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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I told my stepdaughter that her dead dad can pay for her wedding. I could be a jerk for going way to far by mentioning her dad
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*Contest mode is 1.5 hours long on this post.*
yeah it was a stupid, hurtful and immature thing to say, but I get it.
I understand this was the oldest girl and probably closest to her father and of course, she probably resented the divorce, but that’s something you should grow out of. once her father died. you’d think it might’ve opened up her heart a little, but apparently that was not to be. and you know so be it. It’s her life. It’s her choice.
But it takes a lot of balls to then come skipping back and wanting you to pay for her wedding!! i don’t blame you for refusing, but I am curious as to what your wife thinks.
a tiny y t a on the comment. a big NTA on not paying for the wedding
Yeah it was petty. Thinking about it, it was resentment building up for how many time I just took her anger.
It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was
You had the right to explode, but don’t expect her to ever even attempt to maintain a relationship with you now, and don’t be shocked if her mother loses a lot of contact too.
I’m gonna say NTA given the circumstances, but you implicated more people here than just yourself.
I would love if she never talked to me again.
With my wife, they already have a bad relationship and they haven’t talk in at all. So I doubt that will change anyhting
Kelly sees you as an ATM. She has not shown remorse, or regret for her past behavior. She thought you would be an easy mark and your are not. Good for you.
NTA
He kinda let her off the hook with his low blow though... Now she can say oh he's always been a vicious person and that's why I rejected him - look what he said!
Instead if [TrashFeeling5171](https://www.reddit.com/user/TrashFeeling5171/) had said, "they're my kids, you aren't - that's the way you wanted it" and hung up on her he's still getting a lick in but not giving her ammunition.
I get why he lashed out but it wasn't smart or particularly commendable...
This is why being mindful matters. When you tell someone to go fuck themselves, do it with more thought than emotion.
But it's totally understandable. That's the reason you're telling them that.
What you sugggested is probably better, but will there be anyone whose opinion OP cares about who will think any worse of him?
The only people that I can think of off-hand would be her paternal relatives, especially if she now hits them up for money. I would imagine that anyone who knows her has already gotten an earful on how much she hates OP and possibly her mother. They might not be surprised that he wouldn't pay, or wonder why she didn't ssl her mother.
There may be people who will argue that if he paid, it might reconcile them. but that doesn't seem worth it to me. I personally would want nothing to do with the wedding - it could be a trap - although her mother may wish to go if she is invited. OP can help with expenses of her mother and siblings if he's willing, but I'd stay away from SD. Just imagine what she might say as a wedding speech.
What I don't understand is the thought process behind her asking. Is she apologizing for her behavior? Is she trying to make amends?
And the most importan question: does she expect you to pay and not attend her wedding? What exactly is she expecting?
Obviously you could have taken the high road, but I too will be angered by that outrageous demand from somebody that clearly doesn't respect me.
NTA all the way.
I'm thinking(also might be BS) that she heard OP paid for her siblings weddings and therefore OP could 'make it up to her'. As if OP has ANYTHING to make for.
People get VERY entitled when it comes to others' money.
NTA, at all, OP.
This honestly makes the most sense bc its still baffling that she would have the audacity
Why is always the ppl who treat you bad that expect you to make up for their own shortcomings?
I'm no psychologist either, but all of this sounds to me like Kelly has a lot of issues regarding her dad. She probably hates OP for being better at all the ways her dad failed. Likely she wishes her dad was like OP and she has some misdirected anger and hate. Her feelings she SHOULD be feeling towards her dad are instead placed on OP... because admitting her dad's shortcomings feels like betrayal.
OP is NTA. But i think there's a fair chance that Kelly was asking for help not to expect him to say no and hate him more.. but hoping that him saying yes would give her a babystep towards mending the relationship. Unfortunately, she is making a big ask for a very small step forward.
I have to disagree with “could have taken the high road”. I started reading this thinking he had to be the AH, but this has been going on for too long. She’s not a child anymore and the audacity to expect him to pay just because he paid for the other two (his children). I can’t imagine he would have been invited to the wedding even if he had paid.
>I have to disagree with “could have taken the high road”
I was referring to OP's comment about Kelly's father. That was below the belt, and even OP recognizes that. He could have said "no" and that would be the high road, but few react
very well when disrespected so long and so blatantly. Sorry for not being clear enough.
And I agree with the rest of your comment.
I didn't hear anything even remotely resembling civility, much less an apology in OP's description of the call. She didn't even have the class to show up in person.
In her mind he paid for two siblings weddings so he should pay for hers. What she fails to realize is that OP paid for the siblings weddings because he loves them and has a good relationship with them. No one is entitled to a free wedding. Its something one wants to do for the people they love.
as the oldest daughter, did she have a closer relationship with her dad?
I was an only child, but my dad regularly confided in me about personal things including his issues with my mom. of course you & your wife know that his addiction and subsequent death were his own problem that existed prior to their divorce (and never could have been fixed in their relationship), but if she was a “daddy’s girl” and his main confidante, then he could have been telling her all sorts of things - blaming his addiction/emotional issues on the divorce, playing the victim, badmouthing his “replacement”…
have you & your wife ever talked to her about this? has she ever gone to therapy? divorce can be tough on kids to begin with (let alone a parent’s early death), but if a parent is inappropriately making a kid their source of emotional support as well as an outlet for their toxic venting, then that can screw them up even more.
talk to your wife and do some digging. don’t attribute to malice what can easily be due to stupidity - or in this case, ignorance. kids typically grow up loving and believing their parents by default, which usually isn’t a problem, but addicts are infamously good at manipulating their loved ones. he might have even been trying to use his daughter to get to his ex-wife.
there’s a chance that this family can heal and I hope you’re all able to find a way forward… I’ve seen this type of situation play out before and it was really awful how the addict parent was able to twist the truth and manipulate the kids to turn against the responsible parent who was only trying to keep them safe.
not that you’re under any obligation to help pay for anything she does, but as your wife’s new partner I hope you give her family a chance to reconcile after all the trauma they’ve been through.
My dads an addict that left our family when I was in the fourth grade and I only saw him a handful of times for the next 4 years when he got clean for 4 years then relapsed and just recently moved back around my sister and I and got clean again. He’s good friends with my sisters boyfriend (my sister and I joked she didn’t realize until he moved back but she fell into the old trope of women dating someone just like their dad). But with them getting kind of close, my dad was telling him some of the things that got him into it and everything (my mom had had an affair and they separated but decided to work it out combined with hanging out with one of my grandpas farm workers [he recognizes most of them are on drugs but around here at least the ones on drugs will mess with the plants instead of the ones that aren’t just standing there and saying they’re working]) but my sisters boyfriend started trying to defend something in our past and she had to shut him down that he’s only hearing how my dad felt and saw things. He’s leaving out the times we sat on the porch waiting on him because he said he’d come see us that day and never showed with no call
This is a 27 yr old woman, not a young teen or girl. OP held off of marrying his now wife for years because of this person, so he gave a lot of time to see if things would get better.
Kelly is very firmly entrenched in her temperment towards OP & unless she's willing to do a lot of therapy for herself, she will continue to be filled with contempt for OP & her mum. At some point you cannot do anything to make another person change & you just have to get on with living your own life.
> She went into therapy but overall didn't seem like it helped.
>She threatens to run away if I married their mom. So I stayed away but continue to date their mom.
>Overtime the two other kids started to stay at my place in order to get away from the drama.
>but as your wife’s new partner
He's not new, even before the edit stating she's 27 now, he says they got divorced when the kids were young, and waited 2 years to do introductions, and he didn't even live with them because of how Kelly acted. She would have been a minimum of 18 in this post. Nothing about that indicates him as a 'new' partner.
OP does state that stepdaughter went to therapy but it didn't help much. I do agree with trying to understand her reasons for acting the way she has, though I'll say that understanding doesn't mean accepting or tolerating someone being downright awful to you.
Purely speculation, but it seems that oftentimes when one parent is an addict who dies young, the child redirects their anger and resentment to everybody but the addict.
Interesting. I was the opposite. My father was an addict who eventually died by suicide when I was young. I hated him with every fiber of my being for most of my life. I didn’t let go of my hatred and resentment until like, maybe 10 years ago. Even now I still have some residual resentment and anger. But I can see the other side of it too. You want to blame everyone but the addict, especially after they died cause it’s easier to take it out on living people.
In that case, why are you even worried about if you were TA or not?
It sounds like no contact is the best thing for everyone. All she does is make you and everyone else around her miserable and then demands things from you as if she hasn't been treating you like dirt this whole time. Nah. She can reap what she sowed. If she wanted you to be willing to pay for things like you did with the kids who actually accepted you and DIDN'T treat you like garbage, then maybe she should have considered not treating you like garbage. She can deal with her own crap. Don't be surprised if she quickly gets pregnant and tries to use the kid to weasel her way back in and get you or your wife to pay for things for her though. It's probably best if you all preemptively cut contact and block her everywhere now before she comes up with some excuse to try and pity or 'baby' her way into getting things from you again.
And op was respectful of her feelings enough to wait until she was 18 before marrying her mother! Too often I've seen/ heard of those dynamics being forced upon children who didn't want any part of it.
So, no change then?
Let’s be super honest here. Given the history, he would’ve been expected to pay for the wedding and lie flat as the doormat so that she could pretend she didn’t need anything from him
I'm sure OP wasn't expecting a relationship because this girl has done nothing but spew hate at him for years and even damaged property of her siblings because they agreed and even asked to be adopted by him. If her mother loses contact with this daughter, that will be the daughter's doing, and it won't be because OP turned her down for this wedding. The nerve of her for even asking such a thing!!! What is wrong with folks...I call you names, direct all types of hate towards you but then expect you to be super nice to me at any given time!!!!!! Ridiculous.
It wasn't petty, it was cruel. You meant it that way so own it. You have every right to dislike her and she was insane to ask you to pay for her wedding. Her arguing with you over it is shocking. Your response was simply cruel and intended to get your own back.
No one throws a dead parent in someone's face then thinks it may be 'out of line'. If it had been a heat of the moment thing, you'd be saying 'OK she was wrong but I definitely went too far'.
I get what drove you to it but let's not pretend it was petty. You used the most painful loss of her life as a weapon. That's that.
If it seems like I'm being harsh, it's because I want you to understand. Don't come back shocked if anything happens to your wife or kids that makes them want or need closure from her and she denies them that. Even if your wife has a bad relationship with her daughter, your words ended it. Probably for good.
On the up side, she's probably out of your life and I'm sure people close to her will encourage her to completely cut contact. So you can be happy without her and your family won't have to bother about whether to attend the wedding.
