A mother is usually understood as someone who cares for their child no matter what. Yet sometimes when kids are adults, their interests cross and the mother gets to decide whether she must intervene and take sides or simply let them solve their relationship on their own.
This Redditor was clear about her stance when she disinvited her daughter from the family Christmas dinner after her affair with her sister’s husband came to light.
More info: Reddit
A mother of four invited everyone for Christmas dinner, yet a sudden revelation changed her plans
Image credits: Nicole Michalou (not the actual photo)
The woman called to check on one of her two daughters and was told she and her husband weren't coming due to his affair
Image credit: u/Electronic_Gas_5769
Image credits: Jonathan Borda (not the actual photo)
Image credit: u/Electronic_Gas_5769
It only got worse as the daughter's husband was seeing her sister
Image credits: Anthony Tran (not the actual photo)
The woman told her second daughter she isn't invited for Christmas dinner
A woman explained the whole situation in the Reddit AITA community and asked if she was a jerk to disinvite her cheating daughter so that the other daughter who got cheated on would come and feel supported.
The OP is a mother of two daughters and two sons, a total of 4 children, who are all adults and who have moved out a long time ago. The woman hosted the family Christmas party and invited everyone for dinner and gift-giving.
As the woman phoned her married daughter to clarify a few things, she was told the couple wouldn’t be coming. This was due to her husband cheating on her.
However, as the mother inquired more, she was told that it was her other daughter who had an affair with her daughter’s husband and they had been seeing each other for the past 2 years.
The woman felt sick, so she uninvited the cheating daughter from the Christmas gathering and blocked her. Due to this, the married daughter agreed to come and the mother was happy she would spend some time with people who love her.
The OP explained that the cheating daughter as well as the mother’s sister both disagreed with her decision. The cheating daughter thought the sisters’ relationship wasn’t the mother’s business and as her mother, she shouldn’t remove her from the family.
The mother’s sister similarly thought she shouldn’t get involved in her daughters’ lives to this extent in addition to having “two daughters to think about”.
The mother shared that Christmas for her is about family and family can’t hurt each other like that. The woman’s husband took over the communication with their cheating daughter for the time being, but was in solidarity with his wife’s decision to not invite her for dinner.
The mother also blocked her second daughter for the time being and let her husband liaise with her
Image credits: MART PRODUCTION (not the actual photo)
The married daughter agreed to come and her mother was happy she will be surrounded by people who love her
George P. Fletcher was discussing loyalty as well as betrayal and noted that people live in networks of various relationships - of friends, acquaintances, families, etc. which constitute ties that range from the trivial to the sublime.
The question of loyalty, according to Fletcher, is close to the question of friendship as discussed by Aristotle, since Aristotle distinguished between a lower form of friendship that is only based on pleasure and utility, and a higher form of friendship that goes beyond personal gain and rests on wishing another person well without any ulterior motives.
The author added another aspect when discussing friendship, which is an understanding of continuity and reciprocal reliance, which he called loyalty. According to him, a person can be friends with many, though not so large a number that one’s attention and caring become too diffuse to sustain friendship.
Fletcher argues that friendship and all forms of loyal bonding presuppose relationships rooted in shared histories, as according to Aristotle, friends must have “eaten salt” together. For this reason, the question of loyalty is always rooted in particular relationships and deals with a certain inequality - outsiders cannot claim equal treatment with those who are the objects of loyal attachment.
Fletcher emphasized that the minimal demand of loyalty is the maintenance of the relationship, which requires the rejection of alternatives that undermine the principal bond. He explained that a loyal lover is someone who will not be seduced by another. A loyal citizen is someone who will not go over to the enemy in times of conflict.
He noted that some of the strongest moral epithets in the English language are reserved for the weak who cannot meet the threshold of loyalty: They commit adultery, betrayal, or treason.
Finally, Fletcher emphasized that while it might be tempting to think that loyalty is simply a habit of running with a certain pack, it is much more than a simple attachment, as it includes principled rejection of tempting alternatives, among other things.
Coming back to the original story, there probably is no question that seeing a sister’s husband for two years behind her back is quite a brutal betrayal of her trust and friendship, and the mother as well as commenters on Reddit went with the decision to prioritize the comfort and healing of a betrayed daughter by disinviting the other one from the Christmas party.
Redditors shared their takes on the situation
