My dad was abusive towards my whole family. My mom tried to leave him when I was very young but went back to him because he started winning the custody battle over me. For this reason, I think my mom resents me as the reason she was stuck with an abusive man.

When I was a kid, my dad would abuse me and my mom would tell me it was my fault for not making a bigger effort to get along with him and obey him. I grew up thinking I was a bad person, because of this and because she was often irrationally cold and angry with me in a way she wasn’t to my siblings. When I was a teenager, I had some major health problems that made it hard for me to take care of myself. My mom was constantly angry and cruel to me during that 3 year period. I ended up in an abusive relationship with someone who raped me, and I couldn’t tell my mom about it because she was more interested in yelling at me for “having bad judgment” for dating this person. I moved out after being kicked out of the house temporarily. 

After I moved my dad turned some of his abuse on my younger brother, who I have always felt my mom favored over my sister and I. He threatened to kick my brother out of the house, so my mom left him. My dad made the divorce very difficult for her, going on a meth bender and losing his job (she had been a stay at home mom for years) so she would have to lose her house and alimony. My mom has understandably been a wreck since.

I recently confronted my mom about the way she’s always treated me, since she asked if I was angry at her and I felt I owed her the truth. She told me that she felt trapped, that staying with her abuser was hard for her but she did it so we wouldn’t end up homeless, and that she always took his side because he would treat her worse if he thought she was undermining him in front of the kid (me). She said she was cruel to me for years because she was under a lot of stress - her brother committed suicide, her mom for Alzheimer’s and she had to fight her mom’s husband’s family over her care, and she lost her support system (she had previously homeschooled my siblings and I and now she didn’t so didn’t see the same moms). She said her hand was forced to leave my dad because he wanted to kick my brother out of the house, and she would’ve done the same if he tried to kick me out (she doesn’t remember that SHE kicked me out because she was on drugs at the time and is in denial). She says she just wants a closer relationship since I’m mentally ill and she’s worried about me.

AITA for still being mad at her? I honestly feel she could’ve done more and is in denial about her real reasons for leaving. She claims to hate my dad but still keeps in contact with him despite him being a meth addict and trying to throw my sister off the side of the highway the last time any of us saw him. Even if she is being honest, I would rather have been homeless than lived with my dad. And this is petty, but I’m also mad that she’s sad about her brother. He molested me when I was young. She doesn’t know that but she does know that he was a convicted pedophile and was always alone with me so I can’t imagine she doesn’t suspect it. I still love her but I just don’t forgive her at all.