"AITA for not believing my daughters lie, and canceling our weekend?"

Last week I went to use my Bluetooth headphones, they were gone out of my bag where they always are. I asked my daughter if she had them, she's always taking my stuff without asking, I've told her all she has to do is ask whenever she needs to borrow my stuff, that's all I ask in return. Because I know I won't get it back as she'll deny it.

She said no, I was skeptical, she guilt tripped me saying I never believe her etc, which shes not wrong I don't as she has a history of lying. She's constantly lying to me, even small insignificant things its frustrating. I felt awful and apologized, just assumed I'd left them in the car or somewhere else. I wanted to believe her.

Anyway yesterday I was in her room looking for a something I knew she'd borrowed which I needed back. I didn't go through her stuff or anything of the sort, I respect her privacy, noticed her makeup bag on the floor and had a look in there for my moisturizer and there are my headphones, I was not happy.

Decided I'd wait to talk to her when I picked her up from her course. When she gets in the car I tell her I found them and ask why she'd lied. She keeps saying she doesn't know how they got there etc... I ask to see her Bluetooth pairings on her phone, as if it's not paired I'd believe her.

She wouldn't, we argued about it for at least ten minutes, she kept up the argument that I wouldn't believe her either way, which I told her no thats not true, she just refused to show me! She wouldn't budge she ended up crying and I could tell she was very stressed, I kept asking to see the pairings that if she hadn't used them they wouldn't be in her phone.

She ended up getting out of the car and walking off, I watched her, and unsurprisingly she got on her phone straight away, I gave her a couple minutes for myself and her to calm down then asked her to get back in the car. I asked again to please just show me her pairings, i wasn't surprised when she showed me straight away, I knew she'd deleted it when she got out, its just so obvious to me.

I said to her, "You flat out refuse to show me before you had a chance to delete it, you were in obvious distress about showing me but as soon as you had the chance to delete it and get back in the car you show me straight away? I wasn't born yesterday."

But now I'm the asshole because I said I'd believe her and now I don't. I'm at my wits end with her constant lies and deceitful tendencies. I want to believe her, I truly do. It just doesn't make sense for her to not know about them being in her makeup bag when she had makeup on when I picked her up.

I'm meant to be taking her and her friend away for a trip this weekend to hot pools and a bungy jump. I want to cancel it if she doesn't own up to the truth. AITA?

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

designated_floater said:

NTA - do not let her get away with these lies. She'll become more confident in lying and become an adult that no one can stand.

RoarByMeowing said:

NTA. Cancel the trip. Has she had consequences like this in the past?

OP responded:

Yes, it got to a point a year and a bit ago when she went to live with her gran, I won't prattle on about the why but she was lying, stealing etc just bad bad behavior and I couldn't handle it anymore and it's affect on myself, my husband's and her siblings. I guess it wasn't a consequence but it was the outcome.

She ended up getting kicked out of her grans and living with a friend of her father's(my ex) That situation burnt to the ground for reasons she told me one thing I heard another but I wanted to believe her... so I said she could come back but I wouldn't put up with the previous behavior, over the last few months though it's coming back more and more every week.

And no1oneknowsy said:

I think you have bigger problems here. Consult with a family therapist or psychologist.

She later shared this update:

Edit for info: She's almost 18, I started to recognize this behavior as an issue from around the age of 5. She's been in and out of therapy from the age of 13/14 always stops and refuses to back after several sessions due to thinking the therapist is "a dick" (her words from most recent one) even though she likes it at first and is open with chatting to me about it again at first.

She's had no major trauma that I know of apart from me and her dad splitting when she was 3. She was week on/week off with us co-parenting together.

Anyway little update: She rang me, I completely avoided the subject of asking for her honesty entirely and went straight to asking her if she'd be open to trying therapy again.

She lost it on me, started saying very hurtful things, even said she'll be spending Christmas at her dad's... no idea where that came from. I let her finish and asked what time she will be home as we need to sit down and have a chat, I told her I won't be angry we just need to talk. She's not coming home tonight apparently.

I didn't get a chance to let her know I will be canceling the weekend, as she hung up on me after telling me she wasn't coming home. Thank you to everyone that's taken the time to comment NTA or YTA etc it's all helped. I've tried to keep up but there's so many, I will do my best to answer.