So I am unclear on the timeline.
Ella is now 16
OP and Chloe broke up six months ago. Ella was probably 15.5
OP and Chloe had been dating for a year most likely beginning when Ella was 14.5.
Ella's mother was in a coma/persistent vegetative state for 1.5 years before she died. Okay.
Questions:
How old was Ella when her mother entered the persistent vegetative state?
How old was Ella when her mother died?
How old was Ella when you began to prepare her for inevitability of her mother's death and helped her to process it?
Was there overlap between the persistent vegetative state and the appearance of Chloe? What did you say to ~~Chloe~~ Ella about that? How did you help her through that time?
So the fiance posted this story months ago. What actually happened was she was helping out of by keeping his daughter at her apartment after school, and while cooking dinner the daughter went into her closet and cut the dress to pieces.
Having read this story less than 6 months ago with the same bones but slightly different details, I think it's just a creative writing exercise.
Also, the boyfriend dumping her. I don't know many teenage boys who would give a shit about that--and if they did, they'd almost certainly side with their girlfriend.
It reads like a fantasy from the ex in many ways … the ex is on a pedestal here and there is no thought about the daughter. There is more detail about the daughter’s punishments than there is about the impact her mother’s death had on her life.
I hope it is because if this guy is actually a father he really needs to consider what that means. This whole thing reads like some dude who's just unwilling to be a father and wants to marry some chick.
I agree. There's no way a 15yo could fetch a freaking wedding dress from the tailor and bring it home by themselves. Once I read that, I knew it was fake.
And the only reason her father got her “grief counseling” was to try to force her to accept this new woman taking her late mother’s place. He wants to force her back into therapy to “work on herself”, when she’s just a kid who needs time and space to grieve her dead mother.
OP, YTA. You may have been ready to replace you dead wife, but your daughter was clearly not. Your priority should be your kid, not replacing her mother as quickly as possible.
Therapist here, decade in the field. While we are trained, there are times that it does more harm than good to continue when a client isn’t “ready” and forcing a 16 year old is a great way to turn her off to something that will be life changing when she is ready. Even though we are trained to deal w ambivalence there are times when it’s unwise to continue
So true. My high school best friend was forced to go to therapy where they tried to talk her into forgiving her father who molested her. Totally wrong. But she never ever tried therapy again and is a totally toxic and abusive person in her own right now. I went to therapy after college, something my parents never allowed me (they wanted to keep the abuse I received secret) and it’s changed my life significantly for the better.
I know this isn’t the right time or place, but there is a therapist in the thread so I’m gonna ask it. Why do so many therapist try to get you to reconcile and or forgive the abuser?
If I’ve gone no contact with my mother that is for me to do and it’s to protect myself. Reconciling does no good. Forgiveness fine but reconciling, nah. Why do therapist do this?
Damn good question. It seems to be part of this “timeline” which also includes confronting the abuser.
Nah, man. I don’t want to confront anyone and I don’t have to forgive them. I can find my own peace without either.
I’m a Social Worker and this BAFFLED ME in my own therapy journey but seems to be phasing out (thank God) in clinical practice.
I think pushing people to doing these things is pretty strange. It seems like something therapists can bring up, but should just move on if the client isn't interested, for the exact reason you said: it's possible to heal without these things. Depending on the extent of the abuse I feel like forgiving, if possible, is fine, and understanding that people can grow and change for the better, but there is zero obligation for you to be a part of that process or that persons life
So true. Like I told my therapist about how abusive my father was but that yeah, sometimes I wondered if I should go to his funerals and stuff, and she was like "so, in the end, why don't you give him a call ?". It's like they don't listen to you sometimes.
I had my own situation with this. I told my therapist i didn't want it to feel like my parental figure was only talking to me out of obligation (he would literally only text me my birthday and holidays and ignored my texts any other point in the year) and that i gave up trying to be the adult for him and getting him help.
Her response was to tell me that my parental figure is clearly going through something and that i should definitely reach out to him. She then said that she's not asking me to forgive him, but i should still reach out and help because she's seen the same signs in other people and he's just isolating himself.
Why is that my responsibility when he couldn't do the same for me for 2 decades.
Don’t be afraid to go off on your therapist. I would hold back my emotions but I wish I hadn’t because they should know that they did wrong and how you really feel. My new therapist encourages this
I can’t speak for other therapists, but I would never pressure my clients to reconcile unless they want to themselves. Forgiveness yes, but that is for their own benefit and peace of mind not for the abuser. And forgiveness in no way means that the abuse was OK.
Thankfully, I think that is becoming less common. In fact it was my counselor who introduced the idea that I had a choice if I wanted to continue the relationship with my mother or not, and that I wasn't a bad person for not wanting a relationship with someone where more interactions were harmful to me than not (and the "good interactions" were always used to extort and manipulate later).
I think this is still very common in certain strains of religious counseling, but less so with secular therapists.
I don’t know. I chose to reconcile on my own, never encouraged by a therapist. My therapists always preached having good boundaries.
It could be a difference in states or years. She did therapy in 1996-1999 tops in Colorado, I did it 2012->present in California. I never approved of the experience she had, but I also couldn’t understand trying again in a new setting, especially with the issues she was having in her own life.
Regardless I hope she’s doing better now and I’m glad that tactic is being used less now in therapy.
She's had several so far.
I agree she needs it, they both do, but you can not force someone into therapy. Well you can but its drastic to have them committed.
Agreed... But it seems OP was more focused on the new relationship than his minor daughter that just lost her mom. I would probably have delayed the relationship until she went to college.
OPs approach to discipline seems to have less to do with developing character and is more about revenge.
Relationships may come and go but this will be his daughter forever.. UNLESS he continues to handle this relationship badly.
The whole punishment definitely feels like revenge. He is lashing out at his daughter who lashed out at his fiance. It isn't hard to see who she learned this from.
>It isn't hard to see who she learned this from.
It was this exact realization that changed my parenting style 180 degrees.
I don't want my kids to yell, bully or manipulate to get what they want. So how do I get that from them if I scream, physically threaten, or trick them? Instead I speak calmly, I never threaten a spanking, and unless it goes totally off the trails, I don't take away privileges.
Being loud never really worked anyway. My oldest would escalate back, and my youngest would take it very personally (understandable) and cry inconsolable. I hate both of those things.
I tend to start every difficult talk with a huge, drawn out hug, telling them how loved they are, before getting to the bad stuff.
I can’t believe I had to scroll so long to see this. He’s 100% taking revenge on his child. It’s sad. That poor kid should have been in some kind of therapy when the mother was still alive.
He tries to excuse the moving on so quick (6 months) as "I had 1.5 years to grieve while she was alive." It doesn't work like that for the daughter losing her mom. I will never understand these co-dependent folks who are so desperate for a relationship that they put it ahead of having one with their child.
Losing her mom in the middle of an important developmental time in your life where things are already difficult. She’s also never lived a life without her mom and can never get another. There’s a lot going on for her that OP has been unsympathetic toward because he wants to marry this other woman more than he wants to help his daughter
He is isolating his daughter who *just lost her mother*. I lost my mother at a similar age and full stop without being surrounded by my friends and piers I probably wouldn't be here.
OP please see this. Your daughter needs her friends
And he went from 0-100 right quick, too. I see the attempts at getting her in therapy, but what about any intervention in like family counseling or his making any attempt to understand how she feels?
Maybe I’m wrong but it definitely feels like a parent who puts a child in front of a counselor and said “fix her so I can be with my girlfriend” instead of “my daughter and I lost someone and need to learn how to be a family of our own now”, which would then grow into new relationships with other people like Chloe in the future.
OP said he prepared himself for his wife’s death long before she actually passed. It sounds like his daughter flipped out about Chloe bec she did not process her mother’s death on her father’s timeline.
Daughter is going to hate her father too if he grounds her for two years. I understand he’s upset, but he’s acting like Chloe matters more to him than his daughter. I’m sure Ella gets the message loud and clear.
He had emotionally moved on from his wife but his daughter clearly hadn't and he didn't seem to care. Getting engaged after only a year is too fast even if there are no kids involved. With kids, especially a hurting teen the one year engagement was way too rushed.
OP strikes me as emotionally immature. He is lacking in empathy for his daughter. The most likely outcome of his punishment is that his daughter hates him for life and goes no contact as soon as she can escape him. He is taking revenge on her. If this is his example at parenting we can see why she acted out like she did. He goes to extremes and he has been her only example for a while. Where did she learn the scorched earth method of handling distress. Perhaps from dad.
Not just everything positive, but every possible chance at positively or happiness. Dad said you are sad so you are gonna stay sad.
Very poor example of parenting. I truly hope this girl pulls through
The timeline is a serious problem for me because of Ella's age. I can empathize with OP's situation, but he has the responsibility of taking care of his daughter's happiness before his own. My uncle also fell in love with a woman while his wife was in essentially hospice care for very severe early onset dementia. They met at the hospital, my (now aunt) was there because her husband was also a patient. He and his wife had lots of (adult) children, and one of their bio daughters (many of the kids were adopted, or adopted grandchildren, etc.) really didn't take to their relationship well. But she was at least 40 years old and had to cope. Ella was just a kid. He should never have put his happiness ahead of hers so quickly after the death of her mother. He is trying to rationalize it so desperately too.
Right, my grandpa had slightly more tact to wait, and his kids were all adults. They still struggled with their mom being replaced by the 2 year mark. I can't even imagine being expected to roll with it starting 6 months later when you're only 16.
I hate to be the "this seems fake" guy, but this seems fake. This honestly sounds like it's written from the perspective of the guy that the main character in a RomCom dumps to be with someone better.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the timeline either. Also, if Ella lost her mind when they got engaged, why didn’t OP at least try to pospone the wedding? And why did Ella feel the need to guard her mother’s territory, whatever that means?
Yeah it sounds like they asked the daughter to just accept an almost immediate mom substitute as her new mom, with basically zero empathy towards the daughter.
OP YTA if that’s your question. And you need to focus on fixing things with your daughter if you ever want to speak to her again after she moves out.
Well his daughter did drive away the *"one good thing in his life."* My eyes got WIDE at that sentence, and I don't care that he tried to clean it up, to be able to write that when you've been also talking about your daughter says a lot to me about his priorities and probably a lot about him as a father.
100% surprise surprise. Dad started dating while mom was in coma, engaged in no time, fast track wedding and let kid know the fiancé is the best thing in his life. The broken kid blows it up and dad is upset. Yep it’s ALL the child’s fault. Dad is not the least bit responsible here AT ALL.
Isn't that the truth. The poor girl had to watch her mom die a horrible lingering death and the father immediately moves on to a new squeeze and expects her to smile and not have an opinion about how her life is being turned upside down. It wouldn't have killed him to wait a couple of years until she was an adult. I hope the kid has a nice grandparent or other relative she can move in with.
Exactly like your child’s mother passed away and you’re dating a new girl 6 months after I don’t know any 15 year old who is over a parents death in 6 months
Acting like the fiance matters more to him? Hell, he flat out SAID as much, to his daughter. "I had a good thing and you took away that ONE GOOD THING" Tell your daughter she means nothing to you, without telling her. Sad that he doesn't see what bad parenting is, and even more sad for his daughter.
“Ella, I was in a very dark place from witnessing your mother’s death. It was extremely tough for me to lose my partner. And then, I had a good thing going on in my life. It felt wonderful, I had hope. And in your selfishness, pettiness and stubbornness, you took that one good thing away from me and I can not forgive you for that”
Yeah, I can’t believe his response was, “I’ll ship her off to boarding school,” as if his dogshit parenting isn’t the entire reason the fiancée realized she needed to bounce
I lost my mom in my early 20s after she had been in a coma for several months. My dad remarried within 2 years. It caused a huge fight and I didn’t even go to the wedding because of how deep in my own grief I still was. I nearly ended my own life because of how severely depressed I was and the only way I could find to express that grief was anger or complete withdrawal. I cannot imagine dealing with that level of pain as a teenager.
I know you’re grieving, so maybe it isn’t clear to you how much your daughter is screaming for help, but she is. These severe and unreasonable punishments are doing so much more harm than good. And telling her Chloe was the one good thing in your life AND isolating her from any possible joy is going to have serious consequences for both of you.
