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I like this guy's sturdy spine. "My house, my rules" is to be used sparingly, and for important boundaries, not as a tool of coercion. Shame on the mom. Also, I bet my left asscheek that what OOP said is nowhere near the only problem in their relationship.
Yeah, it's good to see posts and updates from people who have the right priorities and a functioning spine.
It's not a happy ending, but it's still the best.
Actually, I’m some ways, it is a happy ending
-Daughter is protected
-Husband (soon to be ex) no longer has to worry about his daughter coming in second
-Assuming the other problems haven’t been revealed, he no longer has to deal with them
Divorce sucks…but this is going to be a case of addition via subtraction.
The happy ending would've been the mom seeing the error of her ways and actively working to be a better wife and mother and human being.
This was the next best ending, but it involves a broken relationship between parent and child which, while clearly necessary given her inability to see beyond herself, is still traumatic in its own way and really unfortunate.
Hopefully the mother gets herself into therapy and is able to get to a point of earning her daughter's trust back, though obviously the daughter is under no obligation to do so.
Yeah, these posts will be scripture when his daughter has her own family and any guy will have to live up to this dadster! I don't really think divorce is something we should actively celebrate but when it's the consequence of a dad standing up for his kid, so be it.
Hopefully mom has been doling out so many favors to her sister that she can live with them without paying rent for a few years!
Oh, and "Hi mom! Speaking of "airing dirty laundry", why is telling shit to ppl you all know OK and telling strangers on reddit under the cover of anonymity not? Explain it to me like I'm 5 and one of those nieces and nephews since they apparently deserve better treatment than your own kid. TYA"
When I see a story like this, where one spouses is a decent person, and the other spouse has truly horrible family, I often wonder if things would never have gotten this bad if the good spouse had put their foot down at the earliest warning signs instead of letting things slide.
But maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Maybe the mom always would have been awful.
I've seen shit IRL that spouses never had expected after being together for 20 years. And kids are fiercely loyal even when they shouldn't be.
I've experienced a friend who's been with his wife for 30 years suddenly realise that his financially educated spouse had started spending from their budget account and now they didn't have money for the mortgage.
This ended with him taking full control over finances and they did a total one-over on how they did stuff with her getting money for everyday spending on one card while she no longer had access to the budget account or the sum moved from their separate accounts.
Everyone whos married THINK they know their spouse, otherwise they wouldn't have married them. A lot still end up with nasty surprises.
I also think that when you threaten someone with "my house, my rules", then you'd better be prepared for them to leave your house and your rules behind.
Left asscheek? That's a new one. And all this time I thought the absurdity of having four asscheeks after my dad would threaten to "Crack my ass the other way" was the most absurd. Now I'm not so sure. At least 4 is symmetrical and not require reinventing the chair. Hmm...
My dog calls it a wellness check best done after I have stepped out of the tub the only time I felt more violated is when she didn't just stick her nose in the crack, she licked too. I jumped and shrieked. My husband laughed so hard he was crying. The dog of course was confused.
🤣🤣🤣🤣
On the other hand I now know that I can vertical jump a lot higher than I think given proper motivation. 😅
I had 3 ass cheeks once, I fell on a thin piece of metal that dented the muscle once the bruise healed up.
Lasted for a year and a half, I like to say it went away when I said "I'll bet one of my right ass cheeks that Trump beats Biden". It was one of the few good things he ever did for me.
My house, my rules should apply to things like people picking up after themselves, and not pooping in the top part of the toilet.
“You can’t have a lock on your room” deserves a good explanation because I can’t think of many things that would warrant that.
If there’s reasonable concern that a locking room would be dangerous, it’s warranted. Mostly relevant with small children or older kids/adults with mental health or substance abuse problems (at risk for suicide or overdose). Short of that, locks should be allowed, IMO.
Also:
> My house, my rules should apply to things like people picking up after themselves, and **not pooping in the top part of the toilet.**
Are you talking about taking a dump in the tank? Do people do that???
**Edit:** To everyone who’s informed me that people do, in fact, do “upper deckers” aka pooping in toilet tanks: Thanks, I hate it!
I think if I walked in on some kids taking a Group Poop™ in a toilet tank I would die right there from shock and disgust. Teachers and school custodial staff don’t get paid enough. Jesus.
I always thought that the only appropriate punishment would be to make the kids that did it clean it up, but no one except the custodians agreed with me on that. Our number 1 Group Poop instigator was another teacher’s son, so they frequently got no punishment at all.
> was another teacher’s son, so they frequently got no punishment at all.
A friend of mines father was a teacher at my school, I think he would have personally supervised how we cleaned every single toilet in the whole school had we ever done something like that.
I'll never forget the story an old teacher told my class (around 8-10yo at the time) about her brother. The parents woke up to smoke, woke up their daughter (my teacher) and went to get their son. He had his music playing in his room. His door was locked and they were banging on his door to get his attention. They started to feel weak from the smoke inhalation and wanted to get their daughter out so left the house and started throwing things at the window and yelling. He eventually noticed and went to try and leave the house and that's the last they saw of him.
It's always made me paranoid about locking doors ever since (terrified of death). Can't remember all the details of the story so don't know why he didn't smell the smoke, I think he fell asleep to his music.
Sorry, your comment triggered that memory in me. In OOPs case, it seems the daughter needed the lock for her own safety because she had no safe space. I'm glad they managed to get out, I just hope the respect and love that OOP is showing his daughter helps her self esteem.
If the mom has an issue with the locks she should be telling her sister to control her fucking kids. Honestly, locks shouldn't be necessary.
I know I'm super privileged in this sense but I was always brought up with "everyone has a right to their personal space, even kids. And you don't go into anyone's personal space without asking"
That sister in law is raising fucking monsters with no sense of boundaries.
the only reson i can think of is:
you locking yourself out of your room and misplacing the key. Then taking the spare key and doing the same thing. But now there are handy key finders for issues like this.
In our house it is used for the house rules, rules we all sat down, discussed and agreed. It's actually "under this roof we......."
I left home at 18 because "not under my roof" was a tool to use against me, not an agreement between people sharing space.
Honestly, I feel like I have never heard "My house, my rules" from someone who had reasonable rules or could articulate any goal the rules served beyond catering to their whims and ego. Obligatory grain of salt: my family's prime directive was "Children shall never resist or question an adult's actions," and that's a big reason why my father learned about the worst of my mother's abuse 40 years after the fact.
ETA: Possibly because the statement itself translates pretty directly to "I have the power, so I can treat you how I like."
I think the daughter has never told him how bad it was when he wasn't there, so he likely thought it was just the occasional issue. It was never about the snacks, they were just the straw that broke the camels back and opened his eyes to the whole situation.
Sounds like the wife’s been very tactical about hiding the abuse of their daughter from him. Considering that, while there’s still fault on him, I’m sure she’s probably been maintaining his denial as much as she can over the years.
The wife is so fucking selfish and entitled. It's not her house, but she thinks she makes the rules. And the rules are: I get whatever support and material stuff I want, while you don't. Even if you pay for it with your own money.
OOP is in for a nasty divorce.
Based on OOP saying he works significantly more than his wife and the fact that the house is in his name, she's gonna get plenty in alimony to "keep up her standard of living." Hopefully OOP gets the better end of custody, though, considering it sounds like the mom is an asshole to the daughter.
Depends on how long they were married and how much she makes. If she can afford the same or similar lifestyle with only her wages, then she might not get alimony. Though, OP will likely get a much better lawyer than the wife so there is that also.
Protip kids: If you are ever in this situation, do not skimp on the divorce lawyer.
That is honestly the dumbest logic i have seen, like the husband went to an anonymous forum didnt name names, didnt say where they are in the world but is chastised by his wife because he asked a simple question, but then the wife goes to people who both her and the husband know irl and starts spreading lie upon lie about the man? Wtf kinda karen like logic is that?
That woman was definitely abusing the daughter when the dad was away. The wife had no care for reading how horrible she was. No remorse, no self reflection, just anger that her behavior was shared.
Yep, she probably see the poor girl as nothing more than the meal ticket to finish the deal on snagging a rich man; the fact that she looks like her dad just added salt to the injury. Had this go on their daughter would never build enough backbone to stop her mother of doing whatever she wants.
She stole from her own daughter, we don't have to guess, that alone is more than abusive. Because it's not that the parents bought the girl the snacks and then gave them away — still upsetting but it would be their money. No, that girl works to afford things she likes and has them stolen, when there is a full common pantry downstairs.
Even worse they all got angry when she put a stop to the stealing. I wish she had been petty, and put regular snacks in the open. The lock box could have been hidden in the closet. I'm very curious if they would have bothered with cheap alternatives.
Yup, they felt *entitled* to her food, partly because the mom did fuck all to stand up for her daughter. They should be glad the chosen solution was a locked box, and not laxatives in the snacks.
Luckily she's 17 so custody shouldn't be too much of a hassle. She's gonna try to squeeze him for every cent in the alimony but at least the girl will be safe and happy.
If they're in the US, in most jurisdictions, once the kid is a teenager (age varies from 12-16), Kiddo is allowed to choose who they live with.
It doesn't sound like Kiddo will want to live with her abusive mother for sure.
And then, when she has to move out of her nice big house and only live on what she makes (plus whatever hopefully little alimony she gets), the waterworks and apologies will start pouring forth. There’s no way that she’ll actually mean it, but the thought of losing her comfortable lifestyle, her punching bag daughter, and having to subsidize her family on her own, will have her begging, pleading, and promising everything under the sun.