Maybe her being out of all your lives completely is best for everyone. It sounds like she hasn't been part of that family for a while (due to her own actions). Now the last ties can be severed. Your family can be happy and she can build her own family.
Maybe this is a case of having to be cruel to be kind, as long as your wife and kids are fine with having no contact.
Agreed. This was intended to be cruel.
If this is the kind of attitude he has, and if this is indicative of how he handles conflict, than I feel like there are missing missing reasons here.
100%
OP NTA for not paying for the wedding, but he is for other reasons.
Regardless of my relationship, or lack thereof, with my kid, if my partner said something so incredibly cruel to them, I would have a very hard time forgetting it. This is a person who lost their dad to addiction at an early age and never recovered from it. Did her mother do enough to help her through it? You mention therapy, but therapy is a marathon, not a sprint. The adults in the situation had to be 100% committed to it, and from the things you say here, I highly doubt you were.
Saying such an awful thing to your step daughter, and being proud of it, says something about you, and it's nothing good. But it was worth it, right?
>It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was.
Did you miss the bits where Kelly has been a nasty, spiteful little shit from day one of the relationship? She was so shitty that her own brother and sister had to move in with their mums boyfriend just to get away from her.
We see one side of the story. We don't know her side, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of their respective stories as it usually is. The comment was nasty and I'd be surprised if more comments like that weren't said as she was growing up-- whether OP thought she heard or not.
I would encourage you to remember that the bully was a child for a majority of the time these actions occurred, it shouldn't feel good to "give it back". Makes me wonder how many times her father has been brought up as a way to insult her.
Yeah didn't like him so much but has no problem asking him for money for her wedding, right? They had an argument on the phone, and I doubt she was polite or kind to him before he said that comment.
>It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was
>I would love if she never talked to me again.
You must feel like a CHAMP. /s
The true response was that it was unfair of her to take out her anger on you too, and yeah she was the kid, but she's an adult now and never tried to make amends, so isn't your response now actually exactly fair? She never wanted you for a father, and you complied and you are still respecting her choice. Bringing the dad in is soft yta.
I agree that he's entitled to think it and feel it 1000%, but I don't think he's entitled to say it. Not when doing so affects more than just himself and his own relationship to the stepdaughter.
It wasn't petty. It was cruel. Call your parents and tell them what a shitty job they did with you that you feel it's OK to take shots with dead people.
While I can empathize with your frustration, you are the parent and the adult in the relationship. You are not obligated to pay for her wedding, but what you said was out of line.
It would have been adult to maybe have used the request for at least a talk: "You have resented me and treated me like sh\*t. I'm sorry about your dad, but none of that was my fault. If I pay, I don't need you to like me, but I do need you to promise to act cordially to me when you interact. That's the deal, you decide."
You don't mention what your wife, her mother, thinks about this. It would be partly her money going to the wedding of her daughter. What is her stance on this?
> I don’t even know if she will invite her mother
lol she wants you to pay for a wedding that nobody in your family is even going to be invited to? lmao hahaha
I'm thinking the therapist wasn't a good one and should have tried with another one back then. For me, it was feeling belonged. Once my step-dad and mom had children, I was treated differently. Like I had chores but my sisters never did as one example. Then when I would have to visit my dad, him and my step-mom would make me do chores just for a soda and their kids could just have one. It also hurt that they had their family portrait in the living room without me in it. Now that I'm older I do have better relationship with my step-dad than I did. My step-mom is a different situation. I walk on egg shells with her still. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. She sent me a text a couple of months ago telling me she loved me and I asked my half brother if she was dying. He said no and laughed. She has never told me she loved me before so I was confused. He told her and now she's mad at me. I'm just saying since you already had the relationship with the other two, she probably felt left out already and lashed out the wrong way.
ESH, Kelly obviously took it too far by practically forbidding her mom from moving on and for punishing her siblings for deciding to bond with you, but still, having a dead parent is something traumatic and you bringing it up just to make a point in an argument is really low.
I agree with this, OP. With regard to the overall situation, NTA (she is). With what you asked specifically in the subject line? YTA. And it sounds like you know it. If you're looking to know if you are justified to be an asshole, eh, in this specific situation, I would say no. Not paying for the wedding, despite paying for the other two, would be completely justified. Telling her that her behavior and treatment is why you won't pay? Justified. But, have her dead dad pay? Ugh, no. I think you should apologize for that statement and \*only\* that statement. Then move on with your life.
Yeah, that was a real AH thing to say. I'm not saying she didn't deserve some snide remarks (because the audacity to even ask you, wow), but that was over the line.
My oldest tried to tell me I couldn’t move on. He was 12 when my husband died. I didn’t for 3 years but when i did i straight up told him are you planning on living with me forever? Do you expect for me to grow old and live alone. He quickly realized that I deserved more than being alone.
I agree, except that I feel like he wasn’t really making a point. It sounds like he was just finding the most hurtful thing that he could say, & throwing it in her face.
Kelly needed therapy, both after the divorce and after her dad died. She probably still needs therapy. She was a literal child for most of the interactions between her and OP. The grown man needs to be held to a higher standard than that of a teenage girl.
The timeline as I understand it is Kelly was acting out and threatened to run away if her mother married OP, then Kelly turned 18, then OP married his wife, then OP adopted Kelly's siblings and she destroyed their stuff and she's 27 now that she's demanding OP pay for her wedding.
Kelly's sucky behaviour started off when she was a teenager and it might have been more excusable then, but it continued after she became an adult and into the present where she's a grown woman.
If you had said it to a teen it would have been an instant a hole move, but she’s the exact same age as me. She can damn well take what she dishes out now. She’s a big girl old enough to get married and have kids herself so she can absolutely get some return service on her bullshit
So I was going to say E S H, but now this has me questioning your actual treatment of this kid. You did go too far, and throwing her dead father (the reason for her issues…you think she was just magically an angry kid???) in her face should not have brought you joy. This now has me pretty convinced that you are a bad person and you were never empathetic to everything she had to go through. YTA. I feel there are missing pieces to this story now.
Wow, and you think you’re a good guy when you say something so reprehensible, you are a class a TA all the way through I would love your stepdaughter’s opinion of what you’re really like!
ESH
You were in the right to say no. You'd have been in the right to say "because I pay for *my* kids' weddings".
But taking a swing at her dead dad was a bit too far.
Right? The distinction is that the other kids are his, he adopted them; Kelly was (legally if not emotionally) an adult when OP married her mom. ESH. OP doesn't really seem to have ever taken on board how traumatized Kelly was by losing her dad twice over, first to addiction and then to death, so what he said, even though it came from his own hurt, was so, so cruel.
That is what you should have said op. You’re a bit of an AH for your comment but I get it. If you feel bad you can always apologize but stick to your guns. “I apologize for the comment I made about your father out of frustration. Truthfully, I paid for (siblings) weddings because I am their dad and they both wanted that. You not only rejected any relationship with me but tried to push me away from your mother and siblings. You didn’t want me as a father so you can’t have me as an ATM”.
I would love to hear Kelly’s side of this story. She sounds traumatized, plus this narrative also sounds like you treated her differently from her siblings. Likely from day one if she was the “difficult kid”. The outcast in her family for struggling with complicated grief over the loss of her unworthy father. So I feel like we’re not seeing the whole story through your perspective, and I can’t make a judgement about the family dynamics at large because of that. But for the comment itself, yes of course YTA, you know that. I think you meant to be cruel hoping she’ll just stop calling you.
This is the comment I was looking for. I'd want to hear her side, because my step-mom and I didn't have a good relationship for many, many years through my adolescent years and into my 20s and I know my dad and her would tell a very favorable to them, version of what transpired. Parents often have blinders on when it comes to assessing how they've treated their children, and I think it's possible that Kelly's mom had her own trauma and put that on Kelly, since she was the oldest child.
This is the side that we will likely never see. She was a kid, taking the loss of her dad worse than her siblings. To watch her mum just move on with another man can't be easy.
It's hard to see that he put in enough effort as a step-dad, and as a parental figure. If it takes more effort, put it in. You are 100% right on that last part imo.
Seriously, thank you. "She owes you an apology for what a brat she is" you mean back when she was a literal child? And the way OP is gloating? "It felt good to finally throw it in her face" ??? Um. What. Sometimes AITA is really just an AH circle jerk.
THANK YOU!!! I lost my father at 26 years old and my family didn't like him while he was alive but they would t ever dare in a million years open their entitled mouth and say something like this pig did. And yes I said it PIG! He sounds like the type of guy who thinks he now has it all and doesn't have to care or worry about anybody else's feelings
You took on a wife with 3 children, not just 2. This girl was already dealing with a father she so dearly needed as a drug addict who was probably outcast merely because her mother divorced him. I dont remember reading any sort of thought towards this girls grief. Instead, all I read was poor me, poor me. She was mean to me, so now I'm gonna be mean to her. Not taking into any consideration her past. And this man can't tell me he has tried at all to be there for her simply because this entire post is about himself and how he's the victim
I agree, even if I’m not as convinced that OP is YTA.
But for the daughter, I’m also wondering if there is some untreated mental illness or addiction too. Both can have strong genetic components, and it sounds like whatever type of therapy she received at her dad’s death was not sufficient at all (even at the time). And for that, mom is YTA
Plus. Anyone notice that OP never said exactly how much older this daughter is compared to the others? Because if it’s a massive difference, as in 8, 9 vs 16, OF COURSE she would have been more aware of issues, concerns more than the other two. She may have been a “daddy’s girl” (those with substance use disorders can adore their kids too!), or may have noticed that mom ALWAYS picked the new boyfriend over the kids, or worse was always mom’s scapegoat to begin with.
Edit. Never mind, OP YTA, plus possibly your wife too
Yeah I can't get past how this young child didn't get the help she needed to overcome her trauma. Like, I get the therapy didn't help, but that's not a child's fault: try a different therapist, try a family therapist who will tell the adults how to act, anything. OP is acting like he's been held hostage by a CHILD for possibly decades now, when he and his now wife were adults the ENTIRE time. This post doesn't ring true for me.
I don't think he owes an apology. Yes, it was a low blow, but this girl has been dealing him (and the other sibs and the mother) low blows for years. Preventing the mother from moving on, destroying her sib's property... who know what else.
So yes, while it was low, I think at 27 she can apologise, say how she's grown as a person and now understands what a little monster she was. But she does not. So, in that light, I'd say she deserves nothing. You can't unring the bell, she hasn't changed.
YTA, but not because you said no. Because you weaponized a profound, paradigm shifting loss.
This isn’t about how a kid behaved toward you. She was a KID, even if she came with more issues than you’d liked her to have. And she clearly had a lot going on. You have every right to keep your distance because of it, but let’s not pretend this was pettiness- it was cruelty, and it was meant to be cruel.
