'AITA for taking my dad's GF's keys away after she tried putting me to bed, I'm 21.'
"AITA for taking away my dad’s girlfriend’s keys after she tried to send me to bed"
charlie_z0usx writes:
I, 21F, have four siblings: 26M, 23M, 12F, and 10M. Our uncle has been our legal guardian since our mom passed, and my dad has been out of our lives. My 23-year-old brother and I are home for the summer from college. My oldest brother lives in the city. Since we’ve come home, my uncle has been away on a work trip, so it’s just been me and my siblings around the house.
Further context: my dad used to be a problem drinker and was basically estranged for half of my life, with very limited contact. Growing up, it’s always been my siblings and me taking care of each other.
For the past year or so, my dad has been wanting to reconnect with us, mainly my younger siblings. He’s been getting better in his habits. He was clean for three years and managed to keep his act together. Because of this, we’ve allowed a couple of visits from time to time.
Four months ago, he started seeing someone new, quite a bit younger than him, in her thirties, and she seems to have this strange obsession with playing mom. She visits way more frequently than he does and seems to be under the impression that she’s our new stepmom.
I think it’s kind of weird, but we just let her do her thing since she’s not harming anyone. She does have this patronizing way of addressing us. It’s better with my older brothers, but with me, it gets a little ridiculous sometimes. Again, I just ignore it and go about my own business.
A few weeks before my brother and I came home, she was helping my uncle pick up our younger siblings from school and driving them home. Because of that, she was given a key to the house. Since then, she’s been around all the time and just playing parent to my younger siblings, but not really doing much, because my older brothers and I take care of the responsibilities.
In short, the situation started when we had her and my dad over for dinner. My brothers cooked a great meal and it was all going well until my dad ended up making a very insensitive and inappropriate joke during dinner.
She corroborated that joke by making a really ugly insinuation about our late mother. Not going to get into that. We saw them out and that was that. We put the kids to bed and talked about what happened, and we informed our uncle. We were all unsure of what to do.
The next afternoon, both my brothers were busy with work and I picked up the kids from school and got home to my dad’s girlfriend in our kitchen. This was the first time she let herself in when nobody was home, and it caught me off guard. She had basically come to apologize on my dad’s behalf.
She said that he felt so ashamed he couldn’t bear coming here. I sent the kids to their rooms and explained the situation to her. I also communicated to her that I found her comment extremely inappropriate and in poor taste. She started laughing it off, but I was clear with her that we wouldn’t tolerate anything like that again.
Then she said something like, “Aw, it’s so cute that you’re trying to be their mom / their adult.” I just blinked at her. For the remainder of that conversation, she had that same attitude, not taking me seriously and treating me in a patronizing way.
Naturally, I got fed up and started making dinner. I don’t know where she went for the next while. I think she went into the kids’ rooms to help them with homework, but she stuck around for the rest of the night. Out of the kindness of my heart, I cooked extra food for her, even though she didn’t ask for permission to stay. And lo and behold, she stayed for dinner.
Later that night, she was fawning over the kids again, and around ten, in her stepmom manner, she said, “Okay my dears! It’s time for bed.” My younger siblings were in the living room watching TV. They’re usually pretty disciplined at going to bed themselves.
When she said that, they looked over at me with a look like, “What is this lady doing?” I just shrugged, and they went off to their rooms since it was close to their usual bedtime anyway.
Now wait for this. I’m in the kitchen cleaning up. Dad’s girlfriend is on her phone at the island. She looks up at me and says, “You too, hon.” It crosses my mind that she could’ve been joking, but I realize after a moment that this was not a joke and she was in fact sending me to bed.
So naturally, I say, “What?” She says, “It’s getting late, time for bed,” and kind of tuts at me. To remind you all, I am 21 years old. I go to college and am working almost full-time in the summer. I’ve been taking care of my family since I was twelve. This woman has been dating my estranged father for barely half a year.
So I give her the benefit of the doubt that she clearly has some mental issues and is a little crazy. I tell her I think it’s time that she went home. She is insistent that I “go on to bed,” still acting like she’s my mom. This gets me a little ticked off.