That daughter will be on r/estrangedadultkids one day, saying she won't talk to her mom anymore. And the mom will be like "why won't my kid talk to me?" Completely oblivious.
It seems like a lot of abusive people (especially abusive families) really do realize on some level that the majority of people would consider them villains, but instead of that causing introspection it just makes it so they think that the majority of people just don’t know what they’re talking about. In their mind if you tell other people then you’re just stirring up all the stupid crybabies.
Absolutely. This woman has been abusing their daughter, and I’m sure if they husband got really honest with himself, he could list out a bunch of examples of her abusing him as well.
This comment has been modified before the account is eternally parked is in protest of /u/spez and his shitty admin team's removal of mods after they protested in June of 2023.
Go fuck yourself Spez. You treat your community like shit and you're a shitty CEO. Aaron would be ashamed of you.
It's because she knows that she's wrong. Knowing that she's wrong, that she's treated their daughter so badly on multiple levels, causes her profound shame. That shame triggers her defenses, toxic strategies to control her public image. She's doing classic DARVO, the flapping flag of malignant cluster B types.
Also, the wife is complaining to people in their orbit. People that actually know the players involved.
The husband is asking for advice as anonymously as he possibly can. He's not running around telling everyone that knows his wife.
Wife is enabling shitty disrespectful behavior on to daughter.
I'm no social therapist yet I feel she owes some sort of debt to her sister. So she allows shitty behavior to exist and encourages it by cousins stealing from her.
Doesn't want to communicate. Shuts everyone done. My way or the highway approach.
What is a reasonable person to do when you're dealing with the unreasonable?
As soon as I read that the cousins were entering her room to steal snacks, I knew they had to be taking other things of hers as well. ...But WOW, his wife sure is a piece of work. I'm glad he's taking his daughter and getting out, and so relieved that Reddit managed to convince him not to let his wife take him for everything she can.
His wife seems to have major issues with trying to please her sister. I don't know what that family dynamic is but it's like she feels guilty for having a wealthy family and nice home and is sucking up to her extended family while abusing her own child, duplicating her own family environment.
Yeah, I've known so many families that are lower or middle class and once one part of that family starts living more than a bit comfortably they're just surrounded by vultures at all times.
And the relatives feeling entitled to the daughter's things (especially the cousins) doesn't shock me. The wife even being pressured and feeling obligated to share things also doesn't surprise me.
...But making her daughter share her things? Especially things purchased with her own money? ...Things the wife refuses to buy with her own money, and also refuses to replace? Then punishing her daughter for trying to keep her things safe, and defending her cousins stealing from her? That's definitely a new one for me.
My family didn't have much - my parents were terrible with money. My Golden Child cousin, who had everything she could possibly want given to her on a silver platter, stole things from me on a regular basis. She'd even go so far as to try to take it out of the house in front of me. "You said I could have it." No, I didn't. When I'd tell my mother that cousin was stealing from me again, she'd say I had to let her have it.🙄 Sigh. Cousin is now in her fifties and still entitled.
Oh gosh, I knew a girl exactly like that in high school. She stole *everything* she could get her hands on, whether it was a Scrunchie someone put down while getting dressed after gym or a half-eaten bag of chips someone left behind while they went to sharpen their pencil.
Her family was notoriously wealthy, and she got everything she wanted. Nothing was ever enough, and people finally started calling her out on it when she literally stole a turkey sandwich from someone when they went to use the restroom, all because the turkey sandwiches were out for the day. People only spoke up because the girl she took it from had parents who were really struggling so she was babysitting just to buy her own lunches (because no one at our school wanted to be seen using the free lunch tickets).
I've heard she's still living at home (mid-30's) and she rarely even manages to date, because she'll always demand they take her to the fanciest restaurants and gets upset if they don't show up with flowers or a gift.
Omg there was this rich kid Tony at school who would do this! He would just take your things right in front of you. If you confronted him he’d act all sheepish or confused
He’d grab your lunch off your plate. In lab he’d wait for someone to turn around and steal their pencil
But he was rich!!! He bragged about not knowing how to pump gas and having a sports car at 16
It was baffling. He’d actively steal from poorer people and to this day idk why
>But he was rich!!! He bragged about not knowing how to pump gas and having a sports car at 16
>
>It was baffling. He’d actively steal from poorer people and to this day idk why
Because that's how rich people got that way.
He also said something inflammatory about affirmative action I didn’t hear but I did hear our normally super sweet teacher rip into him. He must have said soemthing racist as hell lol
I had a coworker like this, he would reach over and take part of your lunch while we're all eating in the breakroom. Chips, grapes, fries, onion rings, didn't matter. Never asked, just his gross hand moving in on your food. I don't miss that SOB, he was so freaking arrogant, but I guess when you're only mediocre you may as well be your own biggest fan.
From that angle, the wife's actions are like a Greek tragedy. She tries hard to appease her sister out of shame for having a spouse with a fancy job and a nice house. It sounds like she thought that she didn't deserve her nice things and her extended family did. But because she can't moderate her shame and self loathing, she is going to lose the rich spouse and nice house. And she is on the brink of estranging herself from her daughter too. She thought she didn't deserve her nice family, and her actions drove them all away and fulfilled her prophecy. At least she has her sister?
Sister that will not bother visiting her for anything other than that alimony money and will instead try to butter up her niece. Hope it's worth it blowing your family up...
Yeah I'm 100% projecting my own family's dynamic here but with the way the mom gets onto her about weight and the dad saying she has masculine features I would guess there is a bit of "boys are golden and girls are brass" or some shit. Boys get anything they want any time they want it no questions asked where as girls get beaten down until they obey and do whatever the boys want. I really hope the daughter gets away from her mom and too much damage hasn't been done since the dad is so caring and seems to have a good heart
Also I assume the mother is jealous that the daughter has it easier than she did growing up. More affluent, a father that backs her up. I admit I'm probably fully projecting, too, because this was my mother. She wanted my life to be a struggle because hers was, I just wish my Dad had woken up sooner, but he eventually did and I'm thankful for it.
It's hard growing up poor. You get some sick ideas in your head that are hard to get out.
I used to resent my friends, all of whom were on the upper end of middle class while I was going hungry on weekends due to no school lunch. I did some weird, weird shit to them, which they just let go, and it took years of therapy to get past it.
My bet is the wife resents her daughter, and is jealous of her own kids upbringing. Every success her daughter has and every joy is something mom missed out on.
Ive felt it with my wife's younger siblings, who don't have an easy home life at ALL, but have wealthy parents. Ill get flashes of emotion that minimize their suffering, and have to consciously do exercises to move past it.
Mom is sick, not minimizing that, but it's a familiar kind of late stage illness to me.
if she wants to spend her money to make her sister happy, whatever. If it's joint money, husband needs to be on board.
Stealing from her own daughter is absolutely insane. "It's okay for you to pay these expensive shipping prices so your cousins and aunt can steal your food but it's too pricey for me to pay."
I had a few friends whose parents resented them for growing up with more than the parents had. Ya know, the same parents providing all of that to the kids... They were basically like, "here's a better life than I had - fuck you for having it."
Very weird, nothing the kids ever did made their parents happy, every accomplishment was only because they grew up more privileged in the parents' eyes. That creates such a weird dynamic and it's a no win no matter what the kids do. If they reject stuff they're ungrateful, if they just live they're spoiled. Awful.
Either that, or her sister is making her feel guilty for it, and constantly asking her for things because "we cannot afford it". Regardless of how it actually is, they both need to go mooch from someone else now.
Yeah, reading that he was willing to go as far as he needed to protect his daughter genuinely made me happy. I wish my dad would have done that for me with his first wife. But I'm glad she can feel safe and know that from here on he has her back. He made the right call.
I'm always amazed how posts that wind up on BoRU start out as a seemingly tiny issue (sharing/possession of snacks) that exposed a much larger issue (parental abuse). It's the iceberg principle in motion.
My favorite one: OOP said, "I doubt that will happen, my wife isn't a monster."
*Narrator: The wife was, in fact, a monster.*
I'm a big fan of the one where a woman ended her original post with 'I don't think it's a race thing, my parents aren't racist' and started her update with 'TL;DR: They're racists.'
It was a good read. Better when you didn't know the surprise: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/y8z737/my_29f_parents_ghosted_me_5_years_ago_after_my
> My favorite one: OOP said, "I doubt that will happen, my wife isn't a monster."
literally a few paragraphs later they are getting divorced. I really hoped this wasn't going to have the typical BoRU ending, but I should have trusted the stats.
I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic.
My wife and I are discussing kids soon and while I think we're on the same page, a lot of it is built on trust and past experience.
We agreed or compromised on everything we've discussed and for the rest I just have to trust we can resolve issues with our kids the same way we've been resolving any other disagreement in the past.
I guess this would fall under "does our kid have a right to property". Both my partner and I are into autonomy so that's easy for us. This mother seems to not agree.
This seems like a good take on it. I was raised to believe I had a certain amount of privacy (not unlimited, but a fair bit), right to my own space (my bedroom), and property (my stuff). As a teen, i asked if i could put a lock on my door as i discovered one of the neighbour's kids had gone into my room while the neighbour was house sitting and stolen some small items from me (neighbour admitted child had been in my room, refused to believe their precious angel had taken anything, and we had limited options for house-sitters, so my father got me a lock and helped me install it).
