Outrage as Mom Prioritizes Her Own Happiness Over Kids: 'Not Worth It'

The internet has dragged a woman who moved her children 18 hours away from their family after their dad died, to be with her new husband, telling them she "sacrificed her life" for them.

In a post shared on Reddit in October, one of the woman's three children, under the username u/Constant-Cicada-5769, wrote that their mom married another man two years after their dad died and moved them all 18 hours away from their home to be with him.

Her new husband had two children, who were rejected by their mom and grandparents because they came from an egg donor and she didn't consider them hers. When the woman moved in with her new husband, she cut her children's ties with their paternal grandparents, so her stepchildren wouldn't feel rejected by them, too.

It is estimated that on average about 29 out of 1,000 divorced or widowed women decide to get married for the second time in the United States.

The woman's children always resented her for taking their grandparents away from them soon after their father died and moving them so far away, so their relationship deteriorated over the years.

Two of her children moved back home (where they used to live before she re-married) as soon as they finished high school, and the third, the poster, is planning to do the same.

The mom keeps telling her children that she sacrificed her life for them, and thinks that their behavior is just trying to punish her for "trying to be happy."

But her children, on the other hand, say that what she did only made them hate their stepdad and stepsiblings because they were the reason their grandparents were cut off, and their relationship with their mom now is so bad that therapy can't even help.

Randi Asher, Psy.D., clinical psychologist, licensed in New York and New Jersey, told Newsweek that this family's experience of loss and rejection is heartbreaking, and they are entitled to their multifaceted feelings around this.

Asher said: "Their loss was compounded by their mother's choice to remarry and relocate quickly, create a new mixed family, cut off contact from paternal grandparents, far from the familiarity and support of their hometown and childhood friends.

"In this way, the children's collective grief is multilayered and ongoing, the death of any familiar connection to their former lives. This must be acknowledged by the children and by the mother (and stepfather) for any potential reconciliation to occur," Asher added.

She said that coping with death is complicated with no standard manual on how to proceed, and even though mental-health professionals believe in the essential need to move through any and/or all stages of grief, many people still respond with the opposite: avoidance, erasure, silencing, replacement, to make it "less painful."

"Typically, this strategy fails, leading to the conflict and resentment these children describe," Asher said, "and, more often than not, leading to psychological symptoms. Seen in this light, some of mom's choices were 'typical' ways of coping with loss, ineffective, problematic, absolutely, but common..."

According to Asher, it would be helpful for her children to understand the context and motives behind the decisions of their grief-stricken mother, to understand her financial and emotional capacity to raise three children as a single parent.

"Did she feel remarrying quickly would provide her children with a father figure and immediate stability?" Asher asked. "Were there any positive experiences that came from their relationships with their stepfather or stepsiblings?

"Though the resentments deserve validation, it is important to explore if the home environment provided any love and stability for the family."

Moreover, Asher added that there is a "quintessential difference" between forgiving their mother for her choices versus reaching a state of acceptance, and not all acts are forgivable, but for them to reach a level of inner stability, they must grapple with this and come to, at least, some place of acceptance.

"Can these children accept that their mother has her limitations, made decisions that were hurtful, but possibly made choices to provide stability? More importantly, can this mother take responsibility for her choices, some of which, cutting ties with paternal grandparents, hurt her children deeply?" said Asher.

"Individual and family therapy should work toward helping them better understand the other's experience and take responsibility for their own mistakes and role in the conflict, starting with mom. I think this is the only way the family can heal and reconcile," she said.

Adding that whether the children chose to reconcile or separate, acceptance of this situation means coming to terms with the limitations of the surviving parent, a different kind of grief experience, but necessary for one's own psychological healing.

The post, originally shared in the AITA subreddit, went viral quickly, receiving more than 6,000 upvotes and 800 comments.

One user, Galla01, commented: "Let me get this straight, you were moved away from your family not too long after your dad had passed away because the stepfather's kids did not feel accepted? I am not surprised you're annoyed.

"During grief and at such a young age, you need family around you. Your mother did this completely selfishly uprooting yours and your brothers' life's to appease your stepdad. Yes, you could argue that it's not fair that the grandparents didn't accept the kids but at the same time that should've never been made to feel like your issue," Galla added.

Positronicon wrote: "They didn't sacrifice for you, they forced you to make sacrifices for your step-siblings. Why would you be grateful for that?" while whatsabuttfore added: "Mom doesn't realize that what she sacrificed was her relationship with her children. 'But it's all worth it!'"

Newsweek was not able to verify the details of the case.