‘I felt like collateral damage in their attempts to cut my mom out’: Paternal family cuts contact with woman and her mother following a divorce, so the woman tells her cousins the truth about how they treated her over 8 years later

Author image for Lana DeGaetano
Lana DeGaetano • "Show me to me please."
Aug 15, 2025 3:00 PM EDT

A child's symptoms of divorce can range from struggling to get close to adults to figuring out how to navigate familial abandonment. That's a wide net to cast, yet the range of extremes is that vast. The woman in this story, who lived with her mother after her and her father got divorced, dealt with the paternal side of her family's emotional neglect and abandonment for years before they even considered apologizing.

The pettiness attached to extended family, specifically in-laws, when things don't pan out the way they wanted them to, is drastic. What teen has a say in how her parents' divorce turns out? Does she get to choose who her mother is? No. Yet, the woman in this story's in-laws believe that isolating a teen because she lived with her mother, who divorced their biological family member, is the right way to go about things. It's childish, to say the least. Scroll to read.

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  • The worst part about all of this is that her in-laws are still not taking accountability for their actions when she brings it up to other family members on her paternal side. Don't make a bed you don't want to lie in, don't you think?

  • "I really could have used their support and love during| my teen years and I had felt abandoned by them."
    via Pablo Merchán Montes For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • "AITA for not maintaining relationships with my father's side of the family and letting my little cousin know why?"

    I(40sF) have not maintained relationships/visited with my aunts/uncles/cousins on my dad's side of the family. I have one
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  • younger cousin (30sF) I chat with sometimes, but it's surface level. She asked me recently why I don't talk to anyone else or visit (besides distance being a big factor).
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  • I explained to her that when my mother divorced my dad when I was a young teen, his siblings cut off contact with my mother, and
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  • by association, me since I lived with her. They stayed in touch with my older brothers (they are godparents, my godparents were
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  • friends of my mom's, and my brothers were grown and out of the house). I spent one week of one summer vacation visiting
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  • them with my dad-mainly visiting my grandpa, who stayed in touch and didn't shun my mom, and he had me bring a friend with me so
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  • I'd have someone to hang out with. We used to spend a week or more every single summer with them and big family holidays
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  • before the divorce and I felt like we were close. But it was incredibly awkward, and I felt like collateral damage in their
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  • attempts to cut my mom out. About 8 years after the divorce, we were all together at my brother's wedding and my aunt
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  • (by marriage) said it was good to see me again and she was sorry about how things went down. I appreciated that, but it didn't
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  • really change the fact that I felt like I had gone from having a large extended family to only having my mom's side due to
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  • their silence. I really could have used their support and love during my teen years and I had felt abandoned by them.
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  • wedding guests
    via Samantha Gades for Unsplash

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • Once my cousin (the child of the aunt that did apologize) learned why I disappeared from family stuff she confronted her parents
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  • and our 2 other aunts about it and they got ped off and called my dad complaining that I was causing trouble. I'm of the
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  • opinion that if telling the truth about your actions makes you mad, you've probably done something you shouldn't. Now
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  • my cousin is mad at her dad and our aunts for their behavior (which really, was like 25+ years ago and I'm past it, but I'm not going to go out of my way to rebuild).
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  • AITA for telling my cousin the truth? Most of me thinks no, but part of me feels guilty that the truth has impacted her relationships with family after all this time.
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  • stressed older woman dealing with her actions
    via Getty Images For Unsplash+

    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • JustWowinCA You told the truth as you knew it. If they don't like the mirror reflecting them maybe they should think about why that is. NTA
    via JustWowinCA
  • FineTiger7415 It's your story to tell. No limit of time, either. Embarrassing for them? Maybe, but not your fault and not your problem.
    via FineTiger7415
  • Interesting Low3179 NTA You were asked a direct question and you responded. I am not sure why they are mad since they have no regrets based on your post.
    via Interesting_Low3179

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family dynamics family drama entitled parents entitlement reddit story family feud parenting entitled family reddit thread parent Reddit Parenting Fail parents entitled people Parenting FAILS
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