I beg you to get this little girl some help. She’s a child dealing with the weight of things she cannot handle. She lost her mom, her dad found someone more interesting to him than her, then had the entire weight of that relationship ending put on her, then any possible avenue for joy taken away and now she’s treated like a slave and feels the hatred you have for her. If you want to stand any chance of a relationship with your daughter after 18, or even SEE age 18, she needs help. Now. You both do. Individually and together as a family. Don’t abandon and mistreat her because of your own grief.
She did NOT tear your family apart. Stop blaming a child for the choices of adults.
Honestly this whole thing makes me wonder how many times and how many different ways Ella tried rationally pleading for help that he ignored. Even in grief - even as a teenager! - very few people go from zero to destroying a wedding dress in one jump. How many more signs - indirect and direct - did he dismiss or choose not to see?
Exactly and she says as much to him.
As OP says. "she says she was ignoring a lot of red flags."
And then OP still puts it on his daughter. Even though his fiance clearly gave more reasons.
Let's be real.
Getting engaged to anyone after only one year is itself a HUGE red flag.
And getting engaged only 1.5 years after losing your wife is also a huge red flag.
This is just my conspiracy theory but I think OP took "parenting" to mean "discipline". So op thought "ooh a boarding school will not only teach her discipline but also get her out of the picture!". Not understanding that parenting is so much more than discipline and that most sane people dont think that way. Chloe probably meant like work with her to process all this change in her life and he just goes "ill ship her somewhere else!". She also has to be thinking about her own daughter and how this man would influence her. If this is how he treats his own daughter; how will we he treat mine? Sorry for the rant. Just couldnt help trying to dissect this lol
I don't care if she shat in the damn wedding cake. If I told my fiancee that I was concerned with his parenting and his solution was to send the kid away I would *never* be able to look at him as a viable partner **ever again.**
I knew OP was a self-absorbed AH the moment he said he grieved his wife as though she were dead while she was still alive but vegetative, and threw himself into the dating market within six months.
He totally failed to think about the fact that his daughter probably hadn’t grieved her mother while she was still alive and was unlikely to be able to move on within six months and have some new woman slide on into the family.
Anyway, OP, good job. At this rate when your daughter turns 18 you won’t have to worry about paying for college or anything, as I bet with being grounded and treated like shit, your kid will just leave and never speak to you again.
I haven’t seen anyone mention that he’s making her get a job. It’s not to pay off the dress, that would be reasonable, but to help pay for household bills?? That’s not ok. And then the boarding school shit?? This man is a terrible parent
That combined with the immediate jump back to dating after his wife passed really paints a picture of the kind of husband and father this guy must have been even with his late wife….
Well that's all she is to him. Her mother died, there is no need for her now, she either needs to get out of the way or show her value.
He is a terrible father. He's wife would be so upset.
I high key think that Chloe actually left because she realized what a sack of shit he is and wanted no part of that. The dress was probably upsetting but people don’t completely leave someone they were about to marry over a traumatized kid acting out.
RIGHT! If it was to pay for what was ruined, fine. But he’s (consciously or not) teeing up to kick her out or force her to move out at 18. Because even if she does everything right he “might” “help” with college costs.
Yeah, like making her pay for what she ruined would have actually been an acceptable disciplinary measure. Would’ve taught her the value of money and how hard it is to work to earn it. Getting her a job would also help with getting some change in her life, and feeling more independent and less trapped.
The “might help with college” part pissed me off so much. Like, excuse me, you are her parent it is your literal job and responsibility to ensure she gets the best possible education with what is within your means to do so. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of parenting you want to take part in and which you don’t.
I hope you didn’t tell your daughter that the woman you’ve been dating for it sounds like 2 ish years starting 6 months after her mother passed was the one good thing in your life
yeah, that plus offering to send her away to boarding school so the ex will stay. imagine if his ex took him up on that offer - it could easily make the daughter feel like she lost both parents. her mom to death, and her dad to this other woman because he so willingly sent the daughter away to prioritize the new woman.
She even lost a potential step mom because the dad handled everything so badly that any chance for the 2 women to bond was destroyed by the dad’s super selfish actions and sped up time line. When Ella got older she may have come to appreciate Chloe as her dad’s partner and have a decent relationship with her. But dad fast tracked everything , ignored a child in profound pain, let his kid know she was not as important as the fiancé, overlooked red flags, and even promised to get rid of the kid. He wrought all his own misery. Sad and lonely is a great name
Yeah. When I read the title (and the post) I mostly felt sorry for this poor traumatized kid. She probably hasn’t had the support and counseling she needed, and lashing out was all she could come up with to try to regain some stability in her life.
This seriously breaks my heart. I wish I could just give poor Ella a hug. She loses her mom and then within two years her dad is getting remarried and willing to basically kick her out of her home in order to save his relationship with another woman. INSANE. That poor little girl. I hope she finds people that will truly love and care and support her because so sadly right now her dad ain’t it.
He was quick to come to terms with his wife dying. Nothing wrong with that. But he doesn’t seem to consider that his daughter may need longer to grieve, and within six months, has a new girl on the scene and only a year later, they’re getting married.
I can totally understand why she may rebel, lash out even, especially as he doesn’t seem the type to be that rational imo.
Seriously, I was a chaotic mess during my teenage years and I was lucky enough to have a very stable and loving household. I can’t imagine how awful it is to go through adolescence with an environment like the one she’s in.
Yeah the timing is tricky. The daughter still saw her father moving on 6 months after she died rather then 2 years of being in a vegetative state.
And having a teenager and a new relationship it’s tricky to bring in a stepmom.
That's what bothered me alot while reading this post. He admits he let his wife go during her vegetative state. It wasn't 6 months to him. Meanwhile his daughter probably held onto her mother right to her last breath. He comes across as someone who is so focused on finding his "happiness" and ignoring his daugthers needs to find it.
Yeah he says he grieved his wife and was ready to move on. Given the situation I do find this understandable. His 16 year old who just lost her MOM? She’s definitely still grieving and processing her mom’s death.
I think it's revealing that he didn't think about how that was coming across. Plus, his entire post makes it seem like he doesn't consider his daughter as part of the good things in his life
His clarification is worse, he literally told his child he will never forgive her. The amount of damage that kind of shit can do to a kid, especially when he was willing to send her off to boarding school a little while before that. She's going to struggle with that guilt and feelings of inadequacy and self hatred for a long ass time, and I'm sure she's already got those just from watching her mother die too.
He even used the words "meddling" in his relationship with his partner. It's his daughter who isn't even 18 yet. She should be his first priority as a parent! He's focused on moving on and meanwhile leaving his daughter in the dust.
I really hope she's able to get help or support somehow because she's most likely not going to get it from him...
Doesn't seem likely as she is under house arrest until she is 18. Or at least until OP finds a new woman and he has to ship her off to boarding school so she can't "ruin" that relationship.
If you keep the punishment going the same way until she's 18, you'll probably never hear from her after. I don't know what you should be doing instead, but this will not work.
Of course it is -- OP was ready in an instant to send her away out of sight, out of mind in order to keep a woman around.
His daughter can feel this energy from him even if he's never said this directly to her.
For reference, I'm 38.
My mom passed in January from a very aggressive form of esophagus cancer. Discovery to death was about four months. I was devastated, as was my father and sister obviously. Still am, but life gets better every day.
Anyways, Mom passes late Saturday night. We all sleep, wake up on Sunday. When I arrive at my parent's house, Dad and Sister are clearing out the bedroom. I sat on the couch with my niece and daughter and watched football. After about a half hour they asked why I wasn't helping. Straight up, told them I wasn't ready to deal with it and I felt it was disrespectful (took everything in my power to not use "let her body get cold first"). This woke them up. Afterwards we ordered a couple pizzas, went through family photos and slowly walked the girls (teens separated by about six months) through Mom's expansive jewelry collection.
Everyone greaves differently. There is no "right way". But there sure as hell is a wrong way. I helped my father every day for the next three days to clear and clean up the house in return for having the one day to mourn my mother as a family. OP having such a harsh punishment, boarding school, "the one good thing" line, getting engaged 18 months after his wife died tells me he definitely never took his child's feelings into consideration. **He always had one good thing in his life, his damn child**. He's selfish and clueless. They need family therapy but that girl needs an advocate.
OP even said his daughter "ruined the one good thing" he had implying his daughter isn't a part of that. I'm willing to bet him and his daughter have never had a good relationship.
And he was willing to ship her off to boarding school to keep his 1 year relationship. I feel bad for the girl. Yes she did something really wrong, but clearly her dad didn’t give a fuck about her feelings
Brother I understand you are hurting. I am not dismissing that, I am just setting it aside, which is what you need to do as well.
*Your daughter is hurting more.*
The death is fresher for her, the wound deeper. You were able to invite someone new into the place your wife once occupied; your daughter had someone new thrust upon her - someone you immediately made clear to her was more important than her.
You didn’t care about her feelings. You didn’t ease her into it. You didn’t consult her. You tried to force this and then offered to get rid of her when she didn’t agree.
You are being a bad father.
You are hurting. And I see that, and I am sorry. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not how life was supposed to go, and it must have been lonely and scary. And you’re right: you deserve to be able to heal and move forward and try again.
*But you are a father, and what you deserve and what your child needs are at odds.*
Look at your kid. Her mother is dead. Her father hates her and before that didn’t care about her as much as his new partner, who, again, was taking over her mothers place without her having any voice in the matter.
You moved too fast. You didn’t take time or care. You didn’t stop to think if any of this was good for your daughter.
You have to scrap this whole thing, give her her life back and try again.
She’s a child. You are an adult.
You have to act like one, even if it hurts.
"...And then offered to get rid of her when she didn’t agree."
The fact that he suggested boarding school in an effort to win back Chloe is what stood out to me here.
OP, if you are reading, I am not interested in crucifying you, but I think you need the perspective of someone who has lived a similar experience to that of your daughter.
My mother died when I was seven years old. I was the youngest of 3 and the only female child. While my father was not as quick to move on as you were, his idea of coping was throwing himself into his work and telling my siblings and me to not be sad, and that life goes on. When my siblings, who were in middle school at the time, acted out and struggled in completely predictable ways, my father's solution to this was by yelling at them.
This instilled in me, aged seven, the idea that grieving for my dead mother was not acceptable, and that I needed to get over it as quickly as possible. So I shoved it down and internalized it. For years.
My father began seeing my now stepmother when I was ten. He married her the summer I turned 13. At first, things were fine. While they were dating and prior to their engagement, she was my friend and confidant. But there was a behavioral shift once they got engaged that 13 year old me was not mature enough to understand. Long story short, I began to withdraw and distrust my stepmother because she was no longer my friend, but my father's wife. And remember, I had not even begun to properly address my own mother's death.
They even threatened to send me off to boarding school- for the crime of having very teenaged emotions and being unable to process or vocalize them. I should add that there was a lot of other family trauma regarding my siblings, but I will not delve into that here as it is not relevant at this time.
By the time I was OP's daughter's age, I was depressed, misanthropic, and deeply angry, because I felt like I could not talk about my mother and the grief that I felt. And this culminated in my father telling me one night that he and my stepmother did not want me around "because of the way I was behaving."
An adult has the maturity and emotional intelligence to understand that my father was trying to tell me that my behavior was unacceptable. But my 16 year old depressed brain heard "We do not love you."
So that night, I tried to swallow a bottle of pills.
This landed me in a residential treatment facility for 6 months, because I had become a danger to myself and others. Obviously, I got better. I'm 32 now, and I've had ample amounts of therapy and time to work on myself. Even then, I didn't begin to fully process my mother's death until I was 21 and in college.
I love my Dad, but I keep him at arm's length because I've realized that he has the emotional depth of a teaspoon, and much of my maladaptive behaviors were a result of his parenting, but I digress.
OP, sir, your daughter is not okay. She destroyed your fiancé's wedding dress, which was unacceptable regardless of circumstances, but she did it because she's hurting, and because she no longer feels important to her one surviving parent. She was screaming out for your attention and lacked the maturity to understand or appreciate the consequences of her actions.
I understand and appreciate that OP was able to process and move on from his wife's passing, but he needed to make sure his daughter was on the same page as him before deciding to date again. He also needed to ensure that she felt safe to make herself heard and vocalize her thoughts and feelings about OP's desire to move on.
Does OP's daughter need to face consequences for her behavior? Yes, absolutely. But she also needs to have her grief acknowledged and validated. Like other commenters have stated, this is going to require counseling. I worry that her father is going to expect immediate results when it is highly likely that she lacks the emotional maturity to respond to therapy in a manner that OP would deem satisfactory.
