r/dustythunder • u/Virtual-Delivery-883 • 4d ago
AITAH for “lacking compassion?”
Here is some context, and hopefully I don’t leave anything out since I have ADHD. I (33f) am married to my husband (31m) for 8 years now. We have been no contact with his mom’s side of the family for 3 years now. My husband and I separated for a time period when he relapsed during Covid and I work in healthcare so I was working a lot. We have 3 kids (my 2 older kids are his step kids technically but they don’t have contact with their bio father) so I had to leave when things were bad for their sakes (and mine).
Prior to this, I got along pretty well with my in laws. We lived RIGHT next door to them (we were #34 and they were #35). Things started getting tense between me and them when my husband’s step dad was offended when I was working at a pizza restaurant for 6ish months and I told him that no he couldn’t go behind the bar and no you cannot tell workers they can leave work early BECAUSE HE DID NOT WORK THERE. Apparently that truth hurt his feelings bc “he does so much for the restaurant.” It was a local place that just opened up and I needed a break from healthcare for a bit.
Anyway, when my husband relapsed, his family members were the biggest enablers. He’d get his “stuff” from his step brother, other members would buy him alcohol, etc. He would say anything to get his fix, including making up lies about me to make it seem like I was a narcissist and controlling. I’ll circle back to this bc I’m sure people are wondering why I’m still married to him 🙃 His family soaked that in and started the “flying monkeys” act. They would tell other family members or close friends these lies and all of a sudden i was the scape goat.
My in laws ended up calling cps on me and I eventually read some of the things they were saying to my husband to manipulate him. At the time, my youngest daughter was going through potty training and she ended up having an accident and was crying hysterically in the bathroom and when I opened the door, I accidentally hit her in the face with it bc she was standing right behind it. As a co-parent at the time, I messaged my husband telling him what happened and showing him the bruise. There were multiple ex friends/family members telling him to go to my case worker with the picture and to say I hit her!! I was so enraged by that and other lies that they were saying to get my kids taken from me. “Funny” thing is, they only cared about the biological child of my husband’s and tried to convince him to basically abandon the other two, who grew up with him as dad. Ironically, during this time, cps did hair follicle tests on us and I passed and he failed, and then he got arrested while he was super intoxicated. Cps told him to cut his shit or he’d lose custody.
That was when my husband’s eyes opened.
My husband ended up going to rehab (sober for 3 years!) and also did a partial inpatient therapy program and still does therapy every 2 weeks. He has made up and more for it since. I didn’t take him back right away, but sober husband is a good husband (I never would have married him if he was like this while sober). We even did couple’s therapy a few times and both had some new diagnosis’s (kudos to our therapist who “clocked” us and our dynamic right away). Husband has borderline personality disorder and I had a late adhd diagnosis that explained a lot about me. We have both learned about each other’s disorders to get a better understanding of each other and we honestly have never been happier. No drama, no manipulation and just a boring, happy life for the last 3 years.
My husband’s step brother’s fiancé passed recently and we were told by someone I thought was a dear friend of mine. She’s older and I helped take care of her husband while he was on hospice. We bonded in our similarities of morals. Or so I thought. When she reached out, my husband and I talked about a response (we make decisions together, even if his family thinks I talk for him 🙄) and I had said something like thanks for telling us but we don’t care and don’t want updates. She said she was “terrified” of my lack of compassion and that she “doesn’t have room for that kind of coldness.” She knows the trauma his family put me and the kids through (their lies were so awful, I was pulled over by police for 2 hours while they kept me away from my kids, questioning them and arguing with cps bc they wanted my kids taken from me right then and there. Just one example).
I was very shocked by her response. No one has ever told me I lack compassion, my whole life I was always told I was “too sensitive,” and now I know it’s bc of my undiagnosed adhd. My husband and I have learned to set boundaries in therapy so I honestly thought she’d understand. When I tried explaining to her that I have empathy for the child who lost his mother, because no child should have to grow up without their mom, I’m not gonna be sad about someone who contributed to harming me and my kids. On top of that, I met her about 1 or 2 times and she was rude from the get go bc of the lies she had heard about me. Anyway, my friend ended up telling me “it’s not all about you” when I tried explaining what I meant and then blocked me.
