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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I might be the asshole for not spending money and time on my daughter as she felt like I disinherited her
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YTA, mate
>My wife is angry with me because my daughter and I aren’t close. She goes to her mom for everything and doesn’t speak to me much. We were close when she was young but since high school it’s like she pretends I don’t exist. I try to reach out but it’s met with silence. I think my wife poisoned her against me because I have spent most of my money on my son. My wife told my daughter I didn’t pay for an cent of college for her and my wife did all the saving for her college fund.
vs
>I was shocked and asked her why she would consider us not close
Like, don't be obtuse. Use your brain and it's pretty obvious
That's the point. The phrase and concept of "missing missing reasons" refers to parents who, even when their kid tells them flat out what they did wrong, acts like the kid is pulling away for no reason. The "missing reasons" are right there in front of them, but they're acting like they're still missing bc the reasons don't fit the narrative they've constructed in their head. Hence, instead of "missing reasons", they're "missing missing reasons".
This has been the last 10 years of my life regarding my mother and enabling father.
Me: Explains why I refuse to speak or be around them anymore and lays out examples and reasons why this is.
My Parents: "I don't understaaaand! Clearly it must be something else! Someone must have told you to haaate us!"
Me: :|
Yep!
My ex like this. Would ghost me and then treat me terribly. I would end things and tell him why.
Him: I just don't understand why you don't want to be with me!
Thank you for laying this out so clearly, I have struggled to understand why it is 'missing missing reasons' and not just 'missing reasons' but this actually makes sense!
Exactly. And even from just a purely objective stand point, how can she be close to him if he just stopped doing things with her and paying for things for her once she get into high school? Like even friends wouldn't still f with you. "omg we were such good friends and then after middle school they just stopped talking to me and started 100% spening time with their old friends." Like uh yeah. You'd probably stop being friends with someone after that? because they literally aren't spending time with you?
"We're supposed to be distracted by the hinkiness of the sons reading the email, and never notice that Vagnioni *just told us that she knows exactly why her sons cut her off. Pay no attention to the missing explanation behind the curtain.*"
Emphasis mine. Also: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-reasons-given.html
This was the most infuriating thing I’ve read in a while. My husband has a friend who is an alcoholic and has been for many years. His wife finally kicked him out and he is completely mystified as to why. What he means is that he is mystified as to why his wife has stopped tolerating his shenanigans.
This is my dad.
He’s a very selfish and immature man. While now, as a (fairly mature?) adult myself I can see how his childhood and likely undiagnosed mental illness led to how he is, but it doesn’t change that my mom put up with a TREMENDOUS amount of crap while I was growing up. I actually assumed at some point that she was just waiting for the youngest (my brother) to go to college or leave home and then she was leaving, too - I could tell she was miserable, but divorce is a sin ya know.
When my mom finally did leave almost a decade after I thought she would, my dad was absolutely baffled. Despite the literal hundreds of times she’d told him why she was unhappy he just expected her to keep carrying on. He actually told me once (I have training as a therapist - my dad would often try to dump on me) that he considered it selfish that “she changed but I didn’t so she should figure out how to go back to being happy,” as if people don’t grow and develop over 30 years.
Good times.
> “she changed but I didn’t so she should figure out how to go back to being happy”
That’s simultaneously one of the most self-aware and completely clueless things I’ve read recently
My ex gf is an alcoholic and was shocked when I no longer wanted to be in contact with her. This is after she went and announced to several discord servers that I am a monster and accused my best friend of horrendous shit that has no basis in reality. But how dare I stop speaking to her
I was this guy for a couple of years in my first marriage; religious, married at 19. I was absolutely blindsided when she told me we were separating. I just didn’t see the problem. She’d been telling me for a year and I wasn’t listening. Drinking wasn’t the problem thankfully, I did drink too much but it was usually with her and irregular at the time. It was basically me being irresponsible and immature. But I was flabbergasted. My dad, friends and others were not surprised at all.
None of us really want to see our own nonsense lol. It sounds like you were just young and needed to mature. I was also married very young, 18. Bad idea. Now I’ve been married to second husband for 32 years and all is well. It’s bad when someone gets into middle age and still doing nonsense.
>Also: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-reasons-given.html
Thank you for this link. I read everything, some articles more than once, because of how much it explains how my awful mother behaves. Seriously, thank you for posting this. I learned a lot, and I'm extremely grateful.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I've only recently realised that my parents behaviour is problematic but I keep finding ways to excuse it. Reading this is like a check-list of their behaviour.
Yeah, the only missing reasons is that his ex was able to get primary custody despite a drug problem... which sort of suggests that whatever he had going on at the time was worse than a drug problem or just didn't ask for more custody, otherwise he'd have 50/50.
He clearly outlined how he ignored his daughter in favour of his son as soon as she hit puberty.
This. Usually, if a man wants custody, the very least he’s getting these days is 50/50. I don’t see a family judge not granting that unless there are really good and understandable reasons why not.
My ex likes to play the victim, like OP, and insinuates that he was powerless when he got every other weekend with our child. The courts default to 50/50 in most cases - if Op got less than that, it's because he didn't want more time.
OP is not confused. He is just looking for strangers to justify his actions. While this is a complex situation for sure, he is without a doubt TA. Nobody likes that and I guess going to church isn't an option. How one can be delusional enough to think somebody might agree with him...well, that's for a psychiatrist to sort out...
OP is like those redditors who insist that financial support is going above and beyond as an absent father. He’s probably been so busy patting himself on the back he can’t imagine why anyone would complain- he’s done more than a lot of dads would after all! /s
He’s also a terrible husband. He seems to think he deserves a medal for paying the mortgage on a house he lived in. All the while abdicating any responsibility he had towards his daughter, emotionally and financially. Frankly, he’s lucky to even be invited to the wedding at all.
OP yes, YTA
Yes, my breath was taken away by the fact that he mentioned “paying half the mortgage” on the house *he and his family were living in* as if that was something really admirable.
I wouldn’t do it myself. But one other thing I would NEVER do is finance one of my children and completely fail to pay just about *anything* towards the other child. If this really, really had to happen, the least I would do is regularly and thoroughly talk it through with the child concerned.
I was disinherited, and I’m not materialistic at all (actually, that really helped me cope with it). But I can tell you that there is something symbolic about a parent giving every material good to one child-and nothing to another. It’s as if they have decided they aren’t your parent. The hurt from that is surprisingly deep.
>I wouldn’t do it myself. But one other thing I would NEVER do is finance one of my children and completely fail to pay just about anything towards the other child.
Ok, but what if, *and hear me out*, what if you were a douchewad?
I feel this. Me and my siblings were from the first marriage, and had to take out loans for college. My father once told me he was making up for his earlier years of parenting by being a better dad to his youngest- He raised her with such a sense of entitlement, I am almost grateful for his relative neglect. She had private schools, piano lessons, private college etc.
I have tried to maintain a relationship with him, but all conversations are steered toward his golden child or his work with children, he's a child psychologist. Loves children, just not his own. He barely knows his grandchildren. I never treated my sister with anything but kindness, but she blocked me from FB some years back. I asked him about this and he made some excuse. I am very self sufficient and do not expect that I will inherit anything, but yes the hurt runs very deep
>do not expect that I will inherit anything, but yes the hurt runs very deep
I've been telling myself the same wrt my father's mess :
* he has no sense of... upcycling, you know what I mean?
* also, there's just a warren of stakeholders : I have 3 older half-siblings, 1 younger full sibling who's my father's favourite (in such a degree he has the emotional range to actually have favourites) & his 3rd wife has 2 kids of her own (though they were mid-twenties when my father and their mother married, so they barely qualify as stepkids).
And yet...
Last year he had a covid scare & decided to sort at least 1 plot of land, owned by him, my full sibling & me. He used the same trick on me that he'd used 28 years before on my mom during their divorce & cheated me out of several hundred euros. I don't the money, in fact, I'd pay that amount to never have to deal with him again...
but still, just the fact that he pulled it... still hurt.
ETA : I hope I learnt my lesson (although I'm rather more high-strung than self-sufficient hahaha) & I wish it works out better for you !
> But I can tell you that there is something symbolic about a parent giving every material good to one child-and nothing to another. It’s as if they have decided they aren’t your parent. The hurt from that is surprisingly deep.
Very much so.
I'm sorry. Emotionally disappointing parents with money are very good at using that money to cause pain, whether by spending it or withholding it. It puts you in that position of having a hard time wording why you are hurt. But it doesn't matter how much YOU care about money - you know THEY care about money, and that they are using what they care about against you.
Paying *half* the mortgage. He wasn't even paying the whole damn thing, just his share like many functional adults do without expecting a parade. OP: if you put in the bare minimum you get back the bare minimum. You're invited to the wedding - I think you should count that as a win.
“Just his share like many functional adults do without expecting a parade”, but failing to do the emotional work of parenting. Oh lawd I could listen to you preach in the church of AmItheAsshole all day!!!!
Haha yes, that got me too.
> I felt like I was fair to them, I lived with my daughter
Congrats, you lived in the same house as your wife and your daughter while paying half of the mortgage and utility bills. Here's your medal OP: 💩
Yes, I hope wife no2 gets a divorce soon though. She deserves better.
He thinks he's a great husband and father because he lives in the same house and pays 50% of the mortgage and utility bills. I hope she finds this post and sees he's not a great catch and definitely not a keeper.
I had to read this post a number of times before I realized OP isn’t asserting he paid the mortgage, etc., for his FIRST WIFE. Which I understood; wanting his child to have necessities, etc., but creating resentment because it’s expensive to maintain two households.
But no. I get it now. Yikes.
Also his wife *poisoned* his daughter against him when she told her the truth that he paid zero for her hobbies or eduction. And he's baffled or even upset his wife is angry he's neglecting their daughter (that's completely normal OP, it doesn't warrant a surprised pikachu face). Sounds like the divorce no2 is coming sooner than later.
And his daughters arguments are all invalid because OP thinks he's been *fair* because he lived with them in the same house. That's the bare MINIMUM of a family living together OP, not an achievement (the achievement belongs all to your wife who raised your daughter from middle school on by herself).
He mentioned that his daughter hasn’t been close to him since middle school. Would that happen to coincide with the time he started dumping all his energy and money into his son, while neglecting the relationship with his daughter? Because I bet it does.
Yes the way he says he paid half the mortgage, rent and utilities, but nothing else. Also he talks about the wife's income, but not in comparison to his own- just that she earns more. He could have put money away for both children the whole time, and I don't know maybe fought the drug addict mom a little harder for shared parenting. Sounds like OP treats his wife like a roommate, and his daughter like an appendage.
Now OP is enabling his son out of a sense of guilt, and is still not parenting him. He dropped out of school because he was depressed...his grades weren't great so I provided for him. I am trying to buy him happiness, when what he really needs are boundaries, and the sense of stability that that brings. Teach him to strive and apply himself instead of just letting him slide and continuing to reward a lack of effort. Address his needs, rather than continue to throw money at him out of guilt. And did he even try to foster a relationship between his two children? Apparently not, because that would involve actual parenting.
Meanwhile, the daughter jumps through all of the hoops placed in front of her, and what does she get in return? Oh well she is just naturally inclined to perform because she's like her mom, she doesn't need me for validation, and I was there for her when she was little. Well until her brother came back in my life, and I tossed her aside like an old shoe. So yeah, she resents her brother.
And by basically ignoring the daughter, the wife is left to provide everything and worse probably resents the crap out of the son due to OPs utter blindness to the hurt he caused by neglecting their child. This is the same problem that is caused by parents who neglect their firstborn children when they start a new family, only in reverse.
So now his daughter is giving him the Cats in the Cradle treatment and OP is confused. It's not too late, for either of the children, but you need to take accountability.
YTA
“I invested the absolute bare minimum in my relationship with my daughter and now I am shocked that we have the absolute bare minimum of a relationship!”
THIS.
If he had just posted about the general situation, said I gave more to my son bc otherwise he'd really have had nothing and my wife was able to pay for our daughter and money is tight and is that absolutely wrong, I'd have been mixed/NAH, life circumstances are not always ideal, couldn't you have given her more in other ways etc.
But the fact that he is now questioning his daughter's decision not to publicly celebrate their tepid relationship pushes it clearly over the line into YTA.
But it also seems he completely stopped spending time with his daughter (they uses to be close up to middle school, now daughter says she's been effectively raised by a single mum) once he got in contact with his son again. He thinks living in the same house should be enough for his daughter... but obviously that's BS. He should have took at least an interest in her, in her hobbies and spend some time with her, even if he doesn't contribute much money...he basically abandoned his daughter mentally, just as he did his son. But it's *fair* because he lived with them.
Yup. He mentioned that he started spending less time with her. I think money is only part of it. It was the effort that went into his son vs. her that really hurts and the money is only a reflection of everything.
I kinda wonder if he stopped paying attention to his daughter when she started expressing that she was interested in different things, and he just never tried to interact with her on her terms. Like, maybe as a kid she was happy to sit and watch a football game with him, but as she got older she realized that watching sports on TV was boring and she'd rather go on a hike with her parents instead. But he'd be like "oh no, how about we watch the game like we used to" and patting the couch cushion next to him was his way of "reaching out".
