By David Futrelle
So a young gentleman turned to the Am I The Asshole subreddit today with a simple question that, at first glance would seem to have a simple answer: “[Am I The Asshole] for intentionally sending my mom a dick pic to prove a point?”
Oh dear. Obviously, unless you’re literally a modern day Oedipus who doesn’t know that your mother is your mother, there’s pretty much no circumstance in which sending a picture of your erect penis to your mother makes you anything but an asshole. So yes, he is by definition an asshole. But is he the asshole?
That’s where things get complicated.
So let’s wade into these murky depths.
I know, i Know. Hear me out.
I’m currently 20, going to college, and live a hour away from my parents. My mom has always been invasive. Living at home I had no privacy. She would always want to see what was on my phone, pc, laptop, etc. She insisted on me not having a lock on my room door and would barge in when ever and when ever. Now that I live on my own, this has only gotten worse. She demands to know everything i’m doing and stalks me on any social media she can find.
Holy crap. That’s not just invasive; it’s abusive.
I went home for christmas and during that time she found out through my sister that i’ve been seeing a girl on campus and have not told her. She has not stopped invading my life since and has demanded all the information she could get on her. I didn’t give her anything and did not let her look at my texts when she demanded to see them. Now that I’m back on campus she’s only ramped up.
It just gets worse.
Last night she called me prodding for more, and eventually she started to accuse me of “illicit” behavior with my girlfriend. She claims that “If i can’t show my mother my texts, then I shouldn’t be sending them”. My mom decided to lecture me for half an hour last night. I had enough and said I would send her a full log of our texts. After I hung up though, I sent my mom a picture of my erect penis and turned my phone of do not disturb.
Needless to say, his mother was not pleased.
I only just barley [sic] checked my phone and she had called me over 10 times last night and sent over 50 texts. My dad and sisters also blew me up with texts calling me an asshole.. I just called my dad and he said that it was way out of line and that i’m a major asshole. My mom left me multiple voice mails crying and saying that she went wrong while calling me a degenerate.
A bit excessive, but then again what on earth did he expect?
At this point our, er, hero then asks the assembled Redditors for a ruling on his behavior.
Honestly. she wanted this. She already assumed my texts had dick pics so I just gave her what she wanted. AITA?
Well, yes, you’re being a huge asshole. Sending anyone an unsolicited dick pic is asshole behavior. But sending one to your mom? Off the charts, asshole-wise.
But at the same time he’s right about one thing: she was demanding to see texts that she presumably knew would contain dick pics and other “illicit” material. So had he given into her demands, she would have seen the pic and perhaps even worse.
So I think it’s fair to say, in the parlance of the AITA subreddit, that this is an “Everyone Sucks Here” situation. And that, given her ongoing invasive and abusive behavior, the mother is the biggest asshole of these two big assholes.
Also, everyone in the family should immediately go into therapy, because holy crap.
H/T — Thanks to Twitter’s @AITA_reddit for featuring this lovely post
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@Sinkable John,
Holy crap, that’s so good to hear! I haven’t been on here very much so sorry if I missed any details. So happy for you! Have a pic of Mei-Mei being extremely derpy on the steps this morning:
@Genjones:
My mom was superbad when I was a kid. She was still pretty bad when I was in my 20s. I interacted with the family very little from 25 or so on to today. But it’s clear that at some point – at least after I turned 30, and it was probably a long process, but some point – she got better.
I don’t really know what changed for her, or if she was just a person who couldn’t handle having kids. I do know that her own home was abusive when she was growing up (in the worst possible way, with my grandad abusing the fuck out of my grandma, then grandma abusing the kids, with grandpa mostly not abusing the kids, but sometimes throwing some nastiness at them so that they felt like he was the “good” one because he was the one that directed less abuse toward them, but…?) so maybe she was just stuck in some patterns from her own upbringing?
IDK. In any case, she seemed to do some nice things but I didn’t trust that there was any actual change, but then she was doing more nice things and I kept waiting for the crap to happen again, but really, since my early 30s it just hasn’t happened. It’s been a lot of years, but I think she really is safe to be around.