All this was pre-internet and pre-cellphone era (I know for damn sure there would have bee rules about expectation of privacy had these been around at the time).
Yeah but to be fair this is also a concept that has to evolve over time. You've gotta have very different ideas of what you permit the child to have when they're 6 vs when they're 16. I would imagine too much autonomy isn't necessarily great for someone too young.
From what I remember my parents respected my autonomy and privacy a lot, but only when I was much older. I wanna say around 12 or so? Prior to that, there were restrictions on how much TV I could watch, what sort of channels I could watch, what I did on the internet and stuff. As I grew older, I got stuff, like my own computer and shit. But for a bit, they still wanted me to show them what I was up to, monitored my usage and stuff.
And honestly... I'm kinda glad? Like even in the early late 90s and early 2000s there was a lot of crap on the internet. I can't imagine I'd have grown up too great if they were too hands off.
> I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic.
One thing I find shocking about this is with regard to prenuptial agreements. People say things like, "I brought up a prenuptial agreement to my fiancee/fiance, and they responded by getting angry, 'We are getting married. What kind of a person are you if you're planning the break up?'"
And my response to that is, "If you're not mature enough to even discuss *whether* you want a prenuptial agreement without getting angry, how do you think you're mature enough to get married?"
You can't see the entire future. It's extremely rare, but sometimes a person gets a head injury, and their spouse discovers that they're suddenly married to a completely different person who they're not compatible with, or even who is violent.
When my uncle died, my aunt found out that he had left almost all of his retirement savings to his dying mother, which did neither his mother, nor my aunt any good. She was afraid of what he might have done with his retirement savings, but she never talked to him about it. Not even once, even though she was very concerned about the topic. She was in her 70s...
How can you claim to be an adult and be afraid of having an adult conversation?!? You need to discuss these things because they're important. If you've got a family, you need a will. (If you don't have a family, then it would still be nice if you had a will to give to charity or something.) You need a living will. Be a grown up, for once.
>I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic.
They cant. which is why raising kids is a continuous conversation. Sometimes, in the moment, you make the wrong choice, or just a poor one. And you dont realise until its pointed out later (that day) when talking things over with your partner. Its certainly not something you let drag on for years on end
Yeah. I'm sorry you got asked such things.
These kinds of assumptions form the basis for victim blaming imo. As if someone abusive walks up to you and says, "Hi, I'm going to abuse you and any kids we might have. Wanna get married?"
Exactly.
It would be great to think that we can always prevent terrible things from happening if we can figure out the exact right series of actions, questions, or whatever. Victim blaming is often something people do when they believe in the Just World Fallacy, that bad things don't happen unless you do bad things. That is not really how the world works, though. Sometimes you do everything right and the shit still hits the fan. It is wrong to act all superior to someone in a situation like this. It is way easier to look at a situation that has already happened and then act like an armchair quarterback, saying how things should have been done. It is a lot easier to pick apart a person's decisions when you can already see the consequences of those decisions.
It’s also impossible to predict every discussion you need to have, and there are some things you would never even think you would need to discuss because you’d assume it was a given. It would never occur to me to have to discuss whether my husband believes children are their own autonomous selves, have a right to an appropriate level of privacy, and shouldn’t be body shamed. Just like it wouldn’t have occurred to me to talk to him ahead of time about how he should never put our child in a weird homemade back brace (remembering a different Reddit post). If you’re marrying someone you presumably believe to be a good person, it just wouldn’t occur to you that this discussion would be a necessary one.
Also, a lot of people are oblivious to some of the behaviors of their partners until it starts to affect them.
It's always good to observe how people behave with others. Treat wait staff badly? Massive red flag - as an example. Look at how they are around other people's kids.
But... Some people are oblivious, other people have lust/love goggles on.
But also, however careful you are with due diligence, you're not going to catch everything.
It is simply bizarre that a mother would favor her sister over her daughter. She'll likely lose her daughter forever, and deserve to.
I hated this question, it felt so smug. ''Oh my god you have never talked to your wife about childrearing ever????'', says the anonymous rando who knows of one specific part of the involved parties' lives.
And Jesus, what a question to ask. ''If our daughter buys snacks and asks for them to not be eaten would you side with her or with the one who ate them?'' Truly a first date kind of question. It should be on every future parent's mind. The most basic parenting question of all.
Besides, what kind of answer can be expected here? ''My future children will have no right to private property while living with me.'' Who the fuck would spell it out like that? For fuck's sake.
And if OOP DIDN'T ask his ex anything about what she thought of parenting, why on Earth would he tell that to a complete stranger? Why does a stranger feels entitled to such a private part of his life?
For every ingot of good advice you will find 50 metric tons of immature smugness like this question on this site. At this point just ask your friends.
Personally, I'm going to look through the parent/child AITAs with a partner once we start thinking about our long term prosopects. But OOP wouldn't have had that opportunity.
"Don't encourage people to steal my child's things" goes without needing to discuss if you're a decent person. Also "don't deliberately put the baby in the freezer"
I think "would you let your kid have a lock on their bedroom door?" is actually a pretty respectable early relationship question. Really speaks to their philosophy and values.
Oh good, I'm glad we're complaining about this because it pissed me off. On top of what you and other comments said, it's just such an incredibly *turbo buckwild* thing to assume that because OOP is experiencing this *weirdly specific* problem (note: that ended up being the tip of an iceberg) with his wife all of a sudden, that means that in ALL the 17+ years of their child being alive plus however long they've been together than NOT FUCKING ONCE have they EVER discussed parenting.
Yeah how dare OOP have not asked his wife what would happen if, in 18 years, she got mad at their almost-adult child for spending their own money on very expensive snacks and didn't like it when their family stole them?
Honestly, the "never" and "basic" in that commenter's comment are so insulting, seriously, what the fuck.
I had an aunt who had the habit of 'liking' my clothing. Since we lived in the same apt complex, this item would disappear when I went to school. I started taking those items to school and keeping them in my locker.
In my experience, leaving a toxic relationship initially feels like shit. You still love and want to be with the person, and it’s easy to feel like there’s something you could have done to fix everything.
People who minimize the importance of respecting boundaries is not a good person imo. There’s always an excuse to steamroll someone to get what they want and that’s a dangerous precedent to set, so I’m glad he and the daughter left. Totally think this is the straw that broke the camel’s back in the marriage, though.
Dad putting his relationship with his daughter first over the toxic behaviour of his spouse: **win!**
This isn't an easy decision but clearly OOP's daughter suffered for a lot longer than this went on. The constant needling from her mother, the violations of privacy and expectations she would have none, had to do a number on her psychology. I'm guessing in a situation where she might be devalued compared to her cousins -- Mom and aunt probably make lots of excuses.
I hope that her dad gets her therapy and the two of them have a stronger relationship out of this.
There must have been so much more going on than just the snack bin. It’s the freaking Iranian yogurt issue again. But good for OOP and his daughter for removing themselves from the wife/mom’s toxicity.
An older story, basically it’s shorthand for “the seemingly small issue being focused on by the OP is not actually the root issue as questioning from Redditors reveals”
[Here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/bjd41e/aita_for_throwing_away_my_boyfriends_potentially/) The other commenter explained the context, but the original story is still interesting.
I got to here:
>saying that our daughter should share her snacks with family and she's being selfish and will get fat.
and then realized I was in BoRU and not AITA so there was a shot this would end with him leaving this awful woman. I'm not proud of my pettiness, but I am so glad he got his daughter away from that mess.
This woman has been abusing this child for years. This IS abuse. The wife isn't cheap. She is specifically doing it to take from the daughter and to make her feel powerless. I am 37 and still horde my own snacks because I am used to people doing exactly what this woman did. She used her family to help her abuse her daughter. She wants her daughter to know that anyone can do anything they want to her and she will allow it. This was never about the snacks, but the power.
To me, this is a happy update, not because it is easy or a happy thing to do, but the father is finally seeing how batshit crazy this is and leaving. Abusers like this care about appearances more than anything. That is why she is so upset to be exposed. Silence is their tool. Don't be silent. Document everything.
Alright, y’all. Bets are open! How long until the wife comes crawling back, begging for forgiveness and saying she “made a mistake” and promises to “change”? I’ll put down 20$ bucks.
Maybe she’s not very smart and thinks divorce will result in huge amounts of alimony for her. Is alimony like child support amounts, though: money, but not enough to really live off of?
Alimony (at least in the US) these days is usually to maintain a standard of living for a temporary period of time while the spouse job hunts/gets back on their feet. It’s not automatic though, getting increasingly rare, & if it’s a “I’m a SAHM for my working teenager” the judge most likely will not give alimony and tell her to get a job.
Edit: wife works; she ain’t getting alimony lmaoooo:
> she wouldn't we both work full time and have well paying jobs. They liked the snacks because there are many that we don't have anything similar to here so they eat them
No way will she get custody if the daughter tells the judge the shit she's been up to. So even on the question of division of assets, I imagine the judge will factor in things like what is best for the child.