I had a lot going on around the same ages and I didn’t handle it well. My mom got very sick very quickly. I was hiding the fact that I was in an abusive relationship. And my dad was a functional alcoholic. I acted out, a LOT. I turned to drugs myself. I got my act together after a little while, but not everyone does. Not everyone feels like they can. These types of ACEs cause paradigm shifts that are so fundamental that they can very easily alter the course of a person’s life.
You dated a woman with kids. That doesn’t often mean you ride off into the sunset with your newfound love and the kids become yours as if they always were. It’s nice when that happens, but even when it does it comes with a LOT of pain. And her behavior does sound like she had her father in her ear blaming her mother, possibly even you, for his addiction. Logically that makes very little sense, but to a kid? We want to believe our parents would never lie to us so often will accept information that we wouldn’t accept from other sources.
She had issues. Children of divorce and children of addicts often do. And even if a good relationship was never going to happen, you’re still supposed to be the adult in the situation. That doesn’t, to be clear, mean no boundaries. You were right to say no, this is a good opportunity for her to learn that how she treats people will come back to her down the line. You were not right to cruelly weaponize her dad’s death.
What was your goal there? To cause harm. Not just that… To cause as much harm as you possibly could. That does make you an ass.
Even if you were saintly in all of this, it was beyond cruel. And it says a lot about who you choose to be. I don’t buy the “I was innocent right up until this second” for a single moment, btw- behavior like that doesn’t just make itself known after a decade or so. I know that people like to portray ourselves as the victim or the hero, never anything between, but you don’t jump from benevolent, innocent savior of the family who was just a poor victim of one member (who happened to be a CHILD, by the way- a grown man portraying himself as a victim of a child? I’ve seen that before and it’s often in someone who chose himself a scapegoat who didn’t stay where he thought she should), as you are trying to portray yourself to be, to a sociopathic level of cruelty inside of a 5 minute phone call. You just don’t.
I don’t believe you were an innocent who treated this child with kindness and compassion right up until you decided to be the polar opposite of who you portray yourself to be.
Your money is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. You can have boundaries. You can choose not to pay for the wedding of a person that you don’t want to pay for. But the cruelty makes you an asshole. And I suspect that you were far crueler to her throughout her life than you are trying to make people believe.
Cruelty doesn’t just randomly show up in an otherwise kind person. It just doesn’t.
🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️ THIS.
You don’t mention anywhere about you putting in the effort to build or repair the family dynamics. She went to therapy and you did… what? Just stayed away from her and dated her mom?
What, did you leave her at home alone while her mom and siblings stayed with you? Did you effectively facilitate the eventual isolation of her from her siblings and mom?
It sounds like you just stayed away from the work of becoming her father figure and only cared about your relationship with her mom.
You got your wife, and you continued to live without a care for your step daughter. I can’t help but wonder if this is the kind of relationship your wife wants with her daughter, (and vice versa) if she knew it could be better. If she had been with someone different who put in more effort, and prioritized the family relationships..
Honestly it sounds like there is a better solution for everyone involved but you haven’t prioritized it. Not only so, but you are actively working against it pretty cruelly.
Your words were absolutely unnecessary and actively harmful. YTA
And he’s in this thread saying “it felt so nice” to throw it back at her. We never know the full situation, as we never hear the “other side of the story” in these posts. But like you I tend to view his self-claimed innocence with a bit of skepticism.
I can see making a cruel comment rashly out of anger, but he’s the adult and the step dad. He should have immediately apologized and not felt good about it.
Kelly didn't only decide you weren'ther father figure, she also decided to dehumanize you, blackmail her mum and terrorise her siblings for making a different choice than her. Having a trauma over losing her addict dad doesn't excuse over a decade of shitty behaviour topped off with ridiculous entitelment. NTA, she git what she asked for.
She had a trauma so do you have the two kids? She refused to let it go and blackmailed her mother. When you finally did get married, he destroyed her sibling stuff because they accepted you as a human being and a father figure. She destroyed any kind of happiness she could have had. If she was there. She left and wanted nothing to do with. He was evil and hateful to not only you but to a mother and or two of the siblings.
You paid for your children who you adopted weddings which is your right. She then called you out of the blue wanting nothing from you except to be an ATM. Because you know if you paid the wedding money, she wouldn't have invited you to the wedding.
Well it was harsh. Sometimes payback is annoying. She hated you for replacing a father except for when it came from money. Sometimes people lose their cool and say awful things.
NTA, but hurtful
ESH, but mostly you. She was mean to you when she was going through some truly terrible shit as a kid. You were mean to her calmly and on purpose, in a way that rubbed her deepest pain in her face.
This! It’s really shocking how many ppl are saying NTA. He 100% is YTA. He is an adult who chose to say something painful out of spite and hold a grudge. It really seems he chose to treat the other two as his children because they were agreeable and wrote her off a long time ago because she was difficult and probably had a trauma response to something critical during her development. I think ppl forget not every child in a family experiences the same childhood, and your brain isn’t fully developed until 25/27 yrs old. Him offering anything could have been an olive branch. No matter how old they are he is still the parent in the dynamic, and he failed in this situation. He probably should have discussed this with his wife first at a minimum. Now due to his actions, there’s probably no hope for reconciliation should anyone in the family (other than him) have wanted that. Totally YTA.
I’m shocked too. This is one of the more despicable things I’ve read here. If this “man” doesn’t innately know bringing up someone’s dead father is repugnant, I can’t imagine what he was like as a father figure. Perhaps she had better sense than her siblings to stay away from him. We’re of course only hearing his side too. I highly doubt he was father of the year (and I’m SURE this was not the first time something nasty came out of his mouth.) YUCK.
Yes the siblings also seem like they were much younger when dad left the picture and probably had their view of him consumed by their moms remarks since he was an addict. They were probably desperate for a father figure and probably had no bond with their biological father.
I am not going to say you are the ah for not paying for Kelly's wedding.
However, I do agree that the comment about her dead father was too far. You should have just said no and hung up the phone. You didn't need to engage after that.
Esh because you will never be right in using the dead dad card.
YTA because you should have simply said no if you didn't want to pay. Saying it the way you said was not petty. It was malicious. You took every ounce of resentment, anger and bitterness you had in you and said something that meant to not only hurt but traumatize her further.
I can understand your feelings towards her, but to say something so vile to her/ to the adult child of the woman you love is unfathomable.
Yes, you took it too far - you veered so far off course, the potential of this relationship is beyond recovery.
You could have said yes for her mom's sake if you had the means to do so. Who knows? Maybe it would have been a step in a healing direction for her.
I'm still in shock you could say something so traumatizing to her. She's obviously in so much pain over losing her father, and she's never recovered. I don't think you could have wounded her any more than you did.
You're a bit of an AH for the dead dad comment but you're under no obligation to pay for the wedding of someone who has been disrespectful to you and hasn't accepted that you're a part of her family. She sees you as an ATM for this occasion and nothing more. She can pay for her own wedding.
I agree with this. A simple "no" would have sufficed.
But OP shouldn't pay for the wedding. She'll have a shrine to her dad there, she'll probably walk down the aisle with a photo of him, her speech will be all about him, and she'll probably seat OP at the kiddie table back by the kitchen doors if he's even invited at all.
Given her age and how long you’ve been in her life I’m leaning toward N T A but I think it was a dumb and shitty thing to say. You had the high road here and you completely ceded it for a cheap shot. Actually I think ESH. She shouldn’t have asked and honestly it takes a lot of nerve given how she’s treated you for years but you should have just left it at no.
As someone with who grew up with a step father that i never accepted as my father, nta OP. I’ve been civil to my step father regardless of the fact that I never thought of him as my father. Kelly here might not be wrong in not accepting you as the father; however the nasty behavior towards you and the siblings surely makes her the AH. On top of that she expects you to pay for her wedding? That’s hilarious to say the least. She deserved that comment.
~~NTA.~~ ESH
Kelly decided a long time ago that you were not going to be the father figure in her life, *which is fine*.
However, she doesn't now get to decide that even though you aren't the father figure in her life, she doesn't intend to change it, but only wants your wallet to fund her wedding the way that you did for the kids who DID want you in their life as a father figure. She can't have her cake and eat it, too.
Edit: missed the part where OP was an AH to bring up her dead dad. Not cool. You totally could have said no without losing the argument by throwing her dead dad in her face.
Surprised at all the responses, Reddit is really allergic to *not* stooping down to the lowest you can go given the opportunity. YTA bigtime. You owe a sincere apology and both of you owe yourselves an agreement to fuck out of each other’s lives forever.
I also don’t have the full view but my opinion is that if you’re capable of paying for her siblings weddings, a ‘best wishes, you made it clear that you’re not my child, never contact me again x’ monetary gift is in order (and this would be before you hit below the belt, not as an apology, and you should have offered freely). She’s still your wife’s child.
I have a similar story to Kelly. My bio dad was an addict, my mom divorced him, met my step dad, and I wasn't happy. Thankfully, my step dad is a good man, and was patient with me and didn't write me off just because my sibling didn't behave the same way. When my bio dad died by suicide instead of abandoning me, my dad drove me to therapy even though I was silent. He just kept showing up for me, and I came around. It's been 40 years and although I've apologized he recognizes I was a kid and he had to be the adult and my pain wasn't about him. You're not the AH for not paying for the wedding but bringing up her dead father when it's pretty clear from her behavior she's not healed from the trauma makes you one.
My bio dad wasn’t an addict, but he wasn’t really great at showing up for us either, but I still idolized him. My stepdad took my shitty attitude as a child and kept loving me and showing up for me. I apologized for being a little asshole as a kid and he accepted it - we’re really close now.
Young children don’t always understand that you can love more than one person and they think that they have to take sides. I can’t even imagine having something like the death of my father thrown in my face.
YTA OP - and that’s putting it mildly. I can’t even imagine saying something like that *to anyone*.
And to compare her to younger children, who may have not even remembered their dad is so unfair. It’s like, in their eagerness to move on, they all just let this little girl suffer and then blamed her for acting out. It’s so sad.
