The original post: /r/amitheasshole by /u/Open-Intention-2066 on 2025-02-19 12:05:56.
Hey all-my mother (61f) and I (29f) I have been barely maintaining a relationship since I was in middle school. She's not a bad person exactly, but I think a lot of her personal traumas and life experiences have made her someone who takes out her feelings on others. She always has to be the center of attention, and gets very upset when she is not. I try to encourage her to seek therapy but she refuses.
We've had many periods of no contact due to her behavior over the years, but-perhaps foolishly-I’m currently trying again to talk with her semi-regularly.
Eventually, I am getting married to my long-time partner. We have a ring but we've never set a date because the whole process is really stressing both of us out, as we are not particularly close to either of our families. He only has one parent, who is currently on low contact due to an addiction and history of abuse.
A couple months ago, I floated the idea of just inviting our two best friends out (as we do not live in the country anymore) so we can elope and then spend a few days celebrating with people who loved/supported us for years. The plan would be that we rent a nice hotel for the four of us, without making a big deal of any traditions. This way, we could later have dinner with both of our families separately (our families do not talk to each other) and nobody feels like they were singled out. My mother hated the idea.
Today, she called (one of many times) and asked us again to fly back to her town for the event but I said no. My partner and I had talked about it already and neither of us think it would be fair to have a wedding that we don’t want and where only one half of the family can attend. She blew up.
She screams at me about how I don't love her or respect her. I explain to her again that I'm not trying to make his family feel like they were purposely left out, and she says "how will they know? We don't talk". But we all know they will eventually find out, obviously.
She then went on to say that it's her right as my mother to be there and it’s unnatural for someone not to want their mother at their wedding, and I clearly don't really love my partner to rob him of a wedding (which he wants less than me). "You're probably subconsciously unhappy and you're marrying for the wrong reasons". It was both bizarre and complete nonsense.
I told her we could plan a nice dinner after the elopement and do whatever she wanted then. We just want something different.
I really don't want to create problems, and I thought it was the best choice...but now I’m worried I could be wrong. My partner and I moved far away to try and give us space to be ourselves, build a life, and recover from a lot of things in our childhood. I want to try and repair things with my mother, but it always ends up in arguments and guilt trips. We aren't even engaged and I feel like my blood pressure is through the roof every time I think about this silly wedding.
AITA for wanting to elope without family in order to keep peace?