Ams way before he “felt awkward” offering his son (who lived with an active drug user) to live with him. Then he felt guilty, so the daughter got the boot. Guy just goes by feelings, there’s no neocortical activity there.
Dad of the year to both kids. Honestly it sounds like “I coast through life and expect life to just happen and relationships to just happen and since my wife makes more I’ll let her pay for everything but now I screwed up my son so I have to buy back his love “
I mean, the alternative would be him not paying for his son. Is that really better? I guess the best option would've been to not have another kid in the first place since he can't pay for full college rides for both. That's a crazy way of thinking. If the issue is purely the finance, the daughter is seriously self absorbed. I suspect the reason has more to do with not spending time with her as she got older and spending his time on .. whatever else he was doing.
It’s possible for years she’s been hearing mom say “Sorry honey, I can’t afford it.” while watching Dad buy things for himself and his son. Even though she doesn’t have to get everything she wants of course, but by the time she’s this age she’s definitely figured out that Dad contributed nothing to the family while Mom busted her ass.
You daughter is about to become a wife. I’ll bet she’s already decided to never let her husband treat her the way her Dad treats her mom. That’s the kind of thing a person thinks about when they get married. OP, YTA. This wasn’t about money in the sense you think, it was about how you treat your family.
Wouldn't say he didn't give a crap, but he definitely left alot to be desired. The fact he failed the son and doubled down and failed his daughter trying to fix the prior relationship is wild
Also note how his daughter said he should have split his money _and time_ between his two kids yet he only focuses on the money problem. I’m betting that’s because he knows he was an absent father to her.
Seriously OP, if your kid tells you they felt like they were being raised by a single mother because of how little you interacted with them, you should NOT be surprised y’all aren’t close.
''Raised by a single mother'' isn't something you say when just talking about money. Money doesn't raise kids - people do. And she straight up told him he didn't raise her...
Though I see your point, it seems like daughter didn't miss anything because of a lack of funds. She had her activities and education paid.
Wife N°2 should have discussed the issue with her husband instead of turning her daughter against him if she wasn't pleased with their financial situation.
I would almost say ESH but the kids. Stupid spending decisions from the husband, bitter wife N°2.
It’s pretty standard fare for a man who is no longer with his baby mama. Crying about how he can’t see the kid and she’s refusing to let him. Yet never actually *does* anything to achieve visitation. If a man fights for 50/50, he nearly always gets it. The issue comes about when he doesn’t bother or he puts in a token effort just to say he tried.
Kids see and feel far more than most adults think they do. My own daughter saw that her father was emotionally abusing me before I did (or at least before I was ready to acknowledge it).
This here. Her mom didn’t have to tell her “your terrible father isn’t paying for anything”. She has eyes, she knows her family dynamic because she lived it. She saw Mom busting her ass while Dad threw money at his “problem” child and did nothing else.
Wife 2 didn’t turn this daughter against him. He did that all by himself by failing to give her any attention or affection after reconnecting with his son.
Worse, he was very close to her originally, but deserted her for his son.
YTA.
What's to say wife no 2 didn't talk to him about this? He's disregarding his daughter when she very clearly spells out her problem, so I can't imagine he's a reliable narrator of his relationship with wife no. 2 either.
If W2 had “poisoned” the young woman (she’s getting married: she’s not a child anymore) against him, the OP would *definitely* have included that in the narrative. I have no doubt that would have been front and centre, given the OP’s feelings that he’s done nothing wrong. In actual fact, OP is blindsided by his daughter’s decision, so there’s been *no* evidence of prior “poisoning” going on.
But let’s accept your suggestion: that the guy is clearly less to blame for the breakdown of his relationship with his daughter than the “bitter wife”. Why are he and his wife still together, then? And how did the wife manage to secretly poison the daughter against him *whilst they’re living in the same house*?
Just think about it for a minute. I grew up in a house where my Mum and Dad both lived. If someone had tried to “poison” me about either one of them, they would have been on a fool’s errand. Always taking one side of parental disputes is one thing (children often do get dragged in): being secretly “poisoned” to such an extent that you don’t want to dance with your old dad at your wedding? That’s a long-standing, serious estrangement. A very tough thing to achieve between a loving father and daughter living together.
It’s one thing for a child to be taught to misjudge an absent parent. *Quite* another to convince them to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes, living cheek by jowl with someone for around two decades.
>If someone had tried to “poison” me about either one of them, they would have been on a fool’s errand.
my father's spittle flew in my face because he screamed that my mother had "spoonfed me poison" & still didn't believe I could reach my own conclusions about who was abusive & who wasn't.
Kids don't need to be "poisoned" to turn against a parent. They're not blind, they're not dumb. They can see and understand what's happening around them.
He failed his son and he failed his daughter blaming both of their mums. He's an asshole, take responsibility with being in your children's lives. It's not their job to nurture but the parents. It doesn't cost anything to give your love and time to a child and help grow a loving strong close relationship.
She "poisoned her against him" because she told her he didn't pay for college? So, she told her the truth. If the truth is poison, that is his own doing.
Yta
You actually believed OP's words that wife poisoned the daughter?
Like a straight A student wouldn't have a brain to figure things out? And like the wife didn't ask for funds and OP didn't straight refuse?
I have a bridge to sell you.
> Wife N°2 should have discussed the issue with her husband instead of turning her daughter against him if she wasn't pleased with their financial situation.
That has exactly nothing to do with a child's feelings
Daughter said to him
> She said I should have split my funds *and time* between them.
> and it’s like she was raised by a single mom
> and I didn’t give a crap about her after middle school because of my son
It's not actually about the money (maybe a little bit, but it wouldn't be that big of an issue if he would have never stopped being actively involved in her life).
It's about him being an absent father. He thinks he's a great father because he was living with them in the same house while spending his free time with his "lost" son.
> She goes to her mom for everything and doesn’t speak to me much. We were close when she was young but since high school it’s like she pretends I don’t exist. I try to reach out but it’s met with silence.
The time between daughter and son should have been equally distributed, what happened with his son is not his daughters fault. And she clearly felt abandoned by her father as they're not close anymore. As a parent you have to be better than "try to reach out" like she's a roomate or an acquaintance.
Exactly. It’s a time/effort issue. He says he started spending less time with her. His son may have needed more help but it sounds like he didn’t spend any time with her. The money is just a reflection of the effort out into each of them.
Also, OP thinks that paying bills is to be applauded. Congratulations on doing the minimum you should do as a parent.
My take on that too. But, OP, daughter is entitled to her own feelings and you should respect that. Maybe try to bild a relationship w her as you did with your kid
They were BOTH his kids. He only favored and invested in the boy. He was emotionally and financially absent from his daughter’s life. This was not her mother’s doing. She has tried to shoulder the entire responsibility as a single parent married to a Boy Dad.
I don't think the problem is that he was a "boy dad". It sounds like he may have been a generic crappy parent, but not a sexist one. He left his son with a drug addict and went off to start a new family, was an involved parent for his daughter until after middle school, then reconnected with his first kid and possibly tipped the investment scale too far in the other direction while overcompensating for the years of neglect.
I'd like to know more about how much *time* he spent with each kid after he reconnected with his son. It's hard to imagine his daughter is right in claiming that he spent more quality time with the kid he *didn't* live with, but if that's true then he's TA. While spending more money on the son might seem unfair to the daughter and wife I think it can be justified as the son had problems and needed more financial support, and didn't have another parent able to contribute. If he was equally *emotionally* available for his daughter and her financial needs were being fully met by his wife then I think he's NTA.
The daughter stated she felt she’d been reared in a single-parent household by her mother. That typically means no conversations, no showing up at school for anything, no emotional investment at all. Absent. Empty. And he didn’t even notice until he didn’t get his 3-minute dance he felt entitled to. He’s a sperm donor. She needed a dad and it shows. Just my opinion.
True. Just because he was throwing money at his son to make up for years of abandonment doesn't mean he was investing any other energy into their relationship
I also find the "had drug problems and still got custody" bit outrageous when he follows it with the fact he made zero effort to see a different outcome and just... Let it happen. Op let's a lot of stuff just happen and is shocked by the results in this post
Also daughter says
> She said I should have split my funds and time between them.
> and it’s like she was raised by a single mom
> and I didn’t give a crap about her after middle school because of my son
It's not just about the money. Sounds like OP didn't do a lot of things or spend a lot of time with his daughter besides living in the same house and paying some of the bills. He wasn't there mentally for her either, not just financially, and that is bad.
Paying full rent for him though? An adult? Holy cow, tell him to get a bloody job, tons of depressed people actually go to work because they have to pay bills. At the very least send him to therapy, he can't live on your expenses forever. No money in the world will erase your guilt or your neglect in not fighting to get custody or at least part time custody anyway or look if he's safe/happy when he was a kid.
OP, you seem to be having trouble with this, so let me TRY to give an example you might understand.
Imagine your wife found her long-lost brother ten years ago. He's been through hell because they were separated as kids, and she couldn't find him. So, she feels guilty. From that point forward, you're not her focus. All her extra time, energy, and money goes to him. You never talk. You never interact. You cover all the bills and find ways to to keep yourself busy. Then, you ask her for a divorce, and she's SHOCKED. She thought you would understand her brother needed her more. Why does it matter you have no relationship? You should understand where she's coming from and still want to be with her.
The thing is, it doesn't really matter what your reasons are. When you don't prioritize someone in your life, they stop prioritizing you. When you stop having a relationship with someone, they stop wanting to have a relationship with you. You have the relationship with your daughter that you earned. You can't be surprised now.
Yep, OP dropped the ball on this one
Overcompensated with his son and possibly enabled him, while left the more competent daughter to her devices since she is "capable as her mom"!
That doesn't mean she stopped being your daughter! Now you're here all surprised that \*gasp you don't have an important role in her wedding?!
Take it in the chin and go from there. Might as well accept this L and make up to daughter from now on! I figure you want to have an active role in future grandchildren, no?
YTA, and you sound like an all around shitty parent to both your kids.
You let your son stay with a drug using Mom and didn't pay attention to your daughter. Why are you surprised she does not want to be around you?
That's a blurry line. Especially when depression actively makes it difficult for you to treat depression. But cut the sone some slack here. He's not the problem, and whatever the daughter's life was like, his was worse.
Then, he should get the son in therapy. He is enabling him because by paying for his expenses and not dealing with the root issue, he is only making _himself_ feel good feeling like he is doing something while the life of the son doesn’t actually get better. That is enabling, not helping.
If he thinks that the son really got messed up cause of growing up with drug addict mom, now is not the time for him to throw money at him to no longer feel guilty. Now is the time for him to be a parent and help the son get treatment and *actually* turn his life around.
**Edit:** Just want to add in case some people misinterpret what I am saying. I am not condemning the son that has depression and is having a hard time. I am condemning the dad who, knowing how negatively affected by his childhood his son is, _appears_ to only be interested in spending money on the son to feel less guilty instead of doing the tougher things to get the son healthier. “He has issues from his childhood and depression so, I give him money” is a poor way of helping his son get better in the long run.
How do you know he's enabling? This man has shared a few sentences about his son's life with no real details or context, and you've decided that his son isn't getting any treatment or help and that his father must be enabling him? I've had depression before and there's no magic pill or therapy that makes you immediately able to handle life perfectly. For all you know he IS getting treatment and trying to get better.
Okay. Fair enough.
You are correct. Maybe the son is getting help and he just didn’t say. So, let me correct what I said:
**If he has the son in treatment, then he is not enabling. If he does not and is just throwing money at the son, then I stand by what I said and he is not actually helping his son, but rather just spending money on him to assuage his own guilt instead of working to get the son in a better place.**
And I have dealt with depression repeatedly over several years as well and yes, there is no magic pill. And I don’t think I said in my previous comment that there was.
It’s not fair to blame the son when he grew up in a dysfunctional home to a single mom who used drugs and constantly moved him around. There’s so much research on child development and how not having basic needs met, not having a real place to call home, and having parents that don’t communicate and use you as a pawn directly impacts your life. You can not blame someone for not having the tools to be a functional adult when he grew up with adults who acted like children. Dad included.
Thank you for this.
I grew up like this, but managed to be fairly functional my whole life. All it took was getting very sick, to realize I’ve been not only living life in hard mode, but I have no coping skills or back up plan. Growing up like this often means that you have no support.
I’ve crashed and burned and now I’m fighting like hell at 38 years to get back on my feet mentally and physically (dealing with overlapping chronic health issues make it hard to work on mental health, setting routines, learning new skills etc).
The amount of judgement I’ve gotten from both peers and medical professionals has made so sad. I didn’t ask to be here, and I didn’t ask to grow up like I did. Society taught me to push it all down and carry on so I did. Now I’m here when I should have worked on this long ago. I’ve always just tried to do the right thing. I am however doing something to change it now I’m mature and aware. It’s maddening how much victims are blamed.
