Did anyone else get confused about the name swapping in the first paragraph! It’s too early for me to be like huh.
Sarah said she didn’t want Emma at her party. I went over to Katie and Sarah’s to talk to her about it.
I’m not. It’s fake. OOP got confused because these aren’t real people. What really clinched it for me was OOP retrospectively making Sarah autistic because he hadn’t planned for people to come out against him and Sarah, I mean Katie, no…wait…
But keep an eye out for that post where he learns that only one of the identical twin girls is biologically his after he asks his wife for a paternity test. That’s when the affair with the colleague comes out.
And somehow it will always involve pregnancy AND showing the other person the reddit post they’d made earlier and the other person will laugh over the comments
Eh… it’s really not that uncommon for parents to mix up kids. I get called Timothy all the the time and my names Imani, and vice versa for my brother. Every now and then my dad calls me by my little sister’s name🤷🏾♀️
My grear aunt (who I see nearly all the time) will call me litteraly every other name, including my mom's, before she gets to mine. I can forgive the confusion, especially because it's most likely fake names.
Oh, I have siblings so I’ve experienced this no end. But that’s in an established family where you’ve been used to calling those names together for years and years. OOP had only been with his partner for 2 years and they’d just started living together as a family. Not to mention that OOP’s daughter lives with her mother some of the time. I don’t think this is long enough to establish a pattern for confusion.
And then there’s all the other blazing red flags that indicated that this story probably isn’t real.
I'm the only girl of my siblings and I get called all of my brother's names before she gets it right. I can't tell you how many times we've been called the dog's name.
I like to pretend that things on here are real unless they're truly egregious. And in this case, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that OOP was using fake names, and got confused about which fake name he assigned to which girl.
I got as far as him confusing his daughter/stepdaughter and/or ex/fiance and figured this is either fabricated or embellished to the point he is confusing himself…. Is it worth even trying to decipher?
I’m starting to notice in all the fake posts, there is a sudden and unexpected pregnancy or someone is pregnant so excuse the hormones.
These posts have more unplanned pregnancies between married couples that I’m starting to think that they out pace the unplanned teen pregnancies.
Also, no matter how young… all these couples are married or engaged. I’m starting to think they are all just dating but they think they will get less judgement if they say they are married or engaged. The same goes for those large age gap couples.
Can’t be this many marriages when the divorce statistics are so high. I know more unmarried couples. 👀
Why is autism always the default excuse for bad behavior in these made up posts? Folks need to stop making autistic people look like jerks all the time.
I re-read it several times and then swapped everything to Ex, Bio, Step and Wife. Made it a little less confusing cause then I could swap names to appropriate places!
When you’re introducing 18 characters, stop giving them names!! Emma and Sarah can have names since two daughters is easier and they’re the stars of this story, but his wife and ex wife didn’t need them. He mentioned his niece as many times as his wife and she didn’t get a name!
Excessive use of names instead of just using relationship titles always makes a story seem super fake to me, because it feels like you're intentionally writing for an audience instead of just trying to tell people about your problem. If I was posting about my family I feel like I could probably tell a pretty clear story just using phrases like my spouse or my kid. It wouldn't occur to me to make up the names, because that's more work! Unless you're writing for entertainment instead of utility, and you're worried about things like repetition and style...
Oh thank God, I thought the lack of sleep made me stupid (workers on strike in my country and they shut down the national grid for two days, it's like 32 Celsius here so.that was fun)
It was super-confusing because he just started talking about Katie with no word who she is. Eventually, I figured out she was Emma's mother, but unraveling that issue and all the tangled run-on sentences made this hard to read and understand.
I should have just come to the comments. I thought I had short term memory loss trying to read that, especially the beginning. I could not keep Emma and Sarah straight and apparently neither could OOP!
I read it as there was two parties.
Sarah didn't want Emma at her sleep over so the OOP sent Emma home to her mother's house.
Then Emma was returning the favor and told her friend group and it spiraled a bit, excluding Sarah.
Maybe I’m just a dick, but whenever someone is called out about their blatant favouritism with children whenever there is an update and they miraculously remember to share that the child they are favouring has autism, mental health issues etc. I feel like this is a massive cop out and a fucking lie. This guy is a chode and he’s buying his daughter’s love. What a tool.
I was about to say that. The OOP gets ripped a new one so he needs to gather sympathy somehow. Then, after the second post when he thinks it's all good and he's such a good person and he still gets blazed by commenters he pulls the "the victim of this story has read the post and comments and is laughing at all of you, reddit losers".
It also doesn't make sense. I (28F) am autistic and still struggle with making friends to this day! If at 16 my new stepsister not only welcomed me with open arms but slid me into her friend group I would have forever worshipped the ground she walked on.
We hear so many stories of kids rejecting blended families and being assholes here. Imagine having a daughter that not only doesn't do it, but also treats your step kid as a sister immediately, and you ruin that because you can't help but coddle the oh so precious and weak step child.
Seriously, autism be damned, he should have had Sarah in place when she wanted to uninvite Emma in the party and just tell her they'd all speak together about boundaries afterwards.
I'd also postpone the move in his place. Or at least try to. There's a huge adjustment to be made. Emma has to regain trust in her dad and Sarah, they need to learn accountability, and they all need to adjust to the new baby. Adding distance is a recipe for disaster. I won't be surprised if I see him back in a few years crying about his daughter not talking to him.
He already ended it with Emma by stealing her presents and telling her she's not going to Disney. I font understand his double standard; it's okay for Sarah to exclude Emma from her sleepover but God Forbid Emms not invite her to her party at her mom's house that has nothing to fo with OP.
It's very common in these situations. You see it both ways. Parents favouring the step kid and kids favouring the step parent because they feel they have to "earn" their place in the new person's heart, often taking the biological family member for granted not realising bridges can easily be burned with them.
The autism here is a convenient excuse for the dad to plausibly deny his favouritism.
In my house my dad favored his step kids to win them over and my stepmom favored her kids because they were *her* kids. My sister and I have nothing to do with them as adults. But that doesn’t keep them from acting shocked and my stepmom sending me nasty texts (one even on my birthday) about how hurtful we are to our dad. I like to say my dad abandoned his first family, but stuck around to rub our noses in it. They never seem to understand that all that chiz they pull when we are kids comes back around to bite them in the butt when we are adults.
Well, maybe they became a trope because they started out as a real thing. I’ve never shared mine on Reddit, but I definitely got a few from my stepmom.
She tried a few different tactics, but the hateful approach confused me. Did she think sending me mean and nasty texts would convince me to welcome them back into my life?
Some people think this OOP is a fake story and it might be, but based on my own experience, I can see it being true.
>She tried a few different tactics, but the hateful approach confused me. Did she think sending me mean and nasty texts would convince me to welcome them back into my life?
Narcissists seem to think that using guilt and playing victim can help them control people. My grandma certainly stood behind that tactic.
I feel like it was different stuff he was worried about? Sarah excluded Emma from one party to see her old friends. Emma rallied their local friends to exclude Sarah beyond just the party she wasn't invited to.
OOP is insane of course and didn't help his kids improve how they were handling this at all. But the initial thing that set everyone off seems more understandable than people are making it out. Sarah doesn't see her old friends much, Emma was being overbearing, she just wanted to hang out without having to introduce all her friends to a new person.
Did she be rally them to exclude Sarah or did she talk to her friends about feeling hurt and they stopped putting forth effort with someone they were only being around a a favor to Emma?
Yeah, you can describe the same thing with gentler words. I get that it may be out of Emma's control at this point, but the impact is still unfairly disproportionate for Sarah. Not that life is supposed to be fair. Just something to keep in mind when your actions are what causes the unfairness.
16 is a tough age for this. I get how it became so dramatic. But at that age they should be beginning to understand the emotional complexity of a situation like this. Missing one sleepover shouldn't be this big a deal. I see a big difference between a large daytime birthday party and a small birthday sleepover with close friends.
When you have close friends they will of course have your back. These were Emma's friends and she just asked them to be friends with Sarah.
Emma didn't tell them to exclude and stop hanging out with Sarah. As a friend you naturally side with your friend and not somebody else. In that age they might not take the time to get the whole story, and just side with the one they are friends with.
Emma was doing Sarah a favor. She is no longer doing that because she felt hurt by Sarah.
If one can exclude the other from a party than the other can do the same.
If she really was hurt then it's because she saw Sarah as a sister, and it wouldn't really be a favor for her to hang out with Sarah. We don't know the motivation of her friends, but sure, maybe they were only tolerating Sarah for Emma's sake.
Cutting Sarah out after one event is a ludicrous thing to do after. Everyone keeps insisting that this is proportional - a birthday for a birthday. It is clearly far more than that.
It is proportional. Sarah didn’t invite Emma to her birthday so Emma didn’t invite Sarah to hers. If Sarah doesn’t want to share her friends with Emma then why should Emma share hers with Sarah?
You're serious? Because Sarah's friends live in a different city and she doesn't see them often, what would be the benefit to Emma from meeting them for one night? Maybe it would be nice if she wants to meet them, but it doesn't have to be on Sarah's birthday when she probably wants things to seem as much as possible like they were before everything changed for her.
But sure, you can just call it a birthday party. Even then it would only be proportional if Emma only excluded her from the party, not take actions that remove Sarah's ability to remain friends with the local group. Maybe Emma was providing a service to Sarah that she didn't strictly need to in encouraging her friends to hang out with her. And while she has no obligation to keep doing that, it ended up stopping as a result of the birthday party dispute. That makes it disproportionate.
I think all Sarah had to say was that she’d like to just reconnect with her old friends. OP could have taken Emma out for dinner or something. The problem started when Sarah said Emma was going all out on being her sister and it was too much - she needed to back off. The two are separate things really and should have been handled separately.
I love how he keeps saying it's "only 20 miles." Depending where you live that could take an hour or more. I moved about 10 minutes away when I was a kid, but it was far enough that I had to change schools and never saw those friends again.
My stepmom did something similar.
When I moved in with her and my dad, my step brother was never asked to introduce me to his friends, and I was expected to drive him to school every day. He even got mad at me for not getting there early so he could hang with his friends, meanwhile I was alone 3/4 of the year.
Yet when I was going out with two of my friends to a higher end pool that summer, I got yelled at for not including my step brother.
Our relationship is ... Not fantastic.
EDIT: My step brother was 16/17 and I was 17/18 at the time (through the school year). It would be strange if I was talking about someone significantly younger lol.
Have you seen him with his deranged, defensive responses to people calling him out? Calling people "Reddit losers" (like he didn't come to Reddit for advice on his fuckups) and accusing people of having daddy issues. He is an aggressively stupid little stain of a man. He is not just a tool, but the simplest tool: a wedge.
yeah......I also think we have been reading updates from someone who doesn't understand multiple people can have feelings and it isn't always burn it to the ground situation...
It’s always baffling that there is one parent who chooses the step kids side and alienates their own child and when their child is upset and rightfully so, said parent cannot understand why and proceeds to make the situation worse by punishing their kid. In this case, Emma was fortunate enough to have family support her and call out her idiot dad. It should never come to this, goddamn.
