Dad livid after stepdaughters try to force his daughter to skip family vacation.

'AITA for cancelling the entire vacation when I found out that my stepdaughters deliberately hid my daughter's passport to get her to stay home?'

I've been married to my wife Beth for 5 years. I have a bio daughter named Jessica (she's 18). And I also have two stepdaughters named Monica and Leah. They're 25 & 28. Both are single moms and live with us currently.

There are issues with the family dynamics here.

There have been issues with my stepdaughters asking my daughter to babysit the kids. Jessica didn't have a problem with it at first since this is what she does to earn money but since her stepsisters don't pay her much, she started to refuse to babysit. We worked this out by having my wife take care of paying for the babysitting.

Leave the kids?

I planned a family vacation for 3 days and everyone wanted to go. However, Both Monica & Leah suggested that Jessica stay home and watch the kids since Beth doesn't want her grandkids to come. They said it's because the kids are used to Jessica and hiring another babysitter would cause issues.

They also said that Jessica isn't too 'fond' of our destination, but it was obvious that Jessica wanted to go. Beth offered to pay her double to stay, and there was a lot of back and forth until I told them to stop bringing it up.

Then things start to really fall apart.

We were supposed to go last week, but when we were at the airport Jessica found out that she didn't have her passport with her. We searched her bag, and then went home and searched there. Beth and my stepdaughters kept insisting that we go back to the airport or else we'd miss our flight.

They suggested again that Jessica stay at home with the kids. They even told the new babysitter to go home because she was no longer needed. I refused to go and kept searching for the passport until Monica admitted that she helped Leah hide Jessica's passport to get her to stay home with the kids.

OP is rightfully furious.

I was livid. I tried to get her to tell me where it was but she said Leah had it. Leah denied it, so I threatened to cancel the vacation that's when they gave it back. I decided to actually cancel the vacation and blew up at both of them and berated them.

They stayed upstairs for a while and Beth refused to speak to me and said that I punished my stepdaughters for worrying about their kids and wanting them to stay with someone they know. I got told I overreacted and ruined the trip for everybody.

People had suggestions for OP, and he responded:

ravenofmyheart says:

NTA. You don't just have a stepdaughters problem, you have a wife problem. I would rethink your current family situation, and how your daughter is being treated.

Positive-Elk-8110 OP responded:

You're right. After seeing where my wife stands in this, I'm beginning to consider some things.

snag2469 says:

Nta. Wtf time to kick the stepdaughters to the curb.

Positive-Elk-8110 OP responded:

I'm afraid this is not an option. Kicking my stepdaughters out isn't possible since my wife co-owns the house that we currently live in.

Shoddy_Budget_1533 says:

Ask your daughter how your wife treats her when you’re not around.

YouthNAsia63 says:

Rebook the vacation. Someplace your daughter would like.

It will be a less expensive trip this time because the passport stealing stepdaughters and their spawn can stay home and think about what they did. You didn’t ruin anything. Your stepdaughters did. NTA

Lots of people think it's time to end this marriage:

Interesting_Bug_8878 writes:

NTA. To be honest, I would have kicked your wife and lazy no-good stepchildren out right then and there and ended the marriage. If they were 12 I might understand this level of entitlement and immaturity. But in their late 20s??? And WTF with your wife??? She should have roasted them for pulling this BS.

pomegranateseeds37 writes:

Yeah there is NO WAY the wife wasn't in on this too she absolutely knew about this plan. OP needs to ditch all 3 of them.

busangcf writes:

If you won’t say it, I will - he should divorce his wife. With how on board Beth was to leave his daughter home the second they “couldn’t find” her passport, I don’t believe for a second that she wasn’t in on the plan to hide it.

I think it’s disgusting when parents prioritize their new spouse over their existing child, especially when that new spouse has shown their parenting role model is the evil stepmother from Cinderella.

OP is wrong to be with this woman, and to let her and her daughters be around his daughter at all - I highly doubt this is the first time they’ve all openly treated his daughter like s**t - and if he’s a good father, this kind of behavior should be a dealbreaker.

Thingamajiggles writes:

'kicking my stepdaughters out isn't possible since my wife co-owns the house that we currently live in.' OP really needs to just move out, then. The house will sort itself out in a divorce, and everyone will likely be moving out. This whole post talks about how Jessica is being taken advantage of, but OP fails to see that wife/stepdaughters are massively taking advantage of OP as well.

Two women in their mid-20s who seem to feel entitled to do nothing more than make babies is not going to just end with the two small children that are currently in the picture. OP's going to be supporting them, and supporting them, and supporting them some more until there's nothing left.

The line should have been drawn long ago. Pursuing a divorce is probably the only way to get OPs wife to see that she's not the only one who gets a vote on whether or not two baby-making moochers live under the same roof and get to treat other family members badly.

Also, isn't stealing someone's passport a federal crime? And withholding someone's passport in order to press them into domestic servitude? Baby Mamas need to do some growing up. NTA