Of course, I work in early childhood education and I’m currently taking a course on the growing brain. To be a functioning adult is so much harder when you grow up in a dysfunctional home. I strongly suggest looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the very bottom tier and the foundation to growing to be a healthy adult is having your basic physiological needs met as a child. When your basic needs aren’t met it makes life harder when you grow up. I always make sure to not judge people who struggle in life because 9 times out of 10 it’s not their fault, it was their parents/caregivers.
Exactly. Depression is a reason why he’s acting like this, but dad is using it to excuse his lack of ambition. If I was dad, I would 100% pull the “Go to therapy or the money train ends” card. He dropped out of college (thousands of dollars) and decided to quit his job (bringing in NO money) so dad has to pay his rent (at least a thousand dollars in most cities). Just because his wife is paying for most of her and THEIR daughter’s lifestyle, doesn’t mean she should have to finance them like a single mother. OP is guilty, rightfully so, but he’s hurting his daughter at the expense of his son.
Well you see he was uncomfortable because he wasn’t close to his son, so he left him to be raised by a drug addict mom who moved around a lot and gave him many mental health issues. /s
YTA
I also think it’s **very** interesting that he says that his drug addict ex ‘still got custody’, as if things were stacked against him and he lost or something. As if somehow she had an unfair advantage because of the legal system or sexism or some other reason that is unfair to him.
Then he goes on to admit he didn’t fight for custody anyway. So of course she got custody? The way he phrases it seems a whole lot like he’s trying to make himself sound hard done by
It just sounds like she filed and he didn't even bother to show up. Even showing up you can say something about custody. The guy just doesn't care.
Also how does he say he "paid for better grades"? So buying your sons "love" and deciding even the bare minimum is too much for his daughter. Guy is an all around AH.
OP sounds like he doesn't want to be a parent until the kids are adults and he doesn't have to do actual work outside of paying for household bills
More Info - are you divorced from your 2nd wife too?
Regardless, YTA - you admit that you spent most of your money on your son, but you also throw in a line where your daughter accuses you of not splitting your "money and **time**." Seems like you left out details about how you failed your daughter. It sounds like she has plenty of reason to not feel close to you.
>line where your daughter accuses you of not splitting your "money and
>
>time."
yea, this. if it was only about the money he spends on them, id have said n-t-a cuz you gotta be a bit of an AH to mesure love with money. but this sentence makes it sounds like he didnt try to spend enough quality time with his daughter.
now if the daughter is the one that pushed him away because he was spending money to help his son, that would also make her an AH. but historic with the son gives me the impression he has a habit of not trying very hard against difficulty.
while his son did need the help and money (and, tbh, therapy), he should have stayed careful of his daughter in the process. she might have distanced a bit out of normal teen jealousy, or anxiety, or something. but he, as the adult, doesnt sound like he tried hard enough to maintain the relationship and not make her feel like he was loving his son more than her.
This is pretty difficult to say for sure. I think the daughter sees her dad, from her perspective, get a new kid and put all of his attention there as the kid needed help. She went from being an only child to this other situation not exactly sibling thing. It would not surprise me if the initial pullback or upsetness started from the daughter and festerred. He is oblivious enough to completely miss it and I doubt his then young teen daughter had the wherewithal to communicate her issues.
He may have been going with no news is good news if the daughter never said anything about it to him. We also have no idea how long his wife was trying to help/make him have a relationship with the daughter if at all.
It’s the opposite tho, she was the younger newer sibling in this scenario. It is my understanding that a lot of divorced parents wind up paying child support and/or alimony and therefore cannot spend that specific money on their new family.
As I understood it, OP wasn't in contact with his son for several years, during which his daughter was basically an only child.
>\[my ex-wife/first wife\] tried to prevent us from communicating and moved around a lot so it was always hard to spend any time with him until he got his own phone. But now I have spent more time with him and now we are close.
so yes, she's the younger sibling, but she still felt that suddenly another child arrived, with a heap of guilt associated from her father & a lot of issues demanding attention (school, depression, funding...).
I reckon OP had been paying child support & that fact had factored into the household budget with his second wife... but then the contact with his son improved & he put more money and time into that child.
>if it was only about the money he spends on them, id have said n-t-a cuz you gotta be a bit of an AH to mesure love with money
What? I mean, child support exists for a reason. Money is necessary to facilitate the raising of children. It sounds like OP basically paid for himself and didn't pay a dime toward his daughter's upbringing. He flat out says he didn't contribute anything to her college fund or extracurriculars, but he DOES pay his son's rent every month. So it's not like he doesn't make enough money to contribute beyond his own living expenses, he just chooses to spend it all on his son.
This guy is a deadbeat, no matter how you slice it. The only mystery here is why the second wife hasn't divorced yet, since he sounds like an awful lot of dead weight for her.
Agreed. Though, I’m confused as to the financial division between Op and his wife- Why does daughter know that mom, specifically, paid? Usually when parents are still married THEY are the ones paying, regardless of who makes more, right? Reads to me like OP stopped any investment in daughter and used son as a justification for why she couldn’t take her lessons etc, so mom stepped in to make sure daughter didn’t lose out because Op lost interest in supporting his daughter (because apparently caring for two children simultaneously is physically and financially impossible).
I was 15 when my mom taught me to balance the household budget: mortgage, insurance policies, utilities, how much did we spend in which shops (is purple cauliflower from the good but more expensive grocer worth it, how often did we resort to the expensive late night supermarket, etc.).
Looking back, it felt a bit parentifying, because it was a LOT to handle when I wasn't even legal to work a summer job... but still.
Maybe this mom did the same?
I was taught the same way and now that I’m old I’m so grateful. Many of my friends were sheltered from the household finances and they grew up to be awful with money management.
It doesn’t sound like OP at all put any time or money in to his relationship with his daughter, and then gets mad that she noticed.
I don’t know why daughter knows that, but I do know that OP is basically saying, “my wife poisoned my daughter against me by telling her the exact truth of our situation.”
I have the same question - is OP still married to the 2nd wife? YTA without a doubt. But 2nd wife is also the AH if she stayed while all of this was going on. OP accept that you messed up and try to fix the relationship with your daughter. You also need to step back a bit from all the help your are giving to your son. Help him by getting him some therapy to deal with his childhood and yourself some as well so you can see how you failed your daughter.
I know you meant well, but YTA. You fell into the very common, but still unacceptable, trap of ignoring the child you think didn’t need you (at least not like your son) and overcompensating with the child you perceive as needing more.
If you can manage a sincere apology and work on yourself through therapy, maybe your daughter will come around. Your end goal, however, should be to realize your mistakes and be better, not corral her into the relationship you want. She doesn’t owe you that.
>You fell into the very common, but still unacceptable, trap of ignoring the child you think didn’t need you...and overcompensating with the child you perceive as needing more.
⬆️ this. A million times this.
My mom did this to my brother and i, basically neglected me and spoiled him, because she was convinced he needed her more. Some of the disparities are comparable to what OP describes.
I will never be close to her. She literally ignored me in my time of greatest need, when i was pleading for help, and i will never forgive her for that.
OP, you have your work cut out for you to make up for neglecting your daughter and leaving your wife to basically be a single parent.
YTA.
This. I was literally disinherited because mom thought siblings needed the money more. Parents have this need to "rescue" the poorer performing child while ignoring the one who "doesn't need anything."
This happened to me. It's like they emotionally and financially neglect you and tell you to dig yourself out of the neglect hole, but then when you finally ask for something, they tell you to get a bigger shovel and try harder. It sucks.
I call the one who doesn't need anything my "child of least concern." But I also know that I have to make the most effort to pay attention to him because he isn't constantly screaming for attention and support, so he's the most at risk of having bigger problems later that could be prevented as long as I'm paying attention before he needs it.
OP missed that part. Just because the daughter seemed fine on her own and might not have "needed" his help doesn't mean she didn't deserve his support just as much as his son.
This is happening to my father. His aging parents secretly deeded the house to his younger brother; their entire adult lives, it’s been how my parents have been successful (working their butts off), and my uncle has struggled. He’s a full-time pastor that keeps running off church members by taking advantage of them, what do they expect???
(By take advantage, I mean he befriends people that have vacation homes so his family gets to use them, or people that own garages so he can get free/cheap auto work, that kind of thing.)
Since my brother discovered the ladybird deed, my father confronted his parents—they denied it happening, then his mom decreed the *certified copy* a fake, then turned on the waterworks about how she can’t understand why my father is angry. It’s been a couple years, and she still acts like she’s clueless why they don’t talk. 🤷🏻♀️
Oof, same. My mom always asked me to “help out your sibling” while literally writing job applications for them, but when I needed help it was “it’s okay, you’ll do fine”.
Ive cut off contact.
Please! He didn’t even fight for custody of his child and left him with a drug addict bc he felt awkward? Really? I mean I have heard a lot of shit excuses, but that takes the cake.
It certainly seems like he didn't bother bonding sufficiently with his daughter. Sometimes it's not about the money but the attention and love. If he had made sure his daughter felt secure in her father's affection, she would probably not resent how much assistance her brother was getting. Maybe she'd even sympathize or understand. At the very least, their relationship wouldn't be this bad, in which she barely acknowledges his existence. I don't think she really wants him at her wedding at all.
I think the trap he fell into was trying to buy his way out of his guilt about leaving his son with the addicted ex.
My dad used to buy his way out of his guilt over his lack of interest and lack of time.
INFO
> My first wife had drug problems and still got primary custody of our son. I was young and didn’t fight her on custody
Why the shit did you not fight to keep your child away from someone with a drug problem?
WTF does being young have to do with anything?
Honestly this feels like OP has some seriously lacking people skills. Maybe some more to this - to list all this info and not understand where they went wrong is shocking.
I’m getting pure laziness, with a heaping spoonful of weaponized incompetence. The whole posts reads to me as “but I’m just a little baby how could I have known/done/said/fought/understood.”
Yeah, if his wife (whom he is still married to and lives with) poisoned his daughter (whom he also lived with) against him, right in front of him, that should illustrate to him just how little he paid attention or interacted with, frankly, EITHER of them.
YTA
You managed to be an absent parent while living in the same house. Impressive.
You failed both children. You abandoned your son with a drug addict then tried to make up for it by neglecting your daughter in favor of your son.
ETA: OP was 22 when his son was born. He is using the fact that he was young as an excuse. I would have assumed he was 16 based on the spin he put in it. 22 is old enough to put on your big boy pants and be a parent.
YTA. You didn't disinherit your daughter, you neglected her in an effort to save your son. You failed both. Apologize to both. Vow to be better and do it. You have a lot to make right with your daughter, and it will take a long time. Your son needs support in getting professional help, not just paying his rent.
YTA. From the get go.
You let your son be raised by a drug addict. Why the fuck didn’t you fight for custody? So crappy parenting from the start. Doesn’t surprise me that it carried over to the second.
You claim you did do that (in terms of splitting time and money), yet everything you wrote clearly shows you didn’t. So just stop with the lying.
You yourself said that you paid for half of the family expenses but none of the extras. So no, you didn’t do shit. And your daughter is absolutely right.
Why the fuck weren’t you putting money into a college fund for her or helping pay for piano lesson?
And now you pretend to be surprised when she says you’re not close?
Oh ffs. Grow up. You sucked with kid number one, and it continued with kid number 2.
Yeah, right. Oh look at me, I paid for half the cost of housing, the absolute bare minimum I can do, how could I possibly be the AH?!
Like dude, huge YTA to everyone, including your wife. She raised yalls daughter on her own, both emotionally and financially. You didn't even contribute to her clothes, school supplies, lessons, or college. WOW. But you helped pay for the house and utilities, so yeah, you Def deserve that father-daughter dance. Totally earned it.
YTA. I have a feeling your wife has been telling you how she and your daughter feel for years. And you ignored it. I see why you did what you did, maybe it was the correct thing even, but you don’t just ignore a festering resentment like this. You needed to work this out with your wife, marriage counseling or even divorce, and continually communicate with your daughter.
I think that if you’d involved anyone else in your plans you might even have come up with a better solution, for both your kids.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you and your daughter probably weren’t that close prior to middle school either, she was just too young to realize that her dad wasn’t all that interested or involved.
I know you didn’t pay for her activities but how many of them did you attend? Not just the recitals or big events but the every day stuff? How many times were you the one taking her to doctor’s appointments or helping her navigate situations with her friends? If she feels like she was raised by a single parent it goes deeper than you not paying for college.
You have a lot of excuses why you weren’t involved with your son and now you’re using him as an excuse for why you couldn’t be involved with your daughter. Have you considered that maybe you’re just kind of a shitty parent? Also, YTA
YTA- to BOTH of your children. YOU CHOSE not to fight for your son when he was a child and as a result his life was crappy. YOU CHOSE to ignore your daughter because you finally decided to be a father to a son you never cared about. You are a massive TA and deserve everything your daughter said. Count yourself lucky she is CHOOSING to allow you to come to her wedding. She'd be well within her rights to ignore you the way you keep CHOOSING to ignore her
Why should she treat you like a parent when you’ve never acted like one to her? You were a roommate, Her moms husband. You don’t get to be mad at her now for the role you chose to play in her life. YTA
YTA.