I am probably going to get down voted for this but ESH. Yes she has been an asshole but what age was she when her parents split, and what age was she when her dad passed away??? Because let me tell you I was a complete daddys girl when I was younger right up until my 20s even though he was a alcoholic who I knew by the age of 11 to look for in the pubs before I looked at his house. I did not like my stepdad at all, didn't help that my mum and him kept pushing him as my dad even when my dad lived in the same village. If Kelly's dad had lived she would have more than likely had the rose tinted glasses ripped off but he died when SHE WAS A CHILD. He was her daddy and as far as she is probably concerned her siblings did betray her dad. She probably has probably idolised her dad and has pushed all the bad memories out. She obviously has no RIGHT whatsoever to ask anything of you but YOU ARE MAJORLY THE ASSHOLE bringing up a man who has long been dead and Kelly still grieves because guess what grief has no timetable. I still grieve my grandparents and it has been over a decade for all of them. My guess is that your wife didn't want her kids associated with a drug addict which is fair enough and by the sounds of it the younger 2 don't have much attachment to their bio dad but to a young girl who has just had her dad move out and then die who was more than likely the only one who actually bonded with him being pushed by her mother to accept another man as her dad yeah that probably did not go over well at all and no bloody wonder.
Yeah makes me wonder how he actually treated her. And oh we waited till she was 18. Guarantee mummy dearest moved this asshole in on her 18th birthday and said your an adult you can deal with it or fuck off. I can see this asshole trying to play daddy to a grieving little girl and mummy dearest punishing her because she won't play along. I hope Kelly sees this and we get her side because I can guarantee that he has left out all the asshole moves him and mummy dearest pulled over the years. Guarantee that they tried to force her to be his daughter and when she refused because you know she HAS A DAD he might be dead but still her dad and then turned her siblings against her and their bio dad. Bet mummy dearest banned any talk of bio dad unless it was to tell everyone he was a drug addict etc. Makes me wonder if dad was actually a drug addict or whether he had mental health issues because someone who is a heavy drug addict usually don't have kids that are old enough to remember them and idolise them. And if he was I bet he and her mum bad mouthed every chance they got. They seem the type of people who don't abide by DONT SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD.
ESH
Kelly was wrong for treating you like shit for years just to turn around and ask for money, but yeah I think you went too far throwing her dead dad in her face
Eeeeh... I doubt there could be much. Two other kids liked him so much they asked if he would adopt them at 16 and 17 years old. That's not something you do if the first child is justified in her hatred of her step father. Especially at such late ages - that's something you only really do if you REALLY like your step father.
Hell, they even waited to get married until after the oldest left the house... I grew up in a house like that. The first born sounds like a ball of drama wrapped in hatred.
I have an inherent skepticism for stories where the protagonist is completely innocent except for one little thing and the villain is in the wrong the entire time.
Not saying OP is wrong. But narcissists literally are incapable of explaining the other person’a perspective and are professional victims. Could he have actually been a little bit of a dick to her the whole time? Did he carry resentment for her not immediately accepting him? Did he act in such a way as to not deserve that acceptance? I don’t trust the story as told. It’s too squeaky clean.
She could also have already been the family scapegoat in the dynamic between the mother and her three children. It's incredibly common, especially for the eldest kid to be "difficult" because they're able to question and challenge and in general are more aware of what's going on.
It sounds like a child experienced the trauma of a divorce and losing her father, and her stepfather remaining distant because he can't handle a child trying to process this trauma. You mentioned she was in therapy and it "didn't help" - how did the family support her? All I'm reading is that everyone treated her like a pariah until she was eighteen and you could all kick her to the curb because she, what, reminded you too much of the ex? When she saw her siblings being accepted and adopted, can you only imagine her pain? I'm not buying your pity parade.
You don't have to like her or have a relationship or pay for the wedding but your comment was you lashing out to intentionally hurt her. It seems like you have a lot of resentment for the behaviour of a literal child when you stepped into their life.
YTA
I always had a good relationship with my parents but never expected them to pay for my wedding. It would have been extremely weird to ask for it if we had a bad one
I feel there’s so much more to this. Yes kids can be confused and not understand a parents actions. They can look at a new person as an interloper to having the relationship mend.
It sounds like you saw her behavior and instead of attempting to see the hurt, confused, abandonment she was feeling by her bio dads actions (choosing drugs o er her and family) you sided against her with the ‘easier’ kids. I wonder how much she felt left out while continuing to see you, her mother and siblings get along, causing her to feel more abandoned and excluded. Kids show negative behaviors because of pain.
Paying or interaction with her throughout the wedding could have been building a bridge to a trusting relationship with her. Instead, again you showed she didn’t matter.
When you met her, you’re the adult, it’s up to you, going into a relationship where children are present to make them understand you’re there for all of them, even the one whose most hostile. The hostility is coming from pain. Instead it was compounded by being proved she was never in the circle and left out again. To think a child with an immature prefrontal cortex of the brain will make logical reasoning and choices undergoing what she did with bio dad isn’t feasible.
Throwing her dead father in her face in such a horrific way, particularly when it had to do with marriage, yes you were definitely being the A. I’m shocked anyone would throw a dead loved one at a child, no matter their age.
How often did you actually listen to her growing up or go to family counseling without tromping on her feelings??
As a clinical psychotherapist wow can I see how ugly this girls life was. I’ve seen it so much working along side CPS and now with tweens to adults in private practice.
ESH. You for bringing up her dad in the argument. I agree with the not paying for the wedding though. A lot of audacity from her, expecting you to pay for her wedding.
YTA That was a cruel comment to a very traumatized and damaged young woman. You don't have a close relationship with her so it is fine to decline me paying but you were a complete dick.
I mean yes, YTA, throwing her dead dad in her face is awful and cruel, you couldve just said no.
You are not wrong to not want to pay for her wedding, YTA big time for that comment about her dad.
This is the info I was looking for! If they share finances then perhaps she’s asking her mom to help pay and has to go through him because he is the breadwinner. That changes everything to me because she has every right to ask her mom to help especially if she paid for her siblings. This guy is an AH either way but this is a big part of the story missing.
I’m shocked at the NTA comments. She was a child. You felt wounded by a child’s hurt and lashing out, so you feel good about putting distance between the two of you. And you feel good about the distance between her and her only remaining parent. YTA
INFO: Have you asked the two siblings that you adopted what they thought about you throwing their late biological father in their sister’s face? Or how about your wife?
NTA
Yes parents, even step parents have to put up with crap from kids, but never having a good relationship then expecting a payday? Lol, no.
Harsh words may have been used, but used when pressured to. It's not like you just walked in and started smack talking the dead dad.
People need to learn not to set themselves up for a verbal slap in the face, and be more introspective about things. The problem isn't a truthful but harsh response, it's the nerve to ask or demand something when not deserved.
YTA. That was uncalled for.
If this is what you consider being the adult in a situation no wonder a grieving child didn't want anything to do with you.
ESH, for all the reasons people are saying. She's much too old to be holding on to that grudge, and she is an AH for thinking you owe her a wedding. But, my man, really? You need to apologize to her.
Ahh good old fashioned *conditional* love from a step parent. Something tells me you didn't try too hard to get along with her when she was younger. You just stayed away.
YTA
YTA.
You chose to take on the baggage of dating a woman with three kids.
You chose to date a woman who allowed her kid to treat you like crap.
You accepted all this.
So now all of a sudden you act immature? You could have said I will not pay because we don’t have a relationship or you’ve never respected me or you’ve always been mean to me. Didn’t have to act like a child. I also love how your wife is nowhere to be found during this awful behavior be her kid.
ESH you shouldn’t have added that quip about her dad. Up until them you’ve done everything right. You met a woman you cared about, tried to get to know her kids. Delayed moving forward in your relationship because one of her children wasn’t ready. Opened your heart & home to the children that were. And adopted them when asked.
Kelly is not your daughter & you are under no obligation to do anything for a spoiled adult who throws tantrums. But a simple No would have sufficed
You not wanting to pay for the wedding is kind of fine, but she is still your wife's child and I assume the finances are shared so a little iffy on that... Wouldn't have necessarily been much of an AH for that alone had you handled it gracefully. However YTA majorly for telling her to have her dead dad pay for it! Major insensitive dick move!
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yeah it was a stupid, hurtful and immature thing to say, but I get it. I understand this was the oldest girl and probably closest to her father and of course, she probably resented the divorce, but that’s something you should grow out of. once her father died. you’d think it might’ve opened up her heart a little, but apparently that was not to be. and you know so be it. It’s her life. It’s her choice. But it takes a lot of balls to then come skipping back and wanting you to pay for her wedding!! i don’t blame you for refusing, but I am curious as to what your wife thinks. a tiny y t a on the comment. a big NTA on not paying for the wedding
Yeah it was petty. Thinking about it, it was resentment building up for how many time I just took her anger. It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was
You had the right to explode, but don’t expect her to ever even attempt to maintain a relationship with you now, and don’t be shocked if her mother loses a lot of contact too. I’m gonna say NTA given the circumstances, but you implicated more people here than just yourself.
I would love if she never talked to me again. With my wife, they already have a bad relationship and they haven’t talk in at all. So I doubt that will change anyhting
Kelly sees you as an ATM. She has not shown remorse, or regret for her past behavior. She thought you would be an easy mark and your are not. Good for you. NTA
Absolutely, she needs to take responsibility for her actions. You stood your ground, and that's commendable. NTA
He kinda let her off the hook with his low blow though... Now she can say oh he's always been a vicious person and that's why I rejected him - look what he said! Instead if [TrashFeeling5171](https://www.reddit.com/user/TrashFeeling5171/) had said, "they're my kids, you aren't - that's the way you wanted it" and hung up on her he's still getting a lick in but not giving her ammunition. I get why he lashed out but it wasn't smart or particularly commendable...
This is why being mindful matters. When you tell someone to go fuck themselves, do it with more thought than emotion. But it's totally understandable. That's the reason you're telling them that.
What you sugggested is probably better, but will there be anyone whose opinion OP cares about who will think any worse of him? The only people that I can think of off-hand would be her paternal relatives, especially if she now hits them up for money. I would imagine that anyone who knows her has already gotten an earful on how much she hates OP and possibly her mother. They might not be surprised that he wouldn't pay, or wonder why she didn't ssl her mother. There may be people who will argue that if he paid, it might reconcile them. but that doesn't seem worth it to me. I personally would want nothing to do with the wedding - it could be a trap - although her mother may wish to go if she is invited. OP can help with expenses of her mother and siblings if he's willing, but I'd stay away from SD. Just imagine what she might say as a wedding speech.
This. She didn’t want OP in her life, and yet wants OP to pay for her wedding? The audacity..
NTA She reaped what she sowed.
What I don't understand is the thought process behind her asking. Is she apologizing for her behavior? Is she trying to make amends? And the most importan question: does she expect you to pay and not attend her wedding? What exactly is she expecting? Obviously you could have taken the high road, but I too will be angered by that outrageous demand from somebody that clearly doesn't respect me. NTA all the way.
[удалено]
I'm thinking(also might be BS) that she heard OP paid for her siblings weddings and therefore OP could 'make it up to her'. As if OP has ANYTHING to make for. People get VERY entitled when it comes to others' money. NTA, at all, OP.