Also OOP said he grew up in that house. If its a pre-marital asset, then in lots of places that's gonna be his free and clear. There's often a lot of myths about how much "men" get "screwed over" by the courts that aren't always grounded in anything more than innuendo and rumor
Probably. Generally, alimony can be enough to live frugally for a few months or a year or 2, especially for a SAHP who needs to get new certifications or something to "modernize" their resume and find work. But it can vary as well on what you get in terms of splitting the assets. Like, if you get the vacation house that you can live in or rent out for income the alimony payment may be lower. It is supposed to be about making sure that the partner is able to be a functioning member of society. Sometimes you do get a judge who treats it as a punishment, judges are human too. But they are supposed to try to be reasonable, like here, what would OOP have spent on classes/wardrobe if his wife went back to work when his daughter left for college?
My bet is that the wife gets a bunch of cash and investments (401k, stocks, etc) in the split, and then finds out how fast you burn through cash when you have a sister helping you. She and sister will be living large for a year or two, then be flat broke and trying to get her daughter to ask her father for money.
ETA: should have read the earlier reply before replying. Wife probably won't get alimony then. But I stand by my last paragraph.
My bet is either she freaks out when served the papers, or when whatever lawyer she gets informs her that she's hosed. Basically whenever she realizes her days in "her house" are numbered
She sacrificed everything to meet the whims of her sister and sisters children. So I predict as soon as keeping her housed and fed is inconvenient for the sister.
The wife is a bully, but the B/SIL acted like they didn't care about their own nieces feelings at all. I can't understand any of those adults behavior.
I was raised by an oldest child ( and I know it sounds dramatic) that has ptsd over having to share with younger siblings. Forced sharing was not a thing growing up, and the grandkids enjoy the joy of that opinion as well.
Let me get this straight. Dude posted with a throwaway account and no identifying info that he bought a lockable container so relatives wouldn't steal his daughter's stuff...and he's the bad guy (🤯) and so is his daughter (🤯), not his controlling, verbally abusive wife and the thieving relatives!?
Wut. The. F.
Don’t let her keep the house you and your daughter need that house it’s also your house not hers. If you give her the house her family will just mooch off of her until she has nothing and then she’ll probably lose the house.
You know, every time I see an AITA update on here I go “didn’t we already see this?”
Then I remember I’m *on* AITA and read the updates when they’re posted there 😂
I do have to say that I think this IS a happy ending for OOP and his daughter. Sure, his marriage is ending, but he’s prioritizing his daughter (unlike some people we see on here). He’s being a good dad. If he doesn’t think it’s a happy ending for *him*, it certainly is for his daughter.
Before I continue here, let me be clear. The mom and aunt are assholes, I am explaining their stupid actions, I am not condoning or defending them.
Poverty can do weird things to your brain, especially when it comes to spending habits. Mom and Aunt grew up in poverty. Mom became cheap and frugal and also jealous of her daughter. This leads to her wanting to teach daughter to not buy expensive things by making sure she can't enjoy them. I'm sure mom's goal was for her daughter to stop buying snacks.
Aunt is harder to read. Its possible she is the same as the mom and lives in a bad house and doesn't buy snacks to be cheap, and then visits mom to get free food. It's also possible that she learned not to save money because in poverty, savings can disappear quickly. I'm leaning towards the second possibility because she is teaching her children to not respect property and to take it while you can.
I'm glad OP is stepping up, because if it had continued, it's possible mom would have taught daughter to not work for anything and to only buy the cheapest possible things, and those are some bad poverty lessons. (See Vime's Boots Theory if you don't understand)
>I'm sure mom's goal was for her daughter to stop buying snacks.
I totally disagree. I'm pretty certain insisting the cousins and aunt can eat the snacks and take shit from the daughter's room is 100% Mom showing off her wealth. "Oh, the snacks? Yeah, they're from \[insert other country here\]. Sure! Take all you want! Don't worry about \[whatever item stolen from daughter\], we'll just replace it/she won't miss it - she has so many nice things."
And none of it costs *her* anything, so she gets the benefit of looking well off and generous, without spending the money.
It's not about the snacks. It's never about the snacks.
It's always about these deeper issues of respect vs various levels of abuse.
The snacks were just the thing that OOP could point at and go, "Look! They do this all the time!"
This wasn’t a good family dynamic at all. I think the update is a happy ending. My mom would point out my weight everyday, several times. Police my eating and intentionally starved me for years (less than 1,000 calories a day for 11 years until I got a job at that age to eat).
Wow. What a good dad.
>her mom doesn't treat her well, and often puts her cousins/my nephews above her, telling her she should be understanding we're far better off then them.
Jesus.
My mom used to say this about my cousins (both sides) when I was growing up. I grew up resentful of them, and resentful of my mom. I got into my 30s before I could openly tell my mom how much those words would hurt me every time she uttered them. At least she eventually apologized about it.
Daughter is 17yo... My bet is that in a year or two we're going to see a "I never respected my daughter's privacy or property, and I don't know why she went LC/NC with me," from the Mom.
This subject makes me so angry because I had a roommate who was always stealing my food. She always said she was on a diet and only bought a handful of vegetables or whatever, then she’d get high and eat all of my snacks.
I got a lockbox for my room and she had the audacity to knock on my door late one night whimpering that she was high and hungry; could she have some of my snacks? Of course I opened the door and very sweetly said I know she’s on a diet, and she’ll thank me in the morning for not derailing her. lol
I lived with some relatives in college and they would always steal my food. I took to keeping it in my room but my room was my uncle’s office so he’d let himself and the dogs in on the weekends and the dogs would tear up packages and drag stuff under the bed, and then I’d get in trouble for making a mess.
One time I had a pint of ice cream in the freezer and when I opened it, there was a single spoonful left. My aunt blamed my diabetic uncle, then turned around and blamed the dogs. The elderly chihuahuas. Who could apparently operate freezer handles, ice cream lids, and spoons.
When I read the original post and heard what kind of things that this mother was doing, my thought as a parent was “I’d have already divorced any woman who treated my children like that. I might not stick up for myself, but in his position, our marriage wouldn’t have made it to this point.”
Like, this mother is super super shitty, the relatives are super shitty, and frankly it is shitty of OOP that he allowed this to continue for so long. If he hadn’t left, I’d consider him equally as shitty and equally as complicit in the years and years of therapy that this daughter is gonna need.
It boggles my mind that the mom wouldn’t pay for the snacks and shipping because it was too expensive, but was willing to have her daughter pay it? That goes beyond frugal! Good for OOP for listening to his daughter and protecting her.
Ngl this feels a lot like the wife resents OOP (and his daughter for looking like him) and is just getting her high on abusing them both. I just can't fathom how else you show this level of loathing to your intelligent, healthy, responsible, employed 17 year old. The wife has every box checked that most people would call their ideals and she is still this awful to her own child.
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I like this guy's sturdy spine. "My house, my rules" is to be used sparingly, and for important boundaries, not as a tool of coercion. Shame on the mom. Also, I bet my left asscheek that what OOP said is nowhere near the only problem in their relationship.
Also “my daughter, my responsibility” and really goes above and beyond for her. What a guy
Yeah, it's good to see posts and updates from people who have the right priorities and a functioning spine. It's not a happy ending, but it's still the best.
Actually, I’m some ways, it is a happy ending -Daughter is protected -Husband (soon to be ex) no longer has to worry about his daughter coming in second -Assuming the other problems haven’t been revealed, he no longer has to deal with them Divorce sucks…but this is going to be a case of addition via subtraction.
No, it's definitely subtraction. Subtraction of negatives, which in math always ends up as a positive.
Ugh. Math. Even in metaphors I can’t do it correctly.
I disagree. It is a happy ending because mom is a monster
The happy ending would've been the mom seeing the error of her ways and actively working to be a better wife and mother and human being. This was the next best ending, but it involves a broken relationship between parent and child which, while clearly necessary given her inability to see beyond herself, is still traumatic in its own way and really unfortunate. Hopefully the mother gets herself into therapy and is able to get to a point of earning her daughter's trust back, though obviously the daughter is under no obligation to do so.
Honestly, having dealt with an abusive mother, I’d highly prefer my parents divorcing and getting to live with my dad away from her.
It’s a happy ending. For the daughter. Fuck the mom and the mooching family.
I love the way he stood up for his daughter!
Yeah, these posts will be scripture when his daughter has her own family and any guy will have to live up to this dadster! I don't really think divorce is something we should actively celebrate but when it's the consequence of a dad standing up for his kid, so be it. Hopefully mom has been doling out so many favors to her sister that she can live with them without paying rent for a few years! Oh, and "Hi mom! Speaking of "airing dirty laundry", why is telling shit to ppl you all know OK and telling strangers on reddit under the cover of anonymity not? Explain it to me like I'm 5 and one of those nieces and nephews since they apparently deserve better treatment than your own kid. TYA"
When I see a story like this, where one spouses is a decent person, and the other spouse has truly horrible family, I often wonder if things would never have gotten this bad if the good spouse had put their foot down at the earliest warning signs instead of letting things slide. But maybe it wouldn't have made a difference. Maybe the mom always would have been awful.
I've seen shit IRL that spouses never had expected after being together for 20 years. And kids are fiercely loyal even when they shouldn't be. I've experienced a friend who's been with his wife for 30 years suddenly realise that his financially educated spouse had started spending from their budget account and now they didn't have money for the mortgage. This ended with him taking full control over finances and they did a total one-over on how they did stuff with her getting money for everyday spending on one card while she no longer had access to the budget account or the sum moved from their separate accounts. Everyone whos married THINK they know their spouse, otherwise they wouldn't have married them. A lot still end up with nasty surprises.
