When I was a kid, my grandma used to say “Don’t spit in the well you’re going to drink from in the future!” At the time, many years ago, I didn’t really go into detail, and often perceived these words as ordinary old age sayings. Well, like many teens, in fact…
For example, something similar happened to the 19-year-old stepdaughter of the author of this story from the AITA Reddit community, which we have the honor to tell you today. The opinions of readers of the original post were strongly divided, although the majority still believed that the author’s decision was justified. But what exactly the decision was, we’ll find out reading further.
More info: Reddit
The author of the post had lost her husband many years ago, and then re-married another man with 2 teen kids
Image credits: RDNE Stock project (not the actual photo)
The boy got along easily with his stepmom and little stepsibling, but the girl had been hostile towards them from the very first day
Image credits: ThrowawayLeto2nd
The stepdaughter treated both the dad’s new wife and her little daughter badly, and finally left to live with her biological mom
Image credits: Stanley Morales (not the actual photo)
Image credits: ThrowawayLeto2nd
Recently the author helped her stepson with funding his tuition, but the stepdaughter wanted the same for herself
Image credits: Timur Weber (not the actual photo)
Image credits: ThrowawayLeto2nd
The woman, however, flatly refused to do so because of this constant feud with the stepdaughter
Let’s go back in time eight years. The Original Poster (OP) had just lost her husband and was left alone with her 1-year-old daughter. However, the woman soon met a decent man and, two years later, re-married him. At that time, the OP’s new husband had two kids, a 12-year-old son and a year younger daughter. The author suggests calling her ‘Emma’ – well, let’s accept these terms of the game.
The OP’s new husband was divorced and his ex was living separately. But the stepkids accepted their father’s new sweetheart in different ways. While the boy instantly got along with stepmom, the girl disliked her literally at first sight. And she also disliked her little stepsister. It got to the point, the author recalls, that her daughter never left mom’s arms when Emma was home.
However, when Emma turned 15, she moved to live with her mom, but still maintained an icy attitude towards her stepmother. Now let’s fast forward to the present – the OP’s stepson recently enrolled in college, and the author used a small fortune left over from her late husband to help fund the boy’s tuition. But another year passed, and Emma was getting ready for college too…
And so, the girl demanded that her stepmom also help her with tuition fees – but was faced with a refusal. According to the woman’s own words, she wants to set aside the rest of the inheritance for the education of her youngest daughter. Moreover, the OP stated that since Emma treated both her and her daughter poorly for many years, then the author also has no moral obligations towards her.
Needless to say, Emma went mad over these words. The original poster’s husband was upset because he felt it was quite unfair that his son received financial aid but his daughter did not. However, this is all, as the author says, her personal business.
Image credits: Zen Chung (not the actual photo)
“Unfortunately, this is a fairly common situation – when a girl, who was painfully aware of her parents’ divorce, refused to accept her father’s new wife and transferred her hostility towards her little stepsister as well,” says Irina Matveeva, a psychologist and certified NLP specialist, with whom Bored Panda got in touch for a comment here. “I think all the problems could have been solved back then, at the very beginning of their life under one roof, but I don’t know why this wasn’t done.”
“And now, unfortunately, it’s too late. On the other hand, one can easily understand this woman, who already made an act of goodwill to her stepson, and absolutely does not want to take a similar step towards the girl from whom, over the years of marriage, she and her daughter, apparently, saw only negative things. However, it seems to me that a detailed heart-to-heart conversation wouldn’t hurt here either,” Irina presumes.
Well, the opinions of commenters on the original post were significantly divided too. Some fully support the author, arguing that she doesn’t owe Emma anything, and is doing absolutely the right thing in this situation. “She has no claim on your money. She hasn’t treated you as family so you don’t have to treat her as family,” one person wrote in the comments.
However, some people in the comments also urge the author to remember how this senseless feud with her stepdaughter actually started, and try to understand herself. Try to get why then, years ago, she could not (or did not want) to show a little more worldly wisdom and still try to mend fences with the teen stepdaughter.
“Did anyone make any attempt to help a 13-year-old, used to being the youngest, maybe still reeling from her parents’ break-up, adapt to her parents’ divorce, her father’s re-marriage, and her sudden acquisition of both stepmother and a much younger sibling?” another commenter inquires quite rhetorically. Well, maybe this angle makes sense too. So what do you, dear readers, think?
People in the comments were really divided over this case, but most of them thought that the author did the right thing here
