"I made the decision to move out with my daughter and I told my wife our marriage could not continue."
Editor's note: This article was originally published on August 19, 2022. It has since been updated.
Trigger Warning: This article mentions bullying which some readers may find distressing.
When two people find love after losing their partners, there's a lot of adjusting that has to happen. A man met a woman four years ago. He was a widower at the time and had a daughter. The woman was a divorcee and had two daughters herself. "The three girls are 13 and 11 (my stepdaughters) and 12 (my daughter). My wife's ex was kind of an issue when we met, but it was easy not to expose my daughter to him, so I felt secure in moving forward," he wrote on Reddit.
At first, everything was well, they all got along, especially the girls. Sure, it wasn't like they were long-lost siblings from the get-go, but they were cordial with each other. But that soon changed.
"That all changed within a month of my wife and I getting married 2 years ago. The girls' dad hates my daughter and they (the girls) will spew that hate in our home and will use it to bully my daughter. A grown-ass man called my 10-year-old a fat repulsive pig, a w*ore, and the reason abortion was invented (to list only a few). The girls have called her dumb, they have mocked her for being shy and introverted."
The man told his wife that this was not done, and she promised to get her girls to stop.
"I got my daughter therapy and I did as much as I could to keep them separate. But even at night, they started to taunt her. So I made the decision to move out with my daughter and I told my wife our marriage could not continue. She begged me to stay. She said she loves us and her girls need me. I said my daughter comes first," he continued.
He then filed for divorce, and ever since, he's been getting calls from his wife's family, begging him to take them back, because the woman needs a husband and her kids need a stepfather as a role model.
"I told them they are not more important than my daughter. Outrage ensued and I was asked how I could say that. They said my wife was prioritizing my daughter and being loved by her should be enough for her to understand her sisters need me to stay in their lives. And I am an asshole for saying their granddaughters are not special. I told them that isn't what I said. But they said I dismissed two young girls and made it sound like they weren't worth fighting for," he shared.
People immediately chose the man's side, claiming that he was not wrong in his decision.
"NTA. You did the right thing - the only harsh and cruel thing said in that conversation was them implying that you were somehow harming your stepdaughters by choosing to protect your own child from their bullying. The girls may indeed need a healthy father figure in their lives - but if you had stayed in that house and allowed their torment of your daughter to continue, then you no longer would have been the example they needed," one person wrote.
"NTA. He should tell his in-laws that 'A good father prioritises his kids and he is showing it by example to his step kids,'" added another.
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Representative Cover Image Source: Getty Images | Westend61