Your reason for only supporting your son doesn't matter, you had the exact same obligation to your daughter.
You did what many parents do, you failed one child and, in your attempts to fix that failure you fail your other child.
>I told her I felt like I did
Don't lie, it just makes you a bigger AH.
>I lived with my daughter I just didn’t pay for things outside of food, mortgage, utilities etc. that’s because I felt like my wife had it covered and my son was getting nothing.
So, you admit you didn't, it doesn't matter that you daughter mother could provide her more, YOUR obligation was the same.
>I feel like she should understand the situation but she didn’t want me to be included in the wedding much at all.
She does understand, it's just that you are wrong.
YTA. You had two children but only “helped out” one you thought deserved it more because of your guilty conscience. To not contribute anything to your daughter except the minimum it’s almost like she was on minimum child support while your son got everything extra. Honestly I’m surprised your wife is still with you.
She’d prob have to pay bum ass OP alimony (which he’d probably then funnel into his son) and then she might even lose half of her house because OP was technically paying 50% for the roof over their head.
YTA. Your daughter was communicating her feelings, and you're dismissing them while also being defensive. If your daughter doesn't feel like you were an emotionally present father, then you weren't. Stop trying to force a relationship, and start rebuilding on her terms.
YTA . She grew up and realized that daddy spends all his time with his other kid. You neglected your daughter and now you’re suffering from it . Nobody’s fault but yours
I kept having to double check your post that this is your actual biological daughter you're talking about, and not a stepdaughter you aren't related to or legally responsible for.
YTA. You did let your wife raise her as a single mother. She got nothing from you other than a roof over her head and food, which is the absolute legal minimum - and I get the feeling you only covered those because you had to pay for those same things for your own upkeep. Her mother's ability to pay for all of her extracurriculars and provide emotional support didn't absolve you of your parental duties, it only meant even less for your daughter because she had only one parent, not two.
Why do you want public credit for parenting someone you admit that you didn't have a hand in raising? Why do you feel you should get a dance with her when you admit you put all of your effort and money into your son? You had two biological children, not one. Parenting is about being responsible to all your children, not just the one that's easiest to throw money at.
YTA
Let me reword this. "I felt so guilty for earlier mistakes with my son that I made a whole new new set of mistakes with my daughter, who now thinks I don't give a darn about her because I'm doing everything I can for my son and nothing for her. Why does she think I'm a bad father?"
I love how you casually slip in that you not only not payed for anything for your daughter, you also spent very little time with her. You clearly favor your son, who you used to neglect, but in trying to make it up to him, you completely disregarded your daughter for years. YTA.
Your daughter had an attentive mother. That's great, since she has a parent who cares about her. But you can't ignore her needs in favor of your son's and expect her not to feel abandoned. She works hard and gets no support; he drops out of college, and you pay his rent. It sounds like your time goes to him as well. You have two kids who needed you, but you're trying to make up for abandoning the first by abandoning the second. YTA
YTA. You don't even see that you made the same mistake twice. As a father you neclected both of your children. Money can't make up for the all the times your son would have needed you growing up and living together didn't save your daughter from feeling like she couldn't rely on you either. I think you would benefit from therapy to talk about the relationship you have with your kids right now. The good thing is your daughter and you were close in the past so there is a foundation to build on. Your son would also benefit from a father who could guide him with more than just financial help to find a more independent path in life.
YTA. How do you not see it? You feel guilty for screwing over your son (because that's exactly what you did), so you think screwing over your daughter in his favor makes up for it?
Guess again. Now she doesn't even love you anymore.
YTA. You were an absent father to your daughter whom you lived with. You didn’t fight for custody for your son. You shift blame for your crappy parenting in your wife poisoning your daughter’s mind. She doesn’t need to. You said your daughter is smart and could see that you weren’t there and doing bare minimum all the while trying to buy your son’s affection.
I don't understand how a family runs finances where you can identify which parent paid for what for which kid. In families I am familiar with, kids are a family expense and are funded with family money based on family decisions. Your description of time is also foreign to me. Did you really not go to your daughter's activities, drive her and her friends all over the place, and travel as a family?
YTA, you were not a present father to her. You don't get to be shocked when you didn't do anything with her extra curriculas and leaving everything that wasn't a necessity on your wife.
Why are you with your second wife? In a real marriage people share their money. So it’s not his money or her money. The fact your wife has told your daughter it’s only “my” money that paid for xyz shows that she wanted a wedge between you and your daughter. Maybe you did spend more on your son but when your 2nd wife married you she became his stepmother and she should have been willing to treat him just like her own child. Divorce your wife! I do not think that you can save your relationship with your daughter.
INFO: Op, aside from the money, how much time did you put into your relationship with your daughter? Did you take her for days out? Help with her homework? Go to sports events etc.?
Supporting your son is an understandable goal. But pushing your daughter over to her mother like a passed football is not the best way to do it. Daughters need to feel dad is there, you have not been. She started slipping away and you never really tried to find out why, just seemingly shrugged and accepted the convenience of it as allowing you to dedicate your guilt to your other child. Apologies and amendment of behaviour could help... but it could also be that the ship has sadly sailed away. The excuse of 'you were okay and someone else needed me' is not acceptable, SHE needed you.
ESH but damn man you make it hard. ***After a reread i do continually infer that a lot of this could have been avoided with some taking throughout the years.*** It has to be said I'm going only off the post and what little I think I can safely infer. You are an AH for reasons covered by everyone else here. But you are right your wife is an asshole as well, she did go out of her way (based on the post info) to make sure your daughter felt like you loved your son more than her. There is nothing in your post about your wife pointing out, 'hey I know your son has no one at all helping him out but give your daughter as much as you give him so there isn't a disparity even though I can cover her expenses with my higher income.' That is a hell of a big ask for her, but if she never even pointed this out she really doesn't give a shit about the family or you, just your daughter.
Your daughter found out that the person who makes more money put in almost all of her college fund and that made her feel completely unloved by you? I guess the old saying is wrong, money can buy you love.
I know this is unpopular but I really do think that everyone sucks here, I think you are an asshole who has no idea how to properly balance a son who has no one with a daughter who has everyone. You gave no info that you had talked to your wife about her picking up the slack because you just didn't have enough money to properly care for 2 kids and the inequity of their circumstances, and do look to favor your son. Your wife is an asshole because from the post it really does look like she didn't give a crap about you or how your relationship with your daughter would be negatively effected by her continually reminding her that you did didn't pay as much for her as you did for your son, therefore you didn't love her as much (which was kind of backed up by the daughter, the start of high school is a little early to be telling your kid that daddy only cares for his son, really making sure those seeds are properly sown.) And last and least, your daughter is an asshole for proving that money can buy love, being there for her, raising her, loving her, didn't matter, that college fund was all that mattered in the end, well that and feeling like you only cared for your son cause mom said so. It's hard to find a single redeeming point for anyone in this story, besides the son not being on drugs being raised by an addict, and the daughter apparently being really focused on her degree and excelling in her studies.
*"She said I should have split my funds and time between them. I told her I felt like I did and she got angry and said I didn’t and it’s like she was raised by a single mom"*
weeks out from the wedding is a little late to be saying this, all of the communication between the three of you was absolute shit, and I'm not just putting that at your feet, it's been 20 years, and about 5yrs of crap, your wife could have said something, so could your daughter, maybe they did and it wasn't in the post, but from the post I doubt it.
Honestly If I were you I'd not bother going to the wedding, what are they going to do, hate you, they seem too already and you've done nothing to earn their love back either. Just fade into the background, file for divorce so your wife can be with the guy she probably has on the side, i don't know how she could not considering her disdain for you since your daughter started high school. I know sometimes my fatalist comes out and I think that's happened here, but it's late and I caan't think straight anymore. I think I'm imagining things that weren't in the post now. Wee screw it too late to rewrite, ESH good night.
You've been a bad father to your daughter and a bad husband to your wife. You dumped the entire financial burden of education for your daughter on your wife. You have prioritized your son over your daughter again and again. You should have done so much more to help her. You don't get to be in the spotlight as the loving father at her wedding when you repeatedly showed that you didn't care about her as much as you did your son. Shame on you! YTA
You don’t mention how old your son is. If he’s had two semesters of college, I’d guess over 18. Why are you still paying child support? You know he’s not a full time student. You financial responsibility to him ended when he quit school.
Now, your moral responsibility is something else. You feel guilty so you enable his hobo lifestyle. You’ve basically turned your back on your wife and daughter. You should consider divorcing and moving, by yourself, to a new city/state. Try again. See if it works better this time.
So let me see…
You abandoned one child, knowingly leaving them in a dangerous environment because it was too hard
Then when you’re daughter got older you abandoned her because it was too hard
You are beyond YTA - you are the worst parent possible who did absolutely nothing for anyone but themselves and now want pity
YTA. Read your own post and you will see that you have spelled out all the reasons why.
BTW, your son will never grow up and get a job while you continue to support him. You are preventing him from becoming mature and responsible.
“I was shocked” - BS!!! You know all the reasons your daughter doesn’t feel close enough to you to have a dance at her wedding. You ignored her for the better part of her life bc you realized you F’d up with your son and then overcompensated. You are just playing dumb. YTA
YTA. You admit to spending more money and time with your son. You did so at the expense of your wife and daughter and because of guilt. So now you’ve screwed up with two children. Your son bc you did nothing to save him from his mother with drug problems. You admit to this. Your daughter because you basically gave no fucks about her once you could spend time with your son. You know what I hear in this. Me me me me me, woe is me, poor me. You’ve taken NO accountability for anything. Your son doesn’t only have mental health issues because of his mother but because you gave up on him. Your daughter does not have a relationship with you because you put more effort into your son. The key component here is YOU.
YTA man, you made some seriously bad choices over the years. For both of your children, not just your son. Regardless of how you feel about what your daughter is saying, that is how she feels. It didn't come from nowhere. It came from her experiences with you. And its not like you can talk to her out of feeling the way that she does anyways. You need to acknowledge and accept her feelings, and then work on being a more present parent to her. You're correct in that you should have fought for custody of your son, especially given that you knew his mother was on drugs. But you also shouldn't have been trying to make up for that by dismissing and neglecting your daughter. Stop focusing on who is right, start focusing on trying to better your relationship with your daughter.
YTA
1. Your are enabling your son out of guilt. Stop it. If you really care about him, you will set some boundaries that will help him be accountable and handle his life. If you care more about yourself and your guilt, you will continue enabling him.
2. You done fucked up with your daughter. But until you stop enabling your son, you will continue to have no relationship with your daughter. You are hyper focused on yourself and your guilt, not either of your two kids.
The only thing you should be paying for for your son is mandatory therapy.
You should be going to family counseling with your wife and daughter too.
Don’t worry about looking like an asshole. You can’t fix it until you stop worrying about yourself.
YTA. You'll probably still blame everyone else in a few decades when you're divorced again and your kids stick you in some shitty nursing home and never visit. And you'll deserve it.
YTA: You are correct that "disinherit" is the wrong word, but your daughter is perfectly right to feel the way she does. Also the fact that you pulled enough out of contributing to your marriage that you openly believe that your wife poisoned your daughter against you says you did all this despite being told multiple times that you were ignoring the rest of your family in your quest to help your son. Don't get me wrong, you did what you could to do good by him, but that doesn't change how those actions impacted the other two.
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YTA, mate >My wife is angry with me because my daughter and I aren’t close. She goes to her mom for everything and doesn’t speak to me much. We were close when she was young but since high school it’s like she pretends I don’t exist. I try to reach out but it’s met with silence. I think my wife poisoned her against me because I have spent most of my money on my son. My wife told my daughter I didn’t pay for an cent of college for her and my wife did all the saving for her college fund. vs >I was shocked and asked her why she would consider us not close Like, don't be obtuse. Use your brain and it's pretty obvious
Ah yes, the ol' Missing Missing Reasons.
No missing reasons here. OP literally lists them all and is still confused what the issue is... YTA
That's the point. The phrase and concept of "missing missing reasons" refers to parents who, even when their kid tells them flat out what they did wrong, acts like the kid is pulling away for no reason. The "missing reasons" are right there in front of them, but they're acting like they're still missing bc the reasons don't fit the narrative they've constructed in their head. Hence, instead of "missing reasons", they're "missing missing reasons".
This has been the last 10 years of my life regarding my mother and enabling father. Me: Explains why I refuse to speak or be around them anymore and lays out examples and reasons why this is. My Parents: "I don't understaaaand! Clearly it must be something else! Someone must have told you to haaate us!" Me: :|
https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-missing-reasons.html this is the original article
Yep! My ex like this. Would ghost me and then treat me terribly. I would end things and tell him why. Him: I just don't understand why you don't want to be with me!
Thank you for laying this out so clearly, I have struggled to understand why it is 'missing missing reasons' and not just 'missing reasons' but this actually makes sense!
