AITA for telling my stepdaughter she can have her dead dad pay for the wedding?

Jonathan Hours
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Picture a blended family, stitched together with love but fraying at the edges. A stepfather, welcomed by two of his wife’s kids, faces relentless hostility from the eldest, Kelly, who clings to the memory of her late, troubled father. Years of tension—marked by her outbursts and threats—culminate in a bold request: she wants him to fund her wedding, just as he did for her siblings. His refusal, laced with a cruel jab about her deceased dad, ignites a firestorm.

This Reddit saga dives into the messy tangle of stepfamily dynamics, grief, and boundaries pushed too far. Was the stepfather wrong to snap after years of rejection, or did his harsh words cross an unforgivable line? Let’s unravel this knot of hurt and resentment to find the truth.

‘AITA for telling my stepdaughter she can have her dead dad pay for the wedding?’

My now wife divorced her ex when her three kids were young. He was an addict. She met me a few years later and we dated for two years beofre she introduced me to her kids. Two kids really hit it off and Kelly did not like me. Just passive aggressive stuff but it became much worse when her dad passed away.

She did not take it well and resulted in a lot of outbursts, I wasn't living there at this time. She went into therapy but overall didn't seem like it helped. She threatens to run away if I married their mom. So I stayed away but continue to date their mom. Overtime the two other kids started to stay at my place in order to get away from the drama.

It was a rough time for them and we bonded even more. When Kelly was 18 the two of use decided to stop putting our life on hold and get married. Kelly hated this. The other kids were a happy though. Every interaction I have had with her as been unpleasant and I don't not see her are one of my kids.

I eventually adopted her siblings when they were 16 and 17. They asked me.  During that time she destroy a lot of her siblings stuff for betraying there dad. Now I rarely see her and I prefer it that way. The two kids have a one and off relationship. I payed for my two kids wedding.

I got a call from her asking me to pay for her wedding since I paid for the other two. I told her no. This started an argument about how it's unfair. I had enough and told her to have her dad pay for the wedding. She hung up after some lovely names. I may have gone to far which makes me a jerk.

This family’s rift is a textbook case of unresolved trauma clashing with strained stepfamily ties. Kelly’s hostility, rooted in her father’s addiction and death, doesn’t excuse her actions but explains them. The stepfather’s decision to fund only his adopted kids’ weddings was fair—boundaries matter. But his cruel remark weaponized her grief, escalating a financial dispute into emotional warfare. Dr. Patricia Papernow, a stepfamily expert, notes, “Stepparents must navigate rejection without retaliation; cruelty deepens divides.”

Kelly’s trauma likely fueled her rejection, as a 2021 study in the Journal of Family Issues found 53% of stepchildren with a deceased parent struggle to accept stepparents. The stepfather’s adoption of her siblings, while loving, may have deepened her sense of betrayal. Papernow advises “empathy with firm limits.” He could apologize for the remark, clarify his boundaries, and invite dialogue.

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

Reddit dished out a buffet of takes, from fiery to nuanced, hotter than a wedding toast gone wrong. Here’s what they said:

Pure-Relationship125 − yeah it was a stupid, hurtful and immature thing to say, but I get it. I understand this was the oldest girl and probably closest to her father and of course, she probably resented the divorce, but that’s something you should grow out of. once her father died. you’d think it might’ve opened up her heart a little, but apparently that was not to be.

and you know so be it. It’s her life. It’s her choice. But it takes a lot of balls to then come skipping back and wanting you to pay for her wedding!! i don’t blame you for refusing, but I am curious as to what your wife thinks.. a tiny y t a on the comment. a big NTA on not paying for the wedding

Lopsided_Put4682 − ESH, Kelly obviously took it too far by practically forbidding her mom from moving on and for punishing her siblings for deciding to bond with you, but still, having a dead parent is something traumatic and you bringing it up just to make a point in an argument is really low.

FacetiousTomato − ESH You were in the right to say no. You'd have been in the right to say

Gold_Reference8247 − If she didn’t want to accept you.. Don’t Pay For Her Wedding!!!!!!! Stick to your guns!!!

Open-Bath-7654 − I would love to hear Kelly’s side of this story. She sounds traumatized, plus this narrative also sounds like you treated her differently from her siblings. Likely from day one if she was the “difficult kid”. The outcast in her family for struggling with complicated grief over the loss of her unworthy father.

So I feel like we’re not seeing the whole story through your perspective, and I can’t make a judgement about the family dynamics at large because of that. But for the comment itself, yes of course YTA, you know that. I think you meant to be cruel hoping she’ll just stop calling you.