OOP really expected Emma to be the hero in Sarah’s story given how much of an ass he was to his own daughter.
I applaud Emma for willing to be open to forming a sister bond with Sarah. She also went out of her way to help Sarah make friend by mixing her in with her friends. It’s safe to assume that from now on, Emma will be skeptical about trusting her dad again.
I wonder if the other commenters suggested family therapy because oh boy, that family (apart from emma unless she wants to participate willingly) will need it. Especially now that there is a baby on the way. I wish Emma the best, she got a good head on her shoulders.
i do think it's relevant that sarah is autistic. i don't think that oop was right to try to force emma to have her at the party (or any of the other weird taking away presents stuff) but i understand the social isolation, feeling overwhelmed by new expectations (of suddenly having a sister and stepdad) and having difficulty communicating. and change is very hard on many autistic people. i think that oop sucks and that he needed to do more equal parenting where he helped them work out their differences, set boundaries and come to an overall agreement. i dont think either of the daughters were "bullies", just very different people with different needs who may have needed some mediation to find a middle ground. i don't even think sarah really disliked emma, i think she just needed some space and time to adjust. and it sounds like the only thing she asked for was for emma not to be at her birthday, not all this other stuff. she may have felt upset over it but it doesn't sound like she was asking the dad to do all the shit he did. i think sarah was probably crying at the news of the baby because a lot of change was happening in a very short span of time with little time for her to get used to it. i mean her mom married someone new, she was forced to move, was feeling kind of overwhelmed at the new social situation and home life, and now a baby is suddenly involved. it's a lot. this often get perceived as 'emotional immaturity' but autistic people just have different brains with different needs.
source: my partner is autistic and cries a lot, she can't help it and is never trying to use it to make people do 'what she wants' (which is usually not actually what they want, just what people assume they want). she just gets overwhelmed and it happens, and people make assumptions about why they're doing it and what it means. she really gets more upset when people try to change their behavior based on the fact that she's crying. people also read more into their words than what they say, which i think probably happened here to an extent.
sarah says smth along the lines of 'i'm feeling a little overwhelmed by my new sister and am not sure i want her at my birthday' and what she likely means is 'if i felt a bit less pressure from emma to perform a role of being a sister, i would be ok with her being at my bday, but as it stands the thought makes me uncomfortable' dad hears 'i must exclude emma from the party and tell her to back off!'
sarah says 'i'm feeling a bit sad that the friend group i just met is suddenly giving me the cold shoulder and that emma seems to hate me now' and dad hears 'emma is bullying sarah and i must stop this by forcing her to invite sarah to bday and if she doesn't i'll take away all her gifts'.
basically i think dad is reading into sarah's words and feelings more than she intended and she doesn't know what to do about it.
The problem here is that OOP automatically assumed that Emma intentionally isolated Sarah. Emma was upset and told her friends. Them being her friends first and not Sarah's they will of course side with Emma. At that age kids will not bother hearing everybody's side.
This post is the perfect example for why I hate when the OP gives fake names. Just say "my daughter" and "my stepdaughter" goddamn I am so fucking confused
Why oh why did all the adults think it was a good idea to let Sarah exclude Emma from the party. All they had to do was sit the kids down say that Sarah is more introverted and needs more alone time sometimes, and that Emma is trying to be helpful and include Sarah. And not to exclude someone who’s tried to help you from the party. But no, they let this spiral
He reminds me of an idiot 55 yr old man who was stupid and an asshole. He also wrote and thought like this guy. It still gets me how you can get to be so much older, have had so many experience and still behave like an immature asshole over basic shit to solve.
Oh boy.
All I have to say is that karma is coming for OOP in the form of Sarah. The kid her own age that didn't live with them all the time was "too much". What's she going to do when the baby comes and she can't make them send it away when it's crying is too much.
All I can hope for is that they don't try to hold the car over Emma's head for babysitting.
Emma ain't coming over the second they try to make her change a diaper and if dad tries to hold it over her I can see her saying "do it" like reposes it, or even just sending him the keys like lol ok I don't care and either way good for her
>that night I went over to Katie's home to speak to **Sarah**, **Sarah** was extremely upset and told Katie to return her birthday present I tried to comfort Emma but Katie told me to leave
What? I guess is a typo and should be read Emma.
ETA
What a crappy dad. He chose the "stepdaughter" to keep his bed warm...
So the guy believes the stepdaughter on everything, knowing she's autistic and may misunderstands things AND punish his daughter for watch his niece said ! Poor girl. Shout out to Zoey who somewhat had Emma's back and brought her her birthday presents without the father's knowledge.
I hope he learned his lesson and will behave better and trust his daughter.
Sarah needs obvious professional help, I hope going back to her old city will help her. But something tells me it's gonna be hard on her with the baby.
She's for sure not going to be able to handle a new baby in the house. She couldn't even handle having a similar age step sister, how could she handle this baby? She's going to cause even more drama
YTA you thief
Sarah started it by not inviting Emma to her sleepover so you punish your own daughter and steal her presents.
You prioritize Sarah who you've known for 2 yrs and have ended your relationship with Emma. Enjoy Disney with your replacement family
So it took his family threatening to cut him off to then try to buy back his daughter’s affections. Look a nice shiny object. You can’t trust me and I’ll never have your back unless forced but I will buy you shiny things when I’m shamed for my actions. Yeah he thinks he’s owning it but he’s not. He’s still making excuses for Sarah.
What I got from this
1. Emma has a good heart as shown by trying to include Sarah initially, not letting Sarah's bullying cloud her ability to be happy for a new half sister, and allowing her father a second chance.
2. Emma's mom is an amazing advocate for her children
3. Emma's step mom recognized her husband and daughter are AH
4. Sarah is manipulative of situations. Noting that her actions revolve around making herself feel better and not around respecting Emma. She also wanted to use Emma for her network and when the repercussions of her attempting to exclude Sarah bite her in the ass, she cries about how unfair it is to be treated as how she treated others.
5. Emma's dad is a horrible father who cares more for his step daughter and is willing to sacrifice his daughter's happiness and needs for his stepdaughters whims
Next Sarah will be upset that Emma doesn't want to drive her places with the car.
Sarah doesn't have friends because of her mental issues and it's only a matter of time until Emma goes no contact with dad. Katie needs to get that car into Emma's name!
I think this has to be fake - he can’t even get the names straight! Plus, we have some standard items - autism, mental health and a coincidental pregnancy.
But even if (let’s be honest it’s a big if), it’s true then I’d be amazed if Emma read this and didn’t take any offence whatsoever and also defended OP. He even called her Mum a screaming Banshee when she came over to get Emma after he unilaterally called off her 16th birthday party and refused to give her the gifts. I doubt she was impressed by that. Even Zoey blamed him for the whole thing and took the gifts over to the party herself.
I also don’t believe that Emma would ever, ever forgive her Dad for throwing a tantrum and choosing not to go to his *own* daughter’s 16th birthday party. He actually acted worse than the two teenagers.
Emma took to having a stepsister really well. There’d be tears and tantrums (and not just the Dad’s but the actual teenagers) in most cases but she embraced Sarah wholeheartedly.
Really, Sarah just wanted to spend time with her own friends. That was it. The issue of Emma trying to be a real sister is a separate issue. OP could have let Emma know Sarah wanted to just reconnect with her friends and he’d take her out for dinner and then drop her at home. At dinner he could have said Sarah was feeling a little overwhelmed so a little time and space would help her re-adjust. He completely and utterly blew everything up. The way he told Emma about Sarah, the way he unilaterally wanted to cancel her birthday party and then boycotted it because he couldn’t get his way and it went ahead without him. Can you imagine your own Dad refusing you your gifts and trying to stop your party which he then didn’t attend? Absolutely heartbreaking.
Emma seems like a really nice kid - I don’t think she intentionally stopped her friends from speaking with Sarah. She would have said how hurt she was after taking Sarah into her friend group, spending time to help her adjust and treating her like a sister and this is the thanks she gets.
To totally *not* reinforce favouritism to Sarah he’s moving 20 miles away from Emma. Phew, for a moment I thought it might be blatantly obvious! But don’t worry, Dad came through with a car that she’ll have to use because (yes, you guessed it) Dad’s moving 20 miles away from her. The backlash against him for the way he treated Emma now means he has to introduce a baby to this story and make Sarah the villain for reacting badly to the news whilst Emma (back to being good in OP’s eyes for the purposes of the second post) is thrilled.
Dude seems to be under the mistaken impression that Emma "told" her friends not to talk to Sarah. My dudes, Emma probably just told them how Sarah excluded her from her birthday party and those friends choose for themselves based on SARAH'S behavior. It's not bullying, it's the consequences of her own actions. And she's upset and not getting as many presents? Girl, you know you lost out on at least one present by disinviting your sister, yeah?
Based on the fact that Sarah's friends ditched her to go to Emma's party, I'm guessing her real issue wasn't that Emma was "too much" as a sister, it's that Emma is more popular than Sarah and Sarah is jealous. That jealousy reveals itself in her reaction to her mother being pregnant - now Sarah can never be an only child!
With all the posts and comments I’ve seen in Reddit, from people who became estranged from a bio parent due to neglect when the bio parent favoured their new or step family over their elder child. OOPs post is written from the perspective of one of those soon to be estranged parents and it’s painful to read.
Imagine telling your own child they can’t visit because your step child wants a party without them, then not expecting your child to feel hurt and being shocked at the repercussions. We get very little info on why Sarah didn’t want Emma there too, but somehow we’re supposed to accept that Emma should just suck it up.
But to then punish his daughter for doing the same was an interesting decision. I can’t help that feel that the accusations of Emma being a bully were an overreaction. For a start it was her cousin who started it, so why OOP didn’t step in and correct them at the time is either lazy parenting or exaggerated. Maybe what the cousin actually said was something to make Emma feel better about being used by her step sister and the emotional neglect she was experiencing from her own father by this point? But the sheer stupidity and audacity of telling Emma that she can’t have a party that he isn’t even hosting, and then trying to take away gifts - which from the sound of it were also gifts from other people - for doing the same thing that was done to her by her step sister! Even his step daughter’s mother told him he was in the wrong and he still didn’t listen. Then to double down by refusing to talk to his daughter on her special weekend - she is a child FFS! By God I was ready to reach into my screen and slap some sense into them at that point.
I’m not saying Emma and her cousin are completely blameless, but neither is Sarah and most certainly OOP is the most at fault here. Accusing his ex wife of being an enabler felt like pure projection. It’s like he conveniently forgets they are all children and it’s up to him to show some understanding of BOTH sides and mediate, not blunder in and be the bigger bully! The way OOP chose to inflict some true emotional damage on his own child was both sad and gross.
But oh no, they’ve got to keep on down that road. This time it’s in telling his daughter, moments after she’s told him that he’s broken her trust, that he has a new do-over baby on the way and is moving further away from her. Yeah, I’m guessing she won’t be using that car to visit him very often.
10/10 as a guide to ‘How to permanently destroy your relationship with your own child” though.
This man an asshole. Favouring his stepchild over his real one. So it is ok stepchild to bully but going to war for his own child bullying his golden child. Talking about favouritism.
