'AITA for telling my daughter 'of course' she could move in with me without talking to my wife?'
"AITA for telling my daughter 'of course' she could move in with me without talking to my wife first?"
I have been married to Nora for about 5 years, together for 7, and she has a daughter who is 10. I have a 16-year-old daughter, Rhea, from my first marriage who lives in another state with her mom as has for the last 8 years.
It was kind of a complicated situation where both of us were being transferred for work (we were already divorced) and we agreed my ex would take Rhea, and I would fly her out once a month for a weekend and have her every summer/ every other holiday. It was a hard decision but the three of us have made it work and are very happy.
Nora also has always said she loves Rhea like she’s her own and I have never thought she was lying until recently. Without getting into it in too much detail, Rhea has been experiencing extreme bullying from boys at her school and the school’s response has been abysmal for the level of harassment.
My ex and I have been in constant contact with the school and the situation has only gotten worse all semester. Nora knows about all of us this and has been very sympathetic when Rhea was talking about it here over Thanksgiving. My ex and I have been planning on sending Rhea to a private school in the area next semester (there’s only the one public and one private one in the area).
Things have apparently gotten worse since winter break started and the boys have ramped up the bullying. Rhea called me the other day completely devastated. My ex was around but basically she doesn’t see an end in sight even with going to the new school, the parents and school have been useless, and she doesn’t want to keep living like this.
She asked if it would be possible to come and live here, basically switching the schedule. I told her of course we could, that we would do everything in our power to help her with this. I talked to my ex a little after speaking to Rhea, and while she’s completely devastated about everything, she sadly agreed.
She has said she’s working on seeing about transferring to my area or even getting a new job, but agrees with me that Rhea needs to get out of this situation before the new semester begins. After that call I immediately called Nora to discuss with her. Even though she’s been sympathetic to everything she completely lost it at me, telling me that I should have said no until I talked to her.
She said this was too much of a change for her daughter and would disrupt our home too much, and as my wife she should have a veto on it. I was shocked and honestly appalled and told her she was being unreasonable, I wasn’t going to tell my traumatized daughter she couldn’t live with me because I needed my wife’s permission. She hung up on me.
That night I came home and she had sent her daughter to her moms, and she tried basically laying down: she didn’t sign up to be a full-time stepmom, she was saying no to Rhea moving in, and if I insisted on still going through with it then she would have no responsibilities towards Rhea and if I asked her for help she’d say no.
I basically told her this was ridiculous, goes against everything she agreed to when we got together, and if that’s how she wanted to be I would reconsider many things I had agreed to, such as her being a SAHM starting next year.
She kind of gave up/ calmed down after that, especially because when her mom dropped her daughter off she told us (without her daughter there) that Nora was being ridiculous and she was ashamed of her. I thought that would be the end of it but she’s been bringing it up to some of our friends and a few of them have agreed with her.
Although it seems like she’s stopped fighting it, she still insists that she wants no responsibilities towards Rhea (who drives, does her own laundry, and is an independent young lady anyways) and that any and all decisions regarding Rhea, especially financial ones, need to go through her before I say anything to Rhea or my ex.
I haven’t even asked her for help and have been working on registering Rhea for school and finding her a therapist in the area myself. I’m starting to think this marriage is doomed, but I’m wondering if I’m in the wrong about what I did?
Edit because this is a little overwhelming now:
*Our daughters get along amazingly despite their age differences, in fact..we also get along with our respective exes great.
*To the point that last summer when Nora’s dad was going through chemo, my ex let both girls go back to stay with her for a week because we were so overwhelmed. (He’s in remission now but it was bad for a while). Both our exes were at our wedding.
Her ex also lives far away and only has visitation, and pays quite a bit in child supper which is how she’d be a SAHM, and he is also on board with it.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
Formsuccessful1122 wrote:
So HER daughter is there. But yours isn’t allowed? Oh hell no. Honestly I’d be leaving her over this. NO ONE is going to tell me my child can’t be in my home.
Alexaisrich wrote:
I don’t even know if you will read this but as someone who is married with a man who has another child I met him when he was 10 years old this lady does not and I mean does not love you, I love my husband and to think that if anyone was bullying his son I would be livid and make sure he is doing better.
I love him and love his son by extension because his son is part of him, this woman does not love you sir, please don’t put this child though another person who will make her feel unwanted. NTA.
blu-bells wrote:
I get the gut reaction that your partner must approve of it when you have someone in your family move into the home. I really do, and in most cases, this is correct. It's generally a shitty thing to surprise move in a family member into a home...
...This is not the case when the person in your family who needs to move in is your child who is a minor.
Your responsibility to your daughter is your highest priority. If your wife can't stomach the idea of your daughter being your highest priority to you, then she should have never married you in the first place. If the relationship falls apart because of this, that's on her. NTA. I don't see this as being up for debate.
StrykerC13 wrote:
You do see the ridiculous contradiction of demanding no responsibility but constant control/input in financials Right? You do realize how bright that red flag is.
That she basically said "I don't want to have to be responsible for a single thing regarding this child but I Absolutely DEMAND control over any financial impact and PRIORITY in it over HER and HER MOTHER. Do you realize the levels of entitlement that shows? How close that is to the line of basically shouting "I Am A Gold Digger."
FlounderKind8267 wrote:
NTA. Your daughter is definitely a main priority. You offered to help, which is the correct thing. If your current wife has a problem with that, that's a massive 🚩