MadameTrafficJam − YTA, but not because you said no. Because you weaponized a profound, paradigm shifting loss. This isn’t about how a kid behaved toward you. She was a KID, even if she came with more issues than you’d liked her to have. And she clearly had a lot going on. You have every right to keep your distance because of it, but let’s not pretend this was pettiness- it was cruelty, and it was meant to be cruel.

I had a lot going on around the same ages and I didn’t handle it well. My mom got very sick very quickly. I was hiding the fact that I was in an abusive relationship. And my dad was a functional a**oholic. I acted out, a LOT. I turned to drugs myself. I got my act together after a little while, but not everyone does. Not everyone feels like they can.

These types of ACEs cause paradigm shifts that are so fundamental that they can very easily alter the course of a person’s life. You dated a woman with kids. That doesn’t often mean you ride off into the sunset with your newfound love and the kids become yours as if they always were. It’s nice when that happens, but even when it does it comes with a LOT of pain.

And her behavior does sound like she had her father in her ear blaming her mother, possibly even you, for his addiction. Logically that makes very little sense, but to a kid? We want to believe our parents would never lie to us so often will accept information that we wouldn’t accept from other sources. She had issues. Children of divorce and children of addicts often do.

And even if a good relationship was never going to happen, you’re still supposed to be the adult in the situation. That doesn’t, to be clear, mean no boundaries. You were right to say no, this is a good opportunity for her to learn that how she treats people will come back to her down the line. You were not right to cruelly weaponize her dad’s death.

What was your goal there? To cause harm. Not just that… To cause as much harm as you possibly could. That does make you an ass. Even if you were saintly in all of this, it was beyond cruel. And it says a lot about who you choose to be. I don’t buy the “I was innocent right up until this second” for a single moment, btw- behavior like that doesn’t just make itself known after a decade or so.

I know that people like to portray ourselves as the victim or the hero, never anything between, but you don’t jump from benevolent, innocent savior of the family who was just a poor victim of one member (who happened to be a CHILD, by the way- a grown man portraying himself as a victim of a child?

I’ve seen that before and it’s often in someone who chose himself a s**pegoat who didn’t stay where he thought she should), as you are trying to portray yourself to be, to a sociopathic level of cruelty inside of a 5 minute phone call. You just don’t. I don’t believe you were an innocent who treated this child with kindness and compassion right up until you decided to be the polar opposite of who you portray yourself to be.

Your money is yours and you can do whatever you want with it. You can have boundaries. You can choose not to pay for the wedding of a person that you don’t want to pay for. But the cruelty makes you an a**hole. And I suspect that you were far crueler to her throughout her life than you are trying to make people believe.. Cruelty doesn’t just randomly show up in an otherwise kind person. It just doesn’t.

Independent-Wheel354 − YTA. Not paying was fine but… dude, really? You mocked her dead father?

_Katrinchen_ − Kelly didn't only decide you weren'ther father figure, she also decided to dehumanize you, blackmail her mum and terrorise her siblings for making a different choice than her. Having a trauma over losing her addict dad doesn't excuse over a decade of s**tty behaviour topped off with ridiculous entitelment. NTA, she git what she asked for.

Even_Enthusiasm7223 − She had a trauma so do you have the two kids? She refused to let it go and blackmailed her mother. When you finally did get married, he destroyed her sibling stuff because they accepted you as a human being and a father figure. She destroyed any kind of happiness she could have had. If she was there. She left and wanted nothing to do with. He was evil and hateful to not only you but to a mother and or two of the siblings.

You paid for your children who you adopted weddings which is your right. She then called you out of the blue wanting nothing from you except to be an ATM. Because you know if you paid the wedding money, she wouldn't have invited you to the wedding. Well it was harsh. Sometimes payback is annoying. She hated you for replacing a father except for when it came from money. Sometimes people lose their cool and say awful things.. NTA, but hurtful

annang − ESH, but mostly you. She was mean to you when she was going through some truly terrible s**t as a kid. You were mean to her calmly and on purpose, in a way that rubbed her deepest pain in her face.

These Redditors sliced into the drama, but do their judgments miss the deeper scars of grief and rejection?

The stepfather’s refusal to fund Kelly’s wedding was his right, built on years of her hostility. But his cruel jab about her late father turned a boundary into a blade, cutting deeper than intended. Both carry wounds—Kelly from loss, him from rejection. A sincere apology could pave the way for healing, even if ties remain distant. Have you ever lashed out in a family feud? Share your stories—how do you mend bridges after harsh words?

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