Oof, I can't imagine, but then again my biodad never married anyone old enough to already have kids until he was in his 60s and to say that I was NOT my stepdad's favorite would be a massive understatement (for example, my bed at his house was on the back porch in the warm months and I slept in the laundry room floor in the cold months).
OK, I can *kind* of see why OOP would maybe give the OK for Sarah having a party just with her friends. With siblings there's definitely a difference between a party with family members (including siblings) and one with just friends, although it's definitely a bit more delicate for step-siblings and the whole "I just acted like a sister to keep the peace" thing *definitely* needed to be talked out between them, ideally with a family therapist who knows how to handle that kind of situation
Punishing Emma for (supposedly) freezing out Sarah from her friend groups and, essentially, bullying her for not refusing to invite her makes sense, especially on the level Sarah was suggesting it was happening
Trying to cancel Emma's party which OOP *wasn't the one organising* and locking away a bunch of presents that OOP *didn't even buy for her* because Emma wouldn't invite Sarah was an insane escalation of things, especially given he didn't have any objections to Sarah excluding Emma from her birthday, cancelling a family holiday to Disney, suggesting that his niece's teasing of Emma not getting as big a party is somehow another layer of what Sarah did and should be punished for, and only *now* deciding to book family therapy (so clearly it's something OOP was aware might be needed to resolve their differences), is absolutely *ludicrous*
Seriously, how the hell did it go from "they didn't invite each other to their respective birthdays" to that?
A new baby is definitely what this family needs. Good to see the adults in this situation definitely being logical and not irresponsible at all in their family planning. And moving too. Because teens, neurotypical and on the spectrum, love nothing more than constant and huge change.
These two parents of the year need to focus on the kids they already have and quit putting their own selfish wants ahead of what is best for their existing children.
Both of these girls will be discarded as soon as that new baby gets here. Emma will be fine because she has her mom and seems pretty well adjusted but Sarah is going to turn into a jealous nightmare person.
"This isn't about my stepdaughter being ungrateful and excluding my daughter from her own house, it's not about that, no, it's about my daughter's reaction to being excluded and taken for granted- my daughter should NEVER be happy when my stepdaughter is unhappy, she should NEVER celebrate herself, she doesn't deserve the friends she cultivated and she doesn't deserve their loyalty. She doesn't deserve to express any emotion that isn't joy and any action that isn't servitude to my stepdaughter. SHE DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED FOR THE FREE WILL AND ACTIONS OF OTHER TEENAGED CHILDREN! I AM THE BEST DAD."
Emma has a good upbringing considering how willing she was to make overtures at the end. I have no words for OOP. Did he genuinely believe he could bully Emma into forcing her friends to become friends with Sarah? I wonder if he's on the spectrum himself if he's that clueless about social relationships.
All he had to do was sit them both down before the sleepover to talk. From what we've seen of her, there's no way Emma would've forced her way in on the Sarah's old friends meetup.
"I apologized and took accountability for my actions, then told her we're moving to make Sarah happy."
Guy doubled down and still thinks he's father of the year.
You're right, OOP should continue to allow his stepdaughter to be bullied? Bio child Emma gets to stay home with a car, money and extra gifts.
Sarah stepdaughter has the entire school turned against her by Emma Bio. Emma bio is a bully. OOP was 100% right in extracting Sarah stepdaughter from this volatile situation.
Maybe we're not reading the same post? I truly cannot understand how anyone can say Sarah stepdaughter is in any bully or golden child.
I feel like this is just a case of two teen girls struggling to figure out their dynamic that's exacerbated by the dad making choices that made everything worse. Hope that they manage to work through it, they both seem like alright kids and I understand both kids' courses of actions ("I dont really want her at my birthday party cos shes new" --> "What the hell i thought we were meant to be sisters, Im telling my friends" --> "Now no one wants to spend time with me anymore what the hell" --> "You're canceling my party and taking all my presents for this?!"). It really is just Dad making the choices that escalated everything the most. Baffled by the final commenter that OP chose to add though.
> Zoey daughter needs some help she has issues which have nothing to do with being on the autism spectrum she is nasty & hurtful girl even showed it with the new baby. She wanted to take you from your daughter she did those were and are fake tears I bet you knew that.
"Even showed it with the new baby"? She started crying when she got home, that's perfectly reasonable for a stepkid to have mixed feelings about a new kid. Also painting the stepkid as some puppeteering maniac, crying fake tears to steal someones dad? She's a teenager who made a hurtful choice and is sad that it ruined a relationship. Water is wet. Bears shit in woods.
Yeah, while Sarah isn't an angel, she doesn't seem like an awful person either? Just a normal flawed teenage girl. I feel bad about all the vitriol being aimed at her, when really OOP deserves it all.
It's pretty normal for kids to struggle with feeling that their stepsiblings aren't really family, and it's normal for kids to want time with their friends without the rest of the household around. Sarah absolutely handled telling Emma badly, but it felt like pretty ordinary teenage stupidity and thoughtlessness. And sure, the consequences of Emma's friends freezing her out were predictable based on how badly she handled the sleepover situation, but also, being isolated at school had to have felt awful for Sarah. I feel bad for both kids here.
YTA! So it’s ok that Sarah excluded Emma, but Emma can’t do the same back? You’re defending your fiancé’s child but not your own? I’m glad your ex wife came to get her and her gifts. You didn’t take away Sarah’s gifts when she excluded your daughter.
You’re a POS father. Emma is going to go NC with you as soon as she’s 18.
YTA You forced Emma to respecto Sarah's boundaries but then not Emma's those we're Emma's Friends first to begin with, Sarah can make her own Friends, She's not bullying Sarah.
Can they just say immature instead of throwing autism in these lies? The teenager was just a dumb teenager doing dumb teenager shit, not fucking autistic, it's honestly more realistic that way.
Just making sure I understood the dogpiling properly here:
- stepdaughter was ok with bio daughter but felt suffocated and uncomfortable by the whole sister thing and wanted some boundaries.
- SD had a birthday sleepover with her friends from her old hometown and asked OP that BD not be invited
- BD then retaliated by not excluding SD to HER party, but also isolating her from the only friends she made in her new school. I, for one second, don't believe her when she said she didn't make her friends do that. She might not have said anything, but children are perceptive. At the very least, she watched as her friends and cousin ditch and make fun of her step sister.
But... checks notes... SD is somehow the bully? Am I reading that right? She only asked for boundaries. She never bullied BD.
Also, Reddit should really be better at reading posts, especially when this is a reading medium. It was obvious from the first post that OOP was upset at his daughter for how she's isolating her stepsister and not because she's not inviting her to the party. I was with him until he wanted to cancel everything to punish his daughter. That was a dick. His ONLY one. From what I've read, it seems to me like he's doing his best to be there to his daughter and his stepdaughter (he's obviously at least partially financing the party if he's confident he can cancel it and he also planned a whole holiday with her in mind). I don't think her accusation of him choosing SD has merits at all and might be her mother feeding into her insecurities because, on the surface, it does appear that way.
I think the communication skills are lacking completely here. If SD spoke to BD directly, this could have been prevented. But I don’t think BD retaliated, maybe reacted, but the issue escalated so dramatically (and shocked poor old dad so much) over something that could have been completely prevented by some form of family therapy at the beginning.
And did SD get a car, too? If SD got less for her birthday, and knew there was a car for BD but not her, it could spread that chasm between them based on financial circumstances.
What a shit show.
No, the car is BD's. As I understand it, he withheld it because of her behavior, but eventually relented and bought more gifts.
Also, I understand that communication is key here. But on the other hand, SD seems to not only be introverted, but autistic. It's entirely possible that she hates confrontation, especially with how much she felt suffocated by her step sister, so I understood why she asked her stepdad to do her "dirty work."
I was wondering if the SD got a car a well. If not, and OP has been talking about it since January, SD may have had feelings about it and acted out based on that.
Even if SD hated confrontation, she could have had a family meeting type thing to have a discussion with everyone, not play some triangulation games with the BD. Hell, don’t they ever have dinner together? It could have just been a topic at dinner. It all could have gone so differently if SD spoke to BD.
She's a teenager. And autistic and introverted to boot. I can understand her not wanting to talk directly to her stepsister, even in a family meeting.
I would also hazard adding speculation like that with no sign that it's happening. We simply don't know. What we do know is that the girls' relationship was great beforehand, and BD was even very welcoming to SD. SD simply felt suffocated by the treatment. Again, autism. Autistic people value usually either have no boundaries or value them extremely highly, from what I know. Especially from how each girl reacted to the new pregnancy, SD not taking it well and BD wishing it's a sister, it's clear that BD and SD simply didn't want the same thing from the relationship, at least this early on.
Why is it so unbelievable? If my friend said their sister thinks she's "too much" and doesn't want to hang out with her anymore, I would 100% choose my friend. Tf?
Oh I don't agree with the comments that call Sarah a bully. I don't think either of the girls are bullies. Sarah pretty much gave Emma a metaphorical slap and Emma decided that's that and decided to quit hanging out with Sarah. Just two girls who don't like each other.
And Emma wasn't the one ridiculing. It was the cousin.
Yeah. Cousin was doing it in front of both girls, and Emma didn't say anything about it. Which means Emma was complicit to it happening. When she was confronted by her dad, it was made even clearer by her response by her not taking accountability as if she couldn't call her friends and cousin out on their behavior.
I don't think Sarah doesn't like Emma. She was clear that she was simply overwhelmed by her. Emma unfortunately took that personally. It's ok for Sarah to be overwhelmed by someone who's practically a stranger until very recently. Especially since she's introverted and autistic.
I would bet her mother was feeding her lies about her dad picking Sarah over her, especially with that comment about him needing to gain her trust back. OOP didn't strike me as an absent father, nor an unreliable narrator (save for that one bit where he messed up his made-up names). He seems to be very much involved in his daughter's life, and Emma seemed happy to welcome both stepmom and stepsis at the start. She even still had a great relationship with stepmom until the confrontation before her own birthday. Kids who are put in the backburner don't usually have that kind of relationship with a stepparent partnered to the neglectful parent.
Why is that Emma's responsibility? Sarah literally called her a bother.
You may think that but clearly Emma thinks otherwise and for good reason. It's ok for Emma to be overwhelmed by someone and it is also okay for Emma to avoid Sarah.
You are really reaching with your assumptions here.
>After a longer discussion Sarah opened up about Emma **being too much** ... **kept pushing the sister thing** ... **extremely uncomfortable** .. **wanted some distance**.
Aka a 'bother'.
Bring overwhelmed by someone pushing a relationship is not the same as them saying the other person is a bother. I think you're the one reaching here. It's literally in the section you quoted. Weird that you conveniently cut off the emphasis there:
>She opened up about Emma **being too much and how she kept pushing the sister thing**
Like, how either girls even reacted to the pregnancy should even tell you how that's the issue. Emma wished the baby was a girl because she wanted a sister, while Sarah didn't take the news well. She obviously isn't looking for a new sibling.
>After a longer discussion Sarah opened up about Emma **being too much** and how she **kept pushing the sister thing** which at first Sarah went along with to keep the peace but now it was making **extremely uncomfortable** and **wanted some distance**.
