full story because it seems strange her daughter wouldn’t tell her anything for a full decade. That’s a lot of time and effort to hide something, so it must have been necessary.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