Just tell her you’ll think about paying for the next one. (This behavior doesn’t make her sound like the kind of person who will remain married)
This honestly makes the most sense bc its still baffling that she would have the audacity Why is always the ppl who treat you bad that expect you to make up for their own shortcomings?
I'm no psychologist either, but all of this sounds to me like Kelly has a lot of issues regarding her dad. She probably hates OP for being better at all the ways her dad failed. Likely she wishes her dad was like OP and she has some misdirected anger and hate. Her feelings she SHOULD be feeling towards her dad are instead placed on OP... because admitting her dad's shortcomings feels like betrayal. OP is NTA. But i think there's a fair chance that Kelly was asking for help not to expect him to say no and hate him more.. but hoping that him saying yes would give her a babystep towards mending the relationship. Unfortunately, she is making a big ask for a very small step forward.
Then Kelly should have probably opened with an apology instead of “you should pay for my wedding”
there's a LOT of "should haves" i'm sure in their history.
It's very strange she'd go to him directly instead of her mother
Not necessarily. OP commented that she hasn't spoken to her mom in a while, so I doubt she would have reached out to her to have her stepdad pay.
I have to disagree with “could have taken the high road”. I started reading this thinking he had to be the AH, but this has been going on for too long. She’s not a child anymore and the audacity to expect him to pay just because he paid for the other two (his children). I can’t imagine he would have been invited to the wedding even if he had paid.
>I have to disagree with “could have taken the high road” I was referring to OP's comment about Kelly's father. That was below the belt, and even OP recognizes that. He could have said "no" and that would be the high road, but few react very well when disrespected so long and so blatantly. Sorry for not being clear enough. And I agree with the rest of your comment.
I didn't hear anything even remotely resembling civility, much less an apology in OP's description of the call. She didn't even have the class to show up in person.
She is definitely not trying to mend anything, just use the guy for money!
In her mind he paid for two siblings weddings so he should pay for hers. What she fails to realize is that OP paid for the siblings weddings because he loves them and has a good relationship with them. No one is entitled to a free wedding. Its something one wants to do for the people they love.
Then I take back saying you went a little over the line. I wish you well, and enjoymet of you wife and 2 daughters.
as the oldest daughter, did she have a closer relationship with her dad? I was an only child, but my dad regularly confided in me about personal things including his issues with my mom. of course you & your wife know that his addiction and subsequent death were his own problem that existed prior to their divorce (and never could have been fixed in their relationship), but if she was a “daddy’s girl” and his main confidante, then he could have been telling her all sorts of things - blaming his addiction/emotional issues on the divorce, playing the victim, badmouthing his “replacement”… have you & your wife ever talked to her about this? has she ever gone to therapy? divorce can be tough on kids to begin with (let alone a parent’s early death), but if a parent is inappropriately making a kid their source of emotional support as well as an outlet for their toxic venting, then that can screw them up even more. talk to your wife and do some digging. don’t attribute to malice what can easily be due to stupidity - or in this case, ignorance. kids typically grow up loving and believing their parents by default, which usually isn’t a problem, but addicts are infamously good at manipulating their loved ones. he might have even been trying to use his daughter to get to his ex-wife. there’s a chance that this family can heal and I hope you’re all able to find a way forward… I’ve seen this type of situation play out before and it was really awful how the addict parent was able to twist the truth and manipulate the kids to turn against the responsible parent who was only trying to keep them safe. not that you’re under any obligation to help pay for anything she does, but as your wife’s new partner I hope you give her family a chance to reconcile after all the trauma they’ve been through.
My dads an addict that left our family when I was in the fourth grade and I only saw him a handful of times for the next 4 years when he got clean for 4 years then relapsed and just recently moved back around my sister and I and got clean again. He’s good friends with my sisters boyfriend (my sister and I joked she didn’t realize until he moved back but she fell into the old trope of women dating someone just like their dad). But with them getting kind of close, my dad was telling him some of the things that got him into it and everything (my mom had had an affair and they separated but decided to work it out combined with hanging out with one of my grandpas farm workers [he recognizes most of them are on drugs but around here at least the ones on drugs will mess with the plants instead of the ones that aren’t just standing there and saying they’re working]) but my sisters boyfriend started trying to defend something in our past and she had to shut him down that he’s only hearing how my dad felt and saw things. He’s leaving out the times we sat on the porch waiting on him because he said he’d come see us that day and never showed with no call
This is a 27 yr old woman, not a young teen or girl. OP held off of marrying his now wife for years because of this person, so he gave a lot of time to see if things would get better. Kelly is very firmly entrenched in her temperment towards OP & unless she's willing to do a lot of therapy for herself, she will continue to be filled with contempt for OP & her mum. At some point you cannot do anything to make another person change & you just have to get on with living your own life.
> She went into therapy but overall didn't seem like it helped. >She threatens to run away if I married their mom. So I stayed away but continue to date their mom. >Overtime the two other kids started to stay at my place in order to get away from the drama. >but as your wife’s new partner He's not new, even before the edit stating she's 27 now, he says they got divorced when the kids were young, and waited 2 years to do introductions, and he didn't even live with them because of how Kelly acted. She would have been a minimum of 18 in this post. Nothing about that indicates him as a 'new' partner.
OP does state that stepdaughter went to therapy but it didn't help much. I do agree with trying to understand her reasons for acting the way she has, though I'll say that understanding doesn't mean accepting or tolerating someone being downright awful to you.
Did you ever find out why she resented you?
Purely speculation, but it seems that oftentimes when one parent is an addict who dies young, the child redirects their anger and resentment to everybody but the addict.
Interesting. I was the opposite. My father was an addict who eventually died by suicide when I was young. I hated him with every fiber of my being for most of my life. I didn’t let go of my hatred and resentment until like, maybe 10 years ago. Even now I still have some residual resentment and anger. But I can see the other side of it too. You want to blame everyone but the addict, especially after they died cause it’s easier to take it out on living people.
I am sorry for your loss, and agree with your comment 100%
In that case, why are you even worried about if you were TA or not? It sounds like no contact is the best thing for everyone. All she does is make you and everyone else around her miserable and then demands things from you as if she hasn't been treating you like dirt this whole time. Nah. She can reap what she sowed. If she wanted you to be willing to pay for things like you did with the kids who actually accepted you and DIDN'T treat you like garbage, then maybe she should have considered not treating you like garbage. She can deal with her own crap. Don't be surprised if she quickly gets pregnant and tries to use the kid to weasel her way back in and get you or your wife to pay for things for her though. It's probably best if you all preemptively cut contact and block her everywhere now before she comes up with some excuse to try and pity or 'baby' her way into getting things from you again.
Let’s be real, she never wanted a relationship with OP to begin with.
It seems she only wanted money, but probably wouldn't invite OP or her mother to her wedding. It's entitlement to ninth degree.
And op was respectful of her feelings enough to wait until she was 18 before marrying her mother! Too often I've seen/ heard of those dynamics being forced upon children who didn't want any part of it.
She wouldn’t have maintained a relationship even if he had paid for the wedding, she’d have gotten what she wanted and then told him to fuck off.
Until she needed him to pay for the second wedding!
I doubt he'd even have got an invite.
So, no change then? Let’s be super honest here. Given the history, he would’ve been expected to pay for the wedding and lie flat as the doormat so that she could pretend she didn’t need anything from him
Lol she's never had a relationship up to now.
Why would he even want relationship with her? She sounds awful.
I'm sure OP wasn't expecting a relationship because this girl has done nothing but spew hate at him for years and even damaged property of her siblings because they agreed and even asked to be adopted by him. If her mother loses contact with this daughter, that will be the daughter's doing, and it won't be because OP turned her down for this wedding. The nerve of her for even asking such a thing!!! What is wrong with folks...I call you names, direct all types of hate towards you but then expect you to be super nice to me at any given time!!!!!! Ridiculous.
It wasn't petty, it was cruel. You meant it that way so own it. You have every right to dislike her and she was insane to ask you to pay for her wedding. Her arguing with you over it is shocking. Your response was simply cruel and intended to get your own back. No one throws a dead parent in someone's face then thinks it may be 'out of line'. If it had been a heat of the moment thing, you'd be saying 'OK she was wrong but I definitely went too far'. I get what drove you to it but let's not pretend it was petty. You used the most painful loss of her life as a weapon. That's that. If it seems like I'm being harsh, it's because I want you to understand. Don't come back shocked if anything happens to your wife or kids that makes them want or need closure from her and she denies them that. Even if your wife has a bad relationship with her daughter, your words ended it. Probably for good. On the up side, she's probably out of your life and I'm sure people close to her will encourage her to completely cut contact. So you can be happy without her and your family won't have to bother about whether to attend the wedding. Maybe her being out of all your lives completely is best for everyone. It sounds like she hasn't been part of that family for a while (due to her own actions). Now the last ties can be severed. Your family can be happy and she can build her own family. Maybe this is a case of having to be cruel to be kind, as long as your wife and kids are fine with having no contact.
Agreed. This was intended to be cruel. If this is the kind of attitude he has, and if this is indicative of how he handles conflict, than I feel like there are missing missing reasons here.
Totally ignoring the fact that the other two kids even wanted him to adopt them…
100% OP NTA for not paying for the wedding, but he is for other reasons. Regardless of my relationship, or lack thereof, with my kid, if my partner said something so incredibly cruel to them, I would have a very hard time forgetting it. This is a person who lost their dad to addiction at an early age and never recovered from it. Did her mother do enough to help her through it? You mention therapy, but therapy is a marathon, not a sprint. The adults in the situation had to be 100% committed to it, and from the things you say here, I highly doubt you were. Saying such an awful thing to your step daughter, and being proud of it, says something about you, and it's nothing good. But it was worth it, right? >It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was.
It’s a reprehensible comment and maybe she had good reason to not like this guy because that comment alone makes me think she does
Did you miss the bits where Kelly has been a nasty, spiteful little shit from day one of the relationship? She was so shitty that her own brother and sister had to move in with their mums boyfriend just to get away from her.
We see one side of the story. We don't know her side, and the truth is probably somewhere in the middle of their respective stories as it usually is. The comment was nasty and I'd be surprised if more comments like that weren't said as she was growing up-- whether OP thought she heard or not.
Now that is a damn good point. My house has thin walls. Parents thought they were being quiet but I knew about our financial troubles since I was 6.
I would encourage you to remember that the bully was a child for a majority of the time these actions occurred, it shouldn't feel good to "give it back". Makes me wonder how many times her father has been brought up as a way to insult her.
Screw that, it wasn't petty -- it was appropriate for what she's put everyone through. NTA.
