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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/CleanGeologist3480 on 2023-08-28 19:32:15.

My mother had me (22f) at 15 which isn’t the point of this post but when she started dating when I was in middle school, it wasn’t a surprise that the men in her dating pool that had kids had much younger children and that was something we talked about before she got serious with Steve.

Mom started dating Steve when I was 16 and married him when I left for college. He has a now 12 year old son, Joey.

I didn’t live in the house with them for very long and obviously the age difference is big so Joey and I get along but we’re not close at all. He’s a nice kid but I don’t know him super well. He’s very attached to my mom though which I totally get, my mom is awesome.

After I graduated this spring, I moved back closer to home (about 30 minutes from my mom). I was really excited to be nearby, we’ve always been really close and I missed her a lot when I was at school.

I wanted to have a dedicated girls day with my mom at least once or maybe twice a month now that I’m home and we got to do that for a couple months but the last two times, my mom has shown up with Joey.

Again, I like the kid but we were doing stuff like getting our nails done, having lunch at new places, seeing plays…. Joey changes that entirely. Last time we went to the zoo because he wanted to visit the reptile house and then got cheeseburgers. It was fine but that’s not the day I planned with my mom.

We got into an argument on the phone that night and it came out that Steve has demanded that Joey be included on our days together because he felt that my time alone with my mother was her showing me favoritism.

I didn’t even know what to say, I’ve never known my mom to be so spineless especially when it came to me. It really hurt me to say it but I told her I wasn’t interested in that and if that was my only choice, I guess I would just have to see her on holidays and family gatherings.

She’s been calling me and begging me to change my mind but she won’t stand up to her husband about it so I’ve just kept apologizing and saying I’m not interested in having a kids day every month. I miss my mom though and I feel really guilty and idk if it was an asshole thing for me to say or not