I explain to her that I feel disrespected being talked to like that and that I’m an adult. As an extension of our previous conversation, I tell her I need her to take me seriously because I don’t joke around about my family or my siblings, and she is on thin ice.
She continues to laugh me off and goes on in that super patronizing tone. Again she uses the phrase, “It’s so cute when teenagers try to act like adults.” She throws in some stuff about me having a hissy fit and being rebellious.
At this point, I’m just so fed up with everything. I simply say, “You have five minutes to get your things and leave this house.” In response, she scoffs, gets up, and walks off to the bathroom. On the way, I hear her say something along the lines of, “No wonder Anatole (dad) says you’re a frigid little priss.”
When she’s in the bathroom, I go over to her handbag and her keys on the couch. She has a gigantic keyring and a ton of keys, so knowing she won’t notice, I remove our house key from the ring. Then I go back to my room. I hear her leave maybe 20 minutes later.
The next day, I get a bunch of texts from her, panicking about the key. I told her I took it. She said some stuff, called me a brat, said she was going to tell my uncle and brothers, and that I was being childish. I told her I was at work and if she wanted to talk, she could call me at 4.
Otherwise, she could go bother my brothers about it, but they were at work too, so good luck with that. She went off again with the “stop pretending to be an adult” thing and said that my younger siblings were like her kids and she needed to take care of them, and this was “unsafe.”
The last text I sent her was: “This is the last I’ll say this. You’ve been disrespectful of me and my brothers since we met and dismissed my attempts to communicate with you. I’m no longer investing energy into enduring your behavior. I’m going to be honest, there is very little chance that you are going to get that key back.
This is not helping those chances. Like I said, 4 p.m., you can call.” She yapped some more, then blew up my brothers’ phones and texted my uncle as well. I’m writing this as this is occurring. I told my brothers a bit about what happened when she came over, but they don’t know the full story. My uncle is also in the dark about this, but I’ll tell them what happened if I need to.
Look, I don’t doubt that in her heart she truly cares for my younger siblings. I don’t think she’s a bad person or anything, plus my uncle trusted her enough to give her entry into his house. She just really pissed me off.
Her whole stepmom act is also really facetious to me. I’d have no problem letting her help out around the house if she were respectful and communicated that that’s what she wanted. Anyways, AITAH?
OP posted an update the same day.
After dad’s girlfriend’s freakout, my uncle called me and said, “What’s this she’s saying about you stole her keys and kicked her out?” And he was already laughing as he said this, because he knows and trusts me, and he knows I’m a levelheaded person. I told him, “Yeah, she tried to put me to bed and called me a priss,” and that cracked him up hard.
When I told my brothers too, they were like, “Wow, I’m surprised you didn’t knock her out.” They both knew she could be a little weird, but never had she been like that. I think it was because it was the first time she and I were alone.
She is not coming back to the house. She’s not picking up the kids again. She only sees the kids when they hang out with Dad and our oldest brother is around. My uncle has full custody of the kids. They are safe. There is more nutty stuff going on with her though. I’ll have another update prepared soon. It’s going to be very interesting.
OP got some responses to her post.
Full-Reception552 says:
NTA - This woman is not mentally well. Good job for looking out for your family.
bangtheory101 says:
Am I the only one confused as to why she seems to be under the delusion/impression that you’re a teenager? You don’t owe her anything, but you should hold a family meeting to confront and figure out what your dad is telling her, and set the record straight.
OP responded:
See I wish this were a whole misunderstanding but she knows my age. we’ve talked about these parts of my life in light conversation. she knows I'm coming home from college with my brother and even then.
I'm working my a^# off driving the kids to school, picking them up, packing them lunch, going to work, driving them to sports, making dinners, even if I WAS 17 that earns some respect to my name and a rite of passage to being an “adult” I feel like.
SnooJokes3120 says:
Not the asshole in the SLIGHTEST. If it comes down to conflict with her, you'll likely end up estranged from your dad again(that's if he takes the woman's side). That kind of behavior is completely unacceptable for a grown woman coming into the life of a family that has clearly survived and thrived without her presence. For peace of mind, I'd discuss it with the people who need to know and set the clearest boundaries possible.