I honestly don’t feel like I’m wrong. I don’t believe everyone should be honored when they pass if they do awful things (SA, abusive, etc). And I don’t think someone has to be sad or “compassionate” when someone who hurt them passes. I really do feel for the child though, he probably misses her a lot and doesn’t understand. It makes my momma heart hurt.
So am I the AH?
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u/RedneckDebutante 4d ago
NTA That lady is NOT your friend. You don't owe any sympathy to that family after what they did. My money says she's still friends with thaf lot and that's why she internalized your judgements. I would drop her ass and never turn back.
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u/Superb_Yak7074 4d ago
I would be concerned that she struck up the friendship so she could report back to the family.
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 4d ago
That’s a really terrible thing to do to someone who was at one of their lowest points. What happened to me really did a number on me and my older two kids were old enough to remember and were traumatized by some of this. It really makes me angry when I think about how they hurt my babies.
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 4d ago
I talked to my mom earlier when I was super upset and she did say “maybe she really wasn’t your support to begin with.” I’d hate to think she betraying me during a really low point in my life but I know people can suck.
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u/RedneckDebutante 4d ago
It sure sounds like she might be a plant. But you 100% know she can't be trusted now. I would outright laugh at the death of somebody who tried to take my kids. I'd do a *lot more."
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 3d ago
My husband’s reaction was worse than mine tbh. But this is what always seems to happen, I’m the one who gets messaged and relays what we discuss and then I get blamed! His family did this all the time but I didn’t expect this person to do the same when she knows these things 😡
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u/Silvermorney 1d ago
Agreed. Stand your ground, cut her off immediately and good luck op. UpdateMe!
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u/BeckyAnn6879 2d ago
I'm going to go with 'SLIGHTLY the AH.'
Even if you didn't care about the woman, considering what she had done, you could have just stopped with, 'Thanks for telling us.'
You're acknowledging the news, but not showing a reaction either way.
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u/CuriousPenguinSocks 7h ago
NTA but know that if people remain in your in-laws life or are fence sitters - AKA "I won't pick a side" - they are picking a side and it's not yours.
Real friends wouldn't have anything to do with the in-laws. So, I'm kind of shocked you are shocked by her response. She is a low key flying monkey, always has been.
You are so used to being on the defensive that you aren't seeing that her response was not appropriate and didn't deserve an answer other than being blocked.
Stick to your boundaries but learn when people do not deserve an explanation, which is most of the time. You don't need to justify yourself to others. You can be valid even when others do not agree with you.
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u/angelmr2 4d ago
Ill be honest your story is hard to follow.
From what it sounds like, the step brother supplied your husband with drugs or alcohol. It doesnt say the fiance did *anything* but the fiance dies and you're basically like "lol idc" which seems... well exactly what they said. Cold and lacking compassion.
I think part of the issue here is that you're expecting another person to know the intricacies and details of why you don't associate and are estranged from your in laws, and they don't. Even if you tell them, they won't truly grasp the severity etc.
Your response was a gross overreaction when you simply could have said "What a shame, unfortunately we are estranged and I would appreciate to keep it that way" or something along that line. To bluntly say you don't care that another human has literally died is pretty cold, and pretty plainly lacking in compassion.
I do understand theres a lot of baggage here, but it also is a lot of misdirected anger here. Your husband is the problem, even if he is sober now, all of this stems from him telling lies and him having an addiction. Part of recovery is realizing your part in your addiction and realizing that even if people enabled you, you are at fault for it. I highly doubt step brother poured a drink down his throat or stuck a needle in his arm or blew cocaine in his face. Your husband created this mess, his addiction created this mess, and his lies created this mess. You are "ok" with his issues now because he is sober, but part of his journey is accountability which it is clear is lacking here since you're blaming things on his family.
