Please or to access all these features

AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To not lend my mum money

228 replies

LastMemory · 10/09/2026 10:21

My mum and dad split up 5 years ago as my mum had an affair. My dad was completely devastated. My mum apparently regretted it and they tried to save their relationship but after trying for about a year, my dad said he couldn’t get over it and they split up.

My relationship with my mum never really recovered. I hate cheating and my mum says my dad was a great husband, she just got flattered by the other man. She told me it was her biggest regret and cried a lot but I just couldn’t see her in the same light again. Sometimes I think I hate her.

I have recently found out that she has been seeing the man that she had an affair with again, for at least 18 months. She doesn’t know that I know.

My mum is struggling financially and has asked us to lend her money. Apparently she is facing losing her house. I have refused to give her the money because I feel so resentful of what she has done to our family and that she is now seeing this man again and I am ready to cut her out of my life completely.

AIBU?

OP posts:
JeanSimmons · 11/09/2026 12:25

NewGoldFox · 11/09/2026 12:03

I really feel for your mother she’s only human and people make bad decisions. It sounds like she was a good mother to you otherwise and she hasn’t dragged your dads name through the dirt but frankly you don’t know why she felt the need for an affair and you don’t know what went on within their marriage.

Honestly ride your high horse off into the sunset but what a cruel way to treat your mother.

Lord, there's another one! Why don't you subsidise the OP's mother if you feel so strongly that she's been hard done by? It doesn't especially sound as if she was a good mother, anyway. 'Not actively abusive' is not a high bar.

SixtySomething · 11/09/2026 12:44

JeanSimmons · 11/09/2026 09:15

Only when it's legitimate, and not performative. In this case, OP's mother is not the 'underdog'. She FAFO'd. There's a big difference.

I don’t do ‘performative’.
I simply look at it differently from you.
That’s not what performative means.

purplecorkheart · 11/09/2026 13:22

I think you have done the right thing saying no. Just because she is your mother it does not mean that you owe her anything. I think it is awful that she will not take no for an answer and keeps calling you from different numbers. Let her go back to work or ask her boyfriend for money. It is not up to you to fund their lifestyle.

New posts on this thread. Refresh page