Mom doesn't want ex's new wife anywhere near her 6yo, causing a ballet recital debacle.
"AITA for attending my 6yo stepdaughter's ballet recital even though her mom said she'd leave if I was there?"
aitaballetrecital
I have been married to Tom for 4 years and we dated for 18 months before that. Tom has a 6 year old daughter, Evie, with his ex fiancée Diana. I've always been involved in Evie's life. I stayed home from when she was 2 until she started kindergarten so she wouldn't have to spend all day in daycare.
I'm the troop leader for her Girl Scouts and I coached soccer and tee ball for the one year she was interested in sports. I only work part time and I'm always the one that stays home when she's sick or school is closed. Evie is like a daughter to me.
Diana and I got along until Evie started to call me mommy 2 years ago. I did not ask her to do this and when Tom and I asked about it she said she loves me and wants me to be her mommy too.
After that, Diana insisted that Evie needed to be in daycare 10-12 hours a day so she wasn't home with me all day. Tom wouldn't put her in daycare but Diana found one that would take her every other week and started her there immediately.
Then she refused to let me talk to Evie at night (she used to call me before she put Evie to bed because apparently I was the only person that could sing her nighttime song right) but somehow it was my fault that Evie was crying at night and refusing to sleep. Then she stopped letting me talk to Evie at all on her weeks.
Evie was a mess when Diana stopped letting her have any contact with me and barely let her talk to her dad on her weeks. She developed pretty severe separation anxiety from me and Tom and would only eat or sleep if we were holding her.
Daycare was also very tough for her and it was so bad that someone there called CPS on Diana. We got a child psychologist for Evie and managed to get primary custody. Diana has her every other weekend.
Even though Diana doesn't have custody, we still make sure she's as involved in Evie's life as possible. They FaceTime a few times a week and if Evie misses Diana we try to set up a time to meet at the park or go out for ice cream.
Evie recently started ballet and just had her recital last weekend. Diana made it very clear that I couldn't go because if I was there, she'd leave and she wasn't missing her daughter's first dance recital. Tom actually sided with her this time and told me to stay home and that he'll send me pictures.
I still went because Evie wanted me to be there and I was not going to lie to her and take the fall when she wants to know why I'm not there. Diana got there early because she volunteered to help with hair and makeup so Evie already knew that she was there.
Diana came out and saw me sitting with Tom and she told me I needed to go because Evie knew she was there and she would be crushed if she knew that she left. I told her Evie would be sad if I didn't show up and even more upset when she finds out the reason I didn't come is because mom didn't want me there.
Diana ended up leaving after saying a few choice words and missed the entire thing. When Evie asked about it I told her Diana wasn't feeling well. She was ok with that answer and seemed to forget about it after we took her out to eat and bought her a new toy to celebrate.
She just got back from her weekend with Diana and the first thing she said is that Diana told her that I made her leave and that she wasn't sick. Tom and I ended up telling her the truth and now she's so upset, I wanted to know if I was the ahole for going to the recital.
Here were the top rated comments from readers:
ThisReport877
NTA it's a real shame Diana is harming her own relationship with Evie out of hurt spite. Hopefully she realizes what she's doing and who's really suffering for it before permanent damage is done to that relationship.
PolygonMan
"harming her own relationship with Evie"
Diana is straight up harming Evie, not just her relationship with her.
Enough-Classroom-400
I have this type of relationship with my stepson’s father. I’ve been in my stepson‘s life raising him since he was a year old. He’s now 10 and calls me Daddy Marc. His father sees him one to two times per year, mostly to bring him to see his grandmother.
He never makes his visitation time and his never paid child support. He does have lots of “opinions“ and demands which we don’t comply with. His latest demand was to ban his son from playing golf, since his son likes to go to the course with me and play. Needless to say, we won’t be complying with that demand either.
Last year, we told his paternal grandmother, that she did not need to restrict her visitation only to times when her son picked up the child. We trust her more than her son. She has integrated well into our family, sees her grandson 1 to 2 times per month as she doesn’t live too close to us. She just celebrated Thanksgiving with us.
Now that the bio Dad is aware that his mother sees the child, he bothers us less and less. I thought I went into this relationship, knowing how bad it could be, but OP’s situation sounds much worse.
Puppet007
NTAH. It’s not like you have a restraining order against her. She’s just doesn’t want to share the mom title with you. She wanted both her moms & her dad at the recital, and Diana couldn’t even put her feelings to the side for a few hours. Diana’s jealousy is really damaging her daughter’s mental health, she’s too young to be put into the middle of this petty high school drama.
ConfidentAd9359
I've been the mom in this scenario, to a degree. I have the children 99% of the time. If my ex and his girlfriend want to come to the kids' events, fine, it's not on me to tell them they can't support the kids. But you don't need to sit next to me and you don't need to pretend we are buddy-buddy. NTA.