AITA For skipping Christmas with my parents since they won’t treat me like an adult?

A woman and her boyfriend faced strict house rules from her parents, who insisted they couldn’t share a room during visits. Tired of the control, the couple spent Christmas with his laid-back parents in Mexico instead. After her family publicly shamed her on social media, she clapped back. Now, her mom claims she embarrassed them. Did she go too far, or is she right to set boundaries? Read the full story below.

‘ AITA For skipping Christmas with my parents since they won’t treat me like an adult?’

I (F27) have been with my boyfriend (33) for almost two years now. We will be getting married eventually but it’s not a priority. My mom won’t let us share a bed if we come see them for any reason. When we came over this last summer my boyfriend suggested renting a hotel so we could have privacy and a comfortable bed.

It drove my mom nuts that we bypassed her ittle rules. She wouldn’t drop it the entire time we were there. She made me promise not to do that again. My boyfriend’s mom and dad are retired to Mexico and they are really chill. So we made plans to come visit them over Christmas.

They are not Christian so they don’t really care when they see their son with regards to religious holidays. We didn’t tell my parents we weren’t coming. My mom asked me at Thanksgiving if I was going to hold to my promise not to stay at a hotel over Christmas. I answered truthfully that I would not stay at a hotel.

I am sitting here on the balcony of my future in-laws condo looking at the Carribean waiting for sunrise and enjoying the peace and quiet. I made the mistake of going online yesterday and I saw a bunch of posts from my mom and my sisters about how I was a j**k for lying to them about my plans.

I may have been a little tipsy last night because I decided to respond. I said that it was ridiculous of them to try and tell me I couldn’t share a room with my boyfriend, that I was keeping my promise by not staying at a hotel when we were there, and that if they planned on putting everything on Facebook I would be avoiding all visits for the foreseeable future.

They took down their posts when people started crapping on them for trying to control me. But some people did agree with them. Now they are texting me and calling to say I was an a**hole for making them look bad. I asked them if they were trying to make me look good with their posts?

They stopped for a while but there were more texts and voice mail this morning. I’m kind of liking the idea of skipping out on the drama from now on. But I miss my dad and he is blameless in this.. AITA?.

#EDIT I’m having trouble wrapping my head around a couple of things that keep being repeated.

1. How was staying at a hotel so we didn’t break her rules not the adult choice?

2. How many of you guys fly across the country or drive for hours to just stay one night?

Take a look at the comments from fellow users:

walnutwithteeth −  ESH. Your mom is horribly controlling. That’s not in question. But instead of saying, “I won’t be spending Christmas with you this year, I’m going to the in-laws, and if I come to you again, we will stay in a hotel,” you lied in such a way that they thought you’d be attending. Instead of acting in the adult manner in which you want to be treated, you behaved like a kid.

EDIT: Well, now. This kicked off. Thank you for the awards. Clearly a mixed bag of responses. Just a little clarification, a lie of omission is still a lie. If you are dealing with a m**ipulative or narcissistic person,

it is all the more important to state your boundary clearly and stick to it, otherwise you will leave yourself open to their a**sive tactics and flying monkeys. Don’t bring yourself down to their level. And for everyone that told me to f**k off or similar….Merry Christmas to you too.

sr9876 −  INFO: Is there a reason you didn’t just tell them upfront that you would be spending christmas with your boyfriend’s family? They’re assholes for trying to control you like that, but I don’t really see what you gained by misleading them about your plans

MelodyRaine −  NTA. This falls under “If all I have to do to ‘make you look like an a**hole’ is tell the truth, that means you are acting like an a**hole.”

KitchenDismal9258 −  NTA. Don’t forget that your dad chose to marry your Mom and he’s still in the relationship. You don’t have to torture yourself with your mother just to keep your dad in your life. He may have some balls to stand up to her and see you without her.

If he doesn’t he may be colateral damage as you may need to cut contact with him too. He’s not blameless if he’s fine for your mom to be saying and doing this sort of childish behaviour. That makes him an enabler.

stollentrollin −  NTA. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. Your mom and sister made themselves look bad, controlling and entitled, taking your family issues to the book of faces. Do yourself a favor, block them and don’t interact with them, as it would validate a discussion about your or their behavior, which is plain and simple unnecessary and unacceptable since your life choices are not theirs to discuss and especially not to punish .

gover2087 −  I can understand them not wanting you and your BF to be rocking the room in their house, but it’s ridiculous that they demand you not get a hotel. Everybody involved are adults and everybody has to understand that everybody does the horizontal tango. Your mom acts oblivious to this and tries to prevent this as much as she can.. NTA

CogentHawk −  Send your dad a ticket to come to Mexico 😂 Totally NTA. Your mom and sisters seem really awful for trying to control you and what’s worse, emotionally b**ckmail you publicly. Kudos to you for standing up for yourself.. Marry Christmas

idgafemp −  ESH. You should have at least told them you were not coming. You knowingly lead your mom on about spending the holiday with them. Everything else might have been avoided. Your mom and sister are A for posting on facebook and harassing you while you’re spending time with your boyfriends family. I don’t get why you have to miss your dad, can you not hang out with him without your mom/sister? Good luck to you.

Jeschalen −  *But I miss my dad and he is blameless in this* INFO: Why do you think your dad is blameless while your mom ruins holiday events with her controlling behaviour? Does he try to reign her in at all? If he’s just letting her do this without coming to your defense, he’s still making a choice by doing or saying nothing.

IndiaMike1 −  ESH. They’re extremely controlling. You’re extremely petty. Nobody comes out looking good here. The mature thing to do would have been to calmly hold the line with your parents, and to tell them that you’d love to spend holidays with them but you get to make your own choices about how and where you stay.

If they prefer you not to share a bed in their house that’s their prerogative, but it is yours to get a hotel and make it work for you. Just basically not showing up when they were expecting you and you never actually telling them was a mean-spirited, petty and childish thing to do, and now you have to deal with the consequences, i.e. even more damage to your relationship with them over something that is in essence so small.

If you want them to treat you like an adult, act like one: establish your boundaries in a communicative way, and if they don’t want to do that, then be clear with them about what that means. What you did is basically the equivalent of chucking your toys out of the pram when you didn’t get what you wanted. None of you sound like you know how to manage conflict well, and I’m honestly kind of glad I don’t have to hang out with any of y’all this holiday season.

Edit: wow. Did not think this was that controversial an opinion. Thanks for all the awards. To all the people who made assumptions that I can only say what I’m saying because I don’t have m**ipulative family and I don’t know what it’s like, I can only say LOL. The reason I say this is _because_ I know what it’s like.

Everyone’s out here making assumptions about years of manipulation and abuse, and presuming that OP has already tried setting boundaries for years and did this as a final resort – all of that is assumption, and I’d advise y’all to think about why you made those assumptions and projected this experience onto OP.

A judgement was requested, and a judgement was made – no one in this story comes out looking good, no matter what the background. No one is behaving in an admirable way. Peace out y’all.

Boundaries with family are often tricky, especially when traditions clash with independence. Was the Redditor justified in skipping Christmas to avoid controlling rules, or should family obligations come first? Share your thoughts below!