My husband (40M) and I (39F) have been married for 4 years. We both have kids from previous relationships. I have a daughter who just turned 18 a couple weeks ago and my husband has 2 sons (12 & 10).
I have sole custody of my daughter, her dad isn't involved in her life anymore. My husband has split custody of his sons, but they primarily live with their mother during the school year. They are currently staying with us for 2 months before school starts again.
My daughter is going to be a senior in high school this fall. This past weekend, she went to a party with some friends. I give her a fair amount of freedom regarding curfew, especially now that she's 18 and technically an adult. So, I don't wait up for her to get home. We do however have a doorbell camera.
The morning after the party, my husband had a notification on his phone from the door cam from when my daughter got home. He told me I need to see it and showed me a video of my daughter stumbling up to the door, obviously into%icated in some way.
Obviously, I don't condone teenage drin%ing or d#6g use, but I'm not stupid to think it doesn't happen. I've talked to my daughter about it before and have always told her to call me if she ever feels unsafe or can't drive. She did not drive that particular night, I know a friend drove.
I told my husband that I would talk to her about it when she wakes up. But he wanted to wake her up and search her room because he was convinced she wasn't just dr%nk.
He said he needs to know if she has dr%gs or anything else in the house because he doesn't want his sons to find anything. I told him I will not allow him to search my daughter's room and that I will talk to her. I told him she's an 18-year-old young woman and we need to respect her privacy. I told him he needs to let me handle this.
He was not pleased with my approach and told me that he knows teenagers aren't complete idiots and that my daughter will probably just lie if she does have anything else in the house and the only way to know for sure is to search her room and car.
He said he knows she's technically an adult, but she's still living under our roof and there are young kids in the house and he doesn't want them getting into something bad.
I told him that there's no reason for his sons to be in my daughter's room or car anyway, so even if she does have something hidden, his sons shouldn't be rummaging through her room anyway.
He did end up letting me talk to my daughter and she admitted to drin%ing, but denied doing anything else. She said her friend was a sober driver and that she didn't have anything hidden in her room that her stepbrothers could possibly find.
We had a long talk about making good choices and the consequences of bad choices. I also punished her by taking away her car for 2 weeks except for going to work. My husband is still upset that I didn't let him search her room, he thinks she just told me what I want to hear. AITA?
tduxlon writes:
NTA. Searching her room isn't going to accomplish anything (even if you find drugs or something, it's easily replaceable) other than drive a wedge between her and you (and your husband), make her not trust you anymore/lie/keep more secrets and push her right out the door as soon as she can find somewhere else to go.
The approach you are taking is going to get you better results in the long run by showing some mutual respect for her.
alarmedist writes:
NTA, she is your adult daughter. Get her a lock for her door that only you and she has a copy of. Keep your copy in your purse or on your person so your husband can't get a hold of it. Tell your daughter that she needs to keep her room locked so the step brothers can't go snooping in her room. Your husband sounds like he has control issues.
pipip24 writes:
NTAish. She went out and had fun. Did not do anything irresponsible. She's even working. Not sure why you took away her car? Is it an incentive for being responsible enough to let a dry friend drive her home? Do you think adults don't get dr&nk?
My parents were like you. I was working and studying, drinking responsibly. They wanted to ground me. No way. I moved out and I've never regretted it.