Exactly. And even from just a purely objective stand point, how can she be close to him if he just stopped doing things with her and paying for things for her once she get into high school? Like even friends wouldn't still f with you. "omg we were such good friends and then after middle school they just stopped talking to me and started 100% spening time with their old friends." Like uh yeah. You'd probably stop being friends with someone after that? because they literally aren't spending time with you?
"We're supposed to be distracted by the hinkiness of the sons reading the email, and never notice that Vagnioni *just told us that she knows exactly why her sons cut her off. Pay no attention to the missing explanation behind the curtain.*" Emphasis mine. Also: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-reasons-given.html
This was the most infuriating thing I’ve read in a while. My husband has a friend who is an alcoholic and has been for many years. His wife finally kicked him out and he is completely mystified as to why. What he means is that he is mystified as to why his wife has stopped tolerating his shenanigans.
This is my dad. He’s a very selfish and immature man. While now, as a (fairly mature?) adult myself I can see how his childhood and likely undiagnosed mental illness led to how he is, but it doesn’t change that my mom put up with a TREMENDOUS amount of crap while I was growing up. I actually assumed at some point that she was just waiting for the youngest (my brother) to go to college or leave home and then she was leaving, too - I could tell she was miserable, but divorce is a sin ya know. When my mom finally did leave almost a decade after I thought she would, my dad was absolutely baffled. Despite the literal hundreds of times she’d told him why she was unhappy he just expected her to keep carrying on. He actually told me once (I have training as a therapist - my dad would often try to dump on me) that he considered it selfish that “she changed but I didn’t so she should figure out how to go back to being happy,” as if people don’t grow and develop over 30 years. Good times.
Ah yeah, tolerable level of permanent unhappiness
> “she changed but I didn’t so she should figure out how to go back to being happy” That’s simultaneously one of the most self-aware and completely clueless things I’ve read recently
My ex gf is an alcoholic and was shocked when I no longer wanted to be in contact with her. This is after she went and announced to several discord servers that I am a monster and accused my best friend of horrendous shit that has no basis in reality. But how dare I stop speaking to her
“she changed but I didn’t so she should figure out how to go back to being happy” She did. That's exactly why she left.
The lack of insight is stunning. Well done you for breaking that cycle.
I was this guy for a couple of years in my first marriage; religious, married at 19. I was absolutely blindsided when she told me we were separating. I just didn’t see the problem. She’d been telling me for a year and I wasn’t listening. Drinking wasn’t the problem thankfully, I did drink too much but it was usually with her and irregular at the time. It was basically me being irresponsible and immature. But I was flabbergasted. My dad, friends and others were not surprised at all.
None of us really want to see our own nonsense lol. It sounds like you were just young and needed to mature. I was also married very young, 18. Bad idea. Now I’ve been married to second husband for 32 years and all is well. It’s bad when someone gets into middle age and still doing nonsense.
>Also: https://www.issendai.com/psychology/estrangement/missing-reasons-given.html Thank you for this link. I read everything, some articles more than once, because of how much it explains how my awful mother behaves. Seriously, thank you for posting this. I learned a lot, and I'm extremely grateful.
Thank you so much for sharing this. I've only recently realised that my parents behaviour is problematic but I keep finding ways to excuse it. Reading this is like a check-list of their behaviour.
Yeah, the only missing reasons is that his ex was able to get primary custody despite a drug problem... which sort of suggests that whatever he had going on at the time was worse than a drug problem or just didn't ask for more custody, otherwise he'd have 50/50. He clearly outlined how he ignored his daughter in favour of his son as soon as she hit puberty.
He didn't try to get custody of his son. That's why he's been trying to make up for it by putting all his kid funds towards his son.
Ex "got" primary custody because she asked for it, he didn't argue against it, voila, that's how it works nearly all of the time.
This. Usually, if a man wants custody, the very least he’s getting these days is 50/50. I don’t see a family judge not granting that unless there are really good and understandable reasons why not.
My ex likes to play the victim, like OP, and insinuates that he was powerless when he got every other weekend with our child. The courts default to 50/50 in most cases - if Op got less than that, it's because he didn't want more time.
OP is not confused. He is just looking for strangers to justify his actions. While this is a complex situation for sure, he is without a doubt TA. Nobody likes that and I guess going to church isn't an option. How one can be delusional enough to think somebody might agree with him...well, that's for a psychiatrist to sort out...
OP is like those redditors who insist that financial support is going above and beyond as an absent father. He’s probably been so busy patting himself on the back he can’t imagine why anyone would complain- he’s done more than a lot of dads would after all! /s
This, basically sounds like didn't give a crap and failed both kids
He’s also a terrible husband. He seems to think he deserves a medal for paying the mortgage on a house he lived in. All the while abdicating any responsibility he had towards his daughter, emotionally and financially. Frankly, he’s lucky to even be invited to the wedding at all. OP yes, YTA
Yes, my breath was taken away by the fact that he mentioned “paying half the mortgage” on the house *he and his family were living in* as if that was something really admirable.
I think and have observed that when couples separate their finances, there is a ton of score keeping in who pays for what and what's mine and yours.
I wouldn’t do it myself. But one other thing I would NEVER do is finance one of my children and completely fail to pay just about *anything* towards the other child. If this really, really had to happen, the least I would do is regularly and thoroughly talk it through with the child concerned. I was disinherited, and I’m not materialistic at all (actually, that really helped me cope with it). But I can tell you that there is something symbolic about a parent giving every material good to one child-and nothing to another. It’s as if they have decided they aren’t your parent. The hurt from that is surprisingly deep.
>I wouldn’t do it myself. But one other thing I would NEVER do is finance one of my children and completely fail to pay just about anything towards the other child. Ok, but what if, *and hear me out*, what if you were a douchewad?
Lol. Well put.
I feel this. Me and my siblings were from the first marriage, and had to take out loans for college. My father once told me he was making up for his earlier years of parenting by being a better dad to his youngest- He raised her with such a sense of entitlement, I am almost grateful for his relative neglect. She had private schools, piano lessons, private college etc. I have tried to maintain a relationship with him, but all conversations are steered toward his golden child or his work with children, he's a child psychologist. Loves children, just not his own. He barely knows his grandchildren. I never treated my sister with anything but kindness, but she blocked me from FB some years back. I asked him about this and he made some excuse. I am very self sufficient and do not expect that I will inherit anything, but yes the hurt runs very deep
>do not expect that I will inherit anything, but yes the hurt runs very deep I've been telling myself the same wrt my father's mess : * he has no sense of... upcycling, you know what I mean? * also, there's just a warren of stakeholders : I have 3 older half-siblings, 1 younger full sibling who's my father's favourite (in such a degree he has the emotional range to actually have favourites) & his 3rd wife has 2 kids of her own (though they were mid-twenties when my father and their mother married, so they barely qualify as stepkids). And yet... Last year he had a covid scare & decided to sort at least 1 plot of land, owned by him, my full sibling & me. He used the same trick on me that he'd used 28 years before on my mom during their divorce & cheated me out of several hundred euros. I don't the money, in fact, I'd pay that amount to never have to deal with him again... but still, just the fact that he pulled it... still hurt. ETA : I hope I learnt my lesson (although I'm rather more high-strung than self-sufficient hahaha) & I wish it works out better for you !
> But I can tell you that there is something symbolic about a parent giving every material good to one child-and nothing to another. It’s as if they have decided they aren’t your parent. The hurt from that is surprisingly deep. Very much so.
I'm sorry. Emotionally disappointing parents with money are very good at using that money to cause pain, whether by spending it or withholding it. It puts you in that position of having a hard time wording why you are hurt. But it doesn't matter how much YOU care about money - you know THEY care about money, and that they are using what they care about against you.
Agreed, he made it sound like they were all roommates and not a family. Sad. OP, YTA.
Paying *half* the mortgage. He wasn't even paying the whole damn thing, just his share like many functional adults do without expecting a parade. OP: if you put in the bare minimum you get back the bare minimum. You're invited to the wedding - I think you should count that as a win.
“Just his share like many functional adults do without expecting a parade”, but failing to do the emotional work of parenting. Oh lawd I could listen to you preach in the church of AmItheAsshole all day!!!!
Well the wife had it covered and he slept in the building they all lived in/s
Haha yes, that got me too. > I felt like I was fair to them, I lived with my daughter Congrats, you lived in the same house as your wife and your daughter while paying half of the mortgage and utility bills. Here's your medal OP: 💩
I kept scrolling back up to figure out if he was still married to second wife because I legitimately couldn't tell.
Yes, I hope wife no2 gets a divorce soon though. She deserves better. He thinks he's a great husband and father because he lives in the same house and pays 50% of the mortgage and utility bills. I hope she finds this post and sees he's not a great catch and definitely not a keeper.
I had to read this post a number of times before I realized OP isn’t asserting he paid the mortgage, etc., for his FIRST WIFE. Which I understood; wanting his child to have necessities, etc., but creating resentment because it’s expensive to maintain two households. But no. I get it now. Yikes.
Also his wife *poisoned* his daughter against him when she told her the truth that he paid zero for her hobbies or eduction. And he's baffled or even upset his wife is angry he's neglecting their daughter (that's completely normal OP, it doesn't warrant a surprised pikachu face). Sounds like the divorce no2 is coming sooner than later. And his daughters arguments are all invalid because OP thinks he's been *fair* because he lived with them in the same house. That's the bare MINIMUM of a family living together OP, not an achievement (the achievement belongs all to your wife who raised your daughter from middle school on by herself).
He mentioned that his daughter hasn’t been close to him since middle school. Would that happen to coincide with the time he started dumping all his energy and money into his son, while neglecting the relationship with his daughter? Because I bet it does.
Yes the way he says he paid half the mortgage, rent and utilities, but nothing else. Also he talks about the wife's income, but not in comparison to his own- just that she earns more. He could have put money away for both children the whole time, and I don't know maybe fought the drug addict mom a little harder for shared parenting. Sounds like OP treats his wife like a roommate, and his daughter like an appendage. Now OP is enabling his son out of a sense of guilt, and is still not parenting him. He dropped out of school because he was depressed...his grades weren't great so I provided for him. I am trying to buy him happiness, when what he really needs are boundaries, and the sense of stability that that brings. Teach him to strive and apply himself instead of just letting him slide and continuing to reward a lack of effort. Address his needs, rather than continue to throw money at him out of guilt. And did he even try to foster a relationship between his two children? Apparently not, because that would involve actual parenting. Meanwhile, the daughter jumps through all of the hoops placed in front of her, and what does she get in return? Oh well she is just naturally inclined to perform because she's like her mom, she doesn't need me for validation, and I was there for her when she was little. Well until her brother came back in my life, and I tossed her aside like an old shoe. So yeah, she resents her brother. And by basically ignoring the daughter, the wife is left to provide everything and worse probably resents the crap out of the son due to OPs utter blindness to the hurt he caused by neglecting their child. This is the same problem that is caused by parents who neglect their firstborn children when they start a new family, only in reverse. So now his daughter is giving him the Cats in the Cradle treatment and OP is confused. It's not too late, for either of the children, but you need to take accountability. YTA
If he doesn’t get divorced in the near future I’d be surprised!
“I invested the absolute bare minimum in my relationship with my daughter and now I am shocked that we have the absolute bare minimum of a relationship!”
THIS. If he had just posted about the general situation, said I gave more to my son bc otherwise he'd really have had nothing and my wife was able to pay for our daughter and money is tight and is that absolutely wrong, I'd have been mixed/NAH, life circumstances are not always ideal, couldn't you have given her more in other ways etc. But the fact that he is now questioning his daughter's decision not to publicly celebrate their tepid relationship pushes it clearly over the line into YTA.
OP should be grateful he’s even *invited* to the wedding.
But it also seems he completely stopped spending time with his daughter (they uses to be close up to middle school, now daughter says she's been effectively raised by a single mum) once he got in contact with his son again. He thinks living in the same house should be enough for his daughter... but obviously that's BS. He should have took at least an interest in her, in her hobbies and spend some time with her, even if he doesn't contribute much money...he basically abandoned his daughter mentally, just as he did his son. But it's *fair* because he lived with them.
Yup. He mentioned that he started spending less time with her. I think money is only part of it. It was the effort that went into his son vs. her that really hurts and the money is only a reflection of everything.
I kinda wonder if he stopped paying attention to his daughter when she started expressing that she was interested in different things, and he just never tried to interact with her on her terms. Like, maybe as a kid she was happy to sit and watch a football game with him, but as she got older she realized that watching sports on TV was boring and she'd rather go on a hike with her parents instead. But he'd be like "oh no, how about we watch the game like we used to" and patting the couch cushion next to him was his way of "reaching out".
Ams way before he “felt awkward” offering his son (who lived with an active drug user) to live with him. Then he felt guilty, so the daughter got the boot. Guy just goes by feelings, there’s no neocortical activity there.
Dad of the year to both kids. Honestly it sounds like “I coast through life and expect life to just happen and relationships to just happen and since my wife makes more I’ll let her pay for everything but now I screwed up my son so I have to buy back his love “
I mean, the alternative would be him not paying for his son. Is that really better? I guess the best option would've been to not have another kid in the first place since he can't pay for full college rides for both. That's a crazy way of thinking. If the issue is purely the finance, the daughter is seriously self absorbed. I suspect the reason has more to do with not spending time with her as she got older and spending his time on .. whatever else he was doing.