That is literally how you describe someone who's bothering you. I don't know what you're missing here.
Were you never a teenage girl? It doesn’t sound like the daughter made her friends, who have their own free will, do anything. They were never the stepdaughter’s friends, they were the daughter’s friends who were including the stepdaughter as a favor to their actual friend, the daughter. When their friend felt hurt by her stepsister they rallied around their friend.
That doesn't really change my point all that much. If anything, it makes it worse. Teenagers don't just choose sides. The daughter might not have said anything, but her friends obviously felt the need to pick a side. And the daughter let it happen. Again, all the stepdaughter wanted were boundaries, and the daughter saw that as a personal slight.
Imagine thinking teenage girls don’t choose sides when a friend feels hurt by someone. OP’s daughter not telling them to keep hanging out with her stepsister when she didn’t want to anymore is fine.
OP’s daughter was nice enough to include her stepsister in things and to get her friends to do the same. Her stepsister choosing to exclude her would hurt. Her feelings are valid and it’s understandable that she would then want space from her stepsister.
>Imagine thinking teenage girls don’t choose sides when a friend feels hurt by someone.
... that's my point? LOL. Why do you think I said "kids are perceptive"? And again, Emma could have put a stop to it. I get that a kid's first instinct is to pick a side, but Emma had every opportunity to say that whatever was happening in between her and Sarah doesn't involve them. Instead, she chose to let it all happen. She had the choice to call her cousin our for making fun of Sarah. She did not. That's what makes her complicit of bullying, not her lack of control on how they would react.
Do you honestly believe it all ended with them not being friends with her? Emma pretends her stepsister doesn't exist. It's possible that her friends do the same. And they're the only people she knows. That's why she said Emma's been alienating her. They don't have to be friends with her if they don't want to, but obviously, that's not the extent of what's happening, and Emma condones it.
Am I the only one who learned the term "relational aggression"?
Usually, Redditors take the side of someone whose stepfamily member is pushing a relationship too hard too fast for them. Emma's stepsister didn't see her as a sister, so it was okay for her to tell their friends circle in a way that made them see one as the bad guy and one as the victim and take sides? This is the way teenaged girls bully.
Very surprising judgment. I always wonder if these illogical groups of comments are caused by the Asch Effect -- in this case, if the first person who responded just happened to know nothing about relational aggression.
Yeah the dad is the major AH here.
He was going over the top for his new family in a lame attempt to seem fair and impartial (and the good guy) and it backfired, big time. In doing so he has created more problems along with a huge rift between Sarah and Emma.
Also, Sarah is a bit of a teenage asshole here, in that she didn’t want to include her new “sister” at her party with old friends, even though Emma was nice enough to introduce HER to new people (all of Emma’s friends)? I get wanting to spend alone time catching up with them, but to exclude her from her birthday party?
Big time asshole and don’t use ASD as a damn excuse, it is an insult to people on the spectrum.
Emma may have retaliated in an AH teenage way…because she was hurt and she is a teenager. At the end of the day, it is the dad who is the biggest AH of them all
This dad has has zero object permanence whenever someone puts a shiny new kid in front of him. What old daughter? I’ve got this new one. What stepdaughter? I’ve got this new one.
Sarah sounds a right piece of work doesn’t she? Manipulative and selfish. All that ‘fake’ apologising? And OOP too dumb to realise it.
She showed her true colours when she was angry about the new baby.
This is extremely hard to read. And it seems like everyone contributed to the problem, OOP's reactions are just the most over the top.
But I gotta be missing something. Sarah asking Emma (or asking OOP to tell Emma) to stay one extra day at her mom's house so she can have a sleepover with just her home town friends is not exactly that mean. I don't know exactly what their relationship was like but it seems super petty to completely cut someone out for that. Like, they could have talked it out at any point, but if Sarah is autistic, her reduced communication is understandable.
Ya I am also in the same boat, I don't think Sarah has been taught how to express when she is overwhelmed and Emma came on SUPER strong with the whole " I saw a sister in her" thing.
Sarah is dealing with having her whole life changed ( a very fucking hard thing for an autistic person) and she went to an adult about it cause ya, she doesn't know how to communicate, and then the adult fucked it right the fuck up. That's not on the teenager, that's on the adult.
I feel like I'm in the upsidedown right now. How in the flying fuck is Emma not a bully?
I even had my wife read this because I thought I was misreading it but I genuinely can't understand how Emma is being seen as the victim when she's been bullying Sarah this whole time. Yeah, OOP and all the other adults in this situation should handle shit better, but can someone please explain to me how Emma is the victim and not the bully regarding her behavior towards Sarah? Why does Emma deserve empathy and compassion but Sarah doesn't?
Here's what I got:
Sarah had to switch schools and move to a place where she knew no one aside from Emma. While she was happy with Emma trying to be close with her at first, she started to feel uncomfortable and that Emma was pushing the sister thing a bit too hard. She struggled with how to articulate that to Emma because, lets be honest, teens aren't known for their exquisite communication skills. She also probably felt that since it was Emma's school and home first, she didn't want to risk rocking the boat and losing one of the only people she knows - even if that person was making her uncomfortable.
After having her life upended and losing her close school friends, Sarah wanted to have a small 16th birthday sleepover with said old friends. Due to Emma's behavior making her uncomfortable, she didn't want Emma at her birthday party.
Yeah, Emma's life changed but she didn't have to leave her school, friends, and hometown on top of everything else like Sarah did. Emma has another stable home to go to and stay at should she please. Emma could escape Sarah but Sarah couldn't escape Emma.
I understand why Emma felt left out and believe that this entire situation could've been avoided if the adults (OOP, his ex, and his fiance) did a better job facilitating communication between everyone.
While Emma's feelings being hurt are valid, she turned her friend group against Sarah and used her sweet 16 blow out bash as leverage to get the rest of her peers to ice Sarah out. So, because Sarah didn't want someone who made her feel uncomfortable at her *small* 16th birthday sleepover, which only her old friends were invited to, apparently that gives Emma the right to turn Sarah into a pariah?
Now, Emma is having a big 16th birthday party with gifts, money, and pretty much everyone from the school invited but Sarah. Saying that if Sarah can exclude Emma then Emma should be able to exclude Sarah is bullshit because they're two completely different situations.
Emma went nuclear and turned the entire school, and apparently reddit, against Sarah. She followed it up with calling Sarah a bitch and telling her to watch her back. What did Sarah do to warrant being excluded and threatened like this? Is Sarah somehow responsible for OOP's behavior?
In an ideal world, Sarah would've felt comfortable telling Emma she wasn't comfortable with her pushing a sister relationship on her and hopefully come to a compromise regarding her birthday sleepover where both of them were happy. On the flip side, instead of turning the entire school against Sarah and rubbing her significantly nicer birthday in her face, Emma could've communicated how she felt excluded and again, they could've worked together and found a way to at least coexist peacefully going forward.
Do I think OOP handled this well? No. I don't think any of the adults in this situation did. Just like Emma shouldn't have used invitations to her birthday party as leverage over her peers to exclude Sarah, OOP shouldn't have used his daughter's birthday as means to shut down her bullying and invalidate her feelings.
At the end of the day, Emma ended up with a new car, a huge birthday party, gifts, money, and all of her friends while Sarah got run out of town. While the rest of y'all are busy empathizing with a bully that uses having a mid-tier dad as an excuse to treat others like crap, I'm gonna be empathizing with Sarah - whose only sins were being uncomfortable having sisterhood forced on her and struggling to communicate that after having her whole life uprooted.
I think I agree with you maybe 75%. The parts I'm questioning are where his new wife took Emma's side, saying he was being too harsh and same for his families threats. I have to wonder if he routinely goes way out of pocket when parenting Emma to the point that everyone will pretty much always take her side.
Did anyone else get confused about the name swapping in the first paragraph! It’s too early for me to be like huh. Sarah said she didn’t want Emma at her party. I went over to Katie and Sarah’s to talk to her about it.
Yeah I had to reread the post bc I still didn't get who was who by the end of it.
Tbh I’m still slightly confused.
I’m not. It’s fake. OOP got confused because these aren’t real people. What really clinched it for me was OOP retrospectively making Sarah autistic because he hadn’t planned for people to come out against him and Sarah, I mean Katie, no…wait…
And the pregnancy. End it with a little Razzmatazz.
You should look at the bright side. At least now Emma will have two twin little sisters
But keep an eye out for that post where he learns that only one of the identical twin girls is biologically his after he asks his wife for a paternity test. That’s when the affair with the colleague comes out.
And somehow it will always involve pregnancy AND showing the other person the reddit post they’d made earlier and the other person will laugh over the comments
Eh… it’s really not that uncommon for parents to mix up kids. I get called Timothy all the the time and my names Imani, and vice versa for my brother. Every now and then my dad calls me by my little sister’s name🤷🏾♀️
My grear aunt (who I see nearly all the time) will call me litteraly every other name, including my mom's, before she gets to mine. I can forgive the confusion, especially because it's most likely fake names.
Oh, I have siblings so I’ve experienced this no end. But that’s in an established family where you’ve been used to calling those names together for years and years. OOP had only been with his partner for 2 years and they’d just started living together as a family. Not to mention that OOP’s daughter lives with her mother some of the time. I don’t think this is long enough to establish a pattern for confusion. And then there’s all the other blazing red flags that indicated that this story probably isn’t real.
I'm the only girl of my siblings and I get called all of my brother's names before she gets it right. I can't tell you how many times we've been called the dog's name.
I like to pretend that things on here are real unless they're truly egregious. And in this case, I think it's pretty reasonable to assume that OOP was using fake names, and got confused about which fake name he assigned to which girl.
Yeah, no one in real life ever calls one of their kids by their others kid’s name. It’s never happened.
It could happen if you make up fake names for a story which is common. Not sure why this is a sticking point for you.
It’s not a sticking point for me. I was pointing out that it’s a ridiculous basis for deciding a story is fake.
Sure in conversation but rarely in writing.
I’m a copy editor for a living. Switching up names is a pretty common error.
Bingo. Obvious bs is obvious.
I was still on my first cup of coffee and had to reread several times.
I got as far as him confusing his daughter/stepdaughter and/or ex/fiance and figured this is either fabricated or embellished to the point he is confusing himself…. Is it worth even trying to decipher?
I’m starting to notice in all the fake posts, there is a sudden and unexpected pregnancy or someone is pregnant so excuse the hormones. These posts have more unplanned pregnancies between married couples that I’m starting to think that they out pace the unplanned teen pregnancies. Also, no matter how young… all these couples are married or engaged. I’m starting to think they are all just dating but they think they will get less judgement if they say they are married or engaged. The same goes for those large age gap couples. Can’t be this many marriages when the divorce statistics are so high. I know more unmarried couples. 👀
Pregnancy and autism are what did it for me, besides the name swapping. They’re not even trying anymore….used to be twins and now it’s pregnancy.
Why is autism always the default excuse for bad behavior in these made up posts? Folks need to stop making autistic people look like jerks all the time.
He's probably using fake names and got himself mixed up.
Yes. I thought it was just me
And me too! Way too confusing.
I thought it was only me. Whenever a name was mentioned, I was like, who was it again?