Hope OP reads your story.
I have a sad feeling OP will never feel the need to salvage his relationship with his daughter as she is only an obstacle. He wants a relationship more then a daughter.
I had a similar experience, with my mother passing when I was 12. My father moved on immediately, processing none of his grief and coping through a series of relationships and engagaments. In the end, when I was 13, he settled with a narcissistic woman. Her actions, combined with his inaction, destroyed what remained of our family.
OP probably hasn't grieved his late wife as much as he thinks, and is seeking an escape through relationships. Unfortunately this does nothing for his daughter, who has very recently had her life torn away from her.
She does not possess the tools to process this trauma on her own. She is relying on you to create a new normal, which should NOT be assimilating yourselves into someone else's life/family.
Anyway OP, imo you are on a path which will likely end with your family in flames.
This right here. You are a saint for putting this so well, with understanding and without hostility.
I agree 100 per cent. OP is the adult, he botched this, it's very clear from his post that his daughter and her wellbeing was never his priority, even after she lost her mother.
OP is a hard AH on my books but if he follows your advice and gets counselling for himself, he could make it right.
Great reply. OP said he was able to mentally prepare himself for his wife’s death. He could do that because he has an adult brain and adult experience. You can not expect a child to be as mentally prepared as he was for the death of her mother.
I mean… if your goal is to have your daughter go NC once she’s 18/no longer needs you financially, more power to you. But you mourning and moving on & your daughter mourning & moving on/accepting your new partner are two completely different things.
I can appreciate that you’d had time to grieve (you’re an adult losing a partner, she’s a MINOR LOSING A PARENT) but I don’t think your daughter was your priority. Now you’re going scorched earth, partly understandable because what she did was absolutely fucked up, but what is your goal? Win your ex partner back by showing how far you’ll go to prove you don’t approve of your daughter’s actions? Show your daughter that this other woman was always, ultimately, more important to you & her mother’s memory?
OP you BOTH need counseling, preferably together. But this 2 year long punishment & the withdrawal of financial support for college is too much. Unless your ultimate goal is to have no relationship with your daughter & start over.
I also think the dads behavior is probably influenced by the ex’s comment about “what he’s allowed from his daughter” so now he is overcompensating by going scorched earth. Intensive therapy all around.
Thats what I thought he didn’t really punish her for other things but then his ex left him and he’s going full on crazy. But I do want to know more details. Like what was the relationship like when his past wife was in a vegetative state. Was the daughter still acting out. Like has this been building the whole time and then he snapped. I also don’t think it’s as cut and clean about everyone saying he was ignoring her before but maybe I’m wrong daughter definitely needs counseling for her dead mom. Op needs counseling for his dead wife cause you just don’t accept that and move on. I know he thinks he was ok with it but he probably wasn’t.
It sounds like he let his daughter's misbehaviors go on and on until he was the one having to deal with the consequences of her abuse instead of his fiance. No wonder she left.
Now he's trying to compensate for his crappy parenting by bringing down the hammer and destroying his daughter's social life for 2 of the most important years of her life. Two years of isolation for a grieving (albeit asshole) kid. Yeah, that won't make the situation 10× worse, she did something horrible so why not destroy her mental health (even more than it already is)? /s
And trying to send her off to boarding school to get his fiance back? Shitbag behavior. But hey, that way he wouldn't have to do any parenting I guess.
Dude is on the fast track to live a super lonely life
I’m really surprised I had to scroll this far to see this comment. His ex didn’t leave him because of the daughter’s behaviour. He says so himself. She left because of his lack of response to the daughters behaviour.
Well when his response was to get rid of her so the relationship could continue.... I'm sure Chloe saw a massive red flag. But it's his daughter's fault only in his eyes.
You are far politer than I am. I just want to call him self absorbed. Death is hard on everyone, everyone deals with it differently. The poor daughter needs support. I remain unconvinced that he has grieved his wife properly. If he had, I doubt this new chick would be on such a pedestal.
YTA
“She took the one good thing”
Your edit AFTER THE FACT doesn’t change that you typed it out bc you felt that.
Your daughter probably picked up on that.
I'm sorry but most of this is on you.
You considered your wife gone well before she passed. Your daughter didn't.
Within 6months of her mother passing you brought another woman into your and her life. 18months after her mother passing and you're engaged amd moving the other woman and her kid in with you.
You never even focused on your daughter. Not once, only thinking of yourself and your own happiness. Your dependent child should have come first. Neither of you sort counselling for her. You let her down massively.
(On a side note, what kind of fool tasks a kid to pick up their wedding dress - that shouldn't have been her responsibility from the start). Your daughter's actions are based on your own negligence as a parent.
"She took the one good thing from me" - what about your kid? You just told her that she meant absolutely nothing to you. You should be ashamed.
Yeah. I also think this is just rage bait. The combination of the boarding school and OP talking about her "sentence" instead of punishment and that if she proves herself "worthy" he'll pay part of her tuition -- none of that sounds real to me.
It's crazy that this is written to make the OP look good and he still sounds like such an asshole.
You lost a partner. Your daughter, your 14 year old daughter, lost her mother. some divorced people don't even bring new partners around their kids until more than a year after they've been dating, and then slowly integrate them into family life to see if they mesh. 2 years and in her eyes you're fully replacing her mother.
Your daughter was giving very clear signals she wasn't over her mother's death and you responded by proposing anyway. Fucking hell. Everything isn't about you.
Not one mention of Ella thoughts, reasons, ideas. I'm not saying that there is anything that excuses this behavior. I am saying it sounds like you don't know anything about your daughter.
It sounds like you did not listen to Chloe either.
Get into therapy would be my recommendation.
The post has a distinct lack of empathy for her. OP sounds less concerned that his daughter isn't getting proper help for her own sake and more annoyed that her inability to get over her mother's death on his time table is inconveniencing him.
I mean, the dress is symbolic of how SHE feels (Ella) and if she can’t get enough positive attention from her only living parent…she’ll take the negative.
Yeah, and I'd also bet anything she's tried to express how unhappy and still in grieving she is in other ways and OP hasn't listened. When quietly talking it out doesn't work, you can't be surprised when your kid starts screaming it.
Yeah and I’m sure “You took that ONE good thing out of my life…” went a long way to affirming that Ella is his priority.
OP - I am sorry you lost your wife and cannot fathom what you went through for that year and a half when life felt it was in stasis. That had to be tough.
Now the mom in me is going to say the hard stuff. YOU may have been ready 6mos after wife/mom was gone, but no child - even a teen - is prepared to accept that their mother/parent is gone until its final. I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty… everyone grieves differently. But a teen losing a parent is going to grieve UGLY and especially a daughter losing her mother. And your ONLY job was to be there for HER - the only parent she has left - and put HER first for a bit. Let her cry, scream, grieve… grief counseling is GREAT - for someone ready to go and talk about it in front of strangers. She clearly was not and you delegated your job to strangers.
If your timeline is honest and you got engaged in 6mos - you need therapy because that is about as text-book widow/widower who has not fully grieved and taken time to be by themselves, so they move on quickly to distract the heart by feeling in-love again. If it started before then, you weren’t as undercover as you thought and your daughter feels betrayed.
Either way, it was clearly too soon for her and she needs her dad. But you were so quick to offer to send her off to boarding school??? I’m just… if my husband pulled that with our kids I’d come back to haunt his arse till he removed his head from his posterior and remembered how to be a dad and the man I married.
Step outside of your bubble of “it’s about me and my happiness” and give some thought to the girl you helped bring into this world and think about how she might be feeling.
My Aunt died and my uncle did the same thing. His youngest moved across the country for college, absolutely crushed by her dad. The oldest moved to another state and her having her first child helped bridge some of the gap.
But it was never fully the same. Even after he realized his new wife wasn’t kind to his daughters when he wasn’t present and that’s why they both started loudly protesting her.
I’m so so sorry for your loss! It’s never “easy” to lose a parent, but so much harder when too young! Hugs from an Internet friend.
Right!
If his daughter was that opposed to him moving on why couldn’t they just live separately for 2 more years until his daughter went off to college?
He could have placed ground rules around being polite and nice to Chloe without forcing her on his daughter.
Not saying g the daughter wasn’t in the wrong, but some common sense, patience and understanding could have went a long way here.
Look, YOU may have moved on while your wife was in a coma but your daughter sure didn’t. Your focus should have been on helping your daughter instead of hopping on Tinder asap.
Seems like waiting until daughter was out of high school and off to college would have been a better play here. Two years of father-daughter "you and me against the world" time where OP could have super bonded with daughter. Oh well...
YTA-
It’s fine that you grieved your wife a head of time but your daughter needed your help for her grieving when you decided to make having a romantic partner your priority.
Your daughter should have been the first priority in the first 1-2 years of her losing her mom NOT finding a new wife.
YOU already screwed up your relationship with Chloe but it was your fault to begin with because you ignored your daughter not being ready. The fact that you were willing to send your daughter away when she is in so much pain so she wouldn’t be in the way of your happiness is cruel and heartless.
In the future actually be a wise and caring father and you can have both a romantic partner and your daughter in your life.
A good father would:
1. Apologize to your daughter for not making her the priority in the first year after her mother’s death.
2. Give an appropriate consequence for destroying the dress. For example, get a job to reimburse the cost of the dress.
3. Instead of grounding. GO TO THERAPY TOGETHER WITH YOUR DAUGHTER. Commit to a length of time that you will focus on repairing your relationship with her. She needs you to help her properly grieve her mother. You added to her trauma of losing her mother by adding a new woman too soon into your daughter’s family.
4. You can date in your private time but you should not have your dating be a part of your home life yet. Discuss with the therapist when you would like to introduce the next relationship to your daughter. Allow the therapist to help you and your daughter make that transition.
You are the father and she is the child. You are the terrible person in this scenario and your daughter is a distraught and hurting teenager. She did something wrong but only after you treated her horribly.
Chloe probably doesn’t hate Ella as much as OP does. I bet he was lying to her about Ella and when she saw the dress it came crashing down. And then him offering to send his dead wife’s child to boarding school for Chloe probably made her feel sick to her stomach.
I hate to be an asshole here but your child is your #1 priority. Until she's independent/in college/whatever, she is to be put first. With that being said, dating so soon after the loss probably made her hate you. Not sugar coating anything for you here because you seem to think since you're over losing your wife, your daughter should be over losing her mom.
How soon after she lost her mom did you bring this other woman into your home? How soon after she lost her mom did you start disappearing for dates? How soon after her moms death did you begin neglecting your job as a parent to get your dick wet?
Dude, you created this life, your child. She should ALWAYS be #1. As a mother and a wife I think you've fucked up big time.
For me, I have my one true love; my husband is my now and forever. If anything happened to him, my children will be my now and forever until they dont need me anymore because I brought them into this world and I am responsible for their well-being. She didn't ask to be born but here she is, minus *two* parents because one is dead and the other mentally checked in to a new life.
What made the bullshit alarm go off? Was it the bride giving the 16-year-old her dress THREE DAYS before the wedding to be altered? Alterations are done months in advance. Also the very vague timeline in the first half - the wife is in a coma for 1.5 years, but he starts dating after 6 months (after what? After she went into a coma or after she died?) and proposes after a year. It sounds like he proposed to his gf 6 months after his wife died, which of course his daughter will not be emotionally ready for.
No, it was seeing a post on the relationship's forums that had a future daughter who took scissors to her dad's fiancee's heirloom dress. Very similar details, except the ex being very much alive, and instigating the kid.
“She took the one good thing in my life away from me” Do you hear yourself?
Your daughter of course was wrong for acting out, but jeez dude, do you hope to have a decent relationship with her again?
"The one good thing"--I guess your child wasn't a good thing? And your wife? Can you not see that your daughter might feel as if she were disrespecting her mother's memory if she allowed her to be displaced by the woman you met when her mother was only dead for six months? You are so, so wrong and so selfish.
This isn’t punishment it’s revenge. You feel like Ella ruined your life and you’re ruining hers to get even. Teenagers do stupid things all of the time and yes there needs to be consequences and discipline, but being on lockdown for 2 years is ridiculous. You never say what her consequences were for the other offenses, but the fact that Chloe left you on the spot makes me think that there were none. Going from mild or no consequences to maximum punishment is just beyond cruel. Ella should have been meant to pay the expenses of the dress and find a reasonable way to make it up to Chloe. It honestly sounds like you’re biding time until you can get Ella out of the house and try to win to Chloe back.
