There's a point where you gotta rip off the band-aid of codependency, no matter how much it hurts. I (21M) have been deployed for the past 10 months and I will be getting home in 1 week. My wife and I’s plan was for her to be the only one to know what date I was coming back, so that when I get leave we can go back and surprise all of our family and friends. My wife (21F) visited home a couple weeks ago for a family event, and while she was there she spent a day with my mom and 2 younger sister (HS age). My mother is very pushy and hates surprises. So much so that me surprising her by coming home would make her mad at me. My wife and I knew we would eventually have to tell her because of this, but we’re waiting until the last minute because she would have told my sisters if she knew my date. Well, while my wife was there, my mom pushed and pushed. Telling her that she wouldn’t speak to her, let the girls go places, and she had to know so she could take days off work. My wife gave her a week range of my leave (a couple weeks after I get back) so that she could request off. Well, my mom texted me today telling me that she would be here for the welcome home when our plane lands. I asked if she cleared this with my wife, seeing as she apparently planned to stay with us in our 1 bedroom apartment, and she said no. I asked if the girls knew and were coming, and she said no. My mom has done a few things that presses between my wife and I, so I lost it on her. Told her I wouldn’t be giving her the date that I fly in, that if I wanted her there I would want my sisters there as well. I stopped there until she started complaining that she was a single mom who raised me on her own, and that I should want to see her first. That’s when I told her I didn’t want her in my house at all when I first get home. I am a married, grown man now, I don’t need my mom, I want to see and spend time with my wife first and foremost. She pressed further saying “I’ve been here for u since before u were born, she’s been here for 4 years.” Eventually trash talking my wife, saying she doesn’t even have a real job and doesn’t contribute. My wife is a nanny while she is in school, and she gets paid well, so she absolutely does contribute more than enough. This is where I may be the AH. I told my mom that I was tired of her badgering, that I wanted to come home to my wife and be alone in our home with our pets. My wife and I would not want to host her, and we wanted the house to ourselves so that we can have s-x wherever and whenever we please because we haven’t seen each other in so long. My mom cried. She’s sending me long paragraph texts every few hours about how she doesn’t know where her caring son went, about how I need to let my wife go because I use her for her body, about how all I care about is my own pleasure, and I have no care for my family at all. So Reddit, AITA? I haven’t responded to the messages my mother is sending, but if I get ideas from the possible comments, I might. nerd_is_a_verb wrote: Good job finally standing up to her. Stop giving her info and stop talking to her. “Mom until you learn to act like an adult and stop trash talking my wife to me, I will not be communicating with you. I am very disappointed in you and how incredibly selfish and immature you are acting.” Don’t make your wife deal with this jerk. OP responded: I haven’t given her info. She told me she was coming for my plane to land and she didn’t even know when that date was. The only info she got was from my wife, and was quite literally worded as “he will likely have leave within these few weeks, but those weeks could change.”"AITA for telling my mom I did not want her there when I got home from deployment?"
People had a lot to say in response.
notkadan wrote:
NTA.
Your mom is guilt-tripping you. You don't owe her anything. She had the choice to raise you, she wasn't forced to --- so for her to say.
"I’ve been here for u since before u were born, she’s been here for 4 years"
Is crazy to me.
She's an example of a manipulative parent. Here's a paragraph from a article about manipulative parents, and their signs: "Parents using emotional blackmail will often threaten to withdraw their love or approval if the child does not comply with their wishes."
"This can manifest as guilt-tripping the child, making them feel responsible for the parent’s happiness, or expressing extreme disappointment when the child does not meet their expectations."
OP responded:
That paragraph fits what she’s been doing to a tee. What confuses me is none of my mom’s behavior like this started until we got married. Before, when she was my gf, she always wanted her around, joked about trading me and my wife, invited her everywhere my family went, now it bothers her when we spend time together and she isn’t invited when she thinks she should/can be.
bkwormtricia wrote:
NTA. At least she stopped trying to get into your home when you got more specific on how you and your wife would be greeting each other!
OP responded:
Well, these paragraphs she’s sending aren’t what I would consider as stopping.
Feels more like guilt tripping.
MsLead wrote:
NTA - Many (30+) years ago I worked with a woman whose husband had been in the army. She told me about the “Hail and Farewell” ceremonies that were held with respect to deployments. When soldiers returned, ONLY THE WIVES were encouraged to attend the ceremony to greet their husbands, and make other arrangements for their children.
The point was that the husband/wife relationship should be re-established first. I’m not sure of the time frame - maybe 20 minutes, maybe more than an hour. I have no idea. After that, the soldier would be reunited with his kids, while his wife was present. This was the family being reunited.
No soldier’s mother, siblings, etc. were part of that ceremony. Your mom needs to stop this immediately. Enjoy your time together again. When you’re both ready for company, your mom can find a hotel.
OP responded:
Yeah, this welcome home thing is for soldiers families (spouses and kids.) There isn’t anything that directly says “no parents” or anything like that, but it is for the people who have been living with someone gone from their every day lives, rather than family that just gets visits otherwise.
HotCheeks_PCT wrote:
NTA.
There's a Facebook group your mom needs an invite to.
It's called 'The Boy Moms are Getting Weird and Inc-sty Again"
OP responded:
My wife’s a part of that group. Pretty sure she’s posted about these kinds of things a time or two :)
foacadoama wrote:
NTA. Your mom is a mess. I get her wanting to see you when you get back, but this is just too much. Obviously you are going to want to see your wife. Any mom with healthy boundaries would want you to be closer with your wife than with your mom.
OP responded:
She’s tried causing several problems. She’s made clear that she wasn’t ready for me to be an adult.
Abject_Donut5152 wrote:
OMG, you need to go either NC or very LC with your mom. JFC, wow, that's just...wow... been there...mom was the last thing I thought about when I got back from deployment. I mean God forbid you get stationed overseas. What will she do then f-ing move in? You need to nip that in the bud now.
OP responded:
I already don’t contact her much outside of for my sisters and neither does my wife. Our plan when my contact ends is to move to a base even farther from home, where we would have to fly for visits.
That would take our amount of visits down a lot because we travel with our pets, but they’re both large dogs and we don’t want to put them under a plane, and plane tickets on top of pet boarding is expensive. If people would want to see us, they would have to come to us. Oh and my mom refuses to get on a plane ;)
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