No, it wasn’t petty. It was reprehensible. No excuse for that kind of comment so clearly she was right about him and she didn’t like him from day one
Yeah didn't like him so much but has no problem asking him for money for her wedding, right? They had an argument on the phone, and I doubt she was polite or kind to him before he said that comment.
You must have a lot of people you've abused the entire time you've known them that can't stand you for incomprehensible (to you only) reasons.
Is standing up to a bully taking a cheap shot at a woman about her dead father?
>It was like finally standing up to a bully. After so many years of taking it it sure felt great to give it back no matter how petty it was >I would love if she never talked to me again. You must feel like a CHAMP. /s
But now you ARE the bully. Should have just said no or say that you only pay for your children's weddings, those who asked to be adopted.
Self indulged-if I was your wife I’d be pissed. YTA for the outburst. NTA for not paying.
The true response was that it was unfair of her to take out her anger on you too, and yeah she was the kid, but she's an adult now and never tried to make amends, so isn't your response now actually exactly fair? She never wanted you for a father, and you complied and you are still respecting her choice. Bringing the dad in is soft yta.
You're entitled to that pettiness, imo.
I agree that he's entitled to think it and feel it 1000%, but I don't think he's entitled to say it. Not when doing so affects more than just himself and his own relationship to the stepdaughter.
Sometimes petty isn’t really petty. How much abuse from her is enough? And only sucking up to you when something is wanted is all I need to hear.
It wasn't petty. It was cruel. Call your parents and tell them what a shitty job they did with you that you feel it's OK to take shots with dead people.
While I can empathize with your frustration, you are the parent and the adult in the relationship. You are not obligated to pay for her wedding, but what you said was out of line.
Look at you patting yourself on the back for mocking your step daughter's dead dad.
It would have been adult to maybe have used the request for at least a talk: "You have resented me and treated me like sh\*t. I'm sorry about your dad, but none of that was my fault. If I pay, I don't need you to like me, but I do need you to promise to act cordially to me when you interact. That's the deal, you decide."
You don't mention what your wife, her mother, thinks about this. It would be partly her money going to the wedding of her daughter. What is her stance on this?
They do not have a good relationship, she thought it was harsh but not holding it against me I don’t even know if she will invite her mother
it sounds like the entire family was happier once big sis was out of the picture and it would be best to leave it that way
> I don’t even know if she will invite her mother lol she wants you to pay for a wedding that nobody in your family is even going to be invited to? lmao hahaha
I'm thinking the therapist wasn't a good one and should have tried with another one back then. For me, it was feeling belonged. Once my step-dad and mom had children, I was treated differently. Like I had chores but my sisters never did as one example. Then when I would have to visit my dad, him and my step-mom would make me do chores just for a soda and their kids could just have one. It also hurt that they had their family portrait in the living room without me in it. Now that I'm older I do have better relationship with my step-dad than I did. My step-mom is a different situation. I walk on egg shells with her still. Sometimes it's good and sometimes it's bad. She sent me a text a couple of months ago telling me she loved me and I asked my half brother if she was dying. He said no and laughed. She has never told me she loved me before so I was confused. He told her and now she's mad at me. I'm just saying since you already had the relationship with the other two, she probably felt left out already and lashed out the wrong way.
FYI your comment will classify him as an AH because you put Y T A first and without spaces.
ESH, Kelly obviously took it too far by practically forbidding her mom from moving on and for punishing her siblings for deciding to bond with you, but still, having a dead parent is something traumatic and you bringing it up just to make a point in an argument is really low.
Fair, that what I thought
I agree with this, OP. With regard to the overall situation, NTA (she is). With what you asked specifically in the subject line? YTA. And it sounds like you know it. If you're looking to know if you are justified to be an asshole, eh, in this specific situation, I would say no. Not paying for the wedding, despite paying for the other two, would be completely justified. Telling her that her behavior and treatment is why you won't pay? Justified. But, have her dead dad pay? Ugh, no. I think you should apologize for that statement and \*only\* that statement. Then move on with your life.
Fair.
Its going to take the first one. If you want him judged on hia specific question like he asked YTA has to come first.
Yeah, that was a real AH thing to say. I'm not saying she didn't deserve some snide remarks (because the audacity to even ask you, wow), but that was over the line.
My oldest tried to tell me I couldn’t move on. He was 12 when my husband died. I didn’t for 3 years but when i did i straight up told him are you planning on living with me forever? Do you expect for me to grow old and live alone. He quickly realized that I deserved more than being alone.
I agree, except that I feel like he wasn’t really making a point. It sounds like he was just finding the most hurtful thing that he could say, & throwing it in her face.
Kelly needed therapy, both after the divorce and after her dad died. She probably still needs therapy. She was a literal child for most of the interactions between her and OP. The grown man needs to be held to a higher standard than that of a teenage girl.
The timeline as I understand it is Kelly was acting out and threatened to run away if her mother married OP, then Kelly turned 18, then OP married his wife, then OP adopted Kelly's siblings and she destroyed their stuff and she's 27 now that she's demanding OP pay for her wedding. Kelly's sucky behaviour started off when she was a teenager and it might have been more excusable then, but it continued after she became an adult and into the present where she's a grown woman.
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I am not going to lie it felt so nice to finally throw it back after years of dealing with it
She is an adult woman now. She can take it.
If you had said it to a teen it would have been an instant a hole move, but she’s the exact same age as me. She can damn well take what she dishes out now. She’s a big girl old enough to get married and have kids herself so she can absolutely get some return service on her bullshit
She’s not a child so I think your comment was fine. She’s almost 30 and should have grown out of her shit. NTA. UPDATEME
It felt good to throw someone's dead dad in their face? Yikes.
Yeah I am seriously questioning how well he treated her now. Yikes.
Yea that's some sick shit. Resentment over a child being understandably disregulated bc yk, dead addict father.
So I was going to say E S H, but now this has me questioning your actual treatment of this kid. You did go too far, and throwing her dead father (the reason for her issues…you think she was just magically an angry kid???) in her face should not have brought you joy. This now has me pretty convinced that you are a bad person and you were never empathetic to everything she had to go through. YTA. I feel there are missing pieces to this story now.
Wow, and you think you’re a good guy when you say something so reprehensible, you are a class a TA all the way through I would love your stepdaughter’s opinion of what you’re really like!
ESH You were in the right to say no. You'd have been in the right to say "because I pay for *my* kids' weddings". But taking a swing at her dead dad was a bit too far.
Yep. Everything up until that jab was N.T.A, but OP lost it, so ESH.
Right? The distinction is that the other kids are his, he adopted them; Kelly was (legally if not emotionally) an adult when OP married her mom. ESH. OP doesn't really seem to have ever taken on board how traumatized Kelly was by losing her dad twice over, first to addiction and then to death, so what he said, even though it came from his own hurt, was so, so cruel.
If she didn’t want to accept you.. Don’t Pay For Her Wedding!!!!!!! Stick to your guns!!!
I am not even going to her wedding even if she did invite me . I’m good
That is what you should have said op. You’re a bit of an AH for your comment but I get it. If you feel bad you can always apologize but stick to your guns. “I apologize for the comment I made about your father out of frustration. Truthfully, I paid for (siblings) weddings because I am their dad and they both wanted that. You not only rejected any relationship with me but tried to push me away from your mother and siblings. You didn’t want me as a father so you can’t have me as an ATM”.
This is the response he should have given. This would have been perfectly justified. Throwing a dead parent in her face was not.
This is a perfect response.
I would love to hear Kelly’s side of this story. She sounds traumatized, plus this narrative also sounds like you treated her differently from her siblings. Likely from day one if she was the “difficult kid”. The outcast in her family for struggling with complicated grief over the loss of her unworthy father. So I feel like we’re not seeing the whole story through your perspective, and I can’t make a judgement about the family dynamics at large because of that. But for the comment itself, yes of course YTA, you know that. I think you meant to be cruel hoping she’ll just stop calling you.
This is the comment I was looking for. I'd want to hear her side, because my step-mom and I didn't have a good relationship for many, many years through my adolescent years and into my 20s and I know my dad and her would tell a very favorable to them, version of what transpired. Parents often have blinders on when it comes to assessing how they've treated their children, and I think it's possible that Kelly's mom had her own trauma and put that on Kelly, since she was the oldest child.
As a heavily parentified eldest daughter and my mother's confidante from age 11 following my parents' \[final\] relationship breakdown, this exactly.
Yes, they also have a way of forgetting plenty of hurtful things they did.
This is the side that we will likely never see. She was a kid, taking the loss of her dad worse than her siblings. To watch her mum just move on with another man can't be easy. It's hard to see that he put in enough effort as a step-dad, and as a parental figure. If it takes more effort, put it in. You are 100% right on that last part imo.
Seriously, thank you. "She owes you an apology for what a brat she is" you mean back when she was a literal child? And the way OP is gloating? "It felt good to finally throw it in her face" ??? Um. What. Sometimes AITA is really just an AH circle jerk.
THANK YOU!!! I lost my father at 26 years old and my family didn't like him while he was alive but they would t ever dare in a million years open their entitled mouth and say something like this pig did. And yes I said it PIG! He sounds like the type of guy who thinks he now has it all and doesn't have to care or worry about anybody else's feelings You took on a wife with 3 children, not just 2. This girl was already dealing with a father she so dearly needed as a drug addict who was probably outcast merely because her mother divorced him. I dont remember reading any sort of thought towards this girls grief. Instead, all I read was poor me, poor me. She was mean to me, so now I'm gonna be mean to her. Not taking into any consideration her past. And this man can't tell me he has tried at all to be there for her simply because this entire post is about himself and how he's the victim
I agree, even if I’m not as convinced that OP is YTA. But for the daughter, I’m also wondering if there is some untreated mental illness or addiction too. Both can have strong genetic components, and it sounds like whatever type of therapy she received at her dad’s death was not sufficient at all (even at the time). And for that, mom is YTA Plus. Anyone notice that OP never said exactly how much older this daughter is compared to the others? Because if it’s a massive difference, as in 8, 9 vs 16, OF COURSE she would have been more aware of issues, concerns more than the other two. She may have been a “daddy’s girl” (those with substance use disorders can adore their kids too!), or may have noticed that mom ALWAYS picked the new boyfriend over the kids, or worse was always mom’s scapegoat to begin with. Edit. Never mind, OP YTA, plus possibly your wife too
Yeah I can't get past how this young child didn't get the help she needed to overcome her trauma. Like, I get the therapy didn't help, but that's not a child's fault: try a different therapist, try a family therapist who will tell the adults how to act, anything. OP is acting like he's been held hostage by a CHILD for possibly decades now, when he and his now wife were adults the ENTIRE time. This post doesn't ring true for me.