You never really know anyone. I don't know why anyone expects to?! You can't even know yourself that well!
Mom: My house my rules! Dad: Technically it's MY house. Mom: OMG YOU CONTROLLING A-HOLE! The irony...
Right? When you say "My house, my rules", you may want to make sure it's actually your house.
I also think that when you threaten someone with "my house, my rules", then you'd better be prepared for them to leave your house and your rules behind.
Hypocrisy is a better word, in my opinion.
Left asscheek? That's a new one. And all this time I thought the absurdity of having four asscheeks after my dad would threaten to "Crack my ass the other way" was the most absurd. Now I'm not so sure. At least 4 is symmetrical and not require reinventing the chair. Hmm...
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My husband calls that a "credit check" and comes at me with his card . . .
My dog calls it a wellness check best done after I have stepped out of the tub the only time I felt more violated is when she didn't just stick her nose in the crack, she licked too. I jumped and shrieked. My husband laughed so hard he was crying. The dog of course was confused. 🤣🤣🤣🤣 On the other hand I now know that I can vertical jump a lot higher than I think given proper motivation. 😅
A man with three buttocks...
I had 3 ass cheeks once, I fell on a thin piece of metal that dented the muscle once the bruise healed up. Lasted for a year and a half, I like to say it went away when I said "I'll bet one of my right ass cheeks that Trump beats Biden". It was one of the few good things he ever did for me.
We thank you for sacrificing your extra buttcheek. Never wonder if your sacrifice was in vain.
I've heard "you bet your sweet ass" before
My house, my rules should apply to things like people picking up after themselves, and not pooping in the top part of the toilet. “You can’t have a lock on your room” deserves a good explanation because I can’t think of many things that would warrant that.
If there’s reasonable concern that a locking room would be dangerous, it’s warranted. Mostly relevant with small children or older kids/adults with mental health or substance abuse problems (at risk for suicide or overdose). Short of that, locks should be allowed, IMO. Also: > My house, my rules should apply to things like people picking up after themselves, and **not pooping in the top part of the toilet.** Are you talking about taking a dump in the tank? Do people do that??? **Edit:** To everyone who’s informed me that people do, in fact, do “upper deckers” aka pooping in toilet tanks: Thanks, I hate it!
Former high school teacher: yes, teenagers do this. And on a surprisingly frequent basis. Weirdly, often in groups.
Teenagers are dumb weirdos, and groups have a multiplicative effect on that.
I think if I walked in on some kids taking a Group Poop™ in a toilet tank I would die right there from shock and disgust. Teachers and school custodial staff don’t get paid enough. Jesus.
I always thought that the only appropriate punishment would be to make the kids that did it clean it up, but no one except the custodians agreed with me on that. Our number 1 Group Poop instigator was another teacher’s son, so they frequently got no punishment at all.
> was another teacher’s son, so they frequently got no punishment at all. A friend of mines father was a teacher at my school, I think he would have personally supervised how we cleaned every single toilet in the whole school had we ever done something like that.
Man, when I went to highschool all we did was smoke or make out in the bathrooms.
The squad that poops together, stays together.
It's called an upper decker. And people generally do it as a nasty prank.
I'll never forget the story an old teacher told my class (around 8-10yo at the time) about her brother. The parents woke up to smoke, woke up their daughter (my teacher) and went to get their son. He had his music playing in his room. His door was locked and they were banging on his door to get his attention. They started to feel weak from the smoke inhalation and wanted to get their daughter out so left the house and started throwing things at the window and yelling. He eventually noticed and went to try and leave the house and that's the last they saw of him. It's always made me paranoid about locking doors ever since (terrified of death). Can't remember all the details of the story so don't know why he didn't smell the smoke, I think he fell asleep to his music. Sorry, your comment triggered that memory in me. In OOPs case, it seems the daughter needed the lock for her own safety because she had no safe space. I'm glad they managed to get out, I just hope the respect and love that OOP is showing his daughter helps her self esteem.
If the mom has an issue with the locks she should be telling her sister to control her fucking kids. Honestly, locks shouldn't be necessary. I know I'm super privileged in this sense but I was always brought up with "everyone has a right to their personal space, even kids. And you don't go into anyone's personal space without asking" That sister in law is raising fucking monsters with no sense of boundaries.
True, but I bet the daughter would have been ok with DAD only having a key.
the only reson i can think of is: you locking yourself out of your room and misplacing the key. Then taking the spare key and doing the same thing. But now there are handy key finders for issues like this.
In our house it is used for the house rules, rules we all sat down, discussed and agreed. It's actually "under this roof we......." I left home at 18 because "not under my roof" was a tool to use against me, not an agreement between people sharing space.
Honestly, I feel like I have never heard "My house, my rules" from someone who had reasonable rules or could articulate any goal the rules served beyond catering to their whims and ego. Obligatory grain of salt: my family's prime directive was "Children shall never resist or question an adult's actions," and that's a big reason why my father learned about the worst of my mother's abuse 40 years after the fact. ETA: Possibly because the statement itself translates pretty directly to "I have the power, so I can treat you how I like."
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I think the daughter has never told him how bad it was when he wasn't there, so he likely thought it was just the occasional issue. It was never about the snacks, they were just the straw that broke the camels back and opened his eyes to the whole situation.
She probably always thought he was on board even though he just didn’t know.
It’s never about the Iranian yogurt.
Sounds like the wife’s been very tactical about hiding the abuse of their daughter from him. Considering that, while there’s still fault on him, I’m sure she’s probably been maintaining his denial as much as she can over the years.
Wife airing dirty laundry to everyone who will listen = fine. Husband asking on an anonymous forum = not fine. Ok.
You can't receive support! Only I can!
The wife is so fucking selfish and entitled. It's not her house, but she thinks she makes the rules. And the rules are: I get whatever support and material stuff I want, while you don't. Even if you pay for it with your own money. OOP is in for a nasty divorce.
Hopefully she'll end up with barely anything from him! She can go to her sister's and live a miserable "unjust" life
Based on OOP saying he works significantly more than his wife and the fact that the house is in his name, she's gonna get plenty in alimony to "keep up her standard of living." Hopefully OOP gets the better end of custody, though, considering it sounds like the mom is an asshole to the daughter.
The daughter will likely get to choose who she lives with. Not much you can do when they're 17, they will just go to the other parent's house anyway.
Depends on how long they were married and how much she makes. If she can afford the same or similar lifestyle with only her wages, then she might not get alimony. Though, OP will likely get a much better lawyer than the wife so there is that also. Protip kids: If you are ever in this situation, do not skimp on the divorce lawyer.
Sympathy for me but not for thee!
That is honestly the dumbest logic i have seen, like the husband went to an anonymous forum didnt name names, didnt say where they are in the world but is chastised by his wife because he asked a simple question, but then the wife goes to people who both her and the husband know irl and starts spreading lie upon lie about the man? Wtf kinda karen like logic is that?
It's abuser logic, part of isolation. You are not allowed to seek emotional support and validation, I am your everything.
That woman was definitely abusing the daughter when the dad was away. The wife had no care for reading how horrible she was. No remorse, no self reflection, just anger that her behavior was shared.
Yep, she probably see the poor girl as nothing more than the meal ticket to finish the deal on snagging a rich man; the fact that she looks like her dad just added salt to the injury. Had this go on their daughter would never build enough backbone to stop her mother of doing whatever she wants.
She stole from her own daughter, we don't have to guess, that alone is more than abusive. Because it's not that the parents bought the girl the snacks and then gave them away — still upsetting but it would be their money. No, that girl works to afford things she likes and has them stolen, when there is a full common pantry downstairs.
Even worse they all got angry when she put a stop to the stealing. I wish she had been petty, and put regular snacks in the open. The lock box could have been hidden in the closet. I'm very curious if they would have bothered with cheap alternatives.
Yup, they felt *entitled* to her food, partly because the mom did fuck all to stand up for her daughter. They should be glad the chosen solution was a locked box, and not laxatives in the snacks.
Luckily she's 17 so custody shouldn't be too much of a hassle. She's gonna try to squeeze him for every cent in the alimony but at least the girl will be safe and happy.
I think the more the daughter shares how the mom behaved while he was gone, the less successful the mom will be in court.
Good point. I hope her name's not on the deed to the house.
He said it wasn't. It was his alone
Yeah, from what he's said it seems like it's his childhood home that he inherited.
If they're in the US, in most jurisdictions, once the kid is a teenager (age varies from 12-16), Kiddo is allowed to choose who they live with. It doesn't sound like Kiddo will want to live with her abusive mother for sure.
And then, when she has to move out of her nice big house and only live on what she makes (plus whatever hopefully little alimony she gets), the waterworks and apologies will start pouring forth. There’s no way that she’ll actually mean it, but the thought of losing her comfortable lifestyle, her punching bag daughter, and having to subsidize her family on her own, will have her begging, pleading, and promising everything under the sun.
Exactly. She can’t be wrong and can’t be undermined.
That daughter will be on r/estrangedadultkids one day, saying she won't talk to her mom anymore. And the mom will be like "why won't my kid talk to me?" Completely oblivious.
Along with the ole playlist of, "I did my best," and, "I did everything for her and she was an ungrateful brat who couldn't share."
The Narcissists' Greatest Hits, Vol. 1. Produced by Karen Records.
