Dad fears his kid's safety when 'crazy ex-wife' finds out about daughter's 'obsession.'
When this dad is concerned about his 'crazy ex-wife,' he asks Reddit:
'AITA For Letting My Daughter Keep Her fandom stuff even though my ex wife is crazy?'
When our kids were growing up, my wife had...a lot of rules regarding what media she'd let into the house. The main thing was that she didn't want any toys or stuff of villains or anything evil.
Any time our son got a Darth Vader or Joker or whatever toy for a birthday or Christmas, she'd toss it out and lecture our son before replacing it with something 'acceptable'. This was one of the many factors that led to our divorce, and contributed to why our two children mostly live with me (they spend one week a month with my ex).
Now, during our marriage this didn't matter as much for my daughter Sara. People don't usually give girls Maleficent or Ursula dolls (not even sure if they make those). But my daughter has a big fixation on Wanda from the MCU. She's never out and out said it, but I'm pretty sure Avengers 2 was how my daughter realized she liked girls.
Regardless Sara is 17 now and still has a massive Wanda collection. Every toy, piece of art, mug, you name it, she's got it. Which has never been a problem...until now.
Because my ex finally saw Multiverse of Madness, and she knows Wanda is a villain now. And my daughter's social media means she knows that I haven't done a thing about her room.
My ex exploded. Phone calls, texts, emails, trying to sic her friends and family on me. Genuinely, I think she took my saying I wanted a divorce better than she's been taking my letting Sara keep her collection.
Normally I'd let it wash over me but...this is clearly bothering her a lot. Like, a lot a lot. And while I'd never ask Sara to throw away or get rid of everything, I'm a little worried that letting her keep it all up could either be having a negative impact on my ex's mental health or be setting my kids up for a bad time at her house.
I recognize that my ex is unreasonable, but am I being TA for just ignoring her?
Let's find out.
mm172 writes:
NTA. Y'all are lucky you don't live in the MCU, because your ex's 'no villains' policy sounds like the start of Sara's villain origin story in and of itself. As it is, whatever this is triggering for her is something she needs to work out in therapy, not take out on Sara.
sirix8472 writes:
NTA. You are not responsible for the mental health of your ex. End of story. If we were all responsible to everyone we ever had a relationship with, we'd be so tired down we'd never do anything, in fact we'd likely never have as many relationships as we do with people through our lives.
If your ex goes off the deep end, it's probably just best to let your daughter decide if she even wants to see her mom a week a month. She's old enough.
satanista writes:
OP please consider how unhealthy is to make your daughter responsible for her mothers emotions by pressuring her to hide a genuine interest of hers (that’s also seemingly tied to her sexual expression) in order to avoid conflict with your ex wife.
Kids should NEVER be responsible for managing the emotions of adults.
It’s incredibly damaging to them and it’s a form of abuse. Your ex wife is responsible for her own feelings and it’s telling how you are so close to putting the fall out of your wife’s poor emotional self-regulation over the feelings of your teen daughter.