If one of your parents remarry, it can be difficult to integrate the new personality into your family. How old you are when it happens plays a major role in how it is handled.
Redditor Joylones was older when his mother remarried, but his sister was only 5 years old. Despite this, she didn’t want her new step-dad to be the one to walk her down the aisle when she got married.
Instead the original poster (OP) was asked to do the honor, which caused some in-fighting in his family. His response was cause for question on the “Am I the A**hole” (AITA) subReddit.
OP asked:
“AITA for telling my mom’s husband his hurt feelings aren’t my job to fix?”
This is the story of their family issue:
“My (34m) baby sister (24f) is getting married. Our dad died when I was 15 and she was 5 and our mom remarried to Rodger when I was heading off to college.”
“My sister came to me recently and asked if I would do the traditional father of the bride stuff at her wedding. She said having me do it was the closest to having dad and I agreed.”
“I was so damn happy and honored and my baby sister means everything to me. Only Rodger is pissed and hurt that he was overlooked and wasn’t asked to have any kind of parent of the bride role in the wedding.”
“Rodger came to me about two weeks ago when my sister started doing some of the planning and he told me he was hurt that ‘his daughter’ didn’t want him to do it and was instead overlooked for a brother who, while close to her, didn’t raise her like he did, and that the same could be said for her want of a connection to our dad.”
“That he was the one who raised her, not dad, and he felt like he was being pushed aside for a ghost.”
“He went on and on about his feelings and he asked me to do him a solid and tell her to get him instead. I told him no and that his hurt feelings aren’t my job to fix.”
“He said my response was very cold and my mom is hurt I didn’t put more of an effort in to encourage my sister to include him. She wanted me to want my sister to have ‘her living dad’ be there for this important moment, in this important role.”
“I have family weighing in left and right and honestly I am pissed. The reason I am approaching this post at all is my grandpa, who I love and trust as much as almost anyone, told me I could have been more sensitive in my rejection to his request and while he couldn’t judge harshly, the man had done his best to be there for my sister.”
“So tell me people of Reddit AITA?”
OP had a little more information on his relationship with his stepfather that he posted in an update.
“He and I had a very rough start. At his and my mom’s wedding, at the reception actually, he asked me to start calling him my sisters dad, because he felt like it would help her frame it that way and ‘because I’m married to your mom now and will be raising (sister) as my daughter and I feel like it is better now that we start as we mean to proceed’. He was not happy when I told him no.”
“Though he never did breath a word to my mom about that encounter either. We had a fight of sorts a few years later because I chose to attend a party in my dad’s family vs attending a funeral for someone in his.”
“I’m not sure about my sister. I just know she never ever liked him calling himself her dad and she never saw him as her dad.”
After you post your story to the AITA subReddit the commenters will judge your action and determine whether or not you were in the wrong.
This is done with one of the following comments:
- NTA – Not the A**hole
- YTA – You’re the A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everybody Sucks Here
OP wasn’t the one that made the choice to walk his sister down the aisle at her wedding. He also isn’t the reason his stepdad and his sister aren’t as close as the stepdad would like.
It’s possible he could have been nicer but it also isn’t his responsibility to coddle his stepdad.
“NTA This isn’t even your call, this is your sister’s decision. Have your family talk to her, or better yet, they should accept she has made her choice and they can all deal with it. They are all adults, as is she, your family is being petty about their own feelings.”
“This is about your sister and her wants, you are right that step dad’s feelings are not your responsibility” – Zealousideal-Soil778
“Yeah. What if the brother said ‘Okay’ and told his sister he wouldn’t do it and why.”
“I can’t imagine her response would be to then ask her stepfather. If it was me, my next decision would be to have no one do it.” – Purple_Sorbet5829
“NTA, although I agree with your grandpa. You could have been more sensitive. It’s not reasonable for him to ask you to ‘tell her to get him instead,’ but it is reasonable to feel hurt, and you could have acknowledged that.” – WebbieVanderquack
“Maybe he should’ve been more sensitive as well though. ‘He didn’t raise her, I did’ is a very messed up thing to say about her DEAD father.”
“It’s not like the man was a dead beat and left, he died, and Rodger didn’t come into the picture until she was 8. Did he really expect OP to give a cordial reaction when what he said was low key disrespectful” – Efficient_Living_628
“NAH”
“I’m tempted to call Rodger a TA for trying to manipulate you to manipulate his ‘daughter’ instead of talking to her directly. But I understand his hurt. I also understand your response.”
“That said, there’s an easy compromise if Rodger is important to your sister and she just wants to have someone represent her biological father as well which is to have 2 people walk her down the aisle.” – CakeisaDie
“I have to imagine that OP’s sister has considered all her options before approaching OP to walk her down the aisle. Anywhere from doing it on her own, with her brother, mother or stepdad or any combo of those three people. She only asked her brother.”
“Her self autonomy should be respected instead of going up to her to suggest she do something different for her wedding. She might be the youngest in the family but she is not a baby.” – X-cited
OP’s relationship with his stepdad isn’t going to be an easy one to repair. How they proceed will have a profound effect.
In the end, it’s the sister’s choice. If she doesn’t want her stepdad to walk her, there isn’t much he can do to change her mind at this point.