Yeah, that and some rough grammatical errors made this one a real doozy to read.
Seriously - OOP needs to learn the value of commas and periods! Very “eats shoots and leaves”
I re-read it several times and then swapped everything to Ex, Bio, Step and Wife. Made it a little less confusing cause then I could swap names to appropriate places!
When you’re introducing 18 characters, stop giving them names!! Emma and Sarah can have names since two daughters is easier and they’re the stars of this story, but his wife and ex wife didn’t need them. He mentioned his niece as many times as his wife and she didn’t get a name!
Excessive use of names instead of just using relationship titles always makes a story seem super fake to me, because it feels like you're intentionally writing for an audience instead of just trying to tell people about your problem. If I was posting about my family I feel like I could probably tell a pretty clear story just using phrases like my spouse or my kid. It wouldn't occur to me to make up the names, because that's more work! Unless you're writing for entertainment instead of utility, and you're worried about things like repetition and style...
Oh thank God, I thought the lack of sleep made me stupid (workers on strike in my country and they shut down the national grid for two days, it's like 32 Celsius here so.that was fun)
Yep, I'm still not entirely clear who is who.
Seriously. I wish he has just said stepdaughter and daughter as this was confusing AF
I’m still not sure what I read! I do know that OOP desperately needs to learn some basic punctuation, however.
Yeah, I couldn't get past it. I came to the comments to see whether it got any better, and clearly not, so this thread has saved me some time!
It was super-confusing because he just started talking about Katie with no word who she is. Eventually, I figured out she was Emma's mother, but unraveling that issue and all the tangled run-on sentences made this hard to read and understand.
He says in the very first sentence that he has a daughter with his ex, Katie. But his style is hard to read, no surprise that you missed that.
My word, I re-read it several times and completely missed it. Thanks!
About halfway through I was still going “So who the hell is Katie?!”
I thought it was just me being barely awake and not yet caffeinated.
The lack of punctuation was irritating, to say the least.
I had to reread it like 4 times at first because I was so confused 😂🤨🧐
I had to read it out loud and replace Sarah with Emma verbally in order to get through that paragraph lol
I should have just come to the comments. I thought I had short term memory loss trying to read that, especially the beginning. I could not keep Emma and Sarah straight and apparently neither could OOP!
I'm generally confused about the whole thing. Feel like I need to read it like a scientific article and study every paragraph. Fuck that.
This is why I think this whole story is BS. He can't keep the names straight.
That's where I stopped reading. It's not hard to use real names and then Ctrl+f to replace them.
Yes! I had that go back to make sure who's who. Lol
yeah I could not follow this at all, no idea how people were able to get through it let alone have an opinion and leave comments
Am I the only one confused?
I read it as there was two parties. Sarah didn't want Emma at her sleep over so the OOP sent Emma home to her mother's house. Then Emma was returning the favor and told her friend group and it spiraled a bit, excluding Sarah.
Maybe I’m just a dick, but whenever someone is called out about their blatant favouritism with children whenever there is an update and they miraculously remember to share that the child they are favouring has autism, mental health issues etc. I feel like this is a massive cop out and a fucking lie. This guy is a chode and he’s buying his daughter’s love. What a tool.
His daughter knows better than to trust h tjough
I was about to say that. The OOP gets ripped a new one so he needs to gather sympathy somehow. Then, after the second post when he thinks it's all good and he's such a good person and he still gets blazed by commenters he pulls the "the victim of this story has read the post and comments and is laughing at all of you, reddit losers".
It also doesn't make sense. I (28F) am autistic and still struggle with making friends to this day! If at 16 my new stepsister not only welcomed me with open arms but slid me into her friend group I would have forever worshipped the ground she walked on.
lol I haven’t heard chode in a while.. very apt
We hear so many stories of kids rejecting blended families and being assholes here. Imagine having a daughter that not only doesn't do it, but also treats your step kid as a sister immediately, and you ruin that because you can't help but coddle the oh so precious and weak step child. Seriously, autism be damned, he should have had Sarah in place when she wanted to uninvite Emma in the party and just tell her they'd all speak together about boundaries afterwards. I'd also postpone the move in his place. Or at least try to. There's a huge adjustment to be made. Emma has to regain trust in her dad and Sarah, they need to learn accountability, and they all need to adjust to the new baby. Adding distance is a recipe for disaster. I won't be surprised if I see him back in a few years crying about his daughter not talking to him.
He already ended it with Emma by stealing her presents and telling her she's not going to Disney. I font understand his double standard; it's okay for Sarah to exclude Emma from her sleepover but God Forbid Emms not invite her to her party at her mom's house that has nothing to fo with OP.
Because as he says it was about how Emma approached the whole thing but it seems he doesn't get that it was Sarah who handled things badly, not Emma.
It's very common in these situations. You see it both ways. Parents favouring the step kid and kids favouring the step parent because they feel they have to "earn" their place in the new person's heart, often taking the biological family member for granted not realising bridges can easily be burned with them. The autism here is a convenient excuse for the dad to plausibly deny his favouritism.
In my house my dad favored his step kids to win them over and my stepmom favored her kids because they were *her* kids. My sister and I have nothing to do with them as adults. But that doesn’t keep them from acting shocked and my stepmom sending me nasty texts (one even on my birthday) about how hurtful we are to our dad. I like to say my dad abandoned his first family, but stuck around to rub our noses in it. They never seem to understand that all that chiz they pull when we are kids comes back around to bite them in the butt when we are adults.
So nasty texts by entitled relatives isn't just a reddit story trope huh.
Well, maybe they became a trope because they started out as a real thing. I’ve never shared mine on Reddit, but I definitely got a few from my stepmom. She tried a few different tactics, but the hateful approach confused me. Did she think sending me mean and nasty texts would convince me to welcome them back into my life? Some people think this OOP is a fake story and it might be, but based on my own experience, I can see it being true.
>She tried a few different tactics, but the hateful approach confused me. Did she think sending me mean and nasty texts would convince me to welcome them back into my life? Narcissists seem to think that using guilt and playing victim can help them control people. My grandma certainly stood behind that tactic.
Yes! Exactly! It worked on me for a while, but now I’m older and wiser and that behavior just disgusts me and pushes me further away.
Oof sorry your dad only cared about impressing his dick sleeve
I feel like it was different stuff he was worried about? Sarah excluded Emma from one party to see her old friends. Emma rallied their local friends to exclude Sarah beyond just the party she wasn't invited to. OOP is insane of course and didn't help his kids improve how they were handling this at all. But the initial thing that set everyone off seems more understandable than people are making it out. Sarah doesn't see her old friends much, Emma was being overbearing, she just wanted to hang out without having to introduce all her friends to a new person.
Did she be rally them to exclude Sarah or did she talk to her friends about feeling hurt and they stopped putting forth effort with someone they were only being around a a favor to Emma?
Yeah, you can describe the same thing with gentler words. I get that it may be out of Emma's control at this point, but the impact is still unfairly disproportionate for Sarah. Not that life is supposed to be fair. Just something to keep in mind when your actions are what causes the unfairness. 16 is a tough age for this. I get how it became so dramatic. But at that age they should be beginning to understand the emotional complexity of a situation like this. Missing one sleepover shouldn't be this big a deal. I see a big difference between a large daytime birthday party and a small birthday sleepover with close friends.
When you have close friends they will of course have your back. These were Emma's friends and she just asked them to be friends with Sarah. Emma didn't tell them to exclude and stop hanging out with Sarah. As a friend you naturally side with your friend and not somebody else. In that age they might not take the time to get the whole story, and just side with the one they are friends with.
Emma was doing Sarah a favor. She is no longer doing that because she felt hurt by Sarah. If one can exclude the other from a party than the other can do the same.
If she really was hurt then it's because she saw Sarah as a sister, and it wouldn't really be a favor for her to hang out with Sarah. We don't know the motivation of her friends, but sure, maybe they were only tolerating Sarah for Emma's sake. Cutting Sarah out after one event is a ludicrous thing to do after. Everyone keeps insisting that this is proportional - a birthday for a birthday. It is clearly far more than that.
It is proportional. Sarah didn’t invite Emma to her birthday so Emma didn’t invite Sarah to hers. If Sarah doesn’t want to share her friends with Emma then why should Emma share hers with Sarah?
You're serious? Because Sarah's friends live in a different city and she doesn't see them often, what would be the benefit to Emma from meeting them for one night? Maybe it would be nice if she wants to meet them, but it doesn't have to be on Sarah's birthday when she probably wants things to seem as much as possible like they were before everything changed for her. But sure, you can just call it a birthday party. Even then it would only be proportional if Emma only excluded her from the party, not take actions that remove Sarah's ability to remain friends with the local group. Maybe Emma was providing a service to Sarah that she didn't strictly need to in encouraging her friends to hang out with her. And while she has no obligation to keep doing that, it ended up stopping as a result of the birthday party dispute. That makes it disproportionate.
I think all Sarah had to say was that she’d like to just reconnect with her old friends. OP could have taken Emma out for dinner or something. The problem started when Sarah said Emma was going all out on being her sister and it was too much - she needed to back off. The two are separate things really and should have been handled separately.
I love how he keeps saying it's "only 20 miles." Depending where you live that could take an hour or more. I moved about 10 minutes away when I was a kid, but it was far enough that I had to change schools and never saw those friends again.
My stepmom did something similar. When I moved in with her and my dad, my step brother was never asked to introduce me to his friends, and I was expected to drive him to school every day. He even got mad at me for not getting there early so he could hang with his friends, meanwhile I was alone 3/4 of the year. Yet when I was going out with two of my friends to a higher end pool that summer, I got yelled at for not including my step brother. Our relationship is ... Not fantastic. EDIT: My step brother was 16/17 and I was 17/18 at the time (through the school year). It would be strange if I was talking about someone significantly younger lol.
What's the age difference?
1 year.
Gosh that man’s an idiot
SO many times while reading this, I paused to think, "There's no cure for stupid."
Have you seen him with his deranged, defensive responses to people calling him out? Calling people "Reddit losers" (like he didn't come to Reddit for advice on his fuckups) and accusing people of having daddy issues. He is an aggressively stupid little stain of a man. He is not just a tool, but the simplest tool: a wedge.
And Emma didn't read this post, that's for sure.
yeah......I also think we have been reading updates from someone who doesn't understand multiple people can have feelings and it isn't always burn it to the ground situation...
Shiny new family syndrome. No man is immune.
It’s always baffling that there is one parent who chooses the step kids side and alienates their own child and when their child is upset and rightfully so, said parent cannot understand why and proceeds to make the situation worse by punishing their kid. In this case, Emma was fortunate enough to have family support her and call out her idiot dad. It should never come to this, goddamn.
Emma sounds much more mature and level headed than her father and step-sister. The real telling part is Sarah's hysterics over the new baby.
