Dad pays for stepdaughter's wedding instead of paying off bio daughter's loans. AITA?
When this dad is at war with his daughter, he asks Reddit:
"AITA for contributing to my stepdaughter's wedding, instead of giving more money to my daughter to pay off student loans?"
I (51M) have 2 kids (25F, 19F) with my ex, and 2 stepkids (23F, 21M) from my current marriage. 25F started college quite a few years ago, and I had a college fund. She got into an Ivy school and received a small % in financial aid (didn't qualify for more).
She's now completing her masters from the same school, and doing a paid internship with a big organization. 25F still has some student loans left. 23F is getting married next year and I'm contributing a decent amount to the wedding. I have a good income and also a decent amount of savings.
Bottom line is that 25F found out I was paying for part of the wedding and she's been pretty upset saying that I could've used some of that money to help her out.
I asked her if she's struggling with managing everything, she said no but that it isn't fair to her or 19F that I'm spending so much on 23F's wedding. She says it seems like I 'love them more.' I said that I already contributed to her college fund, and my other daughter got a full ride to her school. This has nothing to do with any of that.
She got kind of angry with me and I know that she also had a bit of an argument with 23F about it. Even 19F got involved, saying that I shouldn't be 'throwing all this money' for this wedding. AITA?
Let's find out.
straightsinger12 asks flat out:
How much did you contribute to wedding versus to college fund? Also, does 25F expect you to pay for her wedding (I'm assuming she's not married yet) on top of whether you pay for her loans?
OP throwawayaccount1701 replies with this shocking reveal:
25F isn't married yet but she very recently got engaged, they're not planning to get married for another couple of years. I've already said that whenever they do get married, I won't be financially contributing.
Me and her fiance don't really see eye to eye on most things, and importantly they're well off (he passed his bar exam last year, got hired immediately and already makes good money - my daughter's internship pays well now, she also has a lot of potential career growth with her education/experience).
My daughter knows and accepted it. My stepdaughter and her fiance are having a large scale wedding, and they could use some help as I can afford to.
He's argumentative and sort of thinks he's above everyone. There are a few things in general, one big incident I remember was at a family Christmas party last year. I wasn't there when it happened but heard it from my wife later, wife's sister joked with him that if he ends up alone, her daughter's single or something.
He got really mad at that and he and my daughter ended up leaving earlier. My wife's sister was obviously upset and embarrassed, and so was my wife (I think he overreacted). So things like this.
After this new piece of information is revealed, Reddit users really come for OP. Take a look!
suspiciousbill1543 writes:
After reading your comments and understanding that you are not only paying more for your stepdaughter's wedding than you have to either bio kids college funds...
...are withholding the 19yo's access to her college fund, and will not contribute anything to your 25yo's wedding because you 'don't see eye to eye' with her fiance and he 'already makes enough' (without any consideration also for how much of his income is going to his own student loans)
YTA. Majorly so. There isn't any equitable treatment amongst your children. You are creating issues between your daughters that may not have been there otherwise. And you're showing blatant favoritism.
You should really check yourself and your priorities - is your daughter marrying someone you personally dislike, even though he's got his shit together and is decent to her, really worth tanking your relationship?
Also double YTA because you left out some seriously important info in your initial post to gain sympathy points by misleading commenters.