My Bio Mom Tried To Sabotage My Trip To Japan By Giving Me The Wrong Airport Terminal. She Didn’t Realize My Stepdad And Brothers Would Choose Me Over Her. Aitah For Refusing To Forgive Her Until She Went To Therapy?

Therapy and Realizations

When we got home and unpacked, Frank told Linda to sit down in the living room because they needed to talk. He pulled out his phone and started looking up family therapists in our area. Linda watched him with this unhappy expression, but she didn’t argue or make excuses.

Frank found someone named Catherine Flynn who had good reviews and specialized in blended family issues. He called and made an appointment for the following week. Linda said she didn’t think therapy was necessary and they could work things out themselves.

Frank looked at her and said this wasn’t optional if she wanted their marriage to continue. His voice was calm but firm, and Linda’s face went pale. She nodded and said she’d go.

Frank scheduled the appointment for all five of us and wrote it on the calendar in the kitchen. Tom and Bobby came downstairs and asked what was happening. Frank explained we’d be going to family therapy to work through some issues.

Tom looked at Linda and said it was about time someone made her face what she’d been doing. Linda opened her mouth like she wanted to respond but closed it again and looked down at her hands. The first therapy session was in a small office with comfortable chairs and soft lighting.

Catherine Flynn was a woman in her 40s with kind eyes and a calm voice. She asked us each to introduce ourselves and then said she wanted to hear from everyone about their experience of the blended family. Linda went first and started talking about how hard it was to blend two families together.

She said she’d felt excluded from Frank and the boys’ relationship and like she was always on the outside looking in. She talked about how I seemed to fit in so easily while she struggled to find her place. Tom interrupted her mid-sentence and said that wasn’t true at all.

He listed specific examples of how Linda had actively excluded me from family activities. He brought up the times she’d said I was grounded when I wasn’t and the times she’d claimed I was sick when the boys wanted me to come along. Bobby added that Linda had tried to keep me from coming to Japan with multiple lies.

Frank backed them up and told Catherine about the fake grandmother story and the wrong terminal number. Linda’s face turned red and she tried to defend herself, but Catherine held up her hand and asked her to listen to what her family was saying.

Catherine looked at Linda and said that from what she was hearing, Linda’s jealousy stemmed from her own feelings about herself rather than anything I actually did. She asked Linda to think about why she felt threatened by a teenage girl instead of embracing her as part of the family.

Linda was quiet for a long time before answering. She said she’d always had trouble when other people got attention she thought should be hers. She talked about growing up with a sister who was prettier and more popular and how their parents always seemed to favor her.

She said when she married Frank and saw how easily his sons accepted me, it brought back all those old feelings of not being good enough. Catherine nodded and said that made sense but pointed out that Linda had taken those feelings out on me instead of dealing with them herself. She asked Linda if she could see how her behavior had hurt me and damaged her relationship with her own family.

Linda nodded slowly and wiped her eyes, but she still wouldn’t look at me directly. Over the next few weeks, we went to therapy every Wednesday after school. Linda started acknowledging specific things she’d done to exclude me.

She admitted lying about the airline tickets and giving me the wrong terminal number. She talked about the times she’d made up excuses to keep me from family activities. She said she’d been jealous of how much Frank and the boys liked me, and it made her feel like she was losing her family to me.

Catherine asked her to think about why she saw it as losing instead of gaining. Linda struggled with that question and didn’t have a good answer. She still didn’t fully apologize or take complete responsibility for everything, but she stopped making excuses.

She stopped saying I was too likable or too present. She stopped blaming me for her feelings. Tom and Bobby watched her carefully during these sessions and called her out if she tried to backtrack or minimize what she’d done.

Frank stayed quiet most of the time, but his presence felt protective, like he was making sure Linda couldn’t twist the narrative again. Frank started being more careful about family time after that. He made sure to include me in everything and shut down any attempts by Linda to create separate activities.

When he took the boys to a basketball game, he made Linda come too and sit with all of us instead of letting her stay home. When Linda suggested the boys might want to do something just with her, Frank said we did things as a family now. He planned dinners where we all had to be present and movie nights where everyone participated.

Linda looked frustrated sometimes, but she went along with it. She couldn’t argue without making herself look worse. Tom and Bobby became even more protective of me after seeing everything their mom had done.

If Linda said anything that sounded like she was trying to exclude me, they called her out immediately. Bobby told her once at dinner that she needed to stop being weird about having me around. Tom said if she couldn’t handle me being part of the family, then maybe she should think about why that was her problem and not mine.

Linda’s face went tight, but she didn’t respond. She knew her own sons were on my side, and arguing with them would only make things worse. Linda started individual therapy on top of the family sessions.

She’d come home on Thursday evenings looking exhausted and emotional. Sometimes her eyes would be red like she’d been crying. Frank told me privately one night that her therapist was making her deal with deep issues about her self-worth and how she competed with other women.