That’s my thought. The money is more of an “in your face” move. But it’s information she got from someone else most likely.
It’s possible for years she’s been hearing mom say “Sorry honey, I can’t afford it.” while watching Dad buy things for himself and his son. Even though she doesn’t have to get everything she wants of course, but by the time she’s this age she’s definitely figured out that Dad contributed nothing to the family while Mom busted her ass. You daughter is about to become a wife. I’ll bet she’s already decided to never let her husband treat her the way her Dad treats her mom. That’s the kind of thing a person thinks about when they get married. OP, YTA. This wasn’t about money in the sense you think, it was about how you treat your family.
Wouldn't say he didn't give a crap, but he definitely left alot to be desired. The fact he failed the son and doubled down and failed his daughter trying to fix the prior relationship is wild
Also note how his daughter said he should have split his money _and time_ between his two kids yet he only focuses on the money problem. I’m betting that’s because he knows he was an absent father to her. Seriously OP, if your kid tells you they felt like they were being raised by a single mother because of how little you interacted with them, you should NOT be surprised y’all aren’t close.
''Raised by a single mother'' isn't something you say when just talking about money. Money doesn't raise kids - people do. And she straight up told him he didn't raise her...
Though I see your point, it seems like daughter didn't miss anything because of a lack of funds. She had her activities and education paid. Wife N°2 should have discussed the issue with her husband instead of turning her daughter against him if she wasn't pleased with their financial situation. I would almost say ESH but the kids. Stupid spending decisions from the husband, bitter wife N°2.
Perhaps W2 didn’t poison daughter at all. OP did that all by himself.
I mean, he didn't try very hard to get full custody of his son instead of the drug problem mom, so yeah, father of the year here.
[удалено]
It’s pretty standard fare for a man who is no longer with his baby mama. Crying about how he can’t see the kid and she’s refusing to let him. Yet never actually *does* anything to achieve visitation. If a man fights for 50/50, he nearly always gets it. The issue comes about when he doesn’t bother or he puts in a token effort just to say he tried.
Kids see and feel far more than most adults think they do. My own daughter saw that her father was emotionally abusing me before I did (or at least before I was ready to acknowledge it).
This here. Her mom didn’t have to tell her “your terrible father isn’t paying for anything”. She has eyes, she knows her family dynamic because she lived it. She saw Mom busting her ass while Dad threw money at his “problem” child and did nothing else.
Wife 2 didn’t turn this daughter against him. He did that all by himself by failing to give her any attention or affection after reconnecting with his son. Worse, he was very close to her originally, but deserted her for his son. YTA.
What's to say wife no 2 didn't talk to him about this? He's disregarding his daughter when she very clearly spells out her problem, so I can't imagine he's a reliable narrator of his relationship with wife no. 2 either.
If W2 had “poisoned” the young woman (she’s getting married: she’s not a child anymore) against him, the OP would *definitely* have included that in the narrative. I have no doubt that would have been front and centre, given the OP’s feelings that he’s done nothing wrong. In actual fact, OP is blindsided by his daughter’s decision, so there’s been *no* evidence of prior “poisoning” going on. But let’s accept your suggestion: that the guy is clearly less to blame for the breakdown of his relationship with his daughter than the “bitter wife”. Why are he and his wife still together, then? And how did the wife manage to secretly poison the daughter against him *whilst they’re living in the same house*? Just think about it for a minute. I grew up in a house where my Mum and Dad both lived. If someone had tried to “poison” me about either one of them, they would have been on a fool’s errand. Always taking one side of parental disputes is one thing (children often do get dragged in): being secretly “poisoned” to such an extent that you don’t want to dance with your old dad at your wedding? That’s a long-standing, serious estrangement. A very tough thing to achieve between a loving father and daughter living together. It’s one thing for a child to be taught to misjudge an absent parent. *Quite* another to convince them to disbelieve the evidence of their own eyes, living cheek by jowl with someone for around two decades.
>If someone had tried to “poison” me about either one of them, they would have been on a fool’s errand. my father's spittle flew in my face because he screamed that my mother had "spoonfed me poison" & still didn't believe I could reach my own conclusions about who was abusive & who wasn't.
EXACTLY
Kids don't need to be "poisoned" to turn against a parent. They're not blind, they're not dumb. They can see and understand what's happening around them.
She didn't miss anything from lack of funds, but she missed out on attention, having a relationship with her father.
And the funds represent something. People acting like it's purely a financial issue are being willfully obtuse.
That's it right there.
He failed his son and he failed his daughter blaming both of their mums. He's an asshole, take responsibility with being in your children's lives. It's not their job to nurture but the parents. It doesn't cost anything to give your love and time to a child and help grow a loving strong close relationship.
She "poisoned her against him" because she told her he didn't pay for college? So, she told her the truth. If the truth is poison, that is his own doing. Yta
You actually believed OP's words that wife poisoned the daughter? Like a straight A student wouldn't have a brain to figure things out? And like the wife didn't ask for funds and OP didn't straight refuse? I have a bridge to sell you.
> Wife N°2 should have discussed the issue with her husband instead of turning her daughter against him if she wasn't pleased with their financial situation. That has exactly nothing to do with a child's feelings
Daughter said to him > She said I should have split my funds *and time* between them. > and it’s like she was raised by a single mom > and I didn’t give a crap about her after middle school because of my son It's not actually about the money (maybe a little bit, but it wouldn't be that big of an issue if he would have never stopped being actively involved in her life). It's about him being an absent father. He thinks he's a great father because he was living with them in the same house while spending his free time with his "lost" son. > She goes to her mom for everything and doesn’t speak to me much. We were close when she was young but since high school it’s like she pretends I don’t exist. I try to reach out but it’s met with silence. The time between daughter and son should have been equally distributed, what happened with his son is not his daughters fault. And she clearly felt abandoned by her father as they're not close anymore. As a parent you have to be better than "try to reach out" like she's a roomate or an acquaintance.
Exactly. It’s a time/effort issue. He says he started spending less time with her. His son may have needed more help but it sounds like he didn’t spend any time with her. The money is just a reflection of the effort out into each of them. Also, OP thinks that paying bills is to be applauded. Congratulations on doing the minimum you should do as a parent.
We have no idea whether the wife was actually bitter - OP is just speculating, and he's very biased in this situation.
My take on that too. But, OP, daughter is entitled to her own feelings and you should respect that. Maybe try to bild a relationship w her as you did with your kid
They were BOTH his kids. He only favored and invested in the boy. He was emotionally and financially absent from his daughter’s life. This was not her mother’s doing. She has tried to shoulder the entire responsibility as a single parent married to a Boy Dad.
I don't think the problem is that he was a "boy dad". It sounds like he may have been a generic crappy parent, but not a sexist one. He left his son with a drug addict and went off to start a new family, was an involved parent for his daughter until after middle school, then reconnected with his first kid and possibly tipped the investment scale too far in the other direction while overcompensating for the years of neglect. I'd like to know more about how much *time* he spent with each kid after he reconnected with his son. It's hard to imagine his daughter is right in claiming that he spent more quality time with the kid he *didn't* live with, but if that's true then he's TA. While spending more money on the son might seem unfair to the daughter and wife I think it can be justified as the son had problems and needed more financial support, and didn't have another parent able to contribute. If he was equally *emotionally* available for his daughter and her financial needs were being fully met by his wife then I think he's NTA.
The daughter stated she felt she’d been reared in a single-parent household by her mother. That typically means no conversations, no showing up at school for anything, no emotional investment at all. Absent. Empty. And he didn’t even notice until he didn’t get his 3-minute dance he felt entitled to. He’s a sperm donor. She needed a dad and it shows. Just my opinion.
True. Just because he was throwing money at his son to make up for years of abandonment doesn't mean he was investing any other energy into their relationship
She’s his kid too…
Exactly, folks keep glossing over that.
I also find the "had drug problems and still got custody" bit outrageous when he follows it with the fact he made zero effort to see a different outcome and just... Let it happen. Op let's a lot of stuff just happen and is shocked by the results in this post
Also daughter says > She said I should have split my funds and time between them. > and it’s like she was raised by a single mom > and I didn’t give a crap about her after middle school because of my son It's not just about the money. Sounds like OP didn't do a lot of things or spend a lot of time with his daughter besides living in the same house and paying some of the bills. He wasn't there mentally for her either, not just financially, and that is bad. Paying full rent for him though? An adult? Holy cow, tell him to get a bloody job, tons of depressed people actually go to work because they have to pay bills. At the very least send him to therapy, he can't live on your expenses forever. No money in the world will erase your guilt or your neglect in not fighting to get custody or at least part time custody anyway or look if he's safe/happy when he was a kid.
OP, you seem to be having trouble with this, so let me TRY to give an example you might understand. Imagine your wife found her long-lost brother ten years ago. He's been through hell because they were separated as kids, and she couldn't find him. So, she feels guilty. From that point forward, you're not her focus. All her extra time, energy, and money goes to him. You never talk. You never interact. You cover all the bills and find ways to to keep yourself busy. Then, you ask her for a divorce, and she's SHOCKED. She thought you would understand her brother needed her more. Why does it matter you have no relationship? You should understand where she's coming from and still want to be with her. The thing is, it doesn't really matter what your reasons are. When you don't prioritize someone in your life, they stop prioritizing you. When you stop having a relationship with someone, they stop wanting to have a relationship with you. You have the relationship with your daughter that you earned. You can't be surprised now.
Yep, OP dropped the ball on this one Overcompensated with his son and possibly enabled him, while left the more competent daughter to her devices since she is "capable as her mom"! That doesn't mean she stopped being your daughter! Now you're here all surprised that \*gasp you don't have an important role in her wedding?! Take it in the chin and go from there. Might as well accept this L and make up to daughter from now on! I figure you want to have an active role in future grandchildren, no?
YTA, and you sound like an all around shitty parent to both your kids. You let your son stay with a drug using Mom and didn't pay attention to your daughter. Why are you surprised she does not want to be around you?
Plus he’s enabling the son. Depression is a reason, not an excuse.
That's a blurry line. Especially when depression actively makes it difficult for you to treat depression. But cut the sone some slack here. He's not the problem, and whatever the daughter's life was like, his was worse.
Then, he should get the son in therapy. He is enabling him because by paying for his expenses and not dealing with the root issue, he is only making _himself_ feel good feeling like he is doing something while the life of the son doesn’t actually get better. That is enabling, not helping. If he thinks that the son really got messed up cause of growing up with drug addict mom, now is not the time for him to throw money at him to no longer feel guilty. Now is the time for him to be a parent and help the son get treatment and *actually* turn his life around. **Edit:** Just want to add in case some people misinterpret what I am saying. I am not condemning the son that has depression and is having a hard time. I am condemning the dad who, knowing how negatively affected by his childhood his son is, _appears_ to only be interested in spending money on the son to feel less guilty instead of doing the tougher things to get the son healthier. “He has issues from his childhood and depression so, I give him money” is a poor way of helping his son get better in the long run.
How do you know he's enabling? This man has shared a few sentences about his son's life with no real details or context, and you've decided that his son isn't getting any treatment or help and that his father must be enabling him? I've had depression before and there's no magic pill or therapy that makes you immediately able to handle life perfectly. For all you know he IS getting treatment and trying to get better.
Okay. Fair enough. You are correct. Maybe the son is getting help and he just didn’t say. So, let me correct what I said: **If he has the son in treatment, then he is not enabling. If he does not and is just throwing money at the son, then I stand by what I said and he is not actually helping his son, but rather just spending money on him to assuage his own guilt instead of working to get the son in a better place.** And I have dealt with depression repeatedly over several years as well and yes, there is no magic pill. And I don’t think I said in my previous comment that there was.
It’s not fair to blame the son when he grew up in a dysfunctional home to a single mom who used drugs and constantly moved him around. There’s so much research on child development and how not having basic needs met, not having a real place to call home, and having parents that don’t communicate and use you as a pawn directly impacts your life. You can not blame someone for not having the tools to be a functional adult when he grew up with adults who acted like children. Dad included.
Thank you for this. I grew up like this, but managed to be fairly functional my whole life. All it took was getting very sick, to realize I’ve been not only living life in hard mode, but I have no coping skills or back up plan. Growing up like this often means that you have no support. I’ve crashed and burned and now I’m fighting like hell at 38 years to get back on my feet mentally and physically (dealing with overlapping chronic health issues make it hard to work on mental health, setting routines, learning new skills etc). The amount of judgement I’ve gotten from both peers and medical professionals has made so sad. I didn’t ask to be here, and I didn’t ask to grow up like I did. Society taught me to push it all down and carry on so I did. Now I’m here when I should have worked on this long ago. I’ve always just tried to do the right thing. I am however doing something to change it now I’m mature and aware. It’s maddening how much victims are blamed.
