Dad cuts off contact with adult daughter who defended cheating ex-wife. AITA? UPDATED
"AITA For Distancing Myself From My Daughter After She Took Her Mother's Side?"
I (50m) found out that my wife (49f) of 20+ years was having an affair. I was completely hurt over this and have started divorce proceedings. Obviously this has been hard on our four children but I cannot spend the rest of my life with someone I can't trust.
Before we got married my wife's family had money and demanded I sign a prenup. I had no problem but since then the family money has been lost due to bad investments and lawsuits. My wife was a SAHM for the majority of our marriage, our youngest child is 19 and because of the prenup she can't get alimony. In short my wife will be screwed.
The only thing we own together was our house and while it is paid off my wife won't be able to afford the upkeep or HOA fees, so she will effectively be homeless. I have no intention of giving her any type of support for any reason. Since serving my wife divorce papers I have refused direct contact as my lawyer has advised, but she's now playing dirty by getting the children involved.
We have two boys (23 and 21) and two girls (25 and 19), and my wife has been pleading with them to get me to agree to halt the divorce proceedings in favor of counseling.
After I told my children that I had no interest wasting anymore of my life with that woman they have all essentially backed off except for my oldest, Christy. She's very close to her mother and can't imagine life where were her parents aren't married.
Christy tells me that her mother realizes her mistake and will do whatever it takes to make things right. She says that I owed it to "the family" to work things out. I refused and told her that it wasn't her place to make those kinds of demands.
Since then the only time Christy talks to me is when she's sobbing and asking me to not to destroy the family. I understand that this is hard for her and offered to pay for therapy so she can cope, but she said there wouldn't be anything to cope with if I wasn't trying to divorce her mother.
Since Christy is being too emotional to act within reason and refused therapy I have been resolved to limit contact until after the divorce. However my other children are saying that Christy's behavior is getting worse AITA for taking a step away from my daughter for a while?
Here's what people had to say:
Mysterious-Winter616 said:
NTA. Your wife is the one who broke the marriage and the family. My dad always cheated on my mom and he was the one who wanted the divorce to marry the latest bimbo after 20 years of marriage. My dad says divorcing my mom was the biggest mistake of his life.
My mom was the perfect wife, or as close to it. You have every right to divorce your wife, now she’s sorry because no $ coming to her. Bet she’s regretting the prenup lol.
readical87 said:
NTA. NTA. NTA. Your wife and daughter both deserves to be left in the dust. They are rotten and despicable. Keep your head high and keep moving forward.
ModJazz said:
If you by any chance, asked by your oldest with the same question and given s&^t reasoning again, just ask her this: "So you don't care about my feelings, only your mother's?" For your daughter to be siding with the wrong one is the prove that your daughter is mentally sick as well (sorry).
And ktucker0430 said:
Your daughter is so out of line and old enough to know better.
The dad has since posted this update on the situation:
I just wanted say that I was very grateful to all your kind words and support in how to deal with my daughter. I decided to follow some of your advice and have a scheduled sit down with her to explain that what goes on between her mother and I is not her fault, and that I simply can't ever go back to a woman who deceived me in such a big way.
I told her that I try to be as forgiving and empathetic as possible but I will not ever tolerate people who liar with malicious and selfish intent and try to cut them out of my personal life as much as possible.
I was very calm when I said this and tried to be as loving as I could to my child but it didn't work. Christy ended up breaking down and again tried to get my to convince me not to divorce her mother and just forgive her. I refused and in the end went NC with Christy for a little bit.
I only spoke to her again two days before my other daughter's, Jane (20f), birthday through a text asking her to not bring up the divorce since this was going to be the first time my wife and I would be in each other's presence since I filed. I sent the same text to her mother, and I didn't hear anything from either or them.
On Jane's birthday things were a little tense and awkward but I thought it was going good. Until my wife decided to be passive-aggressive with a speech about how good it is to have family together during important events. Everyone saw through her crap and my son, Jack (23m), called her out on it and said that she was selfish to bring this up on Jane's birthday.
Christy started defending her mother and Jane, understandably upset, revealed that the only reason Christy was on their mother's side for reconciliation was because she didn't want the fact that she not only knew about the affair but helped her mother cover it up. There was a big fight that wasn't going to get resolved right then and there. I ended up leaving and was even more heartbroken all over again.
Not only did my wife betray me but my own daughter too? I knew she was closer to her mother than me, and I was okay with that but this? I don't know what I did to make my eldest daughter so disloyal to me, but I am now resolved to go full NC with her until after the divorce and possibly for the rest of my life.