He said it was hard work but necessary if Linda wanted to have healthy relationships with anyone. He said her therapist was helping her understand that love wasn’t a limited resource and that Frank and the boys loving me didn’t mean there was less love for her. I asked Frank if he thought Linda would ever really change or if this was just temporary because he’d forced her into therapy.

Frank said he honestly didn’t know, but he was going to make sure she kept trying because he wouldn’t let her treat me badly anymore.

Progress at Home

About a month after we got back from Japan, Frank called everyone to the dinner table for what he said was going to be a family meeting. I sat down between Tom and Bobby like usual, and Linda took her spot across from me. Frank served the pasta he’d made, and for the first few minutes, we just ate in silence.

Then Linda put down her fork and looked directly at me. She asked what my plans were for college and which schools I was thinking about applying to. I waited for her to interrupt or change the subject like she always did, but she just sat there listening.

I told her about three universities I liked—one in-state and two out-of-state—and explained why each one interested me. Linda nodded and asked follow-up questions about the programs and whether I’d visited any campuses yet. It was such a small thing, having my own mother actually listen to me talk about my future, but it felt huge compared to how she used to pretend I didn’t exist.

Frank smiled at both of us, and Tom kicked my foot under the table in this encouraging way. The conversation moved on to other topics, but I kept thinking about how Linda had asked me a real question and waited for my real answer.

A few weeks later, Bobby announced that his birthday was coming up and he wanted to have a party at the house. Linda immediately started planning, talking about decorations and food, but Bobby interrupted her. He said he wanted me to help him plan the party because we liked the same music and games.

Linda’s face did this thing where her smile froze for just a second and I saw the hurt flash across her eyes, but then she took a breath and said:

“That sounded great and she’d handle all the food while Bobby and I worked on the entertainment.”

I caught Frank watching Linda carefully, probably making sure she didn’t try to take over or push me out. Bobby and I spent the next week making playlists and planning which games to set up in the basement. Linda asked us questions about what we were planning and gave suggestions, but she didn’t try to control everything like she would have before.

When Bobby’s birthday arrived, the house filled up with his friends from the school. Linda had made tons of food, and everything Bobby and I planned worked perfectly. The music was exactly what everyone wanted to hear, and the game tournament in the basement got super competitive.

I was refilling the snack bowls when I heard a group of Bobby’s friends talking near the kitchen. One of them said he wished his older sister was as cool as me, and another one agreed, saying their siblings never wanted to hang out with them or help plan stuff. Linda was standing right there by the counter, and I saw her whole body tense up.

Her face got tight and her jaw clenched, and for a second I thought she was going to say something mean or leave the room. But instead, she closed her eyes, took this really deep breath, and just kept arranging cookies on a plate. She didn’t make any comments or give me dirty looks or do anything to ruin Bobby’s party.

Later that week at our therapy session, I mentioned what happened, and Catherine said that Linda’s ability to stop herself from reacting negatively showed real progress in managing her jealousy. Linda didn’t look happy about being praised for basic decent behavior, but she nodded and admitted it had been hard to hear Bobby’s friends compliment me.

The next month, Frank’s brother came to visit for the weekend. I’d met him once before at the wedding, but we hadn’t really talked. He showed up Friday evening with a bag of gifts for everyone, and within an hour of being in the house, I could tell he was picking up on something weird in how Linda acted around me.

He watched her carefully during dinner, noticing how she’d tense up when Frank asked me about school or when the boys included me in their conversations. Saturday afternoon he found me in the game room and asked if we could talk privately. He told me Frank had filled him in on everything that happened in Japan and how Linda had tried so hard to exclude me from the trip.

He said he was really proud of how I’d handled the whole situation with maturity and grace, especially since it was my own mother treating me that way. He said most kids would have caused drama or fought back, but I just kept being myself and let Linda’s behavior speak for itself. It felt good to have an adult outside our immediate family validate what I’d been through—someone who could see the situation clearly without being caught up in it every day.

That same evening I was upstairs getting ready for bed when I heard voices coming from Frank’s office downstairs. The door was partly open, and I recognized Frank and his brother talking. I knew I shouldn’t listen, but I couldn’t help pausing at the top of the stairs.

Frank’s brother was telling him about a conversation he’d had with Linda earlier that day. He said he’d reminded Linda how lucky she was to have married into a family where everyone had been willing to accept her from day one, no questions asked. He told her that Frank and his sons had opened their home and their hearts to her, and she’d almost destroyed all of that by refusing to extend the same acceptance to me.

He said Linda needed to understand that her jealousy wasn’t just hurting me; it was damaging her relationships with Frank and her own sons. Frank’s voice sounded grateful and a little emotional when he thanked his brother for talking to Linda. He said it helped to have someone else tell her these things, someone she couldn’t dismiss as being biased or taking sides.

I went to my room feeling like maybe Linda was finally starting to understand what she’d been doing to our family.