When a bride has to choose between her dad and stepdad to walk her down the aisle, things are bound to get messy.
In this case, choosing her biological father over the stepdad who stepped up during a difficult year has everyone questioning her loyalty.
Read on for the story!
AITA for not giving the role of father of the bride to both my dad and stepdad?
My parents divorced when my siblings (32m, 30f, 29m) and I (27f) were young. I was a newborn when they separated for context.
My dad never remarried but he had two long term relationships since then. One when we were younger kids.
His current partner he met when we were in our teens. Mom and my stepdad married when I was 5.
Our parents shared equal custody of my siblings and me.
We were closer to our dad than our mom or our stepdad.
Not because dad was a Disney parent or because he didn’t have rules. But dad was more of a nurturer and we had a closer relationship with him.
We still loved mom but it wasn’t the same.
Noted.
I believe at times my stepdad had trouble coming to terms with us being so close to dad and not as close to mom or him. There were times we felt some jealousy and maybe even resentment about it.
As an adult I can sort of understand, especially if he loved us like we were his, though I also think it should always be a positive when kids have good biological parents and a stepparent isn’t needed to fill that role for a missing parent.
It’s less trauma for the kids.
Makes sense.
Anyway, when I was 10, Dad was involved in a bad accident. For a year we couldn’t live with him because he was on life support, then in rehab working on recovery.
During that year my stepdad really did try to fill the role of “only dad.”
He and mom already had a child together at this point but he focused more on my siblings and me.
He was really good to us and I told him a few years ago I appreciated that he didn’t resent us being there all the time.
But he resented that, at the end of that year, he hadn’t solidified himself as dad to any of us.
This is a rollercoaster.
We all still called him by his first name. None of us saw him as more of a dad afterward. We weren’t magically so much closer.
Dad was still our #1.
When most of my siblings were in college but I was still at home, my stepdad became a little more angry and a lot more resentful of dad because dad was their go to person to call.
I also chose to live full time with dad at that point.
So the problem today. I’m the last of my siblings getting married. My sister had dad as only father of the bride for her wedding. Now I asked just dad too.
Uh oh.
My stepdad was quiet about my sister’s wedding. But he has spoken up this time and he told me he couldn’t understand why I didn’t ask them both.
He said he did just as much as my dad, and for an entire year he was the only father any of us had.
My mom, who weighed in a couple of times, said I was so young when my stepdad and her got married, that it made no sense to see him as less of a father.
They told me that even if I asked now it wouldn’t hold the same genuine recognition and appreciation for my stepdad.
But my stepdad wanted me to know how thoughtless he considered my choice.
AITA?
Wow, talk about a wedding drama that could rival a soap opera!
So, what’s the verdict from Reddit on this family feud?
This person says the stepdad needs to relax and OP did nothing wrong.
This person agrees, and says Stepdad needs to stop acting like a child.
This person says he obviously has a lot of resentment, but that’s no reason to be acting this way.
This is what happens when stepdad wants to step up, but ends up stepping on some toes instead!
Blended families are tricky.
If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.
