u/rouh-i took to Reddit with a question today about an incident involving her aunt. She asked the popular Am I The Asshole Reddit whether or not she was the asshole for “Calling My Aunt a Creep and Outing Her as a Homewrecker?”
But the story is a bit more complicated than the title makes it sound. It seems that this aunt had a history of bullying the original poster and of neglecting her own daughters. So when this aunt spent an entire family gathering ogling the original poster’s fiancé, she lost it a little.
I’ll let her tell it:
To preface, I 27(F) have an aunt that is 55(F) – let’s call her Susie. I’ve never been very close to her as she constantly bullies me, picks on my looks, and when I was 20 she bullied me into an eating disorder.
Despite all these things I stayed cordial to keep the peace in my family. However, last week was my breaking point. For backstory – Susie has two daughters (18 and 14) who are still teenagers, and it’s known amongst the whole family that since Susie’s divorce in 2016 she neglects them badly. She doesn’t cook, doesn’t keep groceries in the home for them, and my cousins have even confided to me that she refuses to buy them new clothing.
Despite my differences with Susie, I drop off home-cooked meals to her daughters, will give them hand-me-down clothes, and offer to help them out with schoolwork. Most of the times during my drop-offs Susie would be on her way out but would always remember to make a jab at me. Whether it be what I was wearing or even how my makeup was done. I usually brushed it off – as aggravating as she is.
One day in particular her eldest daughter confided in me that she wanted to move out because she couldn’t deal with Susie anymore. She would yell constantly, and make her daughters clean all day and scream if it weren’t up to her standards. In addition, Susie was going on multiple dates a week, with different men, one of which was married with a 1 year old baby and was 15 years younger than her! Now I’m not one to gossip but I told my cousin that if she needed anything that I would be there for her and went back home.
The following week was my brother’s 18th birthday. I’m newly engaged and my fiancé and I made our way to my mother’s home where a small get-together was held. In total there was around 25 people, including Susie and her daughters. Cue my breaking point. Susie was ogling at my fiancé the entire time (27 M). He mentioned that it was creeping him out a bit and we decided to make our way to the opposite side of the family room. Susie didn’t like that and decided to raise her voice and proclaim to my fiancé in front of the entire family that it must be tiring to be with me – and that when he finally got sick of me he could get with her because she was a cougar.
I was LIVID. Without hesitation I told her “You can whore around in your free time and break up marriages all day but you will not disrespect my fiancé and I, you absolute creep and sorry excuse of a mother!”. The entire room went quiet and she got up right then and there and took off with her daughters. My family actually supported my reaction and told me that they’ve been wishing someone would finally tell her off.
I do feel bad because I did cause a scene at my brother’s party and told everyone what my cousin told me in confidence. Am I the asshole?
Edit: To those concerned about CPS. I contacted Susie’s ex-husband. He’s actually a good man and now his daughters are staying with him and are in safe hands and quite happy. Susie had a meltdown following what happened and without hesitation let her ex-husband take her daughters and all their belongings.
Pretty quickly the internet leapt to the Redditor’s side.
theDagman wrote, “NTA. That was probably your brother’s favorite present.”
It was also concerned about the girls, though the edit to the initial post does help make it clear that rouhuh-i was able to make sure the kids are safe.
“I do hate these kinds of family dynamics, the whole, I wish someone had the balls to tell her what we really think. It just harbors these abusive people. I guess better late than never,” wrote robots-dont-say-ye.
So what do you think? Warranted response or should she have bit her tongue?