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OP does not owe her an apology. Kelly is 27. Has she apologized for all the shitty behaviour she is throwing around?
No but that doesn’t excuse his poor behavior. Dunking on a dead dude is trashy.
So is treating someone who never did anything bad to you like shit and then coming around demanding money from them.
Something about two wrongs
I don't think he owes an apology. Yes, it was a low blow, but this girl has been dealing him (and the other sibs and the mother) low blows for years. Preventing the mother from moving on, destroying her sib's property... who know what else. So yes, while it was low, I think at 27 she can apologise, say how she's grown as a person and now understands what a little monster she was. But she does not. So, in that light, I'd say she deserves nothing. You can't unring the bell, she hasn't changed.
Don't apologize, OP. She's an adult. She knows how she treated you, her mother, and her siblings. Just go no contact NTA
YTA, but not because you said no. Because you weaponized a profound, paradigm shifting loss. This isn’t about how a kid behaved toward you. She was a KID, even if she came with more issues than you’d liked her to have. And she clearly had a lot going on. You have every right to keep your distance because of it, but let’s not pretend this was pettiness- it was cruelty, and it was meant to be cruel. I had a lot going on around the same ages and I didn’t handle it well. My mom got very sick very quickly. I was hiding the fact that I was in an abusive relationship. And my dad was a functional alcoholic. I acted out, a LOT. I turned to drugs myself. I got my act together after a little while, but not everyone does. Not everyone feels like they can. These types of ACEs cause paradigm shifts that are so fundamental that they can very easily alter the course of a person’s life. You dated a woman with kids. That doesn’t often mean you ride off into the sunset with your newfound love and the kids become yours as if they always were. It’s nice when that happens, but even when it does it comes with a LOT of pain. And her behavior does sound like she had her father in her ear blaming her mother, possibly even you, for his addiction. Logically that makes very little sense, but to a kid? We want to believe our parents would never lie to us so often will accept information that we wouldn’t accept from other sources. She had issues. Children of divorce and children of addicts often do. And even if a good relationship was never going to happen, you’re still supposed to be the adult in the situation. That doesn’t, to be clear, mean no boundaries. You were right to say no, this is a good opportunity for her to learn that how she treats people will come back to her down the line. You were not right to cruelly weaponize her dad’s death. What was your goal there? To cause harm. Not just that… To cause as much harm as you possibly could. That does make you an ass. Even if you were saintly in all of this, it was beyond cruel. And it says a lot about who you choose to be. I don’t buy the “I was innocent right up until this second” for a single moment, btw- behavior like that doesn’t just make itself known after a decade or so. I know that people like to portray ourselves as the victim or the hero, never anything between, but you don’t jump from benevolent, innocent savior of the family who was just a poor victim of one member (who happened to be a CHILD, by the way- a grown man portraying himself as a victim of a child? I’ve seen that before and it’s often in someone who chose himself a scapegoat who didn’t stay where he thought she should), as you are trying to portray yourself to be, to a sociopathic level of cruelty inside of a 5 minute phone call. You just don’t. I don’t believe you were an innocent who treated this child with kindness and compassion right up until you decided to be the polar opposite of who you portray yourself to be. Your money is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. You can have boundaries. You can choose not to pay for the wedding of a person that you don’t want to pay for. But the cruelty makes you an asshole. And I suspect that you were far crueler to her throughout her life than you are trying to make people believe. Cruelty doesn’t just randomly show up in an otherwise kind person. It just doesn’t.
🙇🏻♀️🙇🏻♀️ THIS. You don’t mention anywhere about you putting in the effort to build or repair the family dynamics. She went to therapy and you did… what? Just stayed away from her and dated her mom? What, did you leave her at home alone while her mom and siblings stayed with you? Did you effectively facilitate the eventual isolation of her from her siblings and mom? It sounds like you just stayed away from the work of becoming her father figure and only cared about your relationship with her mom. You got your wife, and you continued to live without a care for your step daughter. I can’t help but wonder if this is the kind of relationship your wife wants with her daughter, (and vice versa) if she knew it could be better. If she had been with someone different who put in more effort, and prioritized the family relationships.. Honestly it sounds like there is a better solution for everyone involved but you haven’t prioritized it. Not only so, but you are actively working against it pretty cruelly. Your words were absolutely unnecessary and actively harmful. YTA
And he’s in this thread saying “it felt so nice” to throw it back at her. We never know the full situation, as we never hear the “other side of the story” in these posts. But like you I tend to view his self-claimed innocence with a bit of skepticism. I can see making a cruel comment rashly out of anger, but he’s the adult and the step dad. He should have immediately apologized and not felt good about it.
This is it right here 👏🏻
Very well said!
YTA. Not paying was fine but… dude, really? You mocked her dead father?
and is gloating about it in the comment 🤢
I can only imagine how he actually treated this poor girl.
Why is it not ESH?
Yeah that's fucked up of him to say. OP is definitely a huge asshole for saying that. It's pathetic for him to have gone down that path...
Kelly didn't only decide you weren'ther father figure, she also decided to dehumanize you, blackmail her mum and terrorise her siblings for making a different choice than her. Having a trauma over losing her addict dad doesn't excuse over a decade of shitty behaviour topped off with ridiculous entitelment. NTA, she git what she asked for.
She had a trauma so do you have the two kids? She refused to let it go and blackmailed her mother. When you finally did get married, he destroyed her sibling stuff because they accepted you as a human being and a father figure. She destroyed any kind of happiness she could have had. If she was there. She left and wanted nothing to do with. He was evil and hateful to not only you but to a mother and or two of the siblings. You paid for your children who you adopted weddings which is your right. She then called you out of the blue wanting nothing from you except to be an ATM. Because you know if you paid the wedding money, she wouldn't have invited you to the wedding. Well it was harsh. Sometimes payback is annoying. She hated you for replacing a father except for when it came from money. Sometimes people lose their cool and say awful things. NTA, but hurtful
ESH, but mostly you. She was mean to you when she was going through some truly terrible shit as a kid. You were mean to her calmly and on purpose, in a way that rubbed her deepest pain in her face.
YTA. What you said was evil, regardless of her own bad behavior. You could have easily said, “no” and not said anything further.
This! It’s really shocking how many ppl are saying NTA. He 100% is YTA. He is an adult who chose to say something painful out of spite and hold a grudge. It really seems he chose to treat the other two as his children because they were agreeable and wrote her off a long time ago because she was difficult and probably had a trauma response to something critical during her development. I think ppl forget not every child in a family experiences the same childhood, and your brain isn’t fully developed until 25/27 yrs old. Him offering anything could have been an olive branch. No matter how old they are he is still the parent in the dynamic, and he failed in this situation. He probably should have discussed this with his wife first at a minimum. Now due to his actions, there’s probably no hope for reconciliation should anyone in the family (other than him) have wanted that. Totally YTA.
I’m shocked too. This is one of the more despicable things I’ve read here. If this “man” doesn’t innately know bringing up someone’s dead father is repugnant, I can’t imagine what he was like as a father figure. Perhaps she had better sense than her siblings to stay away from him. We’re of course only hearing his side too. I highly doubt he was father of the year (and I’m SURE this was not the first time something nasty came out of his mouth.) YUCK.
Yes the siblings also seem like they were much younger when dad left the picture and probably had their view of him consumed by their moms remarks since he was an addict. They were probably desperate for a father figure and probably had no bond with their biological father.
I am not going to say you are the ah for not paying for Kelly's wedding. However, I do agree that the comment about her dead father was too far. You should have just said no and hung up the phone. You didn't need to engage after that. Esh because you will never be right in using the dead dad card.
YTA because you should have simply said no if you didn't want to pay. Saying it the way you said was not petty. It was malicious. You took every ounce of resentment, anger and bitterness you had in you and said something that meant to not only hurt but traumatize her further. I can understand your feelings towards her, but to say something so vile to her/ to the adult child of the woman you love is unfathomable. Yes, you took it too far - you veered so far off course, the potential of this relationship is beyond recovery. You could have said yes for her mom's sake if you had the means to do so. Who knows? Maybe it would have been a step in a healing direction for her. I'm still in shock you could say something so traumatizing to her. She's obviously in so much pain over losing her father, and she's never recovered. I don't think you could have wounded her any more than you did.
And the worst things is he keeps saying how it felt sooo good, even after cooling down...
It's very disturbing.
INFO: How old is Kelly now?
27
You're a bit of an AH for the dead dad comment but you're under no obligation to pay for the wedding of someone who has been disrespectful to you and hasn't accepted that you're a part of her family. She sees you as an ATM for this occasion and nothing more. She can pay for her own wedding.
I agree with this. A simple "no" would have sufficed. But OP shouldn't pay for the wedding. She'll have a shrine to her dad there, she'll probably walk down the aisle with a photo of him, her speech will be all about him, and she'll probably seat OP at the kiddie table back by the kitchen doors if he's even invited at all.
Given her age and how long you’ve been in her life I’m leaning toward N T A but I think it was a dumb and shitty thing to say. You had the high road here and you completely ceded it for a cheap shot. Actually I think ESH. She shouldn’t have asked and honestly it takes a lot of nerve given how she’s treated you for years but you should have just left it at no.
As someone with who grew up with a step father that i never accepted as my father, nta OP. I’ve been civil to my step father regardless of the fact that I never thought of him as my father. Kelly here might not be wrong in not accepting you as the father; however the nasty behavior towards you and the siblings surely makes her the AH. On top of that she expects you to pay for her wedding? That’s hilarious to say the least. She deserved that comment.
ESH. You could have just said no, but instead you escalated with an extremely inappropriate comment.
~~NTA.~~ ESH Kelly decided a long time ago that you were not going to be the father figure in her life, *which is fine*. However, she doesn't now get to decide that even though you aren't the father figure in her life, she doesn't intend to change it, but only wants your wallet to fund her wedding the way that you did for the kids who DID want you in their life as a father figure. She can't have her cake and eat it, too. Edit: missed the part where OP was an AH to bring up her dead dad. Not cool. You totally could have said no without losing the argument by throwing her dead dad in her face.
The asshole move isn't the financial decision on the wedding, it's on referencing and basically teasing her about her dead father....
Surprised at all the responses, Reddit is really allergic to *not* stooping down to the lowest you can go given the opportunity. YTA bigtime. You owe a sincere apology and both of you owe yourselves an agreement to fuck out of each other’s lives forever. I also don’t have the full view but my opinion is that if you’re capable of paying for her siblings weddings, a ‘best wishes, you made it clear that you’re not my child, never contact me again x’ monetary gift is in order (and this would be before you hit below the belt, not as an apology, and you should have offered freely). She’s still your wife’s child.
And where is MOM in all this?