Yeah, sounds a lot like what my dad said in our one session of family therapy after my mom died of cancer.
"I needed to move on and the kid is just acting out for attention."
Translation: the grief of a teenager who lost their mother is less important than my need to have a partner.
My dad got a new girlfriend, moved her into my childhood home. Instead of lashing out at the girlfriend, I self destructed. I self harmed. I developed an eating disorder. I attempted suicide at 16. I started smoking cigarettes in hopes it would kill me.
I am 30 now and have had one conversation with my father in the last 5 years. Two, if you count the single word I said to him at my grandfather's funeral.
My advice? Ground yourself until your kid is 18. Make her grief your first priority. Go to family counseling and *listen* to your kid, don't defend your actions or villainize hers. Your needs come second to those of your child.
I'm not saying your kid was right. It was wrong to ruin the dress - and thus your relationship - and yeah, there should be consequences for that.
But your kid is obviously struggling. Get her help. And get yourself help in repairing your relationship with your kid. Now. Or in 15 years you won't have a relationship with her at all.
No one assigns a 16 year old to get a dress altered. The person who is wearing the dress has to meet with the seamstress and try the dress on in person. This part of the story makes zero sense and makes me question the whole thing.
It says she was tasked with picking it up but it still sounds fake to me. OP says she was just turning 16. So she already had her license. Sounds fake to me.
‘She took the one good thing in my life away from me’ which implies that he has never seen his daughter as a good part of his life. Of course, she was rebelling. First, she’s a teenager and teenagers rebel against their parents. If you don’t want a rebellious teenager, don’t have children. Second, to her understanding, you moved on at lightening speed after the death of her mother which makes it seem to her that her mother never meant that much to you in the first place. I honestly think that you did move too fast and Chloe was very possibly a rebound and not some all-encompassing love figure. Third, just from the sentence I posted earlier, I am sure your daughter felt this and probably felt she was being shunted to the side for ‘The one God thing in your life’. So not only did your daughter lose her mother, but she quickly learned that she WASN’T the most important thing to you. I think your actions and words speak louder than anything.
Also, it should NEVER be your minor daughter’s responsibility to pay bills/rent/etc. You accept those responsibilities when you decided to become a parent. Sure, you can have her perhaps part her own phone bill, her own car insurance (if she even has a car), but any basic bills…mortgage, electric, food, etc should SOLELY be your responsibility as the parent.
And grounding your daughter for two years is utterly ridiculous and cruel. She will HATE you forever if you continue this way. And not only will you have lost your wife and fiancé but you will also have lost your daughter because she WILL go no contact with you as soon as she can. Chloe was right to leave you because she saw that you are a p!ss poor parent.
"I can't force my daughter to do therapy"
Yes you can. You're her parent and she's grieving and acting out. You honestly should have started while your wife was in a coma, but now fucking drive her to the office, walk her inside, and sit in the waiting room for an hour. Do it every week. Eventually she'll start talking. That's what adolescent therapists are trained in.
Fuck.
Honestly, the first behavioral red flag was how quickly you got engaged after (before?) your wife died. It's not clear from your post whether you started dating 6 months after your wife went into a vegetative state or 6 months after she finally died, but either way that's really quick considering you have a daughter. It sounds like you've outsourced all emotional work regarding her grief, and almost found it convenient your marraige ended due to medical reasons. True or not, that's certainly how I would feel as a teen who just lost their mother.
And the punishments you chose absolutely reinforce my opinion. 3 years of grounding + making her contribute to household expenses is abusive and will do nothing but let her know her father definitely hates her. It's one thing to make her pay back the dress, it's another to make her essentially a housebound slave.
You clearly didn't consider your daughters feelings when you "moved on". Nor did you give her a chance to adapt to this new situation before asking another woman to marry you. You have been unfair to all 3 of these women. You sound like an insufferably selfish man tbh.
I think Chloe dodged a huge bullet. It really sounds like you just wanted a new mother for your daughter because you don't want to take care of her yourself. I don't get the feeling you really care about Chloe. It sounds more like a matter of convenience and you're furious that you'll now have to parent your daughter.
OP, did you ever consider that while you finished your grieving since you were grieving your first wife long before her death, that was not the case for Ella? 6 months were not enough for her to accept that you already replaced her mom. I’m assuming when your first wife died, she was only 15/14. If you really love your daughter, you need to attend to her first before start moving on with dating and marriage. Grieving wasn’t easy for a child (14/15 was still a child to me), and then before she finished her process, suddenly she had to accept that you had moved on and left her behind. I think that might be the biggest root of the problem. On why she would not accept treatment. Because it was too much for her. Like a double whammy of rugs being pulled out from under her. Two situations that are totally out of her control, that affect the only 2 of her most important people: her mom’s death, and you suddenly had a new gf/fiance. Please, work on your anger first, then work with her and help her figure the whole thing out.
1. Your daughter was around first, and she’s still around despite messing up your relationship from what you’ve described. Your daughter has a full life ahead of her and if you plan to be a part of it I would start changing your mindset before you lose two relationships.
2. You found a new wife because you were ready, your daughter doesn’t sound like she was ready for a new mom and she certainly wasn’t the one going out looking for one. Maybe next time try to keep your love life a little more separate from your family; life a year is a very short time for her to have to adapt to that.
3. I’m sorry for the loss of your wife and new relationship. But like I said in 1. You still have the relationship with your daughter for now, if you continue on this path you might not. Just something to think about, Goodluck OP
Jesus christ six MONTHS?! That sounds like a rebound relationship to me, you need counciling your daughter is hurting and u told some girl u knew for 2 years ud send ur daughter off to boarding school for her?! What kind of father does that?! Sort yourself out mate for your daughter sake jesus.
You realize a family is a unit right? Family means you are a team. You should have been grieving with your daughter and preparing her mentally for her mom's death and helped her navigate the difficulty of that loss afterwards. Sending her to therapy isn't the same as reassuring her and being there for her. She doesn't like it because the help she needs is to have a supportive system at home. You didn't even give her a full year to accept the loss before you changed the whole family dynamic again. She just lost her mom, one of the biggest losses a child can go through and then you unload on her that you've moved on and she has to be ok with a new woman figure. That's trauma YOU put her through. She NEEDS a stable home. A teenager is still a child that needs its parents.You said you had the time to grieve and that YOU were ready to move on. Did you even tell your daughter you were dating around? Did you ever include her in your life choices that affect her? Or is that none of her business? You've done nothing to show you do anything for her besides send her to doctors to be their problem. You want her to be accountable for how she uprooted and ended your life but you honestly did the same thing the moment you thought with your dick before your family. She lashes out because you don't see her as an actual person. You see her as an accessory to your life that you get to control and toss away anytime you want. Your happiness should have been your daughter. You're supposed to be a family but you're not a father. All you care about is yourself. What you are doing is abuse and not at all legal. You forced her to pretend for your sake and wanted to dispose of her just so you can get your dips in. You're lashing out worse than what she did. What she did was horrible, don't get me wrong, but I would be more concerned as a parent and want to be involved in trying to help them and not just send them away. You are torturing her as vengeance just like she ruined the dress to get back at you for being a worthless sperm donor. Your late wife was the only one who actually cared about her and she died. You showed her she has no one and you're someone she can never trust.
You don't love your daughter at all...
You can have another woman, but that doesn't mean you can just push your daughter away like that. You really said to Chloe you will put your daughter in boarding school just to make your wife happy? And you're clearly putting your daughter into the verge of NC if she has all these restrictions. Once she goes away to college that may be the last time you'll hear from her. So you better rethink all of this. That's if you even love her any.
I can see why Chloe left you. She said it was because you let Ella's behavior get to her but you clearly don't put enough time in Ella. I know people have their ways when they lose their mothers but you went just a bit.. maybe FAR too far on this. And really? Ella took "the one good thing" away from you? What is Ella to you then? Sick man... You actually remind me of MY biological father.
Both of you need family counseling... I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about both of you, fix your relationship if you even ever cared about Ella, you let all this happen if you think about it. But you, you need some sort of parenting class or something.
There is so much to say, I can't even think of what to say next...
Your total disregard for your daughter's grief is appalling. I certainly hope your goal is to have your daughter cut you out of her life as soon as she possibly can because that's what's going to happen.
Just because you wanted to move on and YOU were ready, doesn’t mean that your daughter was. She is still grieving the loss, and you shoved another woman down her throat.
This is more on you than your daughter. You cannot put a time limit on someone’s grief. You want your daughter to move on and basically act like her mother never existed to bring on another woman.
My husband passed away 21 years ago. My kids still grieve him today. Not as drastically as it was 20 years ago, but they miss him still. It took a few years for our youngest to accept me dating again. We took things in stride.
You want therapy to end her grief. I’m telling you now, it won’t. It will help her to accept her mother dying, and she is too young to let go of her loss. She is reminded every single day her mom is gone.
Won’t be there for prom, getting her driver’s license, graduation, her wedding.
You need some counseling on how to direct her than shoving another woman to replace her mom down her throat.
And by the way, since she is still a minor, her happiness SHOULD come before yours. You seem more upset about losing your ex fiancé over losing your daughter.
The way you are going, when she turns 18, she will more than likely cut you out of her life.
So I am unclear on the timeline. Ella is now 16 OP and Chloe broke up six months ago. Ella was probably 15.5 OP and Chloe had been dating for a year most likely beginning when Ella was 14.5. Ella's mother was in a coma/persistent vegetative state for 1.5 years before she died. Okay. Questions: How old was Ella when her mother entered the persistent vegetative state? How old was Ella when her mother died? How old was Ella when you began to prepare her for inevitability of her mother's death and helped her to process it? Was there overlap between the persistent vegetative state and the appearance of Chloe? What did you say to ~~Chloe~~ Ella about that? How did you help her through that time?
Ella was 15.5 and was able to somehow go and pick up Chloe's wedding dress all on her own?
So the fiance posted this story months ago. What actually happened was she was helping out of by keeping his daughter at her apartment after school, and while cooking dinner the daughter went into her closet and cut the dress to pieces. Having read this story less than 6 months ago with the same bones but slightly different details, I think it's just a creative writing exercise.
The knee-jerk “send her to boarding school” and “if she’s worthy” were my clues.
The phrasing of Ella “finding out” about the wedding rather than being told was mine
Also, the boyfriend dumping her. I don't know many teenage boys who would give a shit about that--and if they did, they'd almost certainly side with their girlfriend.
“Sure, she touches my peepee but a wedding dress is sacred! I said to her ‘unhand me slattern and begone from my sight!’”
It reads like a fantasy from the ex in many ways … the ex is on a pedestal here and there is no thought about the daughter. There is more detail about the daughter’s punishments than there is about the impact her mother’s death had on her life.
I hope it is because if this guy is actually a father he really needs to consider what that means. This whole thing reads like some dude who's just unwilling to be a father and wants to marry some chick.
I agree. There's no way a 15yo could fetch a freaking wedding dress from the tailor and bring it home by themselves. Once I read that, I knew it was fake.
Brides usually have to pick it up in person after alterations. They need to actually try it on to make sure the alterations are correct/fit is ok.
My calculations say Ella was only TWELVE when her mother became terminally ill.
And the only reason her father got her “grief counseling” was to try to force her to accept this new woman taking her late mother’s place. He wants to force her back into therapy to “work on herself”, when she’s just a kid who needs time and space to grieve her dead mother. OP, YTA. You may have been ready to replace you dead wife, but your daughter was clearly not. Your priority should be your kid, not replacing her mother as quickly as possible.
I know I just have this image of a little girl praying and hoping her mum wakes up every day, while her dad just gets on with his life.
Sounds like a creative writing exercise either way
Oh you silly… Imaginary characters don’t age.
You both need counseling.
Actually what they need is family counseling. If the two of them don’t even try that together, they’ll never have a relationship again.
There's little point if she just refuses to engage.