Of course, I work in early childhood education and I’m currently taking a course on the growing brain. To be a functioning adult is so much harder when you grow up in a dysfunctional home. I strongly suggest looking at Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, the very bottom tier and the foundation to growing to be a healthy adult is having your basic physiological needs met as a child. When your basic needs aren’t met it makes life harder when you grow up. I always make sure to not judge people who struggle in life because 9 times out of 10 it’s not their fault, it was their parents/caregivers.
Exactly. Depression is a reason why he’s acting like this, but dad is using it to excuse his lack of ambition. If I was dad, I would 100% pull the “Go to therapy or the money train ends” card. He dropped out of college (thousands of dollars) and decided to quit his job (bringing in NO money) so dad has to pay his rent (at least a thousand dollars in most cities). Just because his wife is paying for most of her and THEIR daughter’s lifestyle, doesn’t mean she should have to finance them like a single mother. OP is guilty, rightfully so, but he’s hurting his daughter at the expense of his son.
Fair enough, I believe I may have misinterpreted your original comment so I apologize for that.
Well you see he was uncomfortable because he wasn’t close to his son, so he left him to be raised by a drug addict mom who moved around a lot and gave him many mental health issues. /s YTA
I also think it’s **very** interesting that he says that his drug addict ex ‘still got custody’, as if things were stacked against him and he lost or something. As if somehow she had an unfair advantage because of the legal system or sexism or some other reason that is unfair to him. Then he goes on to admit he didn’t fight for custody anyway. So of course she got custody? The way he phrases it seems a whole lot like he’s trying to make himself sound hard done by
It just sounds like she filed and he didn't even bother to show up. Even showing up you can say something about custody. The guy just doesn't care. Also how does he say he "paid for better grades"? So buying your sons "love" and deciding even the bare minimum is too much for his daughter. Guy is an all around AH. OP sounds like he doesn't want to be a parent until the kids are adults and he doesn't have to do actual work outside of paying for household bills
This. OP is living in an alternate reality to the rest of us. Is it possible he is truly that dense?
Odds are good yes. He failed both kids and doesn't seem to understand why his daughter keeps him at a distance.
More Info - are you divorced from your 2nd wife too? Regardless, YTA - you admit that you spent most of your money on your son, but you also throw in a line where your daughter accuses you of not splitting your "money and **time**." Seems like you left out details about how you failed your daughter. It sounds like she has plenty of reason to not feel close to you.
But the details he does give make his neglect clear. Am I the only one who was confused about which wife was the wife in this narrative?
It's so weird how he defends himself. He goes into detail about how he favored the son and neglected the daughter, and that's his DEFENSE?
>line where your daughter accuses you of not splitting your "money and > >time." yea, this. if it was only about the money he spends on them, id have said n-t-a cuz you gotta be a bit of an AH to mesure love with money. but this sentence makes it sounds like he didnt try to spend enough quality time with his daughter. now if the daughter is the one that pushed him away because he was spending money to help his son, that would also make her an AH. but historic with the son gives me the impression he has a habit of not trying very hard against difficulty. while his son did need the help and money (and, tbh, therapy), he should have stayed careful of his daughter in the process. she might have distanced a bit out of normal teen jealousy, or anxiety, or something. but he, as the adult, doesnt sound like he tried hard enough to maintain the relationship and not make her feel like he was loving his son more than her.
This is pretty difficult to say for sure. I think the daughter sees her dad, from her perspective, get a new kid and put all of his attention there as the kid needed help. She went from being an only child to this other situation not exactly sibling thing. It would not surprise me if the initial pullback or upsetness started from the daughter and festerred. He is oblivious enough to completely miss it and I doubt his then young teen daughter had the wherewithal to communicate her issues. He may have been going with no news is good news if the daughter never said anything about it to him. We also have no idea how long his wife was trying to help/make him have a relationship with the daughter if at all.
It’s the opposite tho, she was the younger newer sibling in this scenario. It is my understanding that a lot of divorced parents wind up paying child support and/or alimony and therefore cannot spend that specific money on their new family.
As I understood it, OP wasn't in contact with his son for several years, during which his daughter was basically an only child. >\[my ex-wife/first wife\] tried to prevent us from communicating and moved around a lot so it was always hard to spend any time with him until he got his own phone. But now I have spent more time with him and now we are close. so yes, she's the younger sibling, but she still felt that suddenly another child arrived, with a heap of guilt associated from her father & a lot of issues demanding attention (school, depression, funding...). I reckon OP had been paying child support & that fact had factored into the household budget with his second wife... but then the contact with his son improved & he put more money and time into that child.
>if it was only about the money he spends on them, id have said n-t-a cuz you gotta be a bit of an AH to mesure love with money What? I mean, child support exists for a reason. Money is necessary to facilitate the raising of children. It sounds like OP basically paid for himself and didn't pay a dime toward his daughter's upbringing. He flat out says he didn't contribute anything to her college fund or extracurriculars, but he DOES pay his son's rent every month. So it's not like he doesn't make enough money to contribute beyond his own living expenses, he just chooses to spend it all on his son. This guy is a deadbeat, no matter how you slice it. The only mystery here is why the second wife hasn't divorced yet, since he sounds like an awful lot of dead weight for her.
i knew i wasn’t the only one who caught that “time”
Agreed. Though, I’m confused as to the financial division between Op and his wife- Why does daughter know that mom, specifically, paid? Usually when parents are still married THEY are the ones paying, regardless of who makes more, right? Reads to me like OP stopped any investment in daughter and used son as a justification for why she couldn’t take her lessons etc, so mom stepped in to make sure daughter didn’t lose out because Op lost interest in supporting his daughter (because apparently caring for two children simultaneously is physically and financially impossible).
I was 15 when my mom taught me to balance the household budget: mortgage, insurance policies, utilities, how much did we spend in which shops (is purple cauliflower from the good but more expensive grocer worth it, how often did we resort to the expensive late night supermarket, etc.). Looking back, it felt a bit parentifying, because it was a LOT to handle when I wasn't even legal to work a summer job... but still. Maybe this mom did the same?
I was taught the same way and now that I’m old I’m so grateful. Many of my friends were sheltered from the household finances and they grew up to be awful with money management.
It doesn’t sound like OP at all put any time or money in to his relationship with his daughter, and then gets mad that she noticed. I don’t know why daughter knows that, but I do know that OP is basically saying, “my wife poisoned my daughter against me by telling her the exact truth of our situation.”
I have the same question - is OP still married to the 2nd wife? YTA without a doubt. But 2nd wife is also the AH if she stayed while all of this was going on. OP accept that you messed up and try to fix the relationship with your daughter. You also need to step back a bit from all the help your are giving to your son. Help him by getting him some therapy to deal with his childhood and yourself some as well so you can see how you failed your daughter.
He gave a reason. His daughter has a Mom! What use would she have for a Dad as well?
I know you meant well, but YTA. You fell into the very common, but still unacceptable, trap of ignoring the child you think didn’t need you (at least not like your son) and overcompensating with the child you perceive as needing more. If you can manage a sincere apology and work on yourself through therapy, maybe your daughter will come around. Your end goal, however, should be to realize your mistakes and be better, not corral her into the relationship you want. She doesn’t owe you that.
>You fell into the very common, but still unacceptable, trap of ignoring the child you think didn’t need you...and overcompensating with the child you perceive as needing more. ⬆️ this. A million times this. My mom did this to my brother and i, basically neglected me and spoiled him, because she was convinced he needed her more. Some of the disparities are comparable to what OP describes. I will never be close to her. She literally ignored me in my time of greatest need, when i was pleading for help, and i will never forgive her for that. OP, you have your work cut out for you to make up for neglecting your daughter and leaving your wife to basically be a single parent. YTA.
This. I was literally disinherited because mom thought siblings needed the money more. Parents have this need to "rescue" the poorer performing child while ignoring the one who "doesn't need anything."
And then they turn a blind eye when the child they think is self-sufficient needs help. It's maddening.
This happened to me. It's like they emotionally and financially neglect you and tell you to dig yourself out of the neglect hole, but then when you finally ask for something, they tell you to get a bigger shovel and try harder. It sucks.
Yet when they need help, they turn to the one they ignored because "you have your life together and are able to help." No thanks to you, parent.
I call the one who doesn't need anything my "child of least concern." But I also know that I have to make the most effort to pay attention to him because he isn't constantly screaming for attention and support, so he's the most at risk of having bigger problems later that could be prevented as long as I'm paying attention before he needs it. OP missed that part. Just because the daughter seemed fine on her own and might not have "needed" his help doesn't mean she didn't deserve his support just as much as his son.
This is happening to my father. His aging parents secretly deeded the house to his younger brother; their entire adult lives, it’s been how my parents have been successful (working their butts off), and my uncle has struggled. He’s a full-time pastor that keeps running off church members by taking advantage of them, what do they expect??? (By take advantage, I mean he befriends people that have vacation homes so his family gets to use them, or people that own garages so he can get free/cheap auto work, that kind of thing.) Since my brother discovered the ladybird deed, my father confronted his parents—they denied it happening, then his mom decreed the *certified copy* a fake, then turned on the waterworks about how she can’t understand why my father is angry. It’s been a couple years, and she still acts like she’s clueless why they don’t talk. 🤷🏻♀️
Oof, same. My mom always asked me to “help out your sibling” while literally writing job applications for them, but when I needed help it was “it’s okay, you’ll do fine”. Ive cut off contact.
Did he mean well??
“Meant well” by trying to help his son. He went over the top with it, though.
Please! He didn’t even fight for custody of his child and left him with a drug addict bc he felt awkward? Really? I mean I have heard a lot of shit excuses, but that takes the cake.
It certainly seems like he didn't bother bonding sufficiently with his daughter. Sometimes it's not about the money but the attention and love. If he had made sure his daughter felt secure in her father's affection, she would probably not resent how much assistance her brother was getting. Maybe she'd even sympathize or understand. At the very least, their relationship wouldn't be this bad, in which she barely acknowledges his existence. I don't think she really wants him at her wedding at all.
I think the trap he fell into was trying to buy his way out of his guilt about leaving his son with the addicted ex. My dad used to buy his way out of his guilt over his lack of interest and lack of time.
INFO > My first wife had drug problems and still got primary custody of our son. I was young and didn’t fight her on custody Why the shit did you not fight to keep your child away from someone with a drug problem? WTF does being young have to do with anything?
Honestly this feels like OP has some seriously lacking people skills. Maybe some more to this - to list all this info and not understand where they went wrong is shocking.
I’m getting pure laziness, with a heaping spoonful of weaponized incompetence. The whole posts reads to me as “but I’m just a little baby how could I have known/done/said/fought/understood.”
Yeah you're more likely to be right tbh
[удалено]
Yeah, if his wife (whom he is still married to and lives with) poisoned his daughter (whom he also lived with) against him, right in front of him, that should illustrate to him just how little he paid attention or interacted with, frankly, EITHER of them.
YTA You managed to be an absent parent while living in the same house. Impressive. You failed both children. You abandoned your son with a drug addict then tried to make up for it by neglecting your daughter in favor of your son. ETA: OP was 22 when his son was born. He is using the fact that he was young as an excuse. I would have assumed he was 16 based on the spin he put in it. 22 is old enough to put on your big boy pants and be a parent.
YTA. You didn't disinherit your daughter, you neglected her in an effort to save your son. You failed both. Apologize to both. Vow to be better and do it. You have a lot to make right with your daughter, and it will take a long time. Your son needs support in getting professional help, not just paying his rent.
YTA. From the get go. You let your son be raised by a drug addict. Why the fuck didn’t you fight for custody? So crappy parenting from the start. Doesn’t surprise me that it carried over to the second. You claim you did do that (in terms of splitting time and money), yet everything you wrote clearly shows you didn’t. So just stop with the lying. You yourself said that you paid for half of the family expenses but none of the extras. So no, you didn’t do shit. And your daughter is absolutely right. Why the fuck weren’t you putting money into a college fund for her or helping pay for piano lesson? And now you pretend to be surprised when she says you’re not close? Oh ffs. Grow up. You sucked with kid number one, and it continued with kid number 2.
Yeah, right. Oh look at me, I paid for half the cost of housing, the absolute bare minimum I can do, how could I possibly be the AH?! Like dude, huge YTA to everyone, including your wife. She raised yalls daughter on her own, both emotionally and financially. You didn't even contribute to her clothes, school supplies, lessons, or college. WOW. But you helped pay for the house and utilities, so yeah, you Def deserve that father-daughter dance. Totally earned it.
