“AITA for laughing when my stepmother was crying over my father cheating on her?”
Pretty recently my stepmother found out that my father has cheated on her a lot throughout their relationship. He fathered two kids with other women while married to her, and they have four young kids together. There were a lot of tears in the first couple of weeks, and since then the tears have lessened but the fighting has gotten more intense.
A few days ago, she invited her sisters over. They were talking about it and she kept asking me (17f) to join them, but I ignored her. Then she started crying about how humiliated and disrespected she felt and how she could not believe he was capable of doing that to someone he loves.
I laughed loud enough for my stepmother and her sisters to hear, and they started demanding I come in and take a look at her and see if I still thought it was funny. One of her sisters actually approached me and told me I should be helping my stepmother right now, not laughing.
I told her I was not going to help someone I never liked or cared about. While one of her sisters was with me, the others were reassuring her that it would be okay, but she was getting more upset about the disrespect and kept saying their love was supposed to be perfect and the most special love of all time.
Then her sister dragged me into the room because I was laughing again. She asked how I could laugh at my stepmother’s pain like that. I told them it was because I did not care if she was in pain and I thought she was a dumb b*^%h anyway.
They all started yelling at me for being cruel and for disrespecting “the only mother I ever knew.” I told them to shut up and said that was exactly why I felt no sympathy for her. I told them I had a mom for 5 years, and as soon as she died my dad went out and replaced her, and they all tried to make me replace her too.
I said he does not care about the women he marries and he disrespected my mom long before he disrespected my stepmother. She told me that was not fair and that it was different. I asked how she would feel if she died and left her very young kids without her, only for them to be told a “better mom” was coming along a few months later.
She told me my mom had been a really poor mom and that she was in no way perfect. I asked her if she thought she was perfect. I also asked if she ever thought maybe my dad was just a user who did not want to raise me, so he badmouthed my mom to her.
Then I told her that even though I was a little girl when she came into my life, I would always despise her for constantly talking like she was better than my real mom. I said all her talk over the years about their love being special and true love was just BS, the same way it was when my parents were married.
At that point they started to gang up on me again and my stepmother started crying again, so I left. But I was smirking, and they were really pissed off at me because they said I was basically laughing at her again and being cruel.
The things I said to her I stand by. Even my dad’s extended family has said my mom was not who my dad painted her to be. And for a dad who claimed my dead mom did nothing but neglect me, he did not know anything.
He told my stepmother when they met that I was in the second grade, but I was only 5. He also told her I had no allergies, when in reality I do. He could not even name my teacher, my allergist, or the medication I was on to help with symptoms from my allergies. But maybe laughing at her did make me cruel. That is why I am asking, AITA?
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
Top-Helicopter853
Just keep being you.
OP responded:
I’m trying. I can’t wait to get out of here forever.
2dogslife
Do you have any contact with your maternal family? They might be looking forward to getting back in touch with you if you weren’t allowed contact.
OP responded:
I do. It wasn’t a lot of contact when I was younger but it’s increased in the last few years. I’m moving in with some of them when I turn 18.
iknowsomethings2 says:
As soon as you turn 18, run and don’t ever look back. Your dad is a toxic dumpster fire.
OP responded:
That’s the plan. I’ve got a job, I’ve got pretty good grades, I have a place to go when I’m 18 and I’m just waiting for that day to come. It really can’t come soon enough.
Flassourian
So your dad told your stepmom that you were neglected by your bio-mom and she believed that. Did she take care of you? Feed you, clothe you, etc.? Aside from repeating what your dad said about your bio-mom, what, exactly, did she do to hurt you? Did she say daily “I am SO much better than your dead mom”?
Kayyyeel OP responded:
Not daily but she did say that even when she was corrected and even when the so called good parent didn’t know some pretty standard things about me, like my allergies or what grade I was in. She used to say how lucky I was that mom died when she did so she could be there.
Odd_Welcome7940
NTA… Your dad and stepmom spent your whole childhood putting your mother down. That isn’t love. That isn’t even real caring. That is just manipulation and cruelty. Just because you express your opinion in the manner they taught you to, doesn’t make you the A^%le. It makes you a mirror to their actions.
They spent your whole childhood showing you that contempt for a person and badmouthing them was ok if it served their agenda. Now that you return that exact energy no one should have a right to judge you. Even worse when you were a forced participant.
TopDay655
NTA. You didn’t laugh because cheating is funny, you laughed because years of resentment and pain toward your stepmother finally boiled over. She replaced your mom and spent years acting superior, now the “perfect love” story crumbled and you couldn’t help but react. Not graceful, but very human.
What do you think?