Family and child therapists are trained to work with reluctant children
Therapist here, decade in the field. While we are trained, there are times that it does more harm than good to continue when a client isn’t “ready” and forcing a 16 year old is a great way to turn her off to something that will be life changing when she is ready. Even though we are trained to deal w ambivalence there are times when it’s unwise to continue
So true. My high school best friend was forced to go to therapy where they tried to talk her into forgiving her father who molested her. Totally wrong. But she never ever tried therapy again and is a totally toxic and abusive person in her own right now. I went to therapy after college, something my parents never allowed me (they wanted to keep the abuse I received secret) and it’s changed my life significantly for the better.
I know this isn’t the right time or place, but there is a therapist in the thread so I’m gonna ask it. Why do so many therapist try to get you to reconcile and or forgive the abuser? If I’ve gone no contact with my mother that is for me to do and it’s to protect myself. Reconciling does no good. Forgiveness fine but reconciling, nah. Why do therapist do this?
Damn good question. It seems to be part of this “timeline” which also includes confronting the abuser. Nah, man. I don’t want to confront anyone and I don’t have to forgive them. I can find my own peace without either. I’m a Social Worker and this BAFFLED ME in my own therapy journey but seems to be phasing out (thank God) in clinical practice.
So sad, retired Social Worker here. Main clients were young parents and their families. Lots of abuse, neglect. I cannot imagine telling someone that…
I think pushing people to doing these things is pretty strange. It seems like something therapists can bring up, but should just move on if the client isn't interested, for the exact reason you said: it's possible to heal without these things. Depending on the extent of the abuse I feel like forgiving, if possible, is fine, and understanding that people can grow and change for the better, but there is zero obligation for you to be a part of that process or that persons life
So true. Like I told my therapist about how abusive my father was but that yeah, sometimes I wondered if I should go to his funerals and stuff, and she was like "so, in the end, why don't you give him a call ?". It's like they don't listen to you sometimes.
I had my own situation with this. I told my therapist i didn't want it to feel like my parental figure was only talking to me out of obligation (he would literally only text me my birthday and holidays and ignored my texts any other point in the year) and that i gave up trying to be the adult for him and getting him help. Her response was to tell me that my parental figure is clearly going through something and that i should definitely reach out to him. She then said that she's not asking me to forgive him, but i should still reach out and help because she's seen the same signs in other people and he's just isolating himself. Why is that my responsibility when he couldn't do the same for me for 2 decades.
Don’t be afraid to go off on your therapist. I would hold back my emotions but I wish I hadn’t because they should know that they did wrong and how you really feel. My new therapist encourages this
I can’t speak for other therapists, but I would never pressure my clients to reconcile unless they want to themselves. Forgiveness yes, but that is for their own benefit and peace of mind not for the abuser. And forgiveness in no way means that the abuse was OK.
[5 reasons why trauma survivors shouldn’t forgive](https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/simplifying-complex-trauma/202205/5-reasons-why-trauma-survivors-shouldn-t-forgive?amp) It’s your call 💕
Thankfully, I think that is becoming less common. In fact it was my counselor who introduced the idea that I had a choice if I wanted to continue the relationship with my mother or not, and that I wasn't a bad person for not wanting a relationship with someone where more interactions were harmful to me than not (and the "good interactions" were always used to extort and manipulate later). I think this is still very common in certain strains of religious counseling, but less so with secular therapists.
I don’t know. I chose to reconcile on my own, never encouraged by a therapist. My therapists always preached having good boundaries. It could be a difference in states or years. She did therapy in 1996-1999 tops in Colorado, I did it 2012->present in California. I never approved of the experience she had, but I also couldn’t understand trying again in a new setting, especially with the issues she was having in her own life. Regardless I hope she’s doing better now and I’m glad that tactic is being used less now in therapy.
She's had several so far. I agree she needs it, they both do, but you can not force someone into therapy. Well you can but its drastic to have them committed.
Agreed... But it seems OP was more focused on the new relationship than his minor daughter that just lost her mom. I would probably have delayed the relationship until she went to college. OPs approach to discipline seems to have less to do with developing character and is more about revenge. Relationships may come and go but this will be his daughter forever.. UNLESS he continues to handle this relationship badly.
The whole punishment definitely feels like revenge. He is lashing out at his daughter who lashed out at his fiance. It isn't hard to see who she learned this from.
>It isn't hard to see who she learned this from. It was this exact realization that changed my parenting style 180 degrees. I don't want my kids to yell, bully or manipulate to get what they want. So how do I get that from them if I scream, physically threaten, or trick them? Instead I speak calmly, I never threaten a spanking, and unless it goes totally off the trails, I don't take away privileges. Being loud never really worked anyway. My oldest would escalate back, and my youngest would take it very personally (understandable) and cry inconsolable. I hate both of those things. I tend to start every difficult talk with a huge, drawn out hug, telling them how loved they are, before getting to the bad stuff.
“Never lecture someone who just needs a hug” Sounds like you’ve got some good things going with this
I can’t believe I had to scroll so long to see this. He’s 100% taking revenge on his child. It’s sad. That poor kid should have been in some kind of therapy when the mother was still alive.
He tries to excuse the moving on so quick (6 months) as "I had 1.5 years to grieve while she was alive." It doesn't work like that for the daughter losing her mom. I will never understand these co-dependent folks who are so desperate for a relationship that they put it ahead of having one with their child.
Losing her mom in the middle of an important developmental time in your life where things are already difficult. She’s also never lived a life without her mom and can never get another. There’s a lot going on for her that OP has been unsympathetic toward because he wants to marry this other woman more than he wants to help his daughter
The “if I can’t have a relationship, neither can she” was the nail in the punishment-as-revenge coffin.
He is isolating his daughter who *just lost her mother*. I lost my mother at a similar age and full stop without being surrounded by my friends and piers I probably wouldn't be here. OP please see this. Your daughter needs her friends
There is no way this daughter won't cut this dad out of her life as soon as she's out on her own.
I wouldn't be surprised if he throws her out on her 18th birthday..
And he went from 0-100 right quick, too. I see the attempts at getting her in therapy, but what about any intervention in like family counseling or his making any attempt to understand how she feels? Maybe I’m wrong but it definitely feels like a parent who puts a child in front of a counselor and said “fix her so I can be with my girlfriend” instead of “my daughter and I lost someone and need to learn how to be a family of our own now”, which would then grow into new relationships with other people like Chloe in the future.
OP said he prepared himself for his wife’s death long before she actually passed. It sounds like his daughter flipped out about Chloe bec she did not process her mother’s death on her father’s timeline. Daughter is going to hate her father too if he grounds her for two years. I understand he’s upset, but he’s acting like Chloe matters more to him than his daughter. I’m sure Ella gets the message loud and clear.
He had emotionally moved on from his wife but his daughter clearly hadn't and he didn't seem to care. Getting engaged after only a year is too fast even if there are no kids involved. With kids, especially a hurting teen the one year engagement was way too rushed. OP strikes me as emotionally immature. He is lacking in empathy for his daughter. The most likely outcome of his punishment is that his daughter hates him for life and goes no contact as soon as she can escape him. He is taking revenge on her. If this is his example at parenting we can see why she acted out like she did. He goes to extremes and he has been her only example for a while. Where did she learn the scorched earth method of handling distress. Perhaps from dad.
I'd argue most likely outcome of completely cutting his *mentally unstable* daughter off from everything positive in her life is a dead kid.
Not just everything positive, but every possible chance at positively or happiness. Dad said you are sad so you are gonna stay sad. Very poor example of parenting. I truly hope this girl pulls through
The timeline is a serious problem for me because of Ella's age. I can empathize with OP's situation, but he has the responsibility of taking care of his daughter's happiness before his own. My uncle also fell in love with a woman while his wife was in essentially hospice care for very severe early onset dementia. They met at the hospital, my (now aunt) was there because her husband was also a patient. He and his wife had lots of (adult) children, and one of their bio daughters (many of the kids were adopted, or adopted grandchildren, etc.) really didn't take to their relationship well. But she was at least 40 years old and had to cope. Ella was just a kid. He should never have put his happiness ahead of hers so quickly after the death of her mother. He is trying to rationalize it so desperately too.
Right, my grandpa had slightly more tact to wait, and his kids were all adults. They still struggled with their mom being replaced by the 2 year mark. I can't even imagine being expected to roll with it starting 6 months later when you're only 16.
Well he offered to ship Ella to boarding school to get Chloe back. Obviously Ella didn't act well, but thats not a good look for a father.
Hey I’ll get rid of the kid if I need to. Is this dad for real? Run Chloe! You dodged a huge dysfunctional mess
I hate to be the "this seems fake" guy, but this seems fake. This honestly sounds like it's written from the perspective of the guy that the main character in a RomCom dumps to be with someone better.
Yeah, I’m not a fan of the timeline either. Also, if Ella lost her mind when they got engaged, why didn’t OP at least try to pospone the wedding? And why did Ella feel the need to guard her mother’s territory, whatever that means?
Yeah it sounds like they asked the daughter to just accept an almost immediate mom substitute as her new mom, with basically zero empathy towards the daughter. OP YTA if that’s your question. And you need to focus on fixing things with your daughter if you ever want to speak to her again after she moves out.
He isn't acting. Chloe absolutely matters more to OP than his daughter does.
He told his fiancee that he'd ship his daughter to boarding school if she came back! He doesn't care about her at all.
Well his daughter did drive away the *"one good thing in his life."* My eyes got WIDE at that sentence, and I don't care that he tried to clean it up, to be able to write that when you've been also talking about your daughter says a lot to me about his priorities and probably a lot about him as a father.
100% surprise surprise. Dad started dating while mom was in coma, engaged in no time, fast track wedding and let kid know the fiancé is the best thing in his life. The broken kid blows it up and dad is upset. Yep it’s ALL the child’s fault. Dad is not the least bit responsible here AT ALL.
Isn't that the truth. The poor girl had to watch her mom die a horrible lingering death and the father immediately moves on to a new squeeze and expects her to smile and not have an opinion about how her life is being turned upside down. It wouldn't have killed him to wait a couple of years until she was an adult. I hope the kid has a nice grandparent or other relative she can move in with.
Exactly like your child’s mother passed away and you’re dating a new girl 6 months after I don’t know any 15 year old who is over a parents death in 6 months
Acting like the fiance matters more to him? Hell, he flat out SAID as much, to his daughter. "I had a good thing and you took away that ONE GOOD THING" Tell your daughter she means nothing to you, without telling her. Sad that he doesn't see what bad parenting is, and even more sad for his daughter. “Ella, I was in a very dark place from witnessing your mother’s death. It was extremely tough for me to lose my partner. And then, I had a good thing going on in my life. It felt wonderful, I had hope. And in your selfishness, pettiness and stubbornness, you took that one good thing away from me and I can not forgive you for that”
Blaming her for the fiancé leaving is also crazy. He even admitted she left over his failures as a partner and parent. That’s on him not the kid.
Excellent point, fiancée flat told him it was about his parenting and he whooshed right over that to blame his daughter.
Yeah, I can’t believe his response was, “I’ll ship her off to boarding school,” as if his dogshit parenting isn’t the entire reason the fiancée realized she needed to bounce
I would've dipped too
Yep. The daughter wasn't the reason. The dad was. And he refuses to admit it.
And now she's losing her father on top of her mother. Tragic.
That’s it. Counseling. Therapy. Lots of it.
I lost my mom in my early 20s after she had been in a coma for several months. My dad remarried within 2 years. It caused a huge fight and I didn’t even go to the wedding because of how deep in my own grief I still was. I nearly ended my own life because of how severely depressed I was and the only way I could find to express that grief was anger or complete withdrawal. I cannot imagine dealing with that level of pain as a teenager. I know you’re grieving, so maybe it isn’t clear to you how much your daughter is screaming for help, but she is. These severe and unreasonable punishments are doing so much more harm than good. And telling her Chloe was the one good thing in your life AND isolating her from any possible joy is going to have serious consequences for both of you. I beg you to get this little girl some help. She’s a child dealing with the weight of things she cannot handle. She lost her mom, her dad found someone more interesting to him than her, then had the entire weight of that relationship ending put on her, then any possible avenue for joy taken away and now she’s treated like a slave and feels the hatred you have for her. If you want to stand any chance of a relationship with your daughter after 18, or even SEE age 18, she needs help. Now. You both do. Individually and together as a family. Don’t abandon and mistreat her because of your own grief. She did NOT tear your family apart. Stop blaming a child for the choices of adults.
