Stepdad keeps stepdaughter's orientation a secret from her bio mom; 'This is NOT my business.' AITA? UPDATED 2X

When this man doesn't know if he made the right move as a stepparent, he asks the internet:

"AITA for letting my stepdaughter stay in closet?"

I've known my (m46) step daughter Tasha (f17) since she was about 9. About a year and a half ago, when she was 15, she and her friend Juliet didn't notice me come home early, and I caught them listening to music and making out.

She was embarrassed, and they both freaked out a little bit, but I promised I wouldn't say anything. My wife's(f37) family is extremely Christian and extremely conservative, though she's not as bad as them. She still has more than a bit of it though, and she can be kind of severe with the kids.

In the meantime, Tasha was able to keep having Juliet over. She didn't have to keep her door open as per the policy my wife insists on whenever my son (M15) has a girl over, and My wife never questions what kind of outings she's going on when she and Juliet say they're going someplace together, even late at night. She's even slept over at Juliet's house and Juliet has stayed overnight with us.

Honestly, it's not like she's going to get pregnant, so I don't really see a problem with any of this. Also honestly, I'm surprised at some of the coupley things that the girls have been able to do without anyone questioning it, like sharing seats so they're practically sitting on top of each other, hugging, eating food off the same plates etc. My wife seemed to have just accepted it as girls being friends.

My relationship with my stepdaughter has been closer, as she obviously knows she can trust me with who she is. Over the past few years I've been working from home often, and we have an unspoken understanding that she can have Juliet over whenever and as long as they're being quiet somewhere else in the house I won't bother them.

Because I so largely work from home, I end up looking after the kids a little more than my wife does, So that's given her quite a lot of freedom.

However, the problem came when my son found out through high school gossip that his sister and her friend were dating and her stepdad doesn't care and lets her do whatever. I shouldn't have been surprised. I guess the girls were kind of sloppy.

I was worried that my son would be mad that I had been enforcing my wife's open door policy with him, or that he would feel like he hadn't received equal privileges, but as far as things between him and me, he gets it, and he doesn't seem upset.

He did get into too loud of a discussion of it with his sister though, and my wife overheard and made them spill everything.

She freaking went ballistic with me, actually yelling and getting heated, even as I tried to explain to her then I figured Tasha would come out when she was ready and that none of it was my secret to tell, that nothing bad had happened and that there was nothing to worry about.

She was just pissed at me, and she was pissed at Tasha, and she wanted to ground Tasha and for me to take away her car. (My former 20-year-old car that I let her buy from me). She wanted to ban Juliet from coming over entirely.

She was upset and accused both of us of lying to and manipulating her. I tried to tell her that none of that was reasonable and that Tasha was 17 anyway, so what does it matter, but she was emotional and insisted that her decision was final.

I tried to tell her that it wasn't her decision alone, and that there was really no way she could enforce any of that anyway. Then she asked me if I would enforce it. Apparently, she didn't like how long I paused before giving an answer, and she flipped out, threw a huff, And she locked herself in the bedroom.

I decided to just give her some space, so I asked my son to kind of keep an eye on his little sister (f7) just in case Mom doesn't come out, and went out to do some shopping and errands.

Tasha volunteered to come with, so we went grocery shopping and stopped at a burger joint.

Meanwhile, my wife's parents and sister are texting me about being an asshole and what I've let my stepdaughter become, and they're texting her with homophobic Bible tracts, things about “Her lifestyle”, slut shaming, and inappropriate questions.

I feel like she had every reason to not come out, and I told her as much, but that it's only a shame that her and Juliet got too comfortable/sloppy. (Apparently they were pushing it a little with things like PDA and hand holding other places too)

Pretty sure I'm still in the doghouse with my wife, but I don't feel like I've done anything wrong, especially with the way that things turned out. My wife herself isn't homophobic, or I wouldn't have married her. So I'm trying to give her time to come around and be reasonable.