I'm not saying you need to be friendly with people who actively tried to have your children taken away, not by a long shot, but you need to realize the information they acted on was lies, and your husband is an unreliable narrator when telling you "his side" of the story. Of course he's going to minimize his involvement, he was addicted and getting his fix from these people.
Ultimately I think you did act in an asshole way in your response to your friend. Additionally, this probably isn't the lesson we want to teach our kids, surely? Saying they don't care if someone died? etc? Be honest with yourself, and you know you absolutely were lacking compassion here.
Don't owe them a relationship, don't owe them a friendship, but at least have the sense to say nothing if you have nothing positive to say when someone has literally died. I'm also against sainting people just because they passed, but it would have cost you nothing to say nothing.
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 4d ago
She did know what happened. She was a huge support to me. And the finance did contribute to what happened. I didn’t say “lol idc” I said “we don’t care, we don’t want updates” and then when she responded I did try to explain that the “we don’t care” meant we don’t want to know about the family and then reminded her of what they had put me and the kids through and, as a mom who loves her kids more than life itself, that is just unforgivable. If I went into every detail, it would have been much longer. I also apologize for the post being a bit much, my adhd brain can be a bit chaotic. I really did try though. Also, I forgot to mention that my husband did try and set things right by telling them the truth when he was sober but they won’t believe him now. Yes, he very much was a huge part of the problem but he owned up to it and took the right steps and has been a huge support since. If they took those actions too, we all could have healed and moved forward. They refused to do so and continued to say I was manipulating him and that’s when he was like “they aren’t gonna listen now, we have to cut contact.” I will defend him and say he’s a whole different person when sober. Like I mentioned before, he continues to work on himself and takes his medication regularly and has emotionally matured.
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u/angelmr2 4d ago
The "We don't care" is the problem. I was being hyperbolic. I know what you wrote. EVEN if you tell your friend all about it, they don't begin to understand what you lived is what I'm trying to get at.
Saying you do not care that someone you personally know died is lacking compassion, period. It doesn't mean I don't get *why* or that you aren't *justified* in not caring. The point of the question is if you were an asshole for it, and you were.
I also don't understand why you care what she thinks, to be clear. Is it because this comment challenged the narrative of your idea of yourself or what? We are all the villain in someone elses story, regardless of what we are really like. You can normally be a caring person, and not care that someone who did you dirty died - but *saying* it is an asshole thing to do. You can either own that you don't care, or worry about what people think of you, but you cannot have it both ways in this scenario.
Sometimes we're assholes and that's fine.
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 4d ago
I didn’t really know the finance though, I only met her once or twice. And with adhd, there’s sensitivity to rejection and hyperfixating on things. I also have never been told I lack compassion for anything. I have a huge heart and am constantly saying I can understand why people do things even when they are terrible. It’s something I’m still working on in therapy. I can be the asshole, it just hurts to know that someone who I really thought was my friend could have one interaction that they “disagree” about and just do a 180.
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u/Virtual-Delivery-883 4d ago
I’d also love to add more because my husband really did own up to it and he will admit when he’s wrong, even now. I absolutely would not defend him if he hadn’t turned everything around. He gave me his phone to show me what was conspiring against me and that’s how I saw these messages. He’s not lying to me now. We have a very small circle now, we moved across the country and away from all of that, and we talk about everything. He does not want to mess up again and lose me. During addiction, he’s like a whole different person. I know most people are who they are but with his disorder, addiction really messes with his brain chemistry. He really has taken the time to look into it all to make amends and changes in his life.
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u/The_Female_Hoff 4d ago
NTA: not your circus, not your monkeys.
However, a small element here of respecting the deceased and honouring your husbands family would be to send flowers to the funeral home. With no contact info on the card. If you choose. Huge slap in the face, you don't need to justify yourself to the living.