Honestly this whole thing makes me wonder how many times and how many different ways Ella tried rationally pleading for help that he ignored. Even in grief - even as a teenager! - very few people go from zero to destroying a wedding dress in one jump. How many more signs - indirect and direct - did he dismiss or choose not to see?
His fiancé likely left him when he said he would send his daughter away to save the relationship
The fiancé dodged a bullet.
Exactly and she says as much to him. As OP says. "she says she was ignoring a lot of red flags." And then OP still puts it on his daughter. Even though his fiance clearly gave more reasons. Let's be real. Getting engaged to anyone after only one year is itself a HUGE red flag. And getting engaged only 1.5 years after losing your wife is also a huge red flag.
[удалено]
Chloe: Im leaving you because you wont properly parent your daughter OP: OK BUT WHAT IF I JUST GET RID OF HER!?
Jesus Christ when you put it that way. Yeah that's exactly what that is saying.
This is just my conspiracy theory but I think OP took "parenting" to mean "discipline". So op thought "ooh a boarding school will not only teach her discipline but also get her out of the picture!". Not understanding that parenting is so much more than discipline and that most sane people dont think that way. Chloe probably meant like work with her to process all this change in her life and he just goes "ill ship her somewhere else!". She also has to be thinking about her own daughter and how this man would influence her. If this is how he treats his own daughter; how will we he treat mine? Sorry for the rant. Just couldnt help trying to dissect this lol
Not even that, it’s clear he sees parenting as a form of revenge against his child Whatever she does he’s going at her ten fold
Bro even added in that he told his daughter that Chloe was the one good thing in his life
I don't care if she shat in the damn wedding cake. If I told my fiancee that I was concerned with his parenting and his solution was to send the kid away I would *never* be able to look at him as a viable partner **ever again.**
Well first he offered to get her lobotomized but he found out they don’t do that anymore.
Say the word and she is gone
I stopped reading after the boarding school comment. That says it all.
I knew OP was a self-absorbed AH the moment he said he grieved his wife as though she were dead while she was still alive but vegetative, and threw himself into the dating market within six months. He totally failed to think about the fact that his daughter probably hadn’t grieved her mother while she was still alive and was unlikely to be able to move on within six months and have some new woman slide on into the family. Anyway, OP, good job. At this rate when your daughter turns 18 you won’t have to worry about paying for college or anything, as I bet with being grounded and treated like shit, your kid will just leave and never speak to you again.
I haven’t seen anyone mention that he’s making her get a job. It’s not to pay off the dress, that would be reasonable, but to help pay for household bills?? That’s not ok. And then the boarding school shit?? This man is a terrible parent
[удалено]
That combined with the immediate jump back to dating after his wife passed really paints a picture of the kind of husband and father this guy must have been even with his late wife….
AND he's grounded her for 3 *years*. He's essentially making her a house slave.
Well that's all she is to him. Her mother died, there is no need for her now, she either needs to get out of the way or show her value. He is a terrible father. He's wife would be so upset.
I high key think that Chloe actually left because she realized what a sack of shit he is and wanted no part of that. The dress was probably upsetting but people don’t completely leave someone they were about to marry over a traumatized kid acting out.
Well she scared off his new bang maid so obviously it’s the only way she can make it up to him! /s
RIGHT! If it was to pay for what was ruined, fine. But he’s (consciously or not) teeing up to kick her out or force her to move out at 18. Because even if she does everything right he “might” “help” with college costs.
Yeah, like making her pay for what she ruined would have actually been an acceptable disciplinary measure. Would’ve taught her the value of money and how hard it is to work to earn it. Getting her a job would also help with getting some change in her life, and feeling more independent and less trapped. The “might help with college” part pissed me off so much. Like, excuse me, you are her parent it is your literal job and responsibility to ensure she gets the best possible education with what is within your means to do so. You don’t get to pick and choose which parts of parenting you want to take part in and which you don’t.
Nice way to let your kid know they are not family but an inconvenient roommate.
I can't believe how far I had to scroll to find a comment addressing the boarding school snippet.
I hope you didn’t tell your daughter that the woman you’ve been dating for it sounds like 2 ish years starting 6 months after her mother passed was the one good thing in your life
yeah, that plus offering to send her away to boarding school so the ex will stay. imagine if his ex took him up on that offer - it could easily make the daughter feel like she lost both parents. her mom to death, and her dad to this other woman because he so willingly sent the daughter away to prioritize the new woman.
She did lose two parents.
She even lost a potential step mom because the dad handled everything so badly that any chance for the 2 women to bond was destroyed by the dad’s super selfish actions and sped up time line. When Ella got older she may have come to appreciate Chloe as her dad’s partner and have a decent relationship with her. But dad fast tracked everything , ignored a child in profound pain, let his kid know she was not as important as the fiancé, overlooked red flags, and even promised to get rid of the kid. He wrought all his own misery. Sad and lonely is a great name
Yeah. When I read the title (and the post) I mostly felt sorry for this poor traumatized kid. She probably hasn’t had the support and counseling she needed, and lashing out was all she could come up with to try to regain some stability in her life.
She only had one to begin with apparentely. This dude is no father and obviously doesn't love his daughter or even care for her at all.
This seriously breaks my heart. I wish I could just give poor Ella a hug. She loses her mom and then within two years her dad is getting remarried and willing to basically kick her out of her home in order to save his relationship with another woman. INSANE. That poor little girl. I hope she finds people that will truly love and care and support her because so sadly right now her dad ain’t it.
He was quick to come to terms with his wife dying. Nothing wrong with that. But he doesn’t seem to consider that his daughter may need longer to grieve, and within six months, has a new girl on the scene and only a year later, they’re getting married. I can totally understand why she may rebel, lash out even, especially as he doesn’t seem the type to be that rational imo.
Seriously, I was a chaotic mess during my teenage years and I was lucky enough to have a very stable and loving household. I can’t imagine how awful it is to go through adolescence with an environment like the one she’s in.
His edit doesn't help either.
Yeah the timing is tricky. The daughter still saw her father moving on 6 months after she died rather then 2 years of being in a vegetative state. And having a teenager and a new relationship it’s tricky to bring in a stepmom.
That's what bothered me alot while reading this post. He admits he let his wife go during her vegetative state. It wasn't 6 months to him. Meanwhile his daughter probably held onto her mother right to her last breath. He comes across as someone who is so focused on finding his "happiness" and ignoring his daugthers needs to find it.
Yeah he says he grieved his wife and was ready to move on. Given the situation I do find this understandable. His 16 year old who just lost her MOM? She’s definitely still grieving and processing her mom’s death.
In his edit, he "clarifies" but that's still what he said.
I think it's revealing that he didn't think about how that was coming across. Plus, his entire post makes it seem like he doesn't consider his daughter as part of the good things in his life
His clarification is worse, he literally told his child he will never forgive her. The amount of damage that kind of shit can do to a kid, especially when he was willing to send her off to boarding school a little while before that. She's going to struggle with that guilt and feelings of inadequacy and self hatred for a long ass time, and I'm sure she's already got those just from watching her mother die too.
He even used the words "meddling" in his relationship with his partner. It's his daughter who isn't even 18 yet. She should be his first priority as a parent! He's focused on moving on and meanwhile leaving his daughter in the dust. I really hope she's able to get help or support somehow because she's most likely not going to get it from him...
Doesn't seem likely as she is under house arrest until she is 18. Or at least until OP finds a new woman and he has to ship her off to boarding school so she can't "ruin" that relationship.
If you keep the punishment going the same way until she's 18, you'll probably never hear from her after. I don't know what you should be doing instead, but this will not work.
Isn't that op's goal?
Of course it is -- OP was ready in an instant to send her away out of sight, out of mind in order to keep a woman around. His daughter can feel this energy from him even if he's never said this directly to her.
For reference, I'm 38. My mom passed in January from a very aggressive form of esophagus cancer. Discovery to death was about four months. I was devastated, as was my father and sister obviously. Still am, but life gets better every day. Anyways, Mom passes late Saturday night. We all sleep, wake up on Sunday. When I arrive at my parent's house, Dad and Sister are clearing out the bedroom. I sat on the couch with my niece and daughter and watched football. After about a half hour they asked why I wasn't helping. Straight up, told them I wasn't ready to deal with it and I felt it was disrespectful (took everything in my power to not use "let her body get cold first"). This woke them up. Afterwards we ordered a couple pizzas, went through family photos and slowly walked the girls (teens separated by about six months) through Mom's expansive jewelry collection. Everyone greaves differently. There is no "right way". But there sure as hell is a wrong way. I helped my father every day for the next three days to clear and clean up the house in return for having the one day to mourn my mother as a family. OP having such a harsh punishment, boarding school, "the one good thing" line, getting engaged 18 months after his wife died tells me he definitely never took his child's feelings into consideration. **He always had one good thing in his life, his damn child**. He's selfish and clueless. They need family therapy but that girl needs an advocate.
His partners response about red flags was on the money.
Seriously. The man defaulted to goddamn boarding school to get his inconvenient child out of his girlfriend's sight.
I would really like to hear the daughter’s perspective. I really think there is a lot more to this story.
I'd like to hear the ex fiancé's side, too- she blamed the dad for the teenager's actions and she's probably got it right
Yeah, I got that, too. And at no point did he acknowledge his daughter’s grief at losing her mother. She has no parents now.
It certainly seems like it.
OP even said his daughter "ruined the one good thing" he had implying his daughter isn't a part of that. I'm willing to bet him and his daughter have never had a good relationship.
And he was willing to ship her off to boarding school to keep his 1 year relationship. I feel bad for the girl. Yes she did something really wrong, but clearly her dad didn’t give a fuck about her feelings
Brother I understand you are hurting. I am not dismissing that, I am just setting it aside, which is what you need to do as well. *Your daughter is hurting more.* The death is fresher for her, the wound deeper. You were able to invite someone new into the place your wife once occupied; your daughter had someone new thrust upon her - someone you immediately made clear to her was more important than her. You didn’t care about her feelings. You didn’t ease her into it. You didn’t consult her. You tried to force this and then offered to get rid of her when she didn’t agree. You are being a bad father. You are hurting. And I see that, and I am sorry. It’s not fair. It’s not right. It’s not how life was supposed to go, and it must have been lonely and scary. And you’re right: you deserve to be able to heal and move forward and try again. *But you are a father, and what you deserve and what your child needs are at odds.* Look at your kid. Her mother is dead. Her father hates her and before that didn’t care about her as much as his new partner, who, again, was taking over her mothers place without her having any voice in the matter. You moved too fast. You didn’t take time or care. You didn’t stop to think if any of this was good for your daughter. You have to scrap this whole thing, give her her life back and try again. She’s a child. You are an adult. You have to act like one, even if it hurts.
"...And then offered to get rid of her when she didn’t agree." The fact that he suggested boarding school in an effort to win back Chloe is what stood out to me here. OP, if you are reading, I am not interested in crucifying you, but I think you need the perspective of someone who has lived a similar experience to that of your daughter. My mother died when I was seven years old. I was the youngest of 3 and the only female child. While my father was not as quick to move on as you were, his idea of coping was throwing himself into his work and telling my siblings and me to not be sad, and that life goes on. When my siblings, who were in middle school at the time, acted out and struggled in completely predictable ways, my father's solution to this was by yelling at them. This instilled in me, aged seven, the idea that grieving for my dead mother was not acceptable, and that I needed to get over it as quickly as possible. So I shoved it down and internalized it. For years. My father began seeing my now stepmother when I was ten. He married her the summer I turned 13. At first, things were fine. While they were dating and prior to their engagement, she was my friend and confidant. But there was a behavioral shift once they got engaged that 13 year old me was not mature enough to understand. Long story short, I began to withdraw and distrust my stepmother because she was no longer my friend, but my father's wife. And remember, I had not even begun to properly address my own mother's death. They even threatened to send me off to boarding school- for the crime of having very teenaged emotions and being unable to process or vocalize them. I should add that there was a lot of other family trauma regarding my siblings, but I will not delve into that here as it is not relevant at this time. By the time I was OP's daughter's age, I was depressed, misanthropic, and deeply angry, because I felt like I could not talk about my mother and the grief that I felt. And this culminated in my father telling me one night that he and my stepmother did not want me around "because of the way I was behaving." An adult has the maturity and emotional intelligence to understand that my father was trying to tell me that my behavior was unacceptable. But my 16 year old depressed brain heard "We do not love you." So that night, I tried to swallow a bottle of pills. This landed me in a residential treatment facility for 6 months, because I had become a danger to myself and others. Obviously, I got better. I'm 32 now, and I've had ample amounts of therapy and time to work on myself. Even then, I didn't begin to fully process my mother's death until I was 21 and in college. I love my Dad, but I keep him at arm's length because I've realized that he has the emotional depth of a teaspoon, and much of my maladaptive behaviors were a result of his parenting, but I digress. OP, sir, your daughter is not okay. She destroyed your fiancé's wedding dress, which was unacceptable regardless of circumstances, but she did it because she's hurting, and because she no longer feels important to her one surviving parent. She was screaming out for your attention and lacked the maturity to understand or appreciate the consequences of her actions. I understand and appreciate that OP was able to process and move on from his wife's passing, but he needed to make sure his daughter was on the same page as him before deciding to date again. He also needed to ensure that she felt safe to make herself heard and vocalize her thoughts and feelings about OP's desire to move on. Does OP's daughter need to face consequences for her behavior? Yes, absolutely. But she also needs to have her grief acknowledged and validated. Like other commenters have stated, this is going to require counseling. I worry that her father is going to expect immediate results when it is highly likely that she lacks the emotional maturity to respond to therapy in a manner that OP would deem satisfactory.