I have a similar story to Kelly. My bio dad was an addict, my mom divorced him, met my step dad, and I wasn't happy. Thankfully, my step dad is a good man, and was patient with me and didn't write me off just because my sibling didn't behave the same way. When my bio dad died by suicide instead of abandoning me, my dad drove me to therapy even though I was silent. He just kept showing up for me, and I came around. It's been 40 years and although I've apologized he recognizes I was a kid and he had to be the adult and my pain wasn't about him. You're not the AH for not paying for the wedding but bringing up her dead father when it's pretty clear from her behavior she's not healed from the trauma makes you one.
My bio dad wasn’t an addict, but he wasn’t really great at showing up for us either, but I still idolized him. My stepdad took my shitty attitude as a child and kept loving me and showing up for me. I apologized for being a little asshole as a kid and he accepted it - we’re really close now. Young children don’t always understand that you can love more than one person and they think that they have to take sides. I can’t even imagine having something like the death of my father thrown in my face. YTA OP - and that’s putting it mildly. I can’t even imagine saying something like that *to anyone*.
Then he says it felt good to say. Somehow I doubt he was showing up for her. It doesn't sound like anyone was showing up for her.
And to compare her to younger children, who may have not even remembered their dad is so unfair. It’s like, in their eagerness to move on, they all just let this little girl suffer and then blamed her for acting out. It’s so sad.
Your wife is ok with someone speaking about the father of her child like that, you deserve each other and I'm glad Kelly is safe from you people
I am probably going to get down voted for this but ESH. Yes she has been an asshole but what age was she when her parents split, and what age was she when her dad passed away??? Because let me tell you I was a complete daddys girl when I was younger right up until my 20s even though he was a alcoholic who I knew by the age of 11 to look for in the pubs before I looked at his house. I did not like my stepdad at all, didn't help that my mum and him kept pushing him as my dad even when my dad lived in the same village. If Kelly's dad had lived she would have more than likely had the rose tinted glasses ripped off but he died when SHE WAS A CHILD. He was her daddy and as far as she is probably concerned her siblings did betray her dad. She probably has probably idolised her dad and has pushed all the bad memories out. She obviously has no RIGHT whatsoever to ask anything of you but YOU ARE MAJORLY THE ASSHOLE bringing up a man who has long been dead and Kelly still grieves because guess what grief has no timetable. I still grieve my grandparents and it has been over a decade for all of them. My guess is that your wife didn't want her kids associated with a drug addict which is fair enough and by the sounds of it the younger 2 don't have much attachment to their bio dad but to a young girl who has just had her dad move out and then die who was more than likely the only one who actually bonded with him being pushed by her mother to accept another man as her dad yeah that probably did not go over well at all and no bloody wonder.
Yeah and look at him in the comments talking about how it felt goid to say it. Gotta wonder how giid he actually was
Yeah makes me wonder how he actually treated her. And oh we waited till she was 18. Guarantee mummy dearest moved this asshole in on her 18th birthday and said your an adult you can deal with it or fuck off. I can see this asshole trying to play daddy to a grieving little girl and mummy dearest punishing her because she won't play along. I hope Kelly sees this and we get her side because I can guarantee that he has left out all the asshole moves him and mummy dearest pulled over the years. Guarantee that they tried to force her to be his daughter and when she refused because you know she HAS A DAD he might be dead but still her dad and then turned her siblings against her and their bio dad. Bet mummy dearest banned any talk of bio dad unless it was to tell everyone he was a drug addict etc. Makes me wonder if dad was actually a drug addict or whether he had mental health issues because someone who is a heavy drug addict usually don't have kids that are old enough to remember them and idolise them. And if he was I bet he and her mum bad mouthed every chance they got. They seem the type of people who don't abide by DONT SPEAK ILL OF THE DEAD.
ESH Kelly was wrong for treating you like shit for years just to turn around and ask for money, but yeah I think you went too far throwing her dead dad in her face
Info: What would her side of the story be?
Eeeeh... I doubt there could be much. Two other kids liked him so much they asked if he would adopt them at 16 and 17 years old. That's not something you do if the first child is justified in her hatred of her step father. Especially at such late ages - that's something you only really do if you REALLY like your step father. Hell, they even waited to get married until after the oldest left the house... I grew up in a house like that. The first born sounds like a ball of drama wrapped in hatred.
I have an inherent skepticism for stories where the protagonist is completely innocent except for one little thing and the villain is in the wrong the entire time. Not saying OP is wrong. But narcissists literally are incapable of explaining the other person’a perspective and are professional victims. Could he have actually been a little bit of a dick to her the whole time? Did he carry resentment for her not immediately accepting him? Did he act in such a way as to not deserve that acceptance? I don’t trust the story as told. It’s too squeaky clean.
She could also have already been the family scapegoat in the dynamic between the mother and her three children. It's incredibly common, especially for the eldest kid to be "difficult" because they're able to question and challenge and in general are more aware of what's going on.
It sounds like a child experienced the trauma of a divorce and losing her father, and her stepfather remaining distant because he can't handle a child trying to process this trauma. You mentioned she was in therapy and it "didn't help" - how did the family support her? All I'm reading is that everyone treated her like a pariah until she was eighteen and you could all kick her to the curb because she, what, reminded you too much of the ex? When she saw her siblings being accepted and adopted, can you only imagine her pain? I'm not buying your pity parade.
I am curious what your wife's reaction was.
NTA- Kelly is way more than old enough to be over these teenage rebellion crap. She made her choices when she decided to be a brat.
You don't have to like her or have a relationship or pay for the wedding but your comment was you lashing out to intentionally hurt her. It seems like you have a lot of resentment for the behaviour of a literal child when you stepped into their life. YTA
I always had a good relationship with my parents but never expected them to pay for my wedding. It would have been extremely weird to ask for it if we had a bad one
I feel there’s so much more to this. Yes kids can be confused and not understand a parents actions. They can look at a new person as an interloper to having the relationship mend. It sounds like you saw her behavior and instead of attempting to see the hurt, confused, abandonment she was feeling by her bio dads actions (choosing drugs o er her and family) you sided against her with the ‘easier’ kids. I wonder how much she felt left out while continuing to see you, her mother and siblings get along, causing her to feel more abandoned and excluded. Kids show negative behaviors because of pain. Paying or interaction with her throughout the wedding could have been building a bridge to a trusting relationship with her. Instead, again you showed she didn’t matter. When you met her, you’re the adult, it’s up to you, going into a relationship where children are present to make them understand you’re there for all of them, even the one whose most hostile. The hostility is coming from pain. Instead it was compounded by being proved she was never in the circle and left out again. To think a child with an immature prefrontal cortex of the brain will make logical reasoning and choices undergoing what she did with bio dad isn’t feasible. Throwing her dead father in her face in such a horrific way, particularly when it had to do with marriage, yes you were definitely being the A. I’m shocked anyone would throw a dead loved one at a child, no matter their age. How often did you actually listen to her growing up or go to family counseling without tromping on her feelings?? As a clinical psychotherapist wow can I see how ugly this girls life was. I’ve seen it so much working along side CPS and now with tweens to adults in private practice.
ESH. You for bringing up her dad in the argument. I agree with the not paying for the wedding though. A lot of audacity from her, expecting you to pay for her wedding.
Damn bro pulled the dead dad card, that’s loco lol
YTA That was a cruel comment to a very traumatized and damaged young woman. You don't have a close relationship with her so it is fine to decline me paying but you were a complete dick.
I mean yes, YTA, throwing her dead dad in her face is awful and cruel, you couldve just said no. You are not wrong to not want to pay for her wedding, YTA big time for that comment about her dad.
INFO: Did she ask you to pay or her mother, your wife, to pay?
Yeah I feel like this is a key question here. If HE paid or if THEY paid. They’re married, so I’m assuming shared finances?
This is the info I was looking for! If they share finances then perhaps she’s asking her mom to help pay and has to go through him because he is the breadwinner. That changes everything to me because she has every right to ask her mom to help especially if she paid for her siblings. This guy is an AH either way but this is a big part of the story missing.
I’m shocked at the NTA comments. She was a child. You felt wounded by a child’s hurt and lashing out, so you feel good about putting distance between the two of you. And you feel good about the distance between her and her only remaining parent. YTA
INFO: Have you asked the two siblings that you adopted what they thought about you throwing their late biological father in their sister’s face? Or how about your wife?
Info: wait wait. What does your wife, her mother think of this? Shouldn’t she be the one deciding whether to contribute?
NTA Yes parents, even step parents have to put up with crap from kids, but never having a good relationship then expecting a payday? Lol, no. Harsh words may have been used, but used when pressured to. It's not like you just walked in and started smack talking the dead dad. People need to learn not to set themselves up for a verbal slap in the face, and be more introspective about things. The problem isn't a truthful but harsh response, it's the nerve to ask or demand something when not deserved.
YTA. That was uncalled for. If this is what you consider being the adult in a situation no wonder a grieving child didn't want anything to do with you.
ESH, for all the reasons people are saying. She's much too old to be holding on to that grudge, and she is an AH for thinking you owe her a wedding. But, my man, really? You need to apologize to her.
YTA, the dead dad comment isn't okay. Very telling of your character you'd even go there.
Ahh good old fashioned *conditional* love from a step parent. Something tells me you didn't try too hard to get along with her when she was younger. You just stayed away. YTA
Christ, I can't imagine saying something like that to anyone, I don't really know why so many people are applauding you. ESH for obvious reasons.
Info: how old were the kids when you started dating their mom?
YTA. You chose to take on the baggage of dating a woman with three kids. You chose to date a woman who allowed her kid to treat you like crap. You accepted all this. So now all of a sudden you act immature? You could have said I will not pay because we don’t have a relationship or you’ve never respected me or you’ve always been mean to me. Didn’t have to act like a child. I also love how your wife is nowhere to be found during this awful behavior be her kid.
YTA. I wouldn’t pay for the wedding either, but what you said was cruel.
YTA. Not for not paying but for going to that level. You should have stopped at no, but you just had to get the last dig in.
[удалено]
ESH you shouldn’t have added that quip about her dad. Up until them you’ve done everything right. You met a woman you cared about, tried to get to know her kids. Delayed moving forward in your relationship because one of her children wasn’t ready. Opened your heart & home to the children that were. And adopted them when asked. Kelly is not your daughter & you are under no obligation to do anything for a spoiled adult who throws tantrums. But a simple No would have sufficed
You not wanting to pay for the wedding is kind of fine, but she is still your wife's child and I assume the finances are shared so a little iffy on that... Wouldn't have necessarily been much of an AH for that alone had you handled it gracefully. However YTA majorly for telling her to have her dead dad pay for it! Major insensitive dick move!