My cousin [26F] in confidence told me [27M] a secret about her drug use. She couldn’t make it to Thanksgiving, but during the party my aunt was talking about her drug use to me in a place where I think other people could hear. My cousin is close to my aunt, but given our previous conversation I know she probably doesn’t want the information to be shared.
We both live far away from home now, but I gave her a heads up what happened during Thanksgiving (‘hey your mom was telling me about this thing you told me to keep private, and other people could have overheard the conversation’) and now she isn’t coming home for Xmas.
I’m concerned because my aunt has a history of oversharing sensitive details about her to other family members (like to my Mom) and wanted to avoid a situation during Xmas where my cousin was put in an uncomfortable situation.
AITA?
ESH, gently, but this was poorly handled. Your claim that you wanted to protect your cousin from her over sharing mother doesn’t quite ring true. I think you “overshared” info yourself. You don’t know who if anyone overheard the two of you discussing your cousin’s drug use. You say it was “in public”, but a family setting is not “public” per se. Perhaps you meant she spoke of it within earshot of other family members.
You engaged in the conversation, and responded. You could have walked away and not discussed anything. Then you turned around and speculated to your cousin, alarming her and causing a division in your family. I think it was fair enough to let her know her mother spoke to you. But your emphasis is on how everyone might now know. Not where it should be, that your cousin is taking drugs, and her mother is understandably worried.
Good point re: I could’ve walked away and not discussed anything.
I think my phrasing in the Reddit post was a bit stronger than the actual text I sent.
I worded it more along the lines of: “Hey your Mom was telling me about your drug use during Thanksgiving. I don’t think anyone overheard it, but I wanted to give you a heads up in case it comes up during the party.”
Maybe I am reading this wrong, but I don’t get your motivation here. In order to avoid a situation during xmas where your cousin may have been put in an uncomfortable position, you let her know her mum had overshared private stuff, thus putting her in an uncomfortable position so now she’s not coming for xmas. What did you expect would happen?
The issue lies between your aunt and cousin. By getting in between them, you seem to have made things worse.
Maybe you were acting for the best; maybe you have your aunt’s knack of oversharing – who knows? Soft YTA.
That’s fair. I wasn’t trying to get between them, but to give my cousin a heads-up so she wouldn’t be blindsided at Christmas if the topic came up. I don’t actually know anyone overheard. I told her it was possible because the conversation happened within earshot of other relatives.
I can’t control her reaction, but I felt she had a right to know her mom was discussing something she’d shared with me as sensitive.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve handled it differently in the moment by shutting my aunt down instead of engaging, and I could’ve phrased the heads-up more neutrally.
YTA, though gently bc I understand your reasoning.
Most important to me: you ***think*** other people could hear. You’re not sure. You made a bigger mess of an already strained relationship by creating rumors/suspicions back and forth. This is about their relationship and your cousin’s drug use. Don’t get in the middle of that.
Your cousin probably knows her mom is shit at keeping things to herself. It’s up to your cousin to stop sharing shit with her mom. Now, based on a gut feeling (you THINK other people might have been able to overhear), you made things even worse.
Of course the mom shouldn’t have talked to you about this, but let’s twist it around: if you were a mom and you were worried about your kid using drugs, wouldn’t you also want to talk about that to other people that know your kid and might be able to help?
TL;DR: don’t get stuck in the middle here, it’s a shit place to be in. Stop forwarding things from one of them (things they said, did, etc.) to the other. It’s messy.
It does sound like maybe her mom was concerned about the drug use. She could have been more tactful and discreet about it. A mother reaching out to family for help is hardly going around telling the public about it.
I wouldn’t be surprised if your own mother already knows. I would be talking to my sister myself if I was dealing with this with my own child.
INFO were you worried people overheard in truth, or are you thinking the aunt told others because she so casually told you? The former seems a bit of a stretch, but the latter would probably prompt me to tell my cousin so that they have a heads up that their mom was indiscreet. I have told a friend that someone she thought was a close friend was actually telling her business to anyone who would listen. She was already in a really bad place and I didn’t want her to share more private information while unaware that it’d be spread at the next happy hour. But it’s not clear to me whether your aunt thought you were hearing something new from her or was aware you already knew and therefore safe to talk to.