'AITA for humiliating my mother's husband for insinuating he should walk me down the aisle?'

Woman tells off her mom's husband after he insults her late father.

Turbulent_Ruin1495 writes:

Providing context before addressing the core issue: I was raised solely by my dad until I turned 14. My mother, uninterested in parenting, abandoned my dad and me when I was just a baby.

She consistently evaded her child support obligations, frequently changing jobs to avoid payment. Despite court-mandated visitation rights, she seldom spent time with me. Her sporadic attempts usually fell short of the agreed-upon schedule.

She met her current husband when I was six years old. From then until I was 14, I saw my mother and her husband only five times. Following my father's passing, I lived with my uncles, who embraced me wholeheartedly.

Despite her husband's interest in taking me in, my mother displayed no inclination to do so. My uncles, with whom I shared a deep bond, provided the familial support I needed.

My mother never pursued her allocated parenting time after my father's demise. Meanwhile, she and her husband expanded their family, having three children together. Although her husband occasionally tried to involve himself in my life during Father's Day events and extended invitations for me to live with them, I largely ignored his overtures.

On one occasion, he attempted to put down my father, prompting me to firmly defend my dad and assert my father's superiority over his wife. My mother's extended family, facilitated by my dad while he was alive, remained a consistent presence in my life through my uncles after his passing.

Though we aren't exceptionally close, I value their presence, as evidenced by their attendance at my engagement party last year. This brings me to the central issue: During a family gathering hosted by my grandparents for a birthday celebration, both my mother and her husband, along with their children, were present.

My mother's husband approached me, questioning why they weren't invited as part of my family. I indicated that the timing and setting were inappropriate for such a discussion but hinted at his actions being the reason.

As I began to walk away, he expressed his desire to walk me down the aisle at my wedding, asserting that he considered me a daughter and wished to prove his capability as a better father figure.

I lost my temper with his choice of words and everyone heard me say he wasn't going to be walking me down any aisle and he wasn't good enough to be my dad. I called him pathetic for hating on the man who gave me a good life when his wife didn't give a sh%t.

He became angry and told me I should be more respectful. I decided to leave and a few hours after I got a text from one of my mother's siblings saying I shouldn't have humiliated him so publicly. AITA?

OP responded to some comments:

ColdstreamCapple writes:

NTA (Not the A^&#ole). Your mother's husband has NO right to try and insert himself into your life like that and think that they can turn up to your wedding to play “Happy Families”!!

Who does he think he is coming down on your father when he knew his wife had abandoned you? Good luck to him! What makes him so sure she won’t decide one day to run out on him and stick him with their three kids?

You are PERFECTLY justified to be angry and no contact with them and they don’t get a right to tell you how to live your life. I hope you have an amazing wedding and marriage without them in the picture.

OP responded:

Yep. The thing that makes me laugh is they were never going to be invited to begin with. He knew that too or had to suspect when they weren't invited to the engagement party. And yet he asks anyway. It could happen, but I'm guessing he feels confident because she didn't leave him with a baby like she left my dad.

chubalubs says:

NTA. But I wonder if your mother has been telling him lies about your dad. Maybe she's been telling him lies that the reason you barely saw her was because your dad kept you apart-does her husband know the whole story about her refusing to pay child support and being jailed for it?

I could see her spinning a lie about how awful your dad was, how he prevented her from being a mother and isolated you, because that would sound better than her real story of being a dreadful, uncaring and hateful mother.

If she's got him convinced your dad was abusive, maybe he thinks he's doing the right thing by trying to be a dad? You're definitely NTA, but maybe there's reasons behind why he's trying to insert himself in your life.

OP says:

I don't know if she cares enough to come up with lies for this. She has never shown the least bit of interest. Even when she had me in her house she paid no attention to me. He saw that. You would imagine a real genuine mother would be trying to make the most of every second they have their child if they're being denied the rest of the time.

ConfusedCapricorn92 says:

NTA, I get he wanted to be there for you but his way of wanting to be a part of your life was messed up. He has no right to say "he could be a better dad than I ever had."

OP says:

Yes, it was, and it showed why he doesn't deserve a place in my life. He was acting like the roles were reversed and my mother raised me while my dad was hardly ever there. But that's not true.

My mother couldn't even choose to keep me for all the allowed time the few times she did take me. Yet my dad was the bad guy in it all. One day she might really open her husbands eyes and maybe he'll feel bad about it, maybe.

What do you think? Was OP wrong to "embarrass" her stepdad?