…and yet, it’s only now that i feel I could **start** to be around her. That may not be fair to her since she may have changed much longer ago, but my not being around to witness that change is a direct result of her actions.
So I could try again to get close to her now, but she’s already over 70 and who knows what time we would have left… and now I live in another country – not that far away, British Columbia for me, Oregon for her – but still there’s a border between us.
So I’m not sure what effort to put into things. I feel like I would be constantly on egg shells around her, but that my eggshell walking would be unfair to who she is today, so then I would feel guilty for eggshell walking, blah, blah.
It seems a lot of work to reforge a relationship that was as shitty as could be the first time around, but does make up a significant part of my history.
So what to do?
It’s a conundrum. There are no good answers.
This is all to say, take care of yourself. You’re not alone. No one else is smarter than you and thinks this is easy.
You’re good. Your feelings are valid. Just … do the right thing for you.
Hi! Long time reader, commented only few times. But this one hit close to home.
One thing that people might not get about childhood abuse – it’s not a trauma in the same sense as an adulthood trauma. It is something that is a part of the formation of your very personality and usually it leaves you more or less fucked up for the rest of your life. Sure, one can learn how to deal with the immediate reactions to triggers in a more healthy way, but it is a hard work that takes a long time.
Now, the guy in the story is only 20, living somewhat independently just recently, so he definitely haven’t had enough time to develop more mature psychological self-defense mechanisms than just lashing out in the face of his semi-independency being threatened and his (and his girlfriend’s!) boundaries being ignored once again. I was almost 30 and living on my own for at least 10 years, but I could still not always fully control my reactions to confrontations with my mother. I`m 33 now, I’d like to believe I’ve mastered self control in that matter. However, it now manifests in torturing nightmares every time after I’ve had to be in contact with her, even though I was able to keep it civil.
Another thing: I don’t get how this story can be in any way equated with sexual harassment dick picks. Everyone involved, including the mother, know very well that there was nothing sexual about that dick pick. Moreover, prior she was asking to see his private conversations actually expecting to see some sexually explicit material there. I rather see this as a clumsy way of taking back control over his own privacy.
I hope I managed to explain my thoughts clearly, English is not my native language.
Welp. Reading through this thread almost makes me feel guilty for not having personally had an abusive childhood… Although my mother was in a relationship with a manipulative, impulsive, money-grubbing and anger-prone narcissist for 25 years, so I have some pretty hands-on experience with abuse (his was mostly verbal, psychological and financial, although the last time he tried getting physical (nothing sexual – dude was painfully straight, and I say that as a straight man myself) with me went hilariously badly for him).
And for what it’s worth my mother was a teacher (and later principal), but an actually very good one from what I know from former pupils, colleagues and parents. Abuse did NOT get any sort of pass on her watch. She once had to fight for almost a year for a poor kid whose mother was a case of Munchausen syndrome by proxy.
As for the story itself… Well, given the rest of it I’d say that while yes, it was a dick move (heh), it’s kinda hard not to feel for the guy. The mother’s response to even that was completely overblown. Plus she has no qualms about riling the rest of the family against him. While I don’t necessarily think he was in the right, sometimes there’s very little recourse left but to be an asshole.
Im of two minds
– when I beat my dad’s old ass into the ground, welp, I dont blame myself. Ive forgiven all the violence I participated in, because we were literally raised having our asses kicked by both adults and being allowed to brutally beat up each other. When I did that- it was the last time he fuckin hit anyone.
People raised in nightmares dont actually fully know its wrong, its exactly how they were taught over and over to act. I couldn’t articulate that being choked could have killed me, didnt know it was illegal, it just seemed normal
– Men getting revenge on their abusive moms, particularly this specific issue of being so controlling, with sexualized violence is a thing. I agree with the nuance of what everyone has said here and Im not equating it, but it creeped me out initially that my mind made that connection, and for his own good he has gotta try not to sink to her level like this ever again, which I have faith he will be a better personz
So the mom’s not just abusive she’s also a Nazi, or at least using Nazi tropes.