A few years ago, my family and I moved to another country, and while I am studying, I live with them. I have a friend who lives in another country, so we rarely see each other. Last year, we were going to meet up; she was supposed to come for Christmas and stay at our house for a week. We planned this meeting for several months and everything was decided, but a week before her arrival, I had a quarrel with my mother over some trivial household matter (something like whose turn it was to walk the dog), and she said she would not accept my friend in our home.
I knew she said it in the heat of the moment and wouldn’t really leave her without a place to stay, but I still wrote to my friend that my mother had changed her mind and didn’t want to host her. (My friend had other options for where to stay; she just needed more time to arrange it, but there was still a week left, so it wasn’t difficult).
The next morning, my mother started discussing my friend’s arrival, and I said that she wouldn’t be staying with us because my mother had said she didn’t want to take her in. My mother said she hadn’t meant it, to which I replied that even if that was the case, I didn’t want to give her that leverage, so I told my friend that they didn’t want her at our house anymore. My mother had a quiet hysterical fit, and it was clear that she regretted her words from the day before, but she constantly threatens me with things like this, and I’m tired of it, even though I know that in reality these threats will lead to nothing. So AITA for writing to my friend about my mother’s words, knowing that she wasn’t serious and that she would be upset?
UPD:
For those who think I left my friend to fend for herself: She knew from the start that this could happen and had other options ready (she has other friends in our city who are willing to take her in, and she had a hotel reservation that she could pay for when she arrived). A week was enough time to make new plans, because she just needed to change a couple of things, not start from scratch.
My question concerns specifically the situation with my mother, because my friend and I have resolved everything. I’m not sure how wrong I was to my mother, because she was genuinely upset, but I don’t feel guilty about it (I rarely feel guilty, but I usually understand when I’m wrong, and in this case I’m not sure).
You all aren’t understanding what happened here. OP’s mother is manipulative. She threatened her with something that OP was looking forward to, and OP made sure that their friend wasn’t put out with nowhere to stay by making sure they knew that OP’s mother had said that. Imagine if the mother DID mean it and the friend showed up only to be turned away?? My mother was a lot like this, and very rarely did she follow through, but it’s still a lot of anxiety to be avoided if the friend stays elsewhere.
NTA OP.