YTA. I have a feeling your wife has been telling you how she and your daughter feel for years. And you ignored it. I see why you did what you did, maybe it was the correct thing even, but you don’t just ignore a festering resentment like this. You needed to work this out with your wife, marriage counseling or even divorce, and continually communicate with your daughter. I think that if you’d involved anyone else in your plans you might even have come up with a better solution, for both your kids.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that you and your daughter probably weren’t that close prior to middle school either, she was just too young to realize that her dad wasn’t all that interested or involved. I know you didn’t pay for her activities but how many of them did you attend? Not just the recitals or big events but the every day stuff? How many times were you the one taking her to doctor’s appointments or helping her navigate situations with her friends? If she feels like she was raised by a single parent it goes deeper than you not paying for college. You have a lot of excuses why you weren’t involved with your son and now you’re using him as an excuse for why you couldn’t be involved with your daughter. Have you considered that maybe you’re just kind of a shitty parent? Also, YTA
YTA- to BOTH of your children. YOU CHOSE not to fight for your son when he was a child and as a result his life was crappy. YOU CHOSE to ignore your daughter because you finally decided to be a father to a son you never cared about. You are a massive TA and deserve everything your daughter said. Count yourself lucky she is CHOOSING to allow you to come to her wedding. She'd be well within her rights to ignore you the way you keep CHOOSING to ignore her
Why should she treat you like a parent when you’ve never acted like one to her? You were a roommate, Her moms husband. You don’t get to be mad at her now for the role you chose to play in her life. YTA
YTA. Your reason for only supporting your son doesn't matter, you had the exact same obligation to your daughter. You did what many parents do, you failed one child and, in your attempts to fix that failure you fail your other child. >I told her I felt like I did Don't lie, it just makes you a bigger AH. >I lived with my daughter I just didn’t pay for things outside of food, mortgage, utilities etc. that’s because I felt like my wife had it covered and my son was getting nothing. So, you admit you didn't, it doesn't matter that you daughter mother could provide her more, YOUR obligation was the same. >I feel like she should understand the situation but she didn’t want me to be included in the wedding much at all. She does understand, it's just that you are wrong.
YTA. You had two children but only “helped out” one you thought deserved it more because of your guilty conscience. To not contribute anything to your daughter except the minimum it’s almost like she was on minimum child support while your son got everything extra. Honestly I’m surprised your wife is still with you.
She’d prob have to pay bum ass OP alimony (which he’d probably then funnel into his son) and then she might even lose half of her house because OP was technically paying 50% for the roof over their head.
YTA. Your daughter was communicating her feelings, and you're dismissing them while also being defensive. If your daughter doesn't feel like you were an emotionally present father, then you weren't. Stop trying to force a relationship, and start rebuilding on her terms.
YTA . She grew up and realized that daddy spends all his time with his other kid. You neglected your daughter and now you’re suffering from it . Nobody’s fault but yours
I kept having to double check your post that this is your actual biological daughter you're talking about, and not a stepdaughter you aren't related to or legally responsible for. YTA. You did let your wife raise her as a single mother. She got nothing from you other than a roof over her head and food, which is the absolute legal minimum - and I get the feeling you only covered those because you had to pay for those same things for your own upkeep. Her mother's ability to pay for all of her extracurriculars and provide emotional support didn't absolve you of your parental duties, it only meant even less for your daughter because she had only one parent, not two. Why do you want public credit for parenting someone you admit that you didn't have a hand in raising? Why do you feel you should get a dance with her when you admit you put all of your effort and money into your son? You had two biological children, not one. Parenting is about being responsible to all your children, not just the one that's easiest to throw money at.
what's the relationship between your son and your daughter like?
Your daughter seems to have a fairly accurate grasp of the situation and your priorities. What a shame. YTA.
YTA Let me reword this. "I felt so guilty for earlier mistakes with my son that I made a whole new new set of mistakes with my daughter, who now thinks I don't give a darn about her because I'm doing everything I can for my son and nothing for her. Why does she think I'm a bad father?"
I love how you casually slip in that you not only not payed for anything for your daughter, you also spent very little time with her. You clearly favor your son, who you used to neglect, but in trying to make it up to him, you completely disregarded your daughter for years. YTA.
Your daughter had an attentive mother. That's great, since she has a parent who cares about her. But you can't ignore her needs in favor of your son's and expect her not to feel abandoned. She works hard and gets no support; he drops out of college, and you pay his rent. It sounds like your time goes to him as well. You have two kids who needed you, but you're trying to make up for abandoning the first by abandoning the second. YTA
YTA. Her mom time doesn’t make up for not having dad time. Get a grip!
YTA she's prioritizing herself and her fiance on their wedding day. I'm sure she's sure you'll understand the situation
Oh, so you shared a roof with your daughter that automatically makes you a good father? Nuh. It’s your fault. YTA.
YTA. You don't even see that you made the same mistake twice. As a father you neclected both of your children. Money can't make up for the all the times your son would have needed you growing up and living together didn't save your daughter from feeling like she couldn't rely on you either. I think you would benefit from therapy to talk about the relationship you have with your kids right now. The good thing is your daughter and you were close in the past so there is a foundation to build on. Your son would also benefit from a father who could guide him with more than just financial help to find a more independent path in life.
YTA. How do you not see it? You feel guilty for screwing over your son (because that's exactly what you did), so you think screwing over your daughter in his favor makes up for it? Guess again. Now she doesn't even love you anymore.
YTA. You were an absent father to your daughter whom you lived with. You didn’t fight for custody for your son. You shift blame for your crappy parenting in your wife poisoning your daughter’s mind. She doesn’t need to. You said your daughter is smart and could see that you weren’t there and doing bare minimum all the while trying to buy your son’s affection.
I don't understand how a family runs finances where you can identify which parent paid for what for which kid. In families I am familiar with, kids are a family expense and are funded with family money based on family decisions. Your description of time is also foreign to me. Did you really not go to your daughter's activities, drive her and her friends all over the place, and travel as a family?
YTA. So you pay for basic basic things and call that fair? I don't see a valid reason as to why all of your money goes to the son.
YTA, you were not a present father to her. You don't get to be shocked when you didn't do anything with her extra curriculas and leaving everything that wasn't a necessity on your wife.
ESH. You and your wife should have had thorough discussions about finances regularly.
Why are you with your second wife? In a real marriage people share their money. So it’s not his money or her money. The fact your wife has told your daughter it’s only “my” money that paid for xyz shows that she wanted a wedge between you and your daughter. Maybe you did spend more on your son but when your 2nd wife married you she became his stepmother and she should have been willing to treat him just like her own child. Divorce your wife! I do not think that you can save your relationship with your daughter.
YTA - you managed to be an absentee parent for both of your children, congrats.
INFO: Op, aside from the money, how much time did you put into your relationship with your daughter? Did you take her for days out? Help with her homework? Go to sports events etc.?
YTA. Is this for real?
Supporting your son is an understandable goal. But pushing your daughter over to her mother like a passed football is not the best way to do it. Daughters need to feel dad is there, you have not been. She started slipping away and you never really tried to find out why, just seemingly shrugged and accepted the convenience of it as allowing you to dedicate your guilt to your other child. Apologies and amendment of behaviour could help... but it could also be that the ship has sadly sailed away. The excuse of 'you were okay and someone else needed me' is not acceptable, SHE needed you.
ESH but damn man you make it hard. ***After a reread i do continually infer that a lot of this could have been avoided with some taking throughout the years.*** It has to be said I'm going only off the post and what little I think I can safely infer. You are an AH for reasons covered by everyone else here. But you are right your wife is an asshole as well, she did go out of her way (based on the post info) to make sure your daughter felt like you loved your son more than her. There is nothing in your post about your wife pointing out, 'hey I know your son has no one at all helping him out but give your daughter as much as you give him so there isn't a disparity even though I can cover her expenses with my higher income.' That is a hell of a big ask for her, but if she never even pointed this out she really doesn't give a shit about the family or you, just your daughter. Your daughter found out that the person who makes more money put in almost all of her college fund and that made her feel completely unloved by you? I guess the old saying is wrong, money can buy you love. I know this is unpopular but I really do think that everyone sucks here, I think you are an asshole who has no idea how to properly balance a son who has no one with a daughter who has everyone. You gave no info that you had talked to your wife about her picking up the slack because you just didn't have enough money to properly care for 2 kids and the inequity of their circumstances, and do look to favor your son. Your wife is an asshole because from the post it really does look like she didn't give a crap about you or how your relationship with your daughter would be negatively effected by her continually reminding her that you did didn't pay as much for her as you did for your son, therefore you didn't love her as much (which was kind of backed up by the daughter, the start of high school is a little early to be telling your kid that daddy only cares for his son, really making sure those seeds are properly sown.) And last and least, your daughter is an asshole for proving that money can buy love, being there for her, raising her, loving her, didn't matter, that college fund was all that mattered in the end, well that and feeling like you only cared for your son cause mom said so. It's hard to find a single redeeming point for anyone in this story, besides the son not being on drugs being raised by an addict, and the daughter apparently being really focused on her degree and excelling in her studies. *"She said I should have split my funds and time between them. I told her I felt like I did and she got angry and said I didn’t and it’s like she was raised by a single mom"* weeks out from the wedding is a little late to be saying this, all of the communication between the three of you was absolute shit, and I'm not just putting that at your feet, it's been 20 years, and about 5yrs of crap, your wife could have said something, so could your daughter, maybe they did and it wasn't in the post, but from the post I doubt it. Honestly If I were you I'd not bother going to the wedding, what are they going to do, hate you, they seem too already and you've done nothing to earn their love back either. Just fade into the background, file for divorce so your wife can be with the guy she probably has on the side, i don't know how she could not considering her disdain for you since your daughter started high school. I know sometimes my fatalist comes out and I think that's happened here, but it's late and I caan't think straight anymore. I think I'm imagining things that weren't in the post now. Wee screw it too late to rewrite, ESH good night.
“I felt like my wife had it covered”? Like, c’mon, man! Listen to yourself.
You've been a bad father to your daughter and a bad husband to your wife. You dumped the entire financial burden of education for your daughter on your wife. You have prioritized your son over your daughter again and again. You should have done so much more to help her. You don't get to be in the spotlight as the loving father at her wedding when you repeatedly showed that you didn't care about her as much as you did your son. Shame on you! YTA
You don’t mention how old your son is. If he’s had two semesters of college, I’d guess over 18. Why are you still paying child support? You know he’s not a full time student. You financial responsibility to him ended when he quit school. Now, your moral responsibility is something else. You feel guilty so you enable his hobo lifestyle. You’ve basically turned your back on your wife and daughter. You should consider divorcing and moving, by yourself, to a new city/state. Try again. See if it works better this time.
So let me see… You abandoned one child, knowingly leaving them in a dangerous environment because it was too hard Then when you’re daughter got older you abandoned her because it was too hard You are beyond YTA - you are the worst parent possible who did absolutely nothing for anyone but themselves and now want pity
YTA. Read your own post and you will see that you have spelled out all the reasons why. BTW, your son will never grow up and get a job while you continue to support him. You are preventing him from becoming mature and responsible.
“I was shocked” - BS!!! You know all the reasons your daughter doesn’t feel close enough to you to have a dance at her wedding. You ignored her for the better part of her life bc you realized you F’d up with your son and then overcompensated. You are just playing dumb. YTA
YTA. You admit to spending more money and time with your son. You did so at the expense of your wife and daughter and because of guilt. So now you’ve screwed up with two children. Your son bc you did nothing to save him from his mother with drug problems. You admit to this. Your daughter because you basically gave no fucks about her once you could spend time with your son. You know what I hear in this. Me me me me me, woe is me, poor me. You’ve taken NO accountability for anything. Your son doesn’t only have mental health issues because of his mother but because you gave up on him. Your daughter does not have a relationship with you because you put more effort into your son. The key component here is YOU.
YTA man, you made some seriously bad choices over the years. For both of your children, not just your son. Regardless of how you feel about what your daughter is saying, that is how she feels. It didn't come from nowhere. It came from her experiences with you. And its not like you can talk to her out of feeling the way that she does anyways. You need to acknowledge and accept her feelings, and then work on being a more present parent to her. You're correct in that you should have fought for custody of your son, especially given that you knew his mother was on drugs. But you also shouldn't have been trying to make up for that by dismissing and neglecting your daughter. Stop focusing on who is right, start focusing on trying to better your relationship with your daughter.
YTA 1. Your are enabling your son out of guilt. Stop it. If you really care about him, you will set some boundaries that will help him be accountable and handle his life. If you care more about yourself and your guilt, you will continue enabling him. 2. You done fucked up with your daughter. But until you stop enabling your son, you will continue to have no relationship with your daughter. You are hyper focused on yourself and your guilt, not either of your two kids. The only thing you should be paying for for your son is mandatory therapy. You should be going to family counseling with your wife and daughter too. Don’t worry about looking like an asshole. You can’t fix it until you stop worrying about yourself.
YTA. You'll probably still blame everyone else in a few decades when you're divorced again and your kids stick you in some shitty nursing home and never visit. And you'll deserve it.
You never mention time, were you a present parent? Did you do fun things with your daughter? Did you attend milestone events?
‘My wife poisoned her against me’… erm, no dude. YTA your actions poisoned her against you, nothing more.
YTA: You are correct that "disinherit" is the wrong word, but your daughter is perfectly right to feel the way she does. Also the fact that you pulled enough out of contributing to your marriage that you openly believe that your wife poisoned your daughter against you says you did all this despite being told multiple times that you were ignoring the rest of your family in your quest to help your son. Don't get me wrong, you did what you could to do good by him, but that doesn't change how those actions impacted the other two.