Divorces are complicated. One former couple is still grappling with lingering tension years after their divorce, and it’s impacting their daughters as well. One of the daughters, now 25, took to Reddit to open up about the concerns she has about her dad in the aftermath of her parents’ messy divorce. She explained that her dad “claims my mom cheated, but there’s no evidence.”
Meanwhile, her mom denies these claims, but the daughter believes their divorce was inevitable because her parents were “extremely incompatible.” Even so, her dad did not take the divorce well. Now, he doesn’t want his daughters to have any contact with their mom’s hypothetical future partner.
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The man’s daughters have disagreed with his rule from the beginning.
Despite that, they “went along with it to keep the peace,” one of his daughters explained in a post on Reddit’s AITA forum. She added that she and her sister “have always tried to be compassionate and understanding.” As they get older, though, their dad’s strict rule is starting to seem even less reasonable.
He has said he doesn’t want anyone else ‘taking the role of dad.’
Although the man’s daughter can empathize with his fear of being “replaced,” she thinks “it feels absurd” now that she and her sister are adults. “It’s not like a new partner would ‘raise’ us – we’re adults now,” she pointed out.
Age, however, doesn’t seem to be a factor for their dad. He recently told his daughters that he expects them to follow the rule “for the rest of his life.”
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She asked her dad if she could speak to her mom’s new partner in 15 years, when she’s 40.
The answer was still no. “I was dumbfounded,” she wrote. “I asked, ‘Even when I’m 40, married, and with kids of my own, am I still not allowed to meet someone my mom has been with for years if he makes her happy?’ He said yes.”
Even worse, the dad gave his daughters a surprising ultimatum: He told his daughters that if they didn’t follow this rule, he would cut them out of his life and they would not be his daughters anymore.
His daughter told him that she doesn’t want to follow the rule forever.
Though she went along with it for some time, she thinks it’s unreasonable to never have any contact with her mom’s potential partners. She explained this to her dad, telling him that she’s “not willing to follow this rule forever.”
She added in her post that “if he chooses to cut me off for that, it will be his decision, not mine.” In response, her dad “called it a lack of principles” and said if they no longer had a relationship with each other, she would be to blame.
To the daughter, her dad’s rule is ‘controlling and unfair,’ but she still wants to be in his life.
She asked Redditors to weigh in because she’s feeling conflicted. Even though she wants to be able to meet her mom’s future partner one day, she also wants to stay in contact with her dad. Redditors largely sided with the daughter.
“Your dad is making YOU responsible for his feelings where your mom is concerned,” one person wrote. “He is telling you to pick one parent over the other. Children, even adult children, should NEVER be put in the middle of their parents issues.”
Someone else agreed that the dad isn’t being fair, writing, “This rule of his is both unreasonable and impossible. This is basically asking you and your sister to cut off contact with your mom.”
Many commenters were confused by the rule given that the dad seemingly came up with it because he didn’t want to lose his daughters.
“He doesn’t want to lose you as his daughter, so if you meet a partner of your mom’s he’ll – checks notes – cut you out of his life and lose you as his daughter,” a third Redditor chimed in. “Make it make sense.”
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