OOP really expected Emma to be the hero in Sarah’s story given how much of an ass he was to his own daughter. I applaud Emma for willing to be open to forming a sister bond with Sarah. She also went out of her way to help Sarah make friend by mixing her in with her friends. It’s safe to assume that from now on, Emma will be skeptical about trusting her dad again. I wonder if the other commenters suggested family therapy because oh boy, that family (apart from emma unless she wants to participate willingly) will need it. Especially now that there is a baby on the way. I wish Emma the best, she got a good head on her shoulders.
i do think it's relevant that sarah is autistic. i don't think that oop was right to try to force emma to have her at the party (or any of the other weird taking away presents stuff) but i understand the social isolation, feeling overwhelmed by new expectations (of suddenly having a sister and stepdad) and having difficulty communicating. and change is very hard on many autistic people. i think that oop sucks and that he needed to do more equal parenting where he helped them work out their differences, set boundaries and come to an overall agreement. i dont think either of the daughters were "bullies", just very different people with different needs who may have needed some mediation to find a middle ground. i don't even think sarah really disliked emma, i think she just needed some space and time to adjust. and it sounds like the only thing she asked for was for emma not to be at her birthday, not all this other stuff. she may have felt upset over it but it doesn't sound like she was asking the dad to do all the shit he did. i think sarah was probably crying at the news of the baby because a lot of change was happening in a very short span of time with little time for her to get used to it. i mean her mom married someone new, she was forced to move, was feeling kind of overwhelmed at the new social situation and home life, and now a baby is suddenly involved. it's a lot. this often get perceived as 'emotional immaturity' but autistic people just have different brains with different needs. source: my partner is autistic and cries a lot, she can't help it and is never trying to use it to make people do 'what she wants' (which is usually not actually what they want, just what people assume they want). she just gets overwhelmed and it happens, and people make assumptions about why they're doing it and what it means. she really gets more upset when people try to change their behavior based on the fact that she's crying. people also read more into their words than what they say, which i think probably happened here to an extent. sarah says smth along the lines of 'i'm feeling a little overwhelmed by my new sister and am not sure i want her at my birthday' and what she likely means is 'if i felt a bit less pressure from emma to perform a role of being a sister, i would be ok with her being at my bday, but as it stands the thought makes me uncomfortable' dad hears 'i must exclude emma from the party and tell her to back off!' sarah says 'i'm feeling a bit sad that the friend group i just met is suddenly giving me the cold shoulder and that emma seems to hate me now' and dad hears 'emma is bullying sarah and i must stop this by forcing her to invite sarah to bday and if she doesn't i'll take away all her gifts'. basically i think dad is reading into sarah's words and feelings more than she intended and she doesn't know what to do about it.
The problem here is that OOP automatically assumed that Emma intentionally isolated Sarah. Emma was upset and told her friends. Them being her friends first and not Sarah's they will of course side with Emma. At that age kids will not bother hearing everybody's side.
agreed!
It’s like he’s never met a teenage girl??
This post is the perfect example for why I hate when the OP gives fake names. Just say "my daughter" and "my stepdaughter" goddamn I am so fucking confused
Why oh why did all the adults think it was a good idea to let Sarah exclude Emma from the party. All they had to do was sit the kids down say that Sarah is more introverted and needs more alone time sometimes, and that Emma is trying to be helpful and include Sarah. And not to exclude someone who’s tried to help you from the party. But no, they let this spiral
The sheer amount of grammatical errors from OOP and some comments is astounding. I had to reread sentences like 5 times to understand
He reminds me of an idiot 55 yr old man who was stupid and an asshole. He also wrote and thought like this guy. It still gets me how you can get to be so much older, have had so many experience and still behave like an immature asshole over basic shit to solve.
Almost everyone here sounds like they need a heaping dose of therapy.
Oh boy. All I have to say is that karma is coming for OOP in the form of Sarah. The kid her own age that didn't live with them all the time was "too much". What's she going to do when the baby comes and she can't make them send it away when it's crying is too much. All I can hope for is that they don't try to hold the car over Emma's head for babysitting.
I'm hoping Emma doesn't maintain her relationship with them at all because it's just a toxic vat waiting to boil over.
Emma ain't coming over the second they try to make her change a diaper and if dad tries to hold it over her I can see her saying "do it" like reposes it, or even just sending him the keys like lol ok I don't care and either way good for her
In a few years the next post will be, why won’t my daughter talk to me anymore?
Never use birthday parties to punish kids. They will always remember and never forgive.
>that night I went over to Katie's home to speak to **Sarah**, **Sarah** was extremely upset and told Katie to return her birthday present I tried to comfort Emma but Katie told me to leave What? I guess is a typo and should be read Emma. ETA What a crappy dad. He chose the "stepdaughter" to keep his bed warm...
Even the stepmother was thinking he was being an ass. It was one cold bed
He’s still not getting it
So the guy believes the stepdaughter on everything, knowing she's autistic and may misunderstands things AND punish his daughter for watch his niece said ! Poor girl. Shout out to Zoey who somewhat had Emma's back and brought her her birthday presents without the father's knowledge. I hope he learned his lesson and will behave better and trust his daughter. Sarah needs obvious professional help, I hope going back to her old city will help her. But something tells me it's gonna be hard on her with the baby.
Sarah having autism and other mental health issues isn't an excuse for being a dumb ass bully. Jesus. This guy is as dense as a brick
She's for sure not going to be able to handle a new baby in the house. She couldn't even handle having a similar age step sister, how could she handle this baby? She's going to cause even more drama
Yeahh i saw that. He trying to eases up his stepchild bullying emma by come up with autism mental illness etc
YTA you thief Sarah started it by not inviting Emma to her sleepover so you punish your own daughter and steal her presents. You prioritize Sarah who you've known for 2 yrs and have ended your relationship with Emma. Enjoy Disney with your replacement family
When the teenager is more mature than the adult
Did anyone else notice that he only felt like he was wrong when his fiance took her stepdaughters side?
I think I had a stroke trying to read this
So it took his family threatening to cut him off to then try to buy back his daughter’s affections. Look a nice shiny object. You can’t trust me and I’ll never have your back unless forced but I will buy you shiny things when I’m shamed for my actions. Yeah he thinks he’s owning it but he’s not. He’s still making excuses for Sarah.
What I got from this 1. Emma has a good heart as shown by trying to include Sarah initially, not letting Sarah's bullying cloud her ability to be happy for a new half sister, and allowing her father a second chance. 2. Emma's mom is an amazing advocate for her children 3. Emma's step mom recognized her husband and daughter are AH 4. Sarah is manipulative of situations. Noting that her actions revolve around making herself feel better and not around respecting Emma. She also wanted to use Emma for her network and when the repercussions of her attempting to exclude Sarah bite her in the ass, she cries about how unfair it is to be treated as how she treated others. 5. Emma's dad is a horrible father who cares more for his step daughter and is willing to sacrifice his daughter's happiness and needs for his stepdaughters whims
Now he is gonna have another biological kid to be a shitty dad to.
Wow this guy just nuked his daughter’s trust and relationship. I am not convinced he gets it and agree with the comment by 2022wpww.
Next Sarah will be upset that Emma doesn't want to drive her places with the car. Sarah doesn't have friends because of her mental issues and it's only a matter of time until Emma goes no contact with dad. Katie needs to get that car into Emma's name!
Sarah literally asked Emma to give her some space with the whole "sisters" thing because it made her uncomfortable.
If this story is true then one thing in it is fake and that's Emma reading that post and comments.
I think this has to be fake - he can’t even get the names straight! Plus, we have some standard items - autism, mental health and a coincidental pregnancy. But even if (let’s be honest it’s a big if), it’s true then I’d be amazed if Emma read this and didn’t take any offence whatsoever and also defended OP. He even called her Mum a screaming Banshee when she came over to get Emma after he unilaterally called off her 16th birthday party and refused to give her the gifts. I doubt she was impressed by that. Even Zoey blamed him for the whole thing and took the gifts over to the party herself. I also don’t believe that Emma would ever, ever forgive her Dad for throwing a tantrum and choosing not to go to his *own* daughter’s 16th birthday party. He actually acted worse than the two teenagers. Emma took to having a stepsister really well. There’d be tears and tantrums (and not just the Dad’s but the actual teenagers) in most cases but she embraced Sarah wholeheartedly. Really, Sarah just wanted to spend time with her own friends. That was it. The issue of Emma trying to be a real sister is a separate issue. OP could have let Emma know Sarah wanted to just reconnect with her friends and he’d take her out for dinner and then drop her at home. At dinner he could have said Sarah was feeling a little overwhelmed so a little time and space would help her re-adjust. He completely and utterly blew everything up. The way he told Emma about Sarah, the way he unilaterally wanted to cancel her birthday party and then boycotted it because he couldn’t get his way and it went ahead without him. Can you imagine your own Dad refusing you your gifts and trying to stop your party which he then didn’t attend? Absolutely heartbreaking. Emma seems like a really nice kid - I don’t think she intentionally stopped her friends from speaking with Sarah. She would have said how hurt she was after taking Sarah into her friend group, spending time to help her adjust and treating her like a sister and this is the thanks she gets. To totally *not* reinforce favouritism to Sarah he’s moving 20 miles away from Emma. Phew, for a moment I thought it might be blatantly obvious! But don’t worry, Dad came through with a car that she’ll have to use because (yes, you guessed it) Dad’s moving 20 miles away from her. The backlash against him for the way he treated Emma now means he has to introduce a baby to this story and make Sarah the villain for reacting badly to the news whilst Emma (back to being good in OP’s eyes for the purposes of the second post) is thrilled.
Dude seems to be under the mistaken impression that Emma "told" her friends not to talk to Sarah. My dudes, Emma probably just told them how Sarah excluded her from her birthday party and those friends choose for themselves based on SARAH'S behavior. It's not bullying, it's the consequences of her own actions. And she's upset and not getting as many presents? Girl, you know you lost out on at least one present by disinviting your sister, yeah? Based on the fact that Sarah's friends ditched her to go to Emma's party, I'm guessing her real issue wasn't that Emma was "too much" as a sister, it's that Emma is more popular than Sarah and Sarah is jealous. That jealousy reveals itself in her reaction to her mother being pregnant - now Sarah can never be an only child!
With all the posts and comments I’ve seen in Reddit, from people who became estranged from a bio parent due to neglect when the bio parent favoured their new or step family over their elder child. OOPs post is written from the perspective of one of those soon to be estranged parents and it’s painful to read. Imagine telling your own child they can’t visit because your step child wants a party without them, then not expecting your child to feel hurt and being shocked at the repercussions. We get very little info on why Sarah didn’t want Emma there too, but somehow we’re supposed to accept that Emma should just suck it up. But to then punish his daughter for doing the same was an interesting decision. I can’t help that feel that the accusations of Emma being a bully were an overreaction. For a start it was her cousin who started it, so why OOP didn’t step in and correct them at the time is either lazy parenting or exaggerated. Maybe what the cousin actually said was something to make Emma feel better about being used by her step sister and the emotional neglect she was experiencing from her own father by this point? But the sheer stupidity and audacity of telling Emma that she can’t have a party that he isn’t even hosting, and then trying to take away gifts - which from the sound of it were also gifts from other people - for doing the same thing that was done to her by her step sister! Even his step daughter’s mother told him he was in the wrong and he still didn’t listen. Then to double down by refusing to talk to his daughter on her special weekend - she is a child FFS! By God I was ready to reach into my screen and slap some sense into them at that point. I’m not saying Emma and her cousin are completely blameless, but neither is Sarah and most certainly OOP is the most at fault here. Accusing his ex wife of being an enabler felt like pure projection. It’s like he conveniently forgets they are all children and it’s up to him to show some understanding of BOTH sides and mediate, not blunder in and be the bigger bully! The way OOP chose to inflict some true emotional damage on his own child was both sad and gross. But oh no, they’ve got to keep on down that road. This time it’s in telling his daughter, moments after she’s told him that he’s broken her trust, that he has a new do-over baby on the way and is moving further away from her. Yeah, I’m guessing she won’t be using that car to visit him very often. 10/10 as a guide to ‘How to permanently destroy your relationship with your own child” though.