Her family are definitely way worse, and I wish she wouldn't have told them. It's kind of annoying that they're trying to paint me as the bad guy, but I'm used to just letting them wear themselves out about things. Am I the asshole here?

Before we give you OP's updates, let's take a look at some of the top responses:

KombuchaBot: OP is not at fault but I think he's being optimistic with the whole "my wife isn't homophobic" thing. She certainly seems to have some big unmanageable feelings that make up common ground with her toxic family.

NTA but you need to keep an eye on the pressures being applied to your daughter. Having hatemail texts from her mother's family can't be good for her mental health.

Valiant_Strawberry: Hate to break it to you but your wife is definitely homophobic. If she wasn’t she’d be on the floor sobbing about why her daughter didn’t trust her enough to tell her, not spilling the beans to her entire homophobic family so that they all gang up and harass a fg minor.

She might not care about other gay people, but your wife is 1000% a “not in my back yard” person. In other words, it’s fine as long as it’s not her kids. It’s a gross mindset.

Tell your step daughter to block any family member that is sending her abusive messages or even messages that just make her unhappy at this point. They can always be unblocked when they decide to behave.

Make sure she knows that you’re still there for her NO MATTER what happens with you and her mother. Because your wife’s POS family that she’s already looped into the issue could easily talk her into leaving you for this. Assuming you don’t leave her homophobic ass first.

And now, OP's major update:

Just to clarify, because some people seemed confused, Tasha(f17) is my wife's daughter from a previous relationship. My son(m15) is my kid from a previous relationship, and our youngest daughter(f7) is a child we had together. I'm Tasha's stepdad, and my wife is my son's stepmom.

The first thing I did when my wife's family started sending homophobic and slut shaming or otherwise derogatory messages to Tasha was to tell her to ignore them and to try to keep her mind off of it.

She went to start blocking or deleting them on her own. She was already upset because of her mother's reaction, and it kind of got to her, but I tried to comfort her as best I could.

I never considered that my wife could be homophobic. We had gay guests at our wedding, some of whom were with their partners. My sister is bi, and she was dating a woman at the time, although she's since married a man, and my wife has never apparently had a problem with her then or since.

In fact, when her family made noises about It, she said they'd have to "shut their mouths and put up with it" or she'd let me take them off the guest list / have my family throw them out. However, that said, the way that she reacted to learning about Tasha and Juliet looks really bad.

My wife can kind of get stuck in her mood, she can obsess with things, and it can make her hard to talk to sometimes, but I confronted her privately about this. In particular, I showed her some examples of the things her family was sending to Tasha and also some of the nonsense they had sent to me.

Apparently, through some game of telephone people think I'm running some kind of teenage sex den. What they've said to Tasha was far more hurtful towards her though. My wife was mortified and Said she never meant for them to say those sorts of things to her and that she wasn't thinking when she told her family.

Apparently, she was angry at me and Tasha and even at my son, and she was spiraling in her head and needed to talk to somebody, so she called her sister. And then I guess her sister spread everything around.

She said that she felt hurt and excluded, and that it feels like I always have a tighter bond with the kids, even her own daughter. She said that it seems like the kids always come to me with things and that she feels like I sort of just run the household without her. I don't feel like that's true. I feel like I take her input, and obviously the kids love her.

The kids do tend to come to me more often, but it's because they know I won't react the way that she does. I try to deal with a problem and move on while she can be a lot more dramatic about things and she can have some hang ups.

I gave Tasha the safe sex talk when she got her period and I found out that her mother hadn't given it to her by then.

I also ended up giving her most of the period talk, so it was a learning experience for both of us. Her mother, my wife, gave her pads, which she doesn't like, because apparently a girl her age wasn't supposed to use tampons, which was not true, for instance.

My wife said that she felt foolish and humiliated because of her image of Tasha too. Apparently, she has frequently bragged, to her family, not to me or anyone I much talk to, about how pure Tasha is and how she never went boy crazy like any of her cousins, partially out of motherly pride and partially as a justification for our lifestyle versus her family's.