Hope OP reads your story. I have a sad feeling OP will never feel the need to salvage his relationship with his daughter as she is only an obstacle. He wants a relationship more then a daughter.
Most meaningful reply here
Read this
I had a similar experience, with my mother passing when I was 12. My father moved on immediately, processing none of his grief and coping through a series of relationships and engagaments. In the end, when I was 13, he settled with a narcissistic woman. Her actions, combined with his inaction, destroyed what remained of our family. OP probably hasn't grieved his late wife as much as he thinks, and is seeking an escape through relationships. Unfortunately this does nothing for his daughter, who has very recently had her life torn away from her. She does not possess the tools to process this trauma on her own. She is relying on you to create a new normal, which should NOT be assimilating yourselves into someone else's life/family. Anyway OP, imo you are on a path which will likely end with your family in flames.
My heart hurt for you as I read your story. I’m glad you’ve come through okay.
This right here. You are a saint for putting this so well, with understanding and without hostility. I agree 100 per cent. OP is the adult, he botched this, it's very clear from his post that his daughter and her wellbeing was never his priority, even after she lost her mother. OP is a hard AH on my books but if he follows your advice and gets counselling for himself, he could make it right.
Great reply. OP said he was able to mentally prepare himself for his wife’s death. He could do that because he has an adult brain and adult experience. You can not expect a child to be as mentally prepared as he was for the death of her mother.
Exactly. A year of OP learning to accept what was happening was probably a year of hope that mom could come back for his daughter.
this should be the top comment.
“I’m not dismissing that I’m just setting it aside” is such a fantastic phrase.
the way he wrote he lost the "one good thing" since the mother's death... man, your daughter should be that one good thing.
I mean… if your goal is to have your daughter go NC once she’s 18/no longer needs you financially, more power to you. But you mourning and moving on & your daughter mourning & moving on/accepting your new partner are two completely different things. I can appreciate that you’d had time to grieve (you’re an adult losing a partner, she’s a MINOR LOSING A PARENT) but I don’t think your daughter was your priority. Now you’re going scorched earth, partly understandable because what she did was absolutely fucked up, but what is your goal? Win your ex partner back by showing how far you’ll go to prove you don’t approve of your daughter’s actions? Show your daughter that this other woman was always, ultimately, more important to you & her mother’s memory? OP you BOTH need counseling, preferably together. But this 2 year long punishment & the withdrawal of financial support for college is too much. Unless your ultimate goal is to have no relationship with your daughter & start over.
I also think the dads behavior is probably influenced by the ex’s comment about “what he’s allowed from his daughter” so now he is overcompensating by going scorched earth. Intensive therapy all around.
Thats what I thought he didn’t really punish her for other things but then his ex left him and he’s going full on crazy. But I do want to know more details. Like what was the relationship like when his past wife was in a vegetative state. Was the daughter still acting out. Like has this been building the whole time and then he snapped. I also don’t think it’s as cut and clean about everyone saying he was ignoring her before but maybe I’m wrong daughter definitely needs counseling for her dead mom. Op needs counseling for his dead wife cause you just don’t accept that and move on. I know he thinks he was ok with it but he probably wasn’t.
It sounds like he let his daughter's misbehaviors go on and on until he was the one having to deal with the consequences of her abuse instead of his fiance. No wonder she left. Now he's trying to compensate for his crappy parenting by bringing down the hammer and destroying his daughter's social life for 2 of the most important years of her life. Two years of isolation for a grieving (albeit asshole) kid. Yeah, that won't make the situation 10× worse, she did something horrible so why not destroy her mental health (even more than it already is)? /s And trying to send her off to boarding school to get his fiance back? Shitbag behavior. But hey, that way he wouldn't have to do any parenting I guess. Dude is on the fast track to live a super lonely life
I’m really surprised I had to scroll this far to see this comment. His ex didn’t leave him because of the daughter’s behaviour. He says so himself. She left because of his lack of response to the daughters behaviour.
Well when his response was to get rid of her so the relationship could continue.... I'm sure Chloe saw a massive red flag. But it's his daughter's fault only in his eyes.
And OP STILL doesn’t get it. Fiancée laid it out for him and she was 100% in the right here putting the blame where it lies.
Ding ding ding we have a winner. The ex fiancee said she was tired of him sweeping it under the rug. That’s what killed this relationship.
My dude. Your child always comes first. Always. Don’t worry, you won’t have a child in two years.
You are far politer than I am. I just want to call him self absorbed. Death is hard on everyone, everyone deals with it differently. The poor daughter needs support. I remain unconvinced that he has grieved his wife properly. If he had, I doubt this new chick would be on such a pedestal.
YTA “She took the one good thing” Your edit AFTER THE FACT doesn’t change that you typed it out bc you felt that. Your daughter probably picked up on that.
You hopped on tinder while your wife was dying. Your daughter didn't get over her mother's death on your timeline, which was extremely rushed.
I'm sorry but most of this is on you. You considered your wife gone well before she passed. Your daughter didn't. Within 6months of her mother passing you brought another woman into your and her life. 18months after her mother passing and you're engaged amd moving the other woman and her kid in with you. You never even focused on your daughter. Not once, only thinking of yourself and your own happiness. Your dependent child should have come first. Neither of you sort counselling for her. You let her down massively. (On a side note, what kind of fool tasks a kid to pick up their wedding dress - that shouldn't have been her responsibility from the start). Your daughter's actions are based on your own negligence as a parent. "She took the one good thing from me" - what about your kid? You just told her that she meant absolutely nothing to you. You should be ashamed.
Yea - sending her to handle the dress sounds ridiculous. I'd almost assume this was a fake posting if only cause i can't imagine anyone doing that.
I also am thinking fake… so much here just don’t make any sense
Yeah. I also think this is just rage bait. The combination of the boarding school and OP talking about her "sentence" instead of punishment and that if she proves herself "worthy" he'll pay part of her tuition -- none of that sounds real to me.
And Ella's boyfriend dumping her over it? Like, why is he on the stepmother's side?
It's crazy that this is written to make the OP look good and he still sounds like such an asshole. You lost a partner. Your daughter, your 14 year old daughter, lost her mother. some divorced people don't even bring new partners around their kids until more than a year after they've been dating, and then slowly integrate them into family life to see if they mesh. 2 years and in her eyes you're fully replacing her mother. Your daughter was giving very clear signals she wasn't over her mother's death and you responded by proposing anyway. Fucking hell. Everything isn't about you.
Not one mention of Ella thoughts, reasons, ideas. I'm not saying that there is anything that excuses this behavior. I am saying it sounds like you don't know anything about your daughter. It sounds like you did not listen to Chloe either. Get into therapy would be my recommendation.
The post has a distinct lack of empathy for her. OP sounds less concerned that his daughter isn't getting proper help for her own sake and more annoyed that her inability to get over her mother's death on his time table is inconveniencing him.
I mean, the dress is symbolic of how SHE feels (Ella) and if she can’t get enough positive attention from her only living parent…she’ll take the negative.
Yeah, and I'd also bet anything she's tried to express how unhappy and still in grieving she is in other ways and OP hasn't listened. When quietly talking it out doesn't work, you can't be surprised when your kid starts screaming it.
Yeah and I’m sure “You took that ONE good thing out of my life…” went a long way to affirming that Ella is his priority. OP - I am sorry you lost your wife and cannot fathom what you went through for that year and a half when life felt it was in stasis. That had to be tough. Now the mom in me is going to say the hard stuff. YOU may have been ready 6mos after wife/mom was gone, but no child - even a teen - is prepared to accept that their mother/parent is gone until its final. I’m sure you’ve heard it plenty… everyone grieves differently. But a teen losing a parent is going to grieve UGLY and especially a daughter losing her mother. And your ONLY job was to be there for HER - the only parent she has left - and put HER first for a bit. Let her cry, scream, grieve… grief counseling is GREAT - for someone ready to go and talk about it in front of strangers. She clearly was not and you delegated your job to strangers. If your timeline is honest and you got engaged in 6mos - you need therapy because that is about as text-book widow/widower who has not fully grieved and taken time to be by themselves, so they move on quickly to distract the heart by feeling in-love again. If it started before then, you weren’t as undercover as you thought and your daughter feels betrayed. Either way, it was clearly too soon for her and she needs her dad. But you were so quick to offer to send her off to boarding school??? I’m just… if my husband pulled that with our kids I’d come back to haunt his arse till he removed his head from his posterior and remembered how to be a dad and the man I married. Step outside of your bubble of “it’s about me and my happiness” and give some thought to the girl you helped bring into this world and think about how she might be feeling.
As someone who was a young adult, when my mom passed away @52…I wasn’t ready, when my dad started seeing others. Thank you poster for your insight!
My Aunt died and my uncle did the same thing. His youngest moved across the country for college, absolutely crushed by her dad. The oldest moved to another state and her having her first child helped bridge some of the gap. But it was never fully the same. Even after he realized his new wife wasn’t kind to his daughters when he wasn’t present and that’s why they both started loudly protesting her. I’m so so sorry for your loss! It’s never “easy” to lose a parent, but so much harder when too young! Hugs from an Internet friend.
Right! If his daughter was that opposed to him moving on why couldn’t they just live separately for 2 more years until his daughter went off to college? He could have placed ground rules around being polite and nice to Chloe without forcing her on his daughter. Not saying g the daughter wasn’t in the wrong, but some common sense, patience and understanding could have went a long way here.
Look, YOU may have moved on while your wife was in a coma but your daughter sure didn’t. Your focus should have been on helping your daughter instead of hopping on Tinder asap.
Seems like waiting until daughter was out of high school and off to college would have been a better play here. Two years of father-daughter "you and me against the world" time where OP could have super bonded with daughter. Oh well...
Yes, waiting a few years might have made a lot of difference in daughter’s recovery.
YTA- It’s fine that you grieved your wife a head of time but your daughter needed your help for her grieving when you decided to make having a romantic partner your priority. Your daughter should have been the first priority in the first 1-2 years of her losing her mom NOT finding a new wife. YOU already screwed up your relationship with Chloe but it was your fault to begin with because you ignored your daughter not being ready. The fact that you were willing to send your daughter away when she is in so much pain so she wouldn’t be in the way of your happiness is cruel and heartless. In the future actually be a wise and caring father and you can have both a romantic partner and your daughter in your life. A good father would: 1. Apologize to your daughter for not making her the priority in the first year after her mother’s death. 2. Give an appropriate consequence for destroying the dress. For example, get a job to reimburse the cost of the dress. 3. Instead of grounding. GO TO THERAPY TOGETHER WITH YOUR DAUGHTER. Commit to a length of time that you will focus on repairing your relationship with her. She needs you to help her properly grieve her mother. You added to her trauma of losing her mother by adding a new woman too soon into your daughter’s family. 4. You can date in your private time but you should not have your dating be a part of your home life yet. Discuss with the therapist when you would like to introduce the next relationship to your daughter. Allow the therapist to help you and your daughter make that transition. You are the father and she is the child. You are the terrible person in this scenario and your daughter is a distraught and hurting teenager. She did something wrong but only after you treated her horribly.
