AITA for accepting jewelry from my sisters that belonged to our mom when it symbolizes the end of our relationship?

A Reddit user shared a deeply emotional story involving her younger sisters and the fallout from their mother’s passing. After years of strained relationships due to differing views on their stepmother, the sisters presented her with their inherited jewelry from their mom,

declaring it would symbolize the end of their bond if she accepted it. Faced with their ultimatum, she chose to take the jewelry, feeling there was no repairing their relationship. Read the original story below to explore this heartbreaking situation.

‘ AITA for accepting jewelry from my sisters that belonged to our mom when it symbolizes the end of our relationship?’

I (19f) have two younger sisters Sarah (16) and Leah (15). When we were younger (5, 6 and 9) our mom died. She had left us each three of her most sentimental pieces of jewelry. I got her locket, her family bracelet and a ring she owned. Sarah got her name necklace, a pair of earrings she wore to everything and a bracelet dad bought her.

While Leah got two necklaces mom had since her teens that she wore on certain occasions and a ring that she felt was good luck. Two years after mom died our dad met Cindy and they got married. Sarah and Leah loved her fast and started calling her mom. I always called her Cindy and didn’t even say she was my stepmom.

My sisters hated it and they told me I should call her mom too and we should make this a family. They said they loved her and wanted it to be the same as it was before, when mom was alive. I told them I didn’t love Cindy and didn’t want things to be the same with her. I told them it could never be. Mom was too important.

Cindy and I did get along fine for years. But then she was upset with me because my sister’s made a big deal about being adopted by her without me and after that things became strained. My sisters never forgave me for ruining how they felt their adoption should go. They said it was like I only cared about mom and loved her the most.

I said I loved the two of them, dad and mom the same. They said I loved mom more than Cindy and I said the difference still was that I loved mom period. Sarah told me I wasn’t their sister anymore that time and that I was an outsider nobody wanted. I left some stuff when I moved out and started college and my sisters went through my journal.

I had wrote in my journal how much them calling CIndy mom hurt me and how I wish my dad had never met Cindy and it had stayed the four of us. This was a journal I kept when I was 13. They also found the page I wrote the day of dad and Cindy’s wedding where I wrote everything that was better about my mom over Cindy.

They sent me photos of pages that they found the worst, including the ones I mentioned, and told me I was an evil b**ch and they couldn’t believe I would write any of that or even think Cindy wasn’t good enough and amazing and perfect. I told them they had no business going through my old journal.

My dad, when I told him, took the journal and sent me that and another notebook that had some journal-like stuff inside. He also talked to my sisters but they were so angry. When I went home for Christmas last year they told me they liked it better when I wasn’t around because they could be a real family and they didn’t have to deal with me treating Cindy like she was just a woman dad married.

They said I ruined our family and that they hated mom because I loved her so much. Dad was furious with them. But for months I didn’t speak to them at all. And I only spoke to them once this summer when I visited for a day. They told me Cindy had b**ast cancer and I should have dropped out of school to be there for her.

I tried to ask if they were okay and if they were scared but they said I was making it about mom when my mind went there and they told me to f**k off. Dad didn’t know about that conversation. I didn’t see them or speak to them again until the 24th. I dropped off stuff for them and stayed for lunch before going to my grandparents for the rest of Christmas.

While I was there my sisters brought the jewelry mom wanted them to have and they told me to take it. They said if I did it showed I would never accept Cindy like everyone wanted and I would be no longer their sister and they wanted nothing to do with me. Dad was there and tried to talk it down. They said they’d wanted to throw it in the trash and make me suffer but they wanted to see what I’d do.

I knew they meant it all so I took it and I left. Dad told me he was going to get them more extensive therapy, they’ve already been going for years, and try to fix this but I don’t think it can be done. They both text me now and say I’m the worst sister and daughter (to Cindy) and how dare I do this. That I should have let the jewelry go in the trash.. AITA?

Here’s the input from the Reddit crowd:

wubbly-wump −  NTA – your little sisters sound annoying and you cant be forced to feel something you dont feel. Unless you did something really mean and uncivil that you arent mentioning I say NTA

IllustratorSlow1614 −  NTA. You can’t be Cindy’s worst daughter because she was never your mother. I think your dad understands this. Your sister’s irrational h**red of your biological mother has to have been sparked by something.

A truly compassionate stepmother would have told them that she respects that she can never replace your mother and if it hurt her she was the adult and responsible for managing her feelings. I don’t think Cindy is even remotely the angel they think she is.

Accomplished_Mud1658 −  NTA – I think that’s all your dads fault. He didn’t let the girls properly going to grief. He got married less than 2 years later… these girls were FKING kids. They’re got so scared of losing another mom that they lost themselves in the Good Daughter Character. That’s a real trauma here. Tell your dad that therapy is not enough.