She said that it was humiliating after that to find out that Tasha has been having lesbian sex for years, and that it "broke her image of her innocent daughter." I told her it wouldn't have been so humiliating If she didn't tell her family, but that she acted without thinking, so I guess that ship has sailed.

I wasn't raised in the same kind of purity culture that she was, so I don’t think of girls as being good or bad based on whether or not they have sex, but it was shocking to her.

She said that she thought about all the times that Tasha and Juliet were alone in the house somewhere or out on what were probably dates, or all the times that Tasha has made some excuse about it being late or dark or snowy or whatever to have Juliet stay over, and she just started getting angry again.

I had to calm her down. I told her that she needs to look past being mad and that She really needs to make an effort to set things right if she wants her relationship with Tasha to work.

I told her, pretty plainly, that Tasha will be 18 before Christmas, and that it's up to her to decide if she wants us all to be together as a family then, or if she wants Tasha to be celebrating it at Juliet's place, or for that matter at my parents house with me.

It seemed to get through to her enough that she was able to get out of her head and push past being mad. She doesn't want to lose me, she doesn't want to break up the family, and she doesn't want to lose Tasha. I got her to drop the idea of punishing Tasha, and we all hugged it out as a family.

My wife told Tasha "It's fine if she's gay" And she said that's not what she's mad about.

She insists that she was angry about being lied to, and that she would have responded just the same way if Tasha had been sneaking around with a boy for almost 2 years under her nose with Everyone else knowing about it.

I'm not completely sure. Tasha herself thinks her mom is being a little weird about it because it's a girl, and She has been a little weird around / about Juliet. Not sure if that's understandable or not, all things considered.

My wife said again, to Tasha, that she was horrified about the things that her side of the family was saying, and that she was sorry for mentioning anything to her sister. I had already had Tasha go ahead and block most of them, and my wife said that that was totally reasonable and fine.

She told Tasha that she always thought she was so innocent and that she never thought about her this way but that she wanted to know more about this side of her life and for them to be more open with each other

.

Tasha seems glad that her mom isn't flipping out about her anymore, and she told me she was glad I talked to her. I told her that I'll always be here for her, and she was very grateful for that.

As for my son, he apologized to his sister privately, and he also told me he was sorry that he set this off. I told him not to blame himself.

He said he never had any intention of tattling out of spite or anything like that, and that he totally understood why Tasha kept things the way she did, not just because of the freedom it got her and Juliet, but because of how he knew my wife would flip out regardless of how she found out.

There hasn't really been a good time yet for me to try to address the open door policy and whether or not it's something that he's going to have to abide by, but that's a matter for another time anyway. Tasha is nearly grown, and I'm pretty sure that her mom is going to be being extra nice to her, so hopefully things aren't too awkward.

My wife was very pissed off, and the p seems to have triggered some of her hangups and family baggage, but she's not anywhere near wanting to divorce me. I Love her too much to imagine parting from her myself, so I'm glad this is something we can get past.

I've had long talks with Tasha, and she's immensely relieved that me and my family will always support her, regardless of whether or not her mom's family ever changes their tune.

Thanks for all the comments. They gave me a lot to think about and a lot of perspective. I knew it was going to be rough getting my wife to come around on all this, but in particular showing her the effect that her lashing out had had on Tasha and the upsetting face her family had shown, was eye opening for her. Sorry if this is long, but the last few days have been a lot.

Readers continued to weigh in on OP's update:

PrestigiousTrouble48: I’m glad to hear your wife calmed down and is trying to repair her relationship with her daughter. You are an amazing father and should be proud of how you handled all the different personalities and emotions.

Magerimoje: I really hope your wife goes to therapy ASAP. Even setting aside Tasha being gay, if the kids are avoiding telling her things about their lives because they're worried about how she will (over)react, then she really needs to work on that, especially before they become adults and stop telling her anything about their life because Mom can't handle hearing it without some type of negative reaction.

You sound like a really great dad, and you're handling this really well so far. Hopefully your wife is willing to see a therapist to learn to change her behaviors.