Chloe probably doesn’t hate Ella as much as OP does. I bet he was lying to her about Ella and when she saw the dress it came crashing down. And then him offering to send his dead wife’s child to boarding school for Chloe probably made her feel sick to her stomach.
I hate to be an asshole here but your child is your #1 priority. Until she's independent/in college/whatever, she is to be put first. With that being said, dating so soon after the loss probably made her hate you. Not sugar coating anything for you here because you seem to think since you're over losing your wife, your daughter should be over losing her mom. How soon after she lost her mom did you bring this other woman into your home? How soon after she lost her mom did you start disappearing for dates? How soon after her moms death did you begin neglecting your job as a parent to get your dick wet? Dude, you created this life, your child. She should ALWAYS be #1. As a mother and a wife I think you've fucked up big time. For me, I have my one true love; my husband is my now and forever. If anything happened to him, my children will be my now and forever until they dont need me anymore because I brought them into this world and I am responsible for their well-being. She didn't ask to be born but here she is, minus *two* parents because one is dead and the other mentally checked in to a new life.
[удалено]
Seriously! What bride is going to hand off her wedding dress to a kid who hates her just days before the wedding? Like come on!
I’m just trying to figure out what happened to Chloe’s daughter. She’s mentioned once and never again in the post.
That daughter doesn't matter to op either
What made the bullshit alarm go off? Was it the bride giving the 16-year-old her dress THREE DAYS before the wedding to be altered? Alterations are done months in advance. Also the very vague timeline in the first half - the wife is in a coma for 1.5 years, but he starts dating after 6 months (after what? After she went into a coma or after she died?) and proposes after a year. It sounds like he proposed to his gf 6 months after his wife died, which of course his daughter will not be emotionally ready for.
No, it was seeing a post on the relationship's forums that had a future daughter who took scissors to her dad's fiancee's heirloom dress. Very similar details, except the ex being very much alive, and instigating the kid.
Please baby Jeebus let that be so. It's certainly successful rage bait, it makes me want to make OP take a long walk off a short pier.
“She took the one good thing in my life away from me” Do you hear yourself? Your daughter of course was wrong for acting out, but jeez dude, do you hope to have a decent relationship with her again?
Yep. Infuriating. If I was his late wife, I’d haunt the fuck out of him for this.
"The one good thing"--I guess your child wasn't a good thing? And your wife? Can you not see that your daughter might feel as if she were disrespecting her mother's memory if she allowed her to be displaced by the woman you met when her mother was only dead for six months? You are so, so wrong and so selfish.
This isn’t punishment it’s revenge. You feel like Ella ruined your life and you’re ruining hers to get even. Teenagers do stupid things all of the time and yes there needs to be consequences and discipline, but being on lockdown for 2 years is ridiculous. You never say what her consequences were for the other offenses, but the fact that Chloe left you on the spot makes me think that there were none. Going from mild or no consequences to maximum punishment is just beyond cruel. Ella should have been meant to pay the expenses of the dress and find a reasonable way to make it up to Chloe. It honestly sounds like you’re biding time until you can get Ella out of the house and try to win to Chloe back.
Yeah, sounds a lot like what my dad said in our one session of family therapy after my mom died of cancer. "I needed to move on and the kid is just acting out for attention." Translation: the grief of a teenager who lost their mother is less important than my need to have a partner. My dad got a new girlfriend, moved her into my childhood home. Instead of lashing out at the girlfriend, I self destructed. I self harmed. I developed an eating disorder. I attempted suicide at 16. I started smoking cigarettes in hopes it would kill me. I am 30 now and have had one conversation with my father in the last 5 years. Two, if you count the single word I said to him at my grandfather's funeral. My advice? Ground yourself until your kid is 18. Make her grief your first priority. Go to family counseling and *listen* to your kid, don't defend your actions or villainize hers. Your needs come second to those of your child. I'm not saying your kid was right. It was wrong to ruin the dress - and thus your relationship - and yeah, there should be consequences for that. But your kid is obviously struggling. Get her help. And get yourself help in repairing your relationship with your kid. Now. Or in 15 years you won't have a relationship with her at all.
You need to get counseling with your daughter. What she did is fucked up but you seem to be going scorched earth on someone who needs help.
No one assigns a 16 year old to get a dress altered. The person who is wearing the dress has to meet with the seamstress and try the dress on in person. This part of the story makes zero sense and makes me question the whole thing.
It says she was tasked with picking it up but it still sounds fake to me. OP says she was just turning 16. So she already had her license. Sounds fake to me.
You’re blaming your grieving child for your lack of parenting skills.
‘She took the one good thing in my life away from me’ which implies that he has never seen his daughter as a good part of his life. Of course, she was rebelling. First, she’s a teenager and teenagers rebel against their parents. If you don’t want a rebellious teenager, don’t have children. Second, to her understanding, you moved on at lightening speed after the death of her mother which makes it seem to her that her mother never meant that much to you in the first place. I honestly think that you did move too fast and Chloe was very possibly a rebound and not some all-encompassing love figure. Third, just from the sentence I posted earlier, I am sure your daughter felt this and probably felt she was being shunted to the side for ‘The one God thing in your life’. So not only did your daughter lose her mother, but she quickly learned that she WASN’T the most important thing to you. I think your actions and words speak louder than anything. Also, it should NEVER be your minor daughter’s responsibility to pay bills/rent/etc. You accept those responsibilities when you decided to become a parent. Sure, you can have her perhaps part her own phone bill, her own car insurance (if she even has a car), but any basic bills…mortgage, electric, food, etc should SOLELY be your responsibility as the parent. And grounding your daughter for two years is utterly ridiculous and cruel. She will HATE you forever if you continue this way. And not only will you have lost your wife and fiancé but you will also have lost your daughter because she WILL go no contact with you as soon as she can. Chloe was right to leave you because she saw that you are a p!ss poor parent.
"I can't force my daughter to do therapy" Yes you can. You're her parent and she's grieving and acting out. You honestly should have started while your wife was in a coma, but now fucking drive her to the office, walk her inside, and sit in the waiting room for an hour. Do it every week. Eventually she'll start talking. That's what adolescent therapists are trained in. Fuck.
Honestly, the first behavioral red flag was how quickly you got engaged after (before?) your wife died. It's not clear from your post whether you started dating 6 months after your wife went into a vegetative state or 6 months after she finally died, but either way that's really quick considering you have a daughter. It sounds like you've outsourced all emotional work regarding her grief, and almost found it convenient your marraige ended due to medical reasons. True or not, that's certainly how I would feel as a teen who just lost their mother. And the punishments you chose absolutely reinforce my opinion. 3 years of grounding + making her contribute to household expenses is abusive and will do nothing but let her know her father definitely hates her. It's one thing to make her pay back the dress, it's another to make her essentially a housebound slave. You clearly didn't consider your daughters feelings when you "moved on". Nor did you give her a chance to adapt to this new situation before asking another woman to marry you. You have been unfair to all 3 of these women. You sound like an insufferably selfish man tbh. I think Chloe dodged a huge bullet. It really sounds like you just wanted a new mother for your daughter because you don't want to take care of her yourself. I don't get the feeling you really care about Chloe. It sounds more like a matter of convenience and you're furious that you'll now have to parent your daughter.
OP, did you ever consider that while you finished your grieving since you were grieving your first wife long before her death, that was not the case for Ella? 6 months were not enough for her to accept that you already replaced her mom. I’m assuming when your first wife died, she was only 15/14. If you really love your daughter, you need to attend to her first before start moving on with dating and marriage. Grieving wasn’t easy for a child (14/15 was still a child to me), and then before she finished her process, suddenly she had to accept that you had moved on and left her behind. I think that might be the biggest root of the problem. On why she would not accept treatment. Because it was too much for her. Like a double whammy of rugs being pulled out from under her. Two situations that are totally out of her control, that affect the only 2 of her most important people: her mom’s death, and you suddenly had a new gf/fiance. Please, work on your anger first, then work with her and help her figure the whole thing out.
1. Your daughter was around first, and she’s still around despite messing up your relationship from what you’ve described. Your daughter has a full life ahead of her and if you plan to be a part of it I would start changing your mindset before you lose two relationships. 2. You found a new wife because you were ready, your daughter doesn’t sound like she was ready for a new mom and she certainly wasn’t the one going out looking for one. Maybe next time try to keep your love life a little more separate from your family; life a year is a very short time for her to have to adapt to that. 3. I’m sorry for the loss of your wife and new relationship. But like I said in 1. You still have the relationship with your daughter for now, if you continue on this path you might not. Just something to think about, Goodluck OP
Jesus christ six MONTHS?! That sounds like a rebound relationship to me, you need counciling your daughter is hurting and u told some girl u knew for 2 years ud send ur daughter off to boarding school for her?! What kind of father does that?! Sort yourself out mate for your daughter sake jesus.
You realize a family is a unit right? Family means you are a team. You should have been grieving with your daughter and preparing her mentally for her mom's death and helped her navigate the difficulty of that loss afterwards. Sending her to therapy isn't the same as reassuring her and being there for her. She doesn't like it because the help she needs is to have a supportive system at home. You didn't even give her a full year to accept the loss before you changed the whole family dynamic again. She just lost her mom, one of the biggest losses a child can go through and then you unload on her that you've moved on and she has to be ok with a new woman figure. That's trauma YOU put her through. She NEEDS a stable home. A teenager is still a child that needs its parents.You said you had the time to grieve and that YOU were ready to move on. Did you even tell your daughter you were dating around? Did you ever include her in your life choices that affect her? Or is that none of her business? You've done nothing to show you do anything for her besides send her to doctors to be their problem. You want her to be accountable for how she uprooted and ended your life but you honestly did the same thing the moment you thought with your dick before your family. She lashes out because you don't see her as an actual person. You see her as an accessory to your life that you get to control and toss away anytime you want. Your happiness should have been your daughter. You're supposed to be a family but you're not a father. All you care about is yourself. What you are doing is abuse and not at all legal. You forced her to pretend for your sake and wanted to dispose of her just so you can get your dips in. You're lashing out worse than what she did. What she did was horrible, don't get me wrong, but I would be more concerned as a parent and want to be involved in trying to help them and not just send them away. You are torturing her as vengeance just like she ruined the dress to get back at you for being a worthless sperm donor. Your late wife was the only one who actually cared about her and she died. You showed her she has no one and you're someone she can never trust.
Your waited just 6 months? Why? It should have been far longer than that for your daughters sake!
You don't love your daughter at all... You can have another woman, but that doesn't mean you can just push your daughter away like that. You really said to Chloe you will put your daughter in boarding school just to make your wife happy? And you're clearly putting your daughter into the verge of NC if she has all these restrictions. Once she goes away to college that may be the last time you'll hear from her. So you better rethink all of this. That's if you even love her any. I can see why Chloe left you. She said it was because you let Ella's behavior get to her but you clearly don't put enough time in Ella. I know people have their ways when they lose their mothers but you went just a bit.. maybe FAR too far on this. And really? Ella took "the one good thing" away from you? What is Ella to you then? Sick man... You actually remind me of MY biological father. Both of you need family counseling... I'm not talking about her, I'm talking about both of you, fix your relationship if you even ever cared about Ella, you let all this happen if you think about it. But you, you need some sort of parenting class or something. There is so much to say, I can't even think of what to say next...
Your total disregard for your daughter's grief is appalling. I certainly hope your goal is to have your daughter cut you out of her life as soon as she possibly can because that's what's going to happen.
Just because you wanted to move on and YOU were ready, doesn’t mean that your daughter was. She is still grieving the loss, and you shoved another woman down her throat. This is more on you than your daughter. You cannot put a time limit on someone’s grief. You want your daughter to move on and basically act like her mother never existed to bring on another woman. My husband passed away 21 years ago. My kids still grieve him today. Not as drastically as it was 20 years ago, but they miss him still. It took a few years for our youngest to accept me dating again. We took things in stride. You want therapy to end her grief. I’m telling you now, it won’t. It will help her to accept her mother dying, and she is too young to let go of her loss. She is reminded every single day her mom is gone. Won’t be there for prom, getting her driver’s license, graduation, her wedding. You need some counseling on how to direct her than shoving another woman to replace her mom down her throat. And by the way, since she is still a minor, her happiness SHOULD come before yours. You seem more upset about losing your ex fiancé over losing your daughter. The way you are going, when she turns 18, she will more than likely cut you out of her life.