'AITA for not making the truth sound nicer in family therapy and standing by what I said?'

"AITA for not making the truth sound nicer in family therapy and standing by what I said?"

My mom passed when I (17M) was 4. My dad sent me to live with his parents immediately after. He said couldn't cope without mom and wanted me to have a stable life. I still saw him and stuff ,but he wasn't raising me. That was left to my grandparents. They encouraged him to see me as much as he could and he'd try to swing by at least once a week but that didn't always happen.

It was really awkward and I remember being kinda sad about it for a year or more. Then it just became my new normal. When I was 8, my dad announced he was moving and wasn't sure when he'd come back. I didn't see him for more than two years and when he moved back he wanted me back. I was 10 by then.

He was a stranger to me then too so I didn't want to live with him and my grandparents didn't want me to be taken back like that. Dad told them it was fine and he met someone and we'd all move in together in a few months. They said it was even more of a reason for me to stay because I wouldn't adjust well to random people coming in and living with me.

He said they're not random, I was about to have a new mom and brother. They wanted to know if he had a kid with someone and he said no. His fiancée had a kid already but he was going to raise him as his own. My dad started a court battle with my grandparents when his wife moved to town to live with him, but they weren't married at the time.

Dad said he'd been patient but he didn't like that they were keeping me from him. I told him I didn't want to live with him but he ignored me when I said it. And after months of fighting in court and me talking to people from the court my dad won. It took almost a year though and I was almost 12 by then. But I was forced to live with him and his wife and her son and their baby they'd just had.

My dad was acting like I had never lived apart from him and his wife acted like she was my mom. She'd tell me what to do (you need to play more sports, spend less time with these friends because I don't like them, spend time with your "brother") and expect me to help out around the house and help her specifically. She said it was good for us to make up for all the time we lost.

So I'd have to sit with her while she cooked and stuff and she'd give me consequences for having an attitude about it and whenever I told her she wasn't my mom she would give even more consequences. I had stopped calling my dad 'dad' years before he took custody of me back and that was something he tried to change when I moved in with them.

He'd tell me I had a mom and a dad and a brother and a sister and using names and not acknowledging the family relationships were wrong. I told him they weren't really my family and he spent time telling me they were and why I needed to be more open minded about it.

I never called him dad again and I'm only doing it here for the sake of the post. I never called his wife mom or the kids my siblings. I never wanted to be a part of their family and it started to impact my grades. My grandparents used that and some other stuff when I was 15 to fight for custody again. They were denied originally but then it became a bigger fight.

I had to speak to a therapist, someone from the court system, a GAL and a children's advocate person (not the GAL but someone else) and after a lot of discussing what was the best thing for me and figuring out other stuff, as well as me studying up on how to speak more maturely so I could get a judge to listen to me.

The judge let me go back to my grandparents but ordered that I take part in family therapy with my dad until I turn 18. That was almost a year ago and I was 16 when that happened. I don't really take the therapy sessions seriously and I take them less serious after dad went back to court to ask for his wife to be included in the sessions which the judge allowed.

So now I have to see both of them once a week for an hour. I don't say anything in therapy usually. I don't like the therapist and I have my own so I don't need them for anything. But a few weeks ago I did speak up because the therapist told me everyone needed to be honest at least once and that I might as well say whatever it was that goes through my head.

So I stopped wanting him back and wanting to live with him when I was about 6 or 7 and that I stopped wanting to be a part of his family again. I said he wasn't a good dad and just because he tried, but only when his wife came into his life, it didn't mean I was okay with that.

And I said the whole thing of having a new mom and brother was wrong because my mom passed and some strange pushy lady he met somewhere wasn't going to take her place just because she wanted some perfect family image. I said they tore me away from my home and the parents who raised me so they could play at being good people.

I said a stranger told me who I could and couldn't be friends with and what kinds of hobbies I should have. I said I was punished for saying she wasn't my mom when she wasn't. I said they had brought up their kids hurting and missing me and I said it was their fault because dad ignored me when I said I didn't want to live with them.

I said I wasn't ever going to want a relationship with their kids because to me blood doesn't make us siblings, it makes us related and the same with one being raised by my dad, it makes us sorta related but not family, not siblings and the more they keep expecting that to change the more they hurt their kids.