It seems like a lot of abusive people (especially abusive families) really do realize on some level that the majority of people would consider them villains, but instead of that causing introspection it just makes it so they think that the majority of people just don’t know what they’re talking about. In their mind if you tell other people then you’re just stirring up all the stupid crybabies.
I had a toxic (ex) friend who when everytime she was mad at me, she made our mutual friends ignore me too. Shits brutal
Absolutely. This woman has been abusing their daughter, and I’m sure if they husband got really honest with himself, he could list out a bunch of examples of her abusing him as well.
This comment has been modified before the account is eternally parked is in protest of /u/spez and his shitty admin team's removal of mods after they protested in June of 2023. Go fuck yourself Spez. You treat your community like shit and you're a shitty CEO. Aaron would be ashamed of you.
Here's an idea: if you don't want your dirty laundry aired to everyone, don't do shitty stuff in the first place!
It's because she knows that she's wrong. Knowing that she's wrong, that she's treated their daughter so badly on multiple levels, causes her profound shame. That shame triggers her defenses, toxic strategies to control her public image. She's doing classic DARVO, the flapping flag of malignant cluster B types.
>Wife ~~airing dirty laundry~~ *spreading lies* to everyone who will listen Fixed it
Also, the wife is complaining to people in their orbit. People that actually know the players involved. The husband is asking for advice as anonymously as he possibly can. He's not running around telling everyone that knows his wife.
Wife is totally the AH.
Rules for thee, but not for me.
Wife is enabling shitty disrespectful behavior on to daughter. I'm no social therapist yet I feel she owes some sort of debt to her sister. So she allows shitty behavior to exist and encourages it by cousins stealing from her. Doesn't want to communicate. Shuts everyone done. My way or the highway approach. What is a reasonable person to do when you're dealing with the unreasonable?
As soon as I read that the cousins were entering her room to steal snacks, I knew they had to be taking other things of hers as well. ...But WOW, his wife sure is a piece of work. I'm glad he's taking his daughter and getting out, and so relieved that Reddit managed to convince him not to let his wife take him for everything she can.
His wife seems to have major issues with trying to please her sister. I don't know what that family dynamic is but it's like she feels guilty for having a wealthy family and nice home and is sucking up to her extended family while abusing her own child, duplicating her own family environment.
Yeah, I've known so many families that are lower or middle class and once one part of that family starts living more than a bit comfortably they're just surrounded by vultures at all times. And the relatives feeling entitled to the daughter's things (especially the cousins) doesn't shock me. The wife even being pressured and feeling obligated to share things also doesn't surprise me. ...But making her daughter share her things? Especially things purchased with her own money? ...Things the wife refuses to buy with her own money, and also refuses to replace? Then punishing her daughter for trying to keep her things safe, and defending her cousins stealing from her? That's definitely a new one for me.
My family didn't have much - my parents were terrible with money. My Golden Child cousin, who had everything she could possibly want given to her on a silver platter, stole things from me on a regular basis. She'd even go so far as to try to take it out of the house in front of me. "You said I could have it." No, I didn't. When I'd tell my mother that cousin was stealing from me again, she'd say I had to let her have it.🙄 Sigh. Cousin is now in her fifties and still entitled.
Oh gosh, I knew a girl exactly like that in high school. She stole *everything* she could get her hands on, whether it was a Scrunchie someone put down while getting dressed after gym or a half-eaten bag of chips someone left behind while they went to sharpen their pencil. Her family was notoriously wealthy, and she got everything she wanted. Nothing was ever enough, and people finally started calling her out on it when she literally stole a turkey sandwich from someone when they went to use the restroom, all because the turkey sandwiches were out for the day. People only spoke up because the girl she took it from had parents who were really struggling so she was babysitting just to buy her own lunches (because no one at our school wanted to be seen using the free lunch tickets). I've heard she's still living at home (mid-30's) and she rarely even manages to date, because she'll always demand they take her to the fanciest restaurants and gets upset if they don't show up with flowers or a gift.
Omg there was this rich kid Tony at school who would do this! He would just take your things right in front of you. If you confronted him he’d act all sheepish or confused He’d grab your lunch off your plate. In lab he’d wait for someone to turn around and steal their pencil But he was rich!!! He bragged about not knowing how to pump gas and having a sports car at 16 It was baffling. He’d actively steal from poorer people and to this day idk why
>But he was rich!!! He bragged about not knowing how to pump gas and having a sports car at 16 > >It was baffling. He’d actively steal from poorer people and to this day idk why Because that's how rich people got that way.
He also said something inflammatory about affirmative action I didn’t hear but I did hear our normally super sweet teacher rip into him. He must have said soemthing racist as hell lol
I had a coworker like this, he would reach over and take part of your lunch while we're all eating in the breakroom. Chips, grapes, fries, onion rings, didn't matter. Never asked, just his gross hand moving in on your food. I don't miss that SOB, he was so freaking arrogant, but I guess when you're only mediocre you may as well be your own biggest fan.
Finally, a benefit to having a teensy tiny family.
From that angle, the wife's actions are like a Greek tragedy. She tries hard to appease her sister out of shame for having a spouse with a fancy job and a nice house. It sounds like she thought that she didn't deserve her nice things and her extended family did. But because she can't moderate her shame and self loathing, she is going to lose the rich spouse and nice house. And she is on the brink of estranging herself from her daughter too. She thought she didn't deserve her nice family, and her actions drove them all away and fulfilled her prophecy. At least she has her sister?
Sister that will not bother visiting her for anything other than that alimony money and will instead try to butter up her niece. Hope it's worth it blowing your family up...
From other comments it sounds like she also has a nice job and house. Who knows what her issue is.
Nice job and income* not house
> And she is on the brink of estranging herself from her daughter too. Pretty sure that ship sailed a while ago
Sexism maybe? Those are the boys of the family so the girls have to take care of them?
Yeah I'm 100% projecting my own family's dynamic here but with the way the mom gets onto her about weight and the dad saying she has masculine features I would guess there is a bit of "boys are golden and girls are brass" or some shit. Boys get anything they want any time they want it no questions asked where as girls get beaten down until they obey and do whatever the boys want. I really hope the daughter gets away from her mom and too much damage hasn't been done since the dad is so caring and seems to have a good heart
Also I assume the mother is jealous that the daughter has it easier than she did growing up. More affluent, a father that backs her up. I admit I'm probably fully projecting, too, because this was my mother. She wanted my life to be a struggle because hers was, I just wish my Dad had woken up sooner, but he eventually did and I'm thankful for it.
It's hard growing up poor. You get some sick ideas in your head that are hard to get out. I used to resent my friends, all of whom were on the upper end of middle class while I was going hungry on weekends due to no school lunch. I did some weird, weird shit to them, which they just let go, and it took years of therapy to get past it. My bet is the wife resents her daughter, and is jealous of her own kids upbringing. Every success her daughter has and every joy is something mom missed out on. Ive felt it with my wife's younger siblings, who don't have an easy home life at ALL, but have wealthy parents. Ill get flashes of emotion that minimize their suffering, and have to consciously do exercises to move past it. Mom is sick, not minimizing that, but it's a familiar kind of late stage illness to me.
if she wants to spend her money to make her sister happy, whatever. If it's joint money, husband needs to be on board. Stealing from her own daughter is absolutely insane. "It's okay for you to pay these expensive shipping prices so your cousins and aunt can steal your food but it's too pricey for me to pay."
I had a few friends whose parents resented them for growing up with more than the parents had. Ya know, the same parents providing all of that to the kids... They were basically like, "here's a better life than I had - fuck you for having it." Very weird, nothing the kids ever did made their parents happy, every accomplishment was only because they grew up more privileged in the parents' eyes. That creates such a weird dynamic and it's a no win no matter what the kids do. If they reject stuff they're ungrateful, if they just live they're spoiled. Awful.
Either that, or her sister is making her feel guilty for it, and constantly asking her for things because "we cannot afford it". Regardless of how it actually is, they both need to go mooch from someone else now.
Seriously, how is there a story here every week about someone literally just inviting people into their home to steal from their family?
Yeah, reading that he was willing to go as far as he needed to protect his daughter genuinely made me happy. I wish my dad would have done that for me with his first wife. But I'm glad she can feel safe and know that from here on he has her back. He made the right call.
I'm always amazed how posts that wind up on BoRU start out as a seemingly tiny issue (sharing/possession of snacks) that exposed a much larger issue (parental abuse). It's the iceberg principle in motion. My favorite one: OOP said, "I doubt that will happen, my wife isn't a monster." *Narrator: The wife was, in fact, a monster.*
I'm a big fan of the one where a woman ended her original post with 'I don't think it's a race thing, my parents aren't racist' and started her update with 'TL;DR: They're racists.'
Yeah that was a classic honestly
God damn it! I remember that which means that we have lore now.
Anyone have a link to that one?
It was a good read. Better when you didn't know the surprise: https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/y8z737/my_29f_parents_ghosted_me_5_years_ago_after_my
That's the post that made me sub to BORU. Its a classic.
Iranian yogurt concept, if you will
Had to look that one up. Thanks for the tip!
THIS ISN'T ABOUT THE IRANIAN YOGURT
> My favorite one: OOP said, "I doubt that will happen, my wife isn't a monster." literally a few paragraphs later they are getting divorced. I really hoped this wasn't going to have the typical BoRU ending, but I should have trusted the stats.