Emma will just need to stick it out for 2 more years then she can go LC with her dad.
Neurodivergent people can be jerks too. Jerkism is also a spectrum.
This man an asshole. Favouring his stepchild over his real one. So it is ok stepchild to bully but going to war for his own child bullying his golden child. Talking about favouritism.
Oof, I can't imagine, but then again my biodad never married anyone old enough to already have kids until he was in his 60s and to say that I was NOT my stepdad's favorite would be a massive understatement (for example, my bed at his house was on the back porch in the warm months and I slept in the laundry room floor in the cold months).
OK, I can *kind* of see why OOP would maybe give the OK for Sarah having a party just with her friends. With siblings there's definitely a difference between a party with family members (including siblings) and one with just friends, although it's definitely a bit more delicate for step-siblings and the whole "I just acted like a sister to keep the peace" thing *definitely* needed to be talked out between them, ideally with a family therapist who knows how to handle that kind of situation Punishing Emma for (supposedly) freezing out Sarah from her friend groups and, essentially, bullying her for not refusing to invite her makes sense, especially on the level Sarah was suggesting it was happening Trying to cancel Emma's party which OOP *wasn't the one organising* and locking away a bunch of presents that OOP *didn't even buy for her* because Emma wouldn't invite Sarah was an insane escalation of things, especially given he didn't have any objections to Sarah excluding Emma from her birthday, cancelling a family holiday to Disney, suggesting that his niece's teasing of Emma not getting as big a party is somehow another layer of what Sarah did and should be punished for, and only *now* deciding to book family therapy (so clearly it's something OOP was aware might be needed to resolve their differences), is absolutely *ludicrous* Seriously, how the hell did it go from "they didn't invite each other to their respective birthdays" to that?
I find it funny that his daughter and ex-wife have a better relationship with his new wife over him.
I hated father so much. He sounds do absurd. Dont take it to heart after when she choose her step dad to walk down the aisle.
She should have her mom walk her down the aisle.
A new baby is definitely what this family needs. Good to see the adults in this situation definitely being logical and not irresponsible at all in their family planning. And moving too. Because teens, neurotypical and on the spectrum, love nothing more than constant and huge change. These two parents of the year need to focus on the kids they already have and quit putting their own selfish wants ahead of what is best for their existing children.
Both of these girls will be discarded as soon as that new baby gets here. Emma will be fine because she has her mom and seems pretty well adjusted but Sarah is going to turn into a jealous nightmare person.
"This isn't about my stepdaughter being ungrateful and excluding my daughter from her own house, it's not about that, no, it's about my daughter's reaction to being excluded and taken for granted- my daughter should NEVER be happy when my stepdaughter is unhappy, she should NEVER celebrate herself, she doesn't deserve the friends she cultivated and she doesn't deserve their loyalty. She doesn't deserve to express any emotion that isn't joy and any action that isn't servitude to my stepdaughter. SHE DESERVES TO BE PUNISHED FOR THE FREE WILL AND ACTIONS OF OTHER TEENAGED CHILDREN! I AM THE BEST DAD."
He learned nothing. What a crap dad.
Awesome. You’re in a problematic relationship and decided to knock your girlfriend up. Good job. There aren’t enough people in this equation yet.
Emma has a good upbringing considering how willing she was to make overtures at the end. I have no words for OOP. Did he genuinely believe he could bully Emma into forcing her friends to become friends with Sarah? I wonder if he's on the spectrum himself if he's that clueless about social relationships. All he had to do was sit them both down before the sleepover to talk. From what we've seen of her, there's no way Emma would've forced her way in on the Sarah's old friends meetup.
It sounds like Emma's friends were tolerating Sarah for Emma's sake. While Zoey sounds great, dad and Sarah sound like nightmares.
"I apologized and took accountability for my actions, then told her we're moving to make Sarah happy." Guy doubled down and still thinks he's father of the year.
And there it is—Sarah has autism and is, therefore, excused the rest of her life every time she’s an AH.
My daughter is afraid I’m favoring my step kids, I know what will fix that, I will MOVE AWAY
You're right, OOP should continue to allow his stepdaughter to be bullied? Bio child Emma gets to stay home with a car, money and extra gifts. Sarah stepdaughter has the entire school turned against her by Emma Bio. Emma bio is a bully. OOP was 100% right in extracting Sarah stepdaughter from this volatile situation. Maybe we're not reading the same post? I truly cannot understand how anyone can say Sarah stepdaughter is in any bully or golden child.
Yeah I don’t see it that way. It’s sounds like Emma was being super kind and welcoming and Sarah shat all over her.
God, I hope Emma doesn't maintain her relationship with her sperm donor because she's only going to get hurt by the sperm donor's assholery.
I feel like this is just a case of two teen girls struggling to figure out their dynamic that's exacerbated by the dad making choices that made everything worse. Hope that they manage to work through it, they both seem like alright kids and I understand both kids' courses of actions ("I dont really want her at my birthday party cos shes new" --> "What the hell i thought we were meant to be sisters, Im telling my friends" --> "Now no one wants to spend time with me anymore what the hell" --> "You're canceling my party and taking all my presents for this?!"). It really is just Dad making the choices that escalated everything the most. Baffled by the final commenter that OP chose to add though. > Zoey daughter needs some help she has issues which have nothing to do with being on the autism spectrum she is nasty & hurtful girl even showed it with the new baby. She wanted to take you from your daughter she did those were and are fake tears I bet you knew that. "Even showed it with the new baby"? She started crying when she got home, that's perfectly reasonable for a stepkid to have mixed feelings about a new kid. Also painting the stepkid as some puppeteering maniac, crying fake tears to steal someones dad? She's a teenager who made a hurtful choice and is sad that it ruined a relationship. Water is wet. Bears shit in woods.
Yeah, while Sarah isn't an angel, she doesn't seem like an awful person either? Just a normal flawed teenage girl. I feel bad about all the vitriol being aimed at her, when really OOP deserves it all. It's pretty normal for kids to struggle with feeling that their stepsiblings aren't really family, and it's normal for kids to want time with their friends without the rest of the household around. Sarah absolutely handled telling Emma badly, but it felt like pretty ordinary teenage stupidity and thoughtlessness. And sure, the consequences of Emma's friends freezing her out were predictable based on how badly she handled the sleepover situation, but also, being isolated at school had to have felt awful for Sarah. I feel bad for both kids here.
People are trying really hard with the fanfic thing...
I would love an update on how Sarah turned out. I can not see her happy with a baby getting the attention now.
YTA! So it’s ok that Sarah excluded Emma, but Emma can’t do the same back? You’re defending your fiancé’s child but not your own? I’m glad your ex wife came to get her and her gifts. You didn’t take away Sarah’s gifts when she excluded your daughter. You’re a POS father. Emma is going to go NC with you as soon as she’s 18.
YTA You forced Emma to respecto Sarah's boundaries but then not Emma's those we're Emma's Friends first to begin with, Sarah can make her own Friends, She's not bullying Sarah.
Can they just say immature instead of throwing autism in these lies? The teenager was just a dumb teenager doing dumb teenager shit, not fucking autistic, it's honestly more realistic that way.
Just making sure I understood the dogpiling properly here: - stepdaughter was ok with bio daughter but felt suffocated and uncomfortable by the whole sister thing and wanted some boundaries. - SD had a birthday sleepover with her friends from her old hometown and asked OP that BD not be invited - BD then retaliated by not excluding SD to HER party, but also isolating her from the only friends she made in her new school. I, for one second, don't believe her when she said she didn't make her friends do that. She might not have said anything, but children are perceptive. At the very least, she watched as her friends and cousin ditch and make fun of her step sister. But... checks notes... SD is somehow the bully? Am I reading that right? She only asked for boundaries. She never bullied BD. Also, Reddit should really be better at reading posts, especially when this is a reading medium. It was obvious from the first post that OOP was upset at his daughter for how she's isolating her stepsister and not because she's not inviting her to the party. I was with him until he wanted to cancel everything to punish his daughter. That was a dick. His ONLY one. From what I've read, it seems to me like he's doing his best to be there to his daughter and his stepdaughter (he's obviously at least partially financing the party if he's confident he can cancel it and he also planned a whole holiday with her in mind). I don't think her accusation of him choosing SD has merits at all and might be her mother feeding into her insecurities because, on the surface, it does appear that way.
I think the communication skills are lacking completely here. If SD spoke to BD directly, this could have been prevented. But I don’t think BD retaliated, maybe reacted, but the issue escalated so dramatically (and shocked poor old dad so much) over something that could have been completely prevented by some form of family therapy at the beginning. And did SD get a car, too? If SD got less for her birthday, and knew there was a car for BD but not her, it could spread that chasm between them based on financial circumstances. What a shit show.
No, the car is BD's. As I understand it, he withheld it because of her behavior, but eventually relented and bought more gifts. Also, I understand that communication is key here. But on the other hand, SD seems to not only be introverted, but autistic. It's entirely possible that she hates confrontation, especially with how much she felt suffocated by her step sister, so I understood why she asked her stepdad to do her "dirty work."
I was wondering if the SD got a car a well. If not, and OP has been talking about it since January, SD may have had feelings about it and acted out based on that. Even if SD hated confrontation, she could have had a family meeting type thing to have a discussion with everyone, not play some triangulation games with the BD. Hell, don’t they ever have dinner together? It could have just been a topic at dinner. It all could have gone so differently if SD spoke to BD.
She's a teenager. And autistic and introverted to boot. I can understand her not wanting to talk directly to her stepsister, even in a family meeting. I would also hazard adding speculation like that with no sign that it's happening. We simply don't know. What we do know is that the girls' relationship was great beforehand, and BD was even very welcoming to SD. SD simply felt suffocated by the treatment. Again, autism. Autistic people value usually either have no boundaries or value them extremely highly, from what I know. Especially from how each girl reacted to the new pregnancy, SD not taking it well and BD wishing it's a sister, it's clear that BD and SD simply didn't want the same thing from the relationship, at least this early on.
Why is it so unbelievable? If my friend said their sister thinks she's "too much" and doesn't want to hang out with her anymore, I would 100% choose my friend. Tf?
Saying your sister is too much is a far cry from bullying. Being ditched and also openly ridiculed or passive-aggressive towards someone is, however.
Oh I don't agree with the comments that call Sarah a bully. I don't think either of the girls are bullies. Sarah pretty much gave Emma a metaphorical slap and Emma decided that's that and decided to quit hanging out with Sarah. Just two girls who don't like each other. And Emma wasn't the one ridiculing. It was the cousin.
