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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Klutzy_Amoeba_3188 on 2023-09-03 05:12:45.

When I (30F) was 18, I was kicked out of my family home by my mother. I was suffering from bipolar disorder and her husband didn’t want me around his daughters because he doesn’t ‘believe’ in mental illness. This happened around my 18th birthday.

I’m not going to get into it properly because I don’t want to exceed the character limit, I began working as an escort and got pregnant by my child’s father Henry 51M. I moved in with him and we had a 7 year relationship. I had my son a few weeks before my 19th birthday.

Our relationship wasn’t perfect, but I benefitted from it a lot as Henry put me through college and helped me manage my bipolar disorder. Although we are no longer together, I still love and respect him as a good friend and a good father to our little rascal.

About a year ago, I reconnected with my family by accident. I moved a few cities away from my mother, but I happened to run into her in our state capital. She burst into tears when she saw me, and told me that she had been searching for me for years but she couldn’t find me. We’ve been meeting 2-4 times a month and I introduced her to my son four months ago. She naturally wanted to know about his father, but she is a very traditional woman and I didn’t want to ruin whatever progress I had made with her by telling her about the man I had a relationship with who’s two decades older than me. She is also only five years older than him and it would be awkward.

She is becoming insistent on me introducing her to his father even though she knows we aren’t together, and she’s saying that I’m acting in bad faith for not telling her about him. According to her, the whole point of reconciliation is to become family again, and hiding the identity of my child’s father goes against that. I don’t know if I’ve been messed up by 12+years of no contact or if I’m being reasonable so I would like a third party opinion. Thank you.