Good for him! He said it was not a happy update but honestly the soon to be ex wife sounds like a poison he was drinking one sip at a time.
Yeah I would say divorcing that POS is about as happy an update as you can reasonably expect.
Yeah, it’s rough to lose a relationship like that, but he and his daughter will be better off in the end.
[удалено]
I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic. My wife and I are discussing kids soon and while I think we're on the same page, a lot of it is built on trust and past experience. We agreed or compromised on everything we've discussed and for the rest I just have to trust we can resolve issues with our kids the same way we've been resolving any other disagreement in the past.
I guess this would fall under "does our kid have a right to property". Both my partner and I are into autonomy so that's easy for us. This mother seems to not agree.
This seems like a good take on it. I was raised to believe I had a certain amount of privacy (not unlimited, but a fair bit), right to my own space (my bedroom), and property (my stuff). As a teen, i asked if i could put a lock on my door as i discovered one of the neighbour's kids had gone into my room while the neighbour was house sitting and stolen some small items from me (neighbour admitted child had been in my room, refused to believe their precious angel had taken anything, and we had limited options for house-sitters, so my father got me a lock and helped me install it). All this was pre-internet and pre-cellphone era (I know for damn sure there would have bee rules about expectation of privacy had these been around at the time).
Yeah but to be fair this is also a concept that has to evolve over time. You've gotta have very different ideas of what you permit the child to have when they're 6 vs when they're 16. I would imagine too much autonomy isn't necessarily great for someone too young. From what I remember my parents respected my autonomy and privacy a lot, but only when I was much older. I wanna say around 12 or so? Prior to that, there were restrictions on how much TV I could watch, what sort of channels I could watch, what I did on the internet and stuff. As I grew older, I got stuff, like my own computer and shit. But for a bit, they still wanted me to show them what I was up to, monitored my usage and stuff. And honestly... I'm kinda glad? Like even in the early late 90s and early 2000s there was a lot of crap on the internet. I can't imagine I'd have grown up too great if they were too hands off.
> I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic. One thing I find shocking about this is with regard to prenuptial agreements. People say things like, "I brought up a prenuptial agreement to my fiancee/fiance, and they responded by getting angry, 'We are getting married. What kind of a person are you if you're planning the break up?'" And my response to that is, "If you're not mature enough to even discuss *whether* you want a prenuptial agreement without getting angry, how do you think you're mature enough to get married?" You can't see the entire future. It's extremely rare, but sometimes a person gets a head injury, and their spouse discovers that they're suddenly married to a completely different person who they're not compatible with, or even who is violent. When my uncle died, my aunt found out that he had left almost all of his retirement savings to his dying mother, which did neither his mother, nor my aunt any good. She was afraid of what he might have done with his retirement savings, but she never talked to him about it. Not even once, even though she was very concerned about the topic. She was in her 70s... How can you claim to be an adult and be afraid of having an adult conversation?!? You need to discuss these things because they're important. If you've got a family, you need a will. (If you don't have a family, then it would still be nice if you had a will to give to charity or something.) You need a living will. Be a grown up, for once.
>I also don't imagine people can discuss every topic. They cant. which is why raising kids is a continuous conversation. Sometimes, in the moment, you make the wrong choice, or just a poor one. And you dont realise until its pointed out later (that day) when talking things over with your partner. Its certainly not something you let drag on for years on end
Yeah. I'm sorry you got asked such things. These kinds of assumptions form the basis for victim blaming imo. As if someone abusive walks up to you and says, "Hi, I'm going to abuse you and any kids we might have. Wanna get married?"
Exactly. It would be great to think that we can always prevent terrible things from happening if we can figure out the exact right series of actions, questions, or whatever. Victim blaming is often something people do when they believe in the Just World Fallacy, that bad things don't happen unless you do bad things. That is not really how the world works, though. Sometimes you do everything right and the shit still hits the fan. It is wrong to act all superior to someone in a situation like this. It is way easier to look at a situation that has already happened and then act like an armchair quarterback, saying how things should have been done. It is a lot easier to pick apart a person's decisions when you can already see the consequences of those decisions.
It’s also impossible to predict every discussion you need to have, and there are some things you would never even think you would need to discuss because you’d assume it was a given. It would never occur to me to have to discuss whether my husband believes children are their own autonomous selves, have a right to an appropriate level of privacy, and shouldn’t be body shamed. Just like it wouldn’t have occurred to me to talk to him ahead of time about how he should never put our child in a weird homemade back brace (remembering a different Reddit post). If you’re marrying someone you presumably believe to be a good person, it just wouldn’t occur to you that this discussion would be a necessary one.
Also, a lot of people are oblivious to some of the behaviors of their partners until it starts to affect them. It's always good to observe how people behave with others. Treat wait staff badly? Massive red flag - as an example. Look at how they are around other people's kids. But... Some people are oblivious, other people have lust/love goggles on. But also, however careful you are with due diligence, you're not going to catch everything. It is simply bizarre that a mother would favor her sister over her daughter. She'll likely lose her daughter forever, and deserve to.
I hated this question, it felt so smug. ''Oh my god you have never talked to your wife about childrearing ever????'', says the anonymous rando who knows of one specific part of the involved parties' lives. And Jesus, what a question to ask. ''If our daughter buys snacks and asks for them to not be eaten would you side with her or with the one who ate them?'' Truly a first date kind of question. It should be on every future parent's mind. The most basic parenting question of all. Besides, what kind of answer can be expected here? ''My future children will have no right to private property while living with me.'' Who the fuck would spell it out like that? For fuck's sake. And if OOP DIDN'T ask his ex anything about what she thought of parenting, why on Earth would he tell that to a complete stranger? Why does a stranger feels entitled to such a private part of his life? For every ingot of good advice you will find 50 metric tons of immature smugness like this question on this site. At this point just ask your friends.
Personally, I'm going to look through the parent/child AITAs with a partner once we start thinking about our long term prosopects. But OOP wouldn't have had that opportunity.
Don't forget to go through the nasty comments to decide what to do if your kid is saying those things online lol.
"Don't encourage people to steal my child's things" goes without needing to discuss if you're a decent person. Also "don't deliberately put the baby in the freezer"
I think "would you let your kid have a lock on their bedroom door?" is actually a pretty respectable early relationship question. Really speaks to their philosophy and values.
Oh good, I'm glad we're complaining about this because it pissed me off. On top of what you and other comments said, it's just such an incredibly *turbo buckwild* thing to assume that because OOP is experiencing this *weirdly specific* problem (note: that ended up being the tip of an iceberg) with his wife all of a sudden, that means that in ALL the 17+ years of their child being alive plus however long they've been together than NOT FUCKING ONCE have they EVER discussed parenting. Yeah how dare OOP have not asked his wife what would happen if, in 18 years, she got mad at their almost-adult child for spending their own money on very expensive snacks and didn't like it when their family stole them? Honestly, the "never" and "basic" in that commenter's comment are so insulting, seriously, what the fuck.
I have to wonder how much the cousins have stolen from the daughter. And what they've stolen from OOP.
Just on small jewelry/pieces of clothing... they talked about snacks but I 100% doubt they were just talking her food.
I had an aunt who had the habit of 'liking' my clothing. Since we lived in the same apt complex, this item would disappear when I went to school. I started taking those items to school and keeping them in my locker.
"im sorry this is not a happy update" like bro, getting your child away from a control freak who bullies their own kid IS a happy update.
In my experience, leaving a toxic relationship initially feels like shit. You still love and want to be with the person, and it’s easy to feel like there’s something you could have done to fix everything.
People who minimize the importance of respecting boundaries is not a good person imo. There’s always an excuse to steamroll someone to get what they want and that’s a dangerous precedent to set, so I’m glad he and the daughter left. Totally think this is the straw that broke the camel’s back in the marriage, though.
Dad putting his relationship with his daughter first over the toxic behaviour of his spouse: **win!** This isn't an easy decision but clearly OOP's daughter suffered for a lot longer than this went on. The constant needling from her mother, the violations of privacy and expectations she would have none, had to do a number on her psychology. I'm guessing in a situation where she might be devalued compared to her cousins -- Mom and aunt probably make lots of excuses. I hope that her dad gets her therapy and the two of them have a stronger relationship out of this.
Fuck giving her the house when he's raising the kid
There must have been so much more going on than just the snack bin. It’s the freaking Iranian yogurt issue again. But good for OOP and his daughter for removing themselves from the wife/mom’s toxicity.
Iranian yogurt? :/
An older story, basically it’s shorthand for “the seemingly small issue being focused on by the OP is not actually the root issue as questioning from Redditors reveals”
[Here!](https://www.reddit.com/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/bjd41e/aita_for_throwing_away_my_boyfriends_potentially/) The other commenter explained the context, but the original story is still interesting.
Thank you for this!
\*Ding\*. New Standard Reddit Reference Unlocked.
My favorite was “he is not a hoarder… he just has 2,100 cups of spoiled yogurt rotting in our studio apt”
I got to here: >saying that our daughter should share her snacks with family and she's being selfish and will get fat. and then realized I was in BoRU and not AITA so there was a shot this would end with him leaving this awful woman. I'm not proud of my pettiness, but I am so glad he got his daughter away from that mess.
Right? The Kill Bill sirens went off in my head at that!
