'AITA for never forgiving my dad for stealing my inheritance to give to my half-sister?'
"AITA for being the reason my grandparents refuse to help my dad anymore and laughing when he and his wife complained about it?"
PlentyBluejay273 writes:
My mom died when I (16M) was 7. She left me an inheritance that my dad was put in charge of. The money was supposed to be for my future, and nobody was supposed to touch it unless I really needed it.
It was pretty specific. I read through the will five months ago when everything went down. My dad got remarried when I was 10, and he has an 8-year-old stepdaughter and now a 4-year-old daughter with his wife, Louise.
My half-sister was diagnosed with a rare condition when she was 2. It was always clear something was wrong, but they had a really hard time figuring out what it was. Doctors would say she’d be fine when she was older.
This condition isn’t life-threatening—she won’t die from it—but it could potentially leave her permanently disabled in a serious way. A few months ago, they found out about this hard-to-get-into treatment for her condition.
But it was expensive. There were ways to get help paying for it, but that would take longer. So my dad decided he would use the inheritance my mom left me to pay for it. He tried asking me, but he was going to do it anyway. When I said no, he told me as much. Then he shamed me for saying no, for putting college before my half-sister’s health.
Louise was in the room with us, but she wasn’t talking until I said no. She asked me how I could look at my half-sister, knowing the life she would have if we didn’t do something, and still say no. I told my dad I would never forgive him if he took the money.
After that, I read my mom’s will (my grandparents had a copy), and I brought up the fact that the money was only for my needs and could only be spent for that purpose. He told me, "Mom's dead, and I hope she’d understand."
I told him I never would. He said I’d understand when I’m older. I told him I hated him, and I told Louise she better never speak to me again because I found it disgusting that she would encourage stealing from me and taking my mom’s money.
I told my grandparents what my dad did. They’re my mom’s parents, but they had stayed friendly with my dad and would help him from time to time. They used to share stuff with him, and Grandpa would even look at my dad’s car for free if anything was wrong.
That all stopped when I told them. My dad couldn’t figure out why until he confronted them about it last week. They told him he had some nerve stealing from me, taking their daughter’s money, and spending it on his child.
My dad was mad that they didn’t understand or support his decision. He confronted me about it and complained about what I did. I laughed and told him I had warned him I would never forgive him for it. He asked how I got to be so heartless and selfish. I told him I would never forget what he did.
OP responded to some of the top rated comments:
Confident_Water_8465 says:
Any chance of suing him for the money he stole?
OP responded:
We don't know yet. My grandparents are looking into it.
MaybeitsClusterB says:
NTA I understand your father's reasons and even him thinking he may be "morally" right, but even that fails. The moral thing to do is to "not steal from Peter to pay Paul", but he obviously was emotionally tied to his daughter.
Perhaps he thought he could pay it back over time? Has he attempted to do this? At any rate, the inheritance means so much more than money and I don't know if your Dad is truly seeing this. It was your mother's way of caring for you even when she couldn't stick around.
OP responded:
He never said he'd pay it back.