'AITA for not buying my step granddaughter a Christmas gift?' UPDATED
"AITA for not buying my step granddaughter a Christmas gift?"
I (30f) went last minute Christmas shopping with my partner (49m) and his granddaughter (9) and our son. My partner doesn’t celebrate holidays and people (his family) do not expect gifts from him on the holiday. I do celebrate and have planned and budgeted for gifts for my immediate family for months.
We hit a couple stores like Sephora, Tj Maxx and an educational toy store. I checked everything off my list for my immediate family. We grab dinner and head back home. After I finished wrapping all the gifts and placed them under the tree, he turned to the little girl and asks her if she wants a gift as well.
Of course she said yes. And then looked at me and said “well she didn’t buy you anything”. I immediately felt bad but was taken aback because technically not my family, I didn’t budget for an extra gift, and it was mentioned when all the shopping was done. AITA for not buying her a gift?
Let's see what readers thought.
Need more info. What an a-hole! he deliberately hurt his granddaughter and made you into the bad guy. Why are you with him again? Did he ask you to buy a gift for her? Or did he just want you to and didn't tell you? Does the granddaughter live with you?
She doesn’t live with us. Just came to visit and we had to go shopping. He didn’t ask me to buy a gift and mentioned it at the end of the day. I talked to him about it and he understands where he went wrong and we will go get her a gift when the store opens up.
It's just a bizarre thing to do. Dude looks at HIS granddaughter, asks her if she would like a gift (after she shopped with y'all for OTHER people), then tells her "too bad...step-granny didn't get you one". What was the point of that? It feels like the motivation was to make you both feel bad. Was he upset at you?
hoshitoss writes:
ESH. You, of course, for shopping with his kid and putting gifts under the tree right in front of her. And your partner for his breathtaking meanness. Maybe you both deserve each other.
psychological7 writes:
YTA and so is your partner. You both should feel bad. Your partner is a mega AH for intentionally being cruel to point it out and not get gifts at all knowing you weren't going to get her one.
I can't imagine being a grandparent and being so heartless. Like or not you're connected to this girl by relationship and you couldn't spare a few dollars to get her something? Poor kid has a shitty family who don't think of her as someone worth buying for.
okcommission8 writes:
NTA listen I see your update talks about you recognizing that he was gross for chucking you under the bus, however the bigger elephant here is that he just hurt his grandchild for absolutely no reason.
He used her as a pawn for what? Like why did he set her up just to give her a horrible rejection AT ALL? What is wrong with this guy?! Was he trying to hurt you? Like was he mad you didn’t get her a gift without saying a word and chose this as the method of telling you???? Like why would he do that to his grandkid?!
Later OP came back with this update:
Talked to my partner about it and he recognizes her threw me under the bus. He’s giving me money to purchase the gift so she’ll have it when she comes back later this week. He’s aware that he must have hurt her feelings.