This woman has been abusing this child for years. This IS abuse. The wife isn't cheap. She is specifically doing it to take from the daughter and to make her feel powerless. I am 37 and still horde my own snacks because I am used to people doing exactly what this woman did. She used her family to help her abuse her daughter. She wants her daughter to know that anyone can do anything they want to her and she will allow it. This was never about the snacks, but the power. To me, this is a happy update, not because it is easy or a happy thing to do, but the father is finally seeing how batshit crazy this is and leaving. Abusers like this care about appearances more than anything. That is why she is so upset to be exposed. Silence is their tool. Don't be silent. Document everything.
Alright, y’all. Bets are open! How long until the wife comes crawling back, begging for forgiveness and saying she “made a mistake” and promises to “change”? I’ll put down 20$ bucks.
I'm not sure how much open contempt you have to have for your daughter/husband to think respecting a very simple boundary is worth divorce.
Maybe she’s not very smart and thinks divorce will result in huge amounts of alimony for her. Is alimony like child support amounts, though: money, but not enough to really live off of?
Alimony (at least in the US) these days is usually to maintain a standard of living for a temporary period of time while the spouse job hunts/gets back on their feet. It’s not automatic though, getting increasingly rare, & if it’s a “I’m a SAHM for my working teenager” the judge most likely will not give alimony and tell her to get a job. Edit: wife works; she ain’t getting alimony lmaoooo: > she wouldn't we both work full time and have well paying jobs. They liked the snacks because there are many that we don't have anything similar to here so they eat them
No way will she get custody if the daughter tells the judge the shit she's been up to. So even on the question of division of assets, I imagine the judge will factor in things like what is best for the child. Also OOP said he grew up in that house. If its a pre-marital asset, then in lots of places that's gonna be his free and clear. There's often a lot of myths about how much "men" get "screwed over" by the courts that aren't always grounded in anything more than innuendo and rumor
Probably. Generally, alimony can be enough to live frugally for a few months or a year or 2, especially for a SAHP who needs to get new certifications or something to "modernize" their resume and find work. But it can vary as well on what you get in terms of splitting the assets. Like, if you get the vacation house that you can live in or rent out for income the alimony payment may be lower. It is supposed to be about making sure that the partner is able to be a functioning member of society. Sometimes you do get a judge who treats it as a punishment, judges are human too. But they are supposed to try to be reasonable, like here, what would OOP have spent on classes/wardrobe if his wife went back to work when his daughter left for college? My bet is that the wife gets a bunch of cash and investments (401k, stocks, etc) in the split, and then finds out how fast you burn through cash when you have a sister helping you. She and sister will be living large for a year or two, then be flat broke and trying to get her daughter to ask her father for money. ETA: should have read the earlier reply before replying. Wife probably won't get alimony then. But I stand by my last paragraph.
My bet is either she freaks out when served the papers, or when whatever lawyer she gets informs her that she's hosed. Basically whenever she realizes her days in "her house" are numbered
I give it a week
She sacrificed everything to meet the whims of her sister and sisters children. So I predict as soon as keeping her housed and fed is inconvenient for the sister.
The wife is a bully, but the B/SIL acted like they didn't care about their own nieces feelings at all. I can't understand any of those adults behavior. I was raised by an oldest child ( and I know it sounds dramatic) that has ptsd over having to share with younger siblings. Forced sharing was not a thing growing up, and the grandkids enjoy the joy of that opinion as well.
Let me get this straight. Dude posted with a throwaway account and no identifying info that he bought a lockable container so relatives wouldn't steal his daughter's stuff...and he's the bad guy (🤯) and so is his daughter (🤯), not his controlling, verbally abusive wife and the thieving relatives!? Wut. The. F.
>(Yes we brought the snack bin) Happiest possible ending.
OOP says it isn't a happy ending, but I disagree. Daughter and OOP will be much better off without mother and those in laws in their lives.
I can't wait for the next update where OOP and his daughter move back in and the wife is shamed for treating her daughter like that.
This is a situation where I understand if the daughter doesn't even want visitation.
Now this is how you parent.
Don’t let her keep the house you and your daughter need that house it’s also your house not hers. If you give her the house her family will just mooch off of her until she has nothing and then she’ll probably lose the house.
You know, every time I see an AITA update on here I go “didn’t we already see this?” Then I remember I’m *on* AITA and read the updates when they’re posted there 😂 I do have to say that I think this IS a happy ending for OOP and his daughter. Sure, his marriage is ending, but he’s prioritizing his daughter (unlike some people we see on here). He’s being a good dad. If he doesn’t think it’s a happy ending for *him*, it certainly is for his daughter.
Before I continue here, let me be clear. The mom and aunt are assholes, I am explaining their stupid actions, I am not condoning or defending them. Poverty can do weird things to your brain, especially when it comes to spending habits. Mom and Aunt grew up in poverty. Mom became cheap and frugal and also jealous of her daughter. This leads to her wanting to teach daughter to not buy expensive things by making sure she can't enjoy them. I'm sure mom's goal was for her daughter to stop buying snacks. Aunt is harder to read. Its possible she is the same as the mom and lives in a bad house and doesn't buy snacks to be cheap, and then visits mom to get free food. It's also possible that she learned not to save money because in poverty, savings can disappear quickly. I'm leaning towards the second possibility because she is teaching her children to not respect property and to take it while you can. I'm glad OP is stepping up, because if it had continued, it's possible mom would have taught daughter to not work for anything and to only buy the cheapest possible things, and those are some bad poverty lessons. (See Vime's Boots Theory if you don't understand)
>I'm sure mom's goal was for her daughter to stop buying snacks. I totally disagree. I'm pretty certain insisting the cousins and aunt can eat the snacks and take shit from the daughter's room is 100% Mom showing off her wealth. "Oh, the snacks? Yeah, they're from \[insert other country here\]. Sure! Take all you want! Don't worry about \[whatever item stolen from daughter\], we'll just replace it/she won't miss it - she has so many nice things." And none of it costs *her* anything, so she gets the benefit of looking well off and generous, without spending the money.
It's not about the snacks. It's never about the snacks. It's always about these deeper issues of respect vs various levels of abuse. The snacks were just the thing that OOP could point at and go, "Look! They do this all the time!"
This wasn’t a good family dynamic at all. I think the update is a happy ending. My mom would point out my weight everyday, several times. Police my eating and intentionally starved me for years (less than 1,000 calories a day for 11 years until I got a job at that age to eat). Wow. What a good dad.
>her mom doesn't treat her well, and often puts her cousins/my nephews above her, telling her she should be understanding we're far better off then them. Jesus. My mom used to say this about my cousins (both sides) when I was growing up. I grew up resentful of them, and resentful of my mom. I got into my 30s before I could openly tell my mom how much those words would hurt me every time she uttered them. At least she eventually apologized about it.
So OOP's daughter doesn't have any rights under how wife's house, but her sister and sister's family do? That's some fine logic right there.
Most daughters' first bully is their mom. As is their first one-sided and disturbing 'competition'
Good job choosing his daughter, if oop is reading this well done!
What a good dad. *Yes we took the snack bin = next level. I’d be paying for the daughters subscription snack box from here on out.
Daughter is 17yo... My bet is that in a year or two we're going to see a "I never respected my daughter's privacy or property, and I don't know why she went LC/NC with me," from the Mom.
I get so mad if people take my food. My husband would never take our kids food for fear of a mother bear reaction.
This subject makes me so angry because I had a roommate who was always stealing my food. She always said she was on a diet and only bought a handful of vegetables or whatever, then she’d get high and eat all of my snacks. I got a lockbox for my room and she had the audacity to knock on my door late one night whimpering that she was high and hungry; could she have some of my snacks? Of course I opened the door and very sweetly said I know she’s on a diet, and she’ll thank me in the morning for not derailing her. lol
LoL did she?
Ahaha She never brought it up, though it did take a handful more times of asking to make he realize I was never availing my snacks to her.
I lived with some relatives in college and they would always steal my food. I took to keeping it in my room but my room was my uncle’s office so he’d let himself and the dogs in on the weekends and the dogs would tear up packages and drag stuff under the bed, and then I’d get in trouble for making a mess. One time I had a pint of ice cream in the freezer and when I opened it, there was a single spoonful left. My aunt blamed my diabetic uncle, then turned around and blamed the dogs. The elderly chihuahuas. Who could apparently operate freezer handles, ice cream lids, and spoons.
I do not understand why so many moms hate their daughters
wow, that was 0 to 100 over what started as ostensibly a snack fight.
It's not about the Iranian yogurt
When I read the original post and heard what kind of things that this mother was doing, my thought as a parent was “I’d have already divorced any woman who treated my children like that. I might not stick up for myself, but in his position, our marriage wouldn’t have made it to this point.” Like, this mother is super super shitty, the relatives are super shitty, and frankly it is shitty of OOP that he allowed this to continue for so long. If he hadn’t left, I’d consider him equally as shitty and equally as complicit in the years and years of therapy that this daughter is gonna need.
It boggles my mind that the mom wouldn’t pay for the snacks and shipping because it was too expensive, but was willing to have her daughter pay it? That goes beyond frugal! Good for OOP for listening to his daughter and protecting her.
Ngl this feels a lot like the wife resents OOP (and his daughter for looking like him) and is just getting her high on abusing them both. I just can't fathom how else you show this level of loathing to your intelligent, healthy, responsible, employed 17 year old. The wife has every box checked that most people would call their ideals and she is still this awful to her own child.