My dad really didn't see what I said coming. His wife didn't look surprised but more offended that I basically said she was nothing but a stranger to me when she was trying to play mommy.

I got s#$t from them and the therapist for not making the truth kinder. The therapist said I can clearly speak with maturity in court so being nicer about the truth would have been far better. After that I stopped speaking again but it has come up since then. AITA?

The internet had a lot of thoughts to share.

JollyJeanGiant83 wrote:

They stole you from your family. And then punished you for telling the truth. Maybe they're the ones that should have been nice. NTA.

OP responded:

My dad still argues they kept me from him too. Even though he was the one who gave me to his parents to raise. He's the one who left town and didn't see me in two years. He made those choices but he blames my grandparents instead of looking at how he f#$ked up. Guess he married someone who blindly supported him and had the arrogance to think a 12 year old would call some stranger mom.

Buttered_Crumpet09 wrote:

I do wonder if he sold himself to his wife not as a deadbeat who left his child after his first wife passed, but instead as the poor, sad widow who couldn't cope and trusted your grandparents to help, only to be cruelly kept from his child when he was ready to step up. Cue the court battles, the attempts to 'reunite' (AKA pretend it all didn't happen and that he's just the bestest man ever), and the BS in therapy.

Your family therapist is a moron. There's no way you can pretty up the truth, nor do you need to. Your dad is a selfish deadbeat, his wife is a short-sighted twit who thought she could step in and replace your mum, and their attempts to act like things will ever be perfect when every step they've made has been based on what they want and not on what you need is just insulting.

You lost your dad when you lost your mum, and your grandparents have been your parents ever since. That's the reality. Your dad, his wife, and that piss poor excuse of a therapist might not like it, but it doesn't mean it's any less true.

If your therapist tries to get you to speak again, just say, "I did speak. I told the truth about what has happened and how I feel about it, and my dad, his wife, and you all decided to try to guilt and shame me for it because I couldn't pretty up the ugly truth."

"I will not engage when none of you want to hear what I have to say." I do have to ask, though, how awkward are those sessions for you to attend? Is it just those three having a chat amongst themselves?

OP responded:

The sessions are awkward. Mostly they're boring because it's my dad or his wife bringing up all this stuff they want to happen and my dad saying my grandparents kept me from him for way too long when he was ready to take me back. Or how he feels like they engaged in parental alienation when I don't call him dad.

And his wife cries about how I never gave her a chance and all she wanted was for all the kids in their home to be their kids and to not feel like she had less importance because I was just his. And then they talk about their kids and their feelings and a lot of the stuff they say gets repeated. Pretty much all of it really.

Sweet-Interview5620 wrote:

NTA the therapist told you to speak your truth they can’t now say you should have said it nicer. I’d have pointed out it wouldn’t have been your truth if it was said nicer. That all these sessions your So called parents didn’t care about being nicer in what they said to me.

That it’s clear he’s a crappy therapist who takes sides instead of being impartial like is dictated and the fact he let them harass your for being honest is one of the big no’s in regulations for therapists. Please speak to your own therapist you said you had one and ask them to help you make an official complaint about the therapist holding the mandated sessions.

That he told you to speak your truth and then let them b*lly you for it and he joined in. That it’s clear they are not impartial and you no longer feel safe going back to those sessions again. Get your therapist to write to the judge about what’s been happening and how the sessions are being used purely to b*lly you.

That for your health you will no longer continue with them as its Detrimental for you whilst it’s that therapist. That therapist should be investigated and disciplined but all this has done is make more damage and a bigger wedge between you and your dad and his wife. That none of this is healthy any more and needs to be readdressed.

OP responded:

I brought it up to my therapist and they asked about a complaint but I'm not wanting another court fight. I lived through enough of them and I know that might make me shitty because others could have to deal with it. But I just want to keep my head down and make it through the next few months until I can stop going.

Court is exhausting and I feel like I end up having to deal with my dad more when we're dealing with court stuff. Plus the judge really made us fight to change custody the last time and I don't want to f that up. The whole be nicer thing is funny to me because why tell me to be honest if you want me to be nice about it. Sometimes the truth can't be said in a nice way.