'AITA for suggesting my ex's daughter stop coming over after she messed up my relationships?' UPDATED 5X

"AITA for suggesting my ex's daughter stop coming over for a while after she purposely messed up my relationships?"

I (35f) used to date a guy we'll call jacob (37m) we dated for 9 months before we mutually agreed to break up. Jacob has a 16 year old daughter we'll call Emma, Emma's mom is not in her life and apparently all previous ex's treated her horribly. Emma calls me mom, I never had an issue with it even after the break up since I knew she didn't really have one and I cared for her.

Emma often comes to visit me and stays over. About 2 months ago I went on a date, Emma found out but acted really excited for me and even insisted on helping me pick out a dress we had a blast and even went to for some ice cream after.

The date went well and I thought things were going good however about week later I received a text from my date call me a horrible person and telling me to never talk to him again, This happened for the next 3 dates I went on and at this point I knew something was up.

On the 4th date the same thing happened as the previous three dates however this time I decided to ask for an explanation he then sent me screenshots of messages he had received from a random number claiming that I had a family and that I was cheating. I was shocked to see that the number which sent the messages was Emma's. Emma came over later that day and

I showed her the screenshots and asked if she sent this to all my previous dates, she admitted to sending this message to all my dates and apologized, saying that she thought that if I got in a relationship she would lose me. I felt bad and told her that she would never lose me and I would always be there for her, we had a heart to heart and then got sushi and I thought this was the end of it.

I went on another date last week I had told my date about Emma and everything that happened with her, he thought it was funny and had no problem with her being in my life still. Well a day later he sent me a message and what do you know Emma had messaged him the exact same messages she sent to everyone else.

I called Emma and asked why she did this again when we had already talked about it and told her that if this doesn't stop she will not be able to come over to my house for a while which is something I don't want to do, she got mad and started swearing at me before saying that I should get back with her father because we didn't end on bad terms before hanging up on me.

I called her father and explained the situation, I told him that I think we need to get her a therapist as I think our breakup affected her more than we thought, I then told him that until the situation was resolved and she apologized she shouldn't come over to my house for a while,

I would still talk to her just not see her for until she starts therapy. Well her father was furious he called me everything in the book and said that while she was in the wrong and should see a therapist I was an asshole for essentially cutting her out of my life because of it. I explained that it was only temporarily until the situation was resolved however he hung up.

It's been a day and I feel really bad as I'm the only healthy mother figure she's had however, I don't think I am in the wrong as it's only until she starts therapy so aita?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

Coco_Dirichlet said:

NTA. She does need therapy and this is not healthy. If you don't put some boundaries, she is going to keep doing the same over and over. This was very odd to me, to be honest, "we dated for 9 months before we mutually agreed to break up.

I consider Emma my daughter, she calls me mom even after the break up." You dated ONLY 9 months and she started calling you mom? That seems like way too fast for someone who was just dating less than a year and did not even live in the same house.

HunterDangerous1366 said:

NTA. You need to cut contact completely though. This is not normal behaviour on her or her fathers part. You dated 9 months, not 9yrs. While I feel for Emma needing a motherly figure, that isn't and shouldn't be you, especially since you was with her father such a short amount of time. The fact he thinks your wrong and called you all the names is also the problem.

I get you care for Emma, but this isn't a we need to situation its a he needs to*, because Emma isn't getting the message and your ex is enabling her.

tipareth1978 said:

You kept giving her your phone? Your statement above says she gave you no reason not to trust her. She gave you every reason. I'm going to tell you something you don't want to hear but it's true. This ex of yours is just taking advantage of you. Why would he get mad that you set a more-than-reasonable boundary? Because you're an easy source of child care. HE needs to get HIS kid in therapy.

It's great you want to be nice to her but you are wasting your maternal instincts on someone who is now preventing you from having your own family, your own life. You need to not see her for a long time because it's damaging both of you. She calls you mom. Ok if you're such a good mom to his kid why are you broken up? The whole thing is confusing and you and she are equal victims.

And nibbler981 said:

You only dated her dad for 9 months. You never even got to the point where it would have been appropriate for you to meet her, let alone take over some mother role. What an absolute mess!

She then shared this series of shocking updates:

Edit: people are asking how she got those numbers, I used to always give her my phone even after the incidents because I never had any reason to doubt her and I thought the issue was resolved so she most likely got it from there. I also I have every intention of still talking to her just not seeing her until she starts therapy.

Edit 2: someone suggested that maybe the reason previous ex's didn't like her is because she did something like this so I asked someone mutual friends and apparently she has a habit of getting attached to woman very quickly and calling them mom. Apparently it made all the ex's uncomfortable and a lot of them broke up with Jacob because of it.

Edit 3: a couple people on here suggested that she might have installed an app on my phone to see what I was doing and to my horror after looking through my phone I found an app called "MMGuardian Parental Control" and this app lets you read text messages I'm honestly in complete shock and don't know what to do.

I was just weirded out by her behaviour at first but now I'm actually scared, for all I know she watched me type all of this. I'm looking into getting a new phone now however any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Edit 4: I told Emma's dad about the app and he laughed in my face, turns out he knew about the app and told her to install it back when we first started dating so they could see if I was cheating on him. Apparently he didn't install it on his phone because he knew I might check his phone at some point so he told her to install it on hers.

I asked him why he didn't tell me about it or at least delete it after the break up and he said he told Emma to but she wanted to keep it and apparently he saw no harm in her having access to my phone.

Edit 5: I have decided to cut contact with them at least until she starts getting help, however I honestly don't know if I will ever talk to them again even if she does get help. I am currently changing all my passwords as well as looking through all my devices for any other spying apps and am going to factory reset all of them after.

I had previously been looking into a new house however after everything that I just discovered today I am definitely going to be moving and hopefully somewhere far. I told my friends about this and they are looking out for me, I am also staying with a friend until I can get I new place. I will keep you guys updated and thanks for all your advice.

Edit 6: I didn't think I would be making another edit for a while however while I was going through my laptop I noticed Emma's google account was logged in. This didn't surprise me as I knew she had done this, I was about to log it out however my friend said he had a bad feeling about it told me to check her google drive.

In her google drive I found I folder with my name on it, after everything I found out I didn't want to know what was in there but my friend opened in anyway. It had a bunch of nude and sexy pictures of me!, thankfully they were all pictures I had sent to her dad back when we were dating however the fact that she has a whole folder dedicated to those photos definitely creeps me out.

I have decided to just buy all new devices at this point as I don't think I can handle finding anything else and I just don't trust any of my devices anymore. Hopefully this is the last update for a while however I will keep you all updated.

Edit 7: hopefully my last edit for a while. I deleted all the photos off the folder and the folder it's self, I did however take screenshots and a screen recording for evidence. I told a friend who is a police officer about this and sent them all the evidence, they are currently helping me and are trying to get me some form of police protection. In the meantime they are staying with me,

hopefully this all ends soon and I can just move on with my life. Thank you for all your advice and for making realize how unhealthy the relationship really was, I probably would have never found out about the spying app of the folder if it wasn't for you all. Thank you all for your support and hopefully the next time I have an update it will be good news.

Good luck!