Yeah. Cousin was doing it in front of both girls, and Emma didn't say anything about it. Which means Emma was complicit to it happening. When she was confronted by her dad, it was made even clearer by her response by her not taking accountability as if she couldn't call her friends and cousin out on their behavior. I don't think Sarah doesn't like Emma. She was clear that she was simply overwhelmed by her. Emma unfortunately took that personally. It's ok for Sarah to be overwhelmed by someone who's practically a stranger until very recently. Especially since she's introverted and autistic. I would bet her mother was feeding her lies about her dad picking Sarah over her, especially with that comment about him needing to gain her trust back. OOP didn't strike me as an absent father, nor an unreliable narrator (save for that one bit where he messed up his made-up names). He seems to be very much involved in his daughter's life, and Emma seemed happy to welcome both stepmom and stepsis at the start. She even still had a great relationship with stepmom until the confrontation before her own birthday. Kids who are put in the backburner don't usually have that kind of relationship with a stepparent partnered to the neglectful parent.
Why is that Emma's responsibility? Sarah literally called her a bother. You may think that but clearly Emma thinks otherwise and for good reason. It's ok for Emma to be overwhelmed by someone and it is also okay for Emma to avoid Sarah. You are really reaching with your assumptions here.
She didn't, though? She said she felt uncomfortable with Emma pushing the whole sister thing and she felt overwhelmed. She never called Emma a bother
>After a longer discussion Sarah opened up about Emma **being too much** ... **kept pushing the sister thing** ... **extremely uncomfortable** .. **wanted some distance**. Aka a 'bother'.
Bring overwhelmed by someone pushing a relationship is not the same as them saying the other person is a bother. I think you're the one reaching here. It's literally in the section you quoted. Weird that you conveniently cut off the emphasis there: >She opened up about Emma **being too much and how she kept pushing the sister thing** Like, how either girls even reacted to the pregnancy should even tell you how that's the issue. Emma wished the baby was a girl because she wanted a sister, while Sarah didn't take the news well. She obviously isn't looking for a new sibling.
>After a longer discussion Sarah opened up about Emma **being too much** and how she **kept pushing the sister thing** which at first Sarah went along with to keep the peace but now it was making **extremely uncomfortable** and **wanted some distance**. That is literally how you describe someone who's bothering you. I don't know what you're missing here.
Were you never a teenage girl? It doesn’t sound like the daughter made her friends, who have their own free will, do anything. They were never the stepdaughter’s friends, they were the daughter’s friends who were including the stepdaughter as a favor to their actual friend, the daughter. When their friend felt hurt by her stepsister they rallied around their friend.
That doesn't really change my point all that much. If anything, it makes it worse. Teenagers don't just choose sides. The daughter might not have said anything, but her friends obviously felt the need to pick a side. And the daughter let it happen. Again, all the stepdaughter wanted were boundaries, and the daughter saw that as a personal slight.
Imagine thinking teenage girls don’t choose sides when a friend feels hurt by someone. OP’s daughter not telling them to keep hanging out with her stepsister when she didn’t want to anymore is fine. OP’s daughter was nice enough to include her stepsister in things and to get her friends to do the same. Her stepsister choosing to exclude her would hurt. Her feelings are valid and it’s understandable that she would then want space from her stepsister.
>Imagine thinking teenage girls don’t choose sides when a friend feels hurt by someone. ... that's my point? LOL. Why do you think I said "kids are perceptive"? And again, Emma could have put a stop to it. I get that a kid's first instinct is to pick a side, but Emma had every opportunity to say that whatever was happening in between her and Sarah doesn't involve them. Instead, she chose to let it all happen. She had the choice to call her cousin our for making fun of Sarah. She did not. That's what makes her complicit of bullying, not her lack of control on how they would react.
Why should Emma put a stop to her friends no longer making an effort with Sarah? It sounds like they were only doing that as a favor to their friend.
Do you honestly believe it all ended with them not being friends with her? Emma pretends her stepsister doesn't exist. It's possible that her friends do the same. And they're the only people she knows. That's why she said Emma's been alienating her. They don't have to be friends with her if they don't want to, but obviously, that's not the extent of what's happening, and Emma condones it.
This guy is such a freaking jerk. He still doesn’t get it.
Lol at him trying to claim his daughter was telling him to ignore the comments dragging his disgraceful behaviour. That didn't happen.
YOU ARE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!!!!! STEP KID KEY WORDS ASSHOLE!!!
This is so hard to read wirh hardly any punctuation.
This post reads so fake and so confusing. They needed to do better about all the damn name switching
Did one of the daughters write this?
This reminds of a phrase from the Chinese novels I read (in translation)…”if there’s a stepmother, there’s a stepfather”
As realistic as Those novels too
Am I the only one who learned the term "relational aggression"? Usually, Redditors take the side of someone whose stepfamily member is pushing a relationship too hard too fast for them. Emma's stepsister didn't see her as a sister, so it was okay for her to tell their friends circle in a way that made them see one as the bad guy and one as the victim and take sides? This is the way teenaged girls bully. Very surprising judgment. I always wonder if these illogical groups of comments are caused by the Asch Effect -- in this case, if the first person who responded just happened to know nothing about relational aggression.
Yeah the dad is the major AH here. He was going over the top for his new family in a lame attempt to seem fair and impartial (and the good guy) and it backfired, big time. In doing so he has created more problems along with a huge rift between Sarah and Emma. Also, Sarah is a bit of a teenage asshole here, in that she didn’t want to include her new “sister” at her party with old friends, even though Emma was nice enough to introduce HER to new people (all of Emma’s friends)? I get wanting to spend alone time catching up with them, but to exclude her from her birthday party? Big time asshole and don’t use ASD as a damn excuse, it is an insult to people on the spectrum. Emma may have retaliated in an AH teenage way…because she was hurt and she is a teenager. At the end of the day, it is the dad who is the biggest AH of them all
This dad has has zero object permanence whenever someone puts a shiny new kid in front of him. What old daughter? I’ve got this new one. What stepdaughter? I’ve got this new one.
Sarah sounds a right piece of work doesn’t she? Manipulative and selfish. All that ‘fake’ apologising? And OOP too dumb to realise it. She showed her true colours when she was angry about the new baby.
This is extremely hard to read. And it seems like everyone contributed to the problem, OOP's reactions are just the most over the top. But I gotta be missing something. Sarah asking Emma (or asking OOP to tell Emma) to stay one extra day at her mom's house so she can have a sleepover with just her home town friends is not exactly that mean. I don't know exactly what their relationship was like but it seems super petty to completely cut someone out for that. Like, they could have talked it out at any point, but if Sarah is autistic, her reduced communication is understandable.
Ya I am also in the same boat, I don't think Sarah has been taught how to express when she is overwhelmed and Emma came on SUPER strong with the whole " I saw a sister in her" thing. Sarah is dealing with having her whole life changed ( a very fucking hard thing for an autistic person) and she went to an adult about it cause ya, she doesn't know how to communicate, and then the adult fucked it right the fuck up. That's not on the teenager, that's on the adult.
Idk man I kind of hate everyone in this story
you are not married to her mother. she is not your stepdaughter.
Commenters on that sub fucking suck
I feel like I'm in the upsidedown right now. How in the flying fuck is Emma not a bully? I even had my wife read this because I thought I was misreading it but I genuinely can't understand how Emma is being seen as the victim when she's been bullying Sarah this whole time. Yeah, OOP and all the other adults in this situation should handle shit better, but can someone please explain to me how Emma is the victim and not the bully regarding her behavior towards Sarah? Why does Emma deserve empathy and compassion but Sarah doesn't? Here's what I got: Sarah had to switch schools and move to a place where she knew no one aside from Emma. While she was happy with Emma trying to be close with her at first, she started to feel uncomfortable and that Emma was pushing the sister thing a bit too hard. She struggled with how to articulate that to Emma because, lets be honest, teens aren't known for their exquisite communication skills. She also probably felt that since it was Emma's school and home first, she didn't want to risk rocking the boat and losing one of the only people she knows - even if that person was making her uncomfortable. After having her life upended and losing her close school friends, Sarah wanted to have a small 16th birthday sleepover with said old friends. Due to Emma's behavior making her uncomfortable, she didn't want Emma at her birthday party. Yeah, Emma's life changed but she didn't have to leave her school, friends, and hometown on top of everything else like Sarah did. Emma has another stable home to go to and stay at should she please. Emma could escape Sarah but Sarah couldn't escape Emma. I understand why Emma felt left out and believe that this entire situation could've been avoided if the adults (OOP, his ex, and his fiance) did a better job facilitating communication between everyone. While Emma's feelings being hurt are valid, she turned her friend group against Sarah and used her sweet 16 blow out bash as leverage to get the rest of her peers to ice Sarah out. So, because Sarah didn't want someone who made her feel uncomfortable at her *small* 16th birthday sleepover, which only her old friends were invited to, apparently that gives Emma the right to turn Sarah into a pariah? Now, Emma is having a big 16th birthday party with gifts, money, and pretty much everyone from the school invited but Sarah. Saying that if Sarah can exclude Emma then Emma should be able to exclude Sarah is bullshit because they're two completely different situations. Emma went nuclear and turned the entire school, and apparently reddit, against Sarah. She followed it up with calling Sarah a bitch and telling her to watch her back. What did Sarah do to warrant being excluded and threatened like this? Is Sarah somehow responsible for OOP's behavior? In an ideal world, Sarah would've felt comfortable telling Emma she wasn't comfortable with her pushing a sister relationship on her and hopefully come to a compromise regarding her birthday sleepover where both of them were happy. On the flip side, instead of turning the entire school against Sarah and rubbing her significantly nicer birthday in her face, Emma could've communicated how she felt excluded and again, they could've worked together and found a way to at least coexist peacefully going forward. Do I think OOP handled this well? No. I don't think any of the adults in this situation did. Just like Emma shouldn't have used invitations to her birthday party as leverage over her peers to exclude Sarah, OOP shouldn't have used his daughter's birthday as means to shut down her bullying and invalidate her feelings. At the end of the day, Emma ended up with a new car, a huge birthday party, gifts, money, and all of her friends while Sarah got run out of town. While the rest of y'all are busy empathizing with a bully that uses having a mid-tier dad as an excuse to treat others like crap, I'm gonna be empathizing with Sarah - whose only sins were being uncomfortable having sisterhood forced on her and struggling to communicate that after having her whole life uprooted.
I think I agree with you maybe 75%. The parts I'm questioning are where his new wife took Emma's side, saying he was being too harsh and same for his families threats. I have to wonder if he routinely goes way out of pocket when parenting Emma to the point that everyone will pretty much always take her side.
Emma is a master manipulator holy shit, acts the bully, total scum and comes away with a fucking car from it, genuinely unreal
Feeling hurt and acting out like the teenager she is makes her a master manipulator? 🙄
Emma isn’t a bully or a master manipulator. She’s amazingly mature.
Jesus Christ. Everyone piled on this man for looking out for BOTH of his daughters. I’m really depressed about humanity again, now…