They are going to the psychiatrist and meds territory — I’m telling you a therapist myself. They’re making you the s**pegoat to show the stepmom they’re the perfect Good Daughter. You’re the villain so they can’t be. Honestly? The adults are in fault for letting things get that bad. These girls may never have a health relationship with themselves because of that. 

JellicoAlpha_3_1 −  It’s time to tell your father that you need to go no contact for your own sanity…and that your sisters need extensive psychological help and that whatever they are getting now is not nearly enough. Beyond that, change your telephone number. Don’t let your mentally ill sisters harass you

You also need to take that jewelry and put it in a safety deposit box so that they can’t take it back one day and destroy it. It sucks, but your sisters are a lost cause. Time for you to accept that and move on with your life. Cindy is also a piece of s**t for not putting a stop to what your sisters were doing. And I would be willing to bet she has encouraged this behavior

DisenchantedMandrake −  NTA. Has Cindy said anything to your sisters about this or has she been trying to force the narrative a bit too? If she is okay with you not accepting her as ‘mom’, but as a trusted parental figure, then maybe you, Cindy and your father can sit down with a therapist to try and figure out a way to explain why your feelings are valid, and why Cindy is okay with that.

Then your father and Cindy need to sit down with your sisters and probably a therapist to make it crystal clear why you are not bad for feeling this way. Your dad and Cindy really, really dropped the ball hard when it came to nipping this s**t in the bud early on and not validating the feelings of all thee of you as a family unit.

I think they also dropped the ball with the therapy. Your sisters anger and h**red toward you has only escalated. This has me wondering if that therapist is even doing anything to help your sisters or if they are just validating the s**t out of them and blaming you.

Does your dad and Cindy even do follow ups? Are they at all critical of your sisters therapy, or is it just a problem they throw money at, hoping it resolves itself. As adults, they’ve failed the 3 of you, and this broken family is the mess they’ve created.

herongale −  The irony is, when Cindy dies and dad remarries, either 1) they will finally understand what big sis had been feeling all this time, or will 2) completely move on from Cindy and accept mom #3 as their one and only mom, proving their feelings have been shallow and selfish all along. Like, bloody hell. Ain’t a crime to love the dead.

chaingun_samurai −  “You like mom more than Cindy!”. “I mean, there *was* that *one* time mom gave birth to me.” Seems like they were too young to fully recall their mother. It’s like they can’t love Cindy without guilt or whatever unless you do, too.

Peggy-Wanker −  Your sisters don’t need therapy, they need some sense smacked into them.

74Magick −  Oh good grief. Love them from afar until they get some maturity and manners.. NTA

JustAsICanBeSoCruel −  NTA, and my take as a counselor- Your sisters have some very, very, VERY deep issues relating to the death of your mother. I honestly believe this ALL stems from the fact that you were the oldest and likely have more memories than they do of your mother, and they feel especially bitter over that.

Thus they feel like, by starting over with Cindy, the three of you can be ‘equal’ with your ‘new’ mother because you all met her at the same time. The have accepted Cindy as their mother as a way to reject the devastation over not having your mother anymore. For them, it’s easier to pretend she didn’t mean anything to them vs. the pain that comes with having lost such a vital figure.

People deal with trauma differently, and they were clearly desperate for a new mother, so they clicked right away with Cindy. I’m guessing when your mother died, there was a huge dynamic shift with the household with your father as a single parent, and they wanted to return to ‘normal’ with a mother figure at home as well.

Unfortunately, there is nothing YOU can do about all of that. That is all your sisters’ trauma to deal with, and sadly, they might never deal with it in a healthy manner but it will continue to impact their lives if they do. I’d be very curious to know what role Cindy has played in all of this and if she is an actual good stepmother, of if she is slipping poison in their ears over her being rejected by you.

Ultimately though, I don’t think you should interfere with her relationship with your sisters- they are already aggressively protective over her, which I think also stems from losing their mother, so it’s best to just let them live out their relationship and learn on their own if it’s actually healthy or not.

So my advise? You need to emotionally distance yourself from your sisters until they are able to treat you with respect as their sister. They are directing all their anger at you because you are the only hold up in erasing your mother and letting them start over – that of course isn’t true, but that is likely how they see it.

Keep your mother’s jewelry. I honestly think they will want it back one day, and if not, at least you have a little more of your mother with you. I’m sorry your sisters have made you the villain in their story so they can deal with their trauma, but you needed to just focus on building your life without their love or support….at least your Dad sounds like he is trying to fix things actively.

Do you think the Redditor was right to accept the jewelry, knowing it would sever her bond with her sisters, or should she have refused in hopes of reconciliation? How would you handle such a painful family conflict? Share your thoughts below!