My wife and I have been married for over five years. We tied the knot after she finished treatment for breast cancer. Additionally, this marks our first Christmas as a married pair.
My daughter, who is sixteen years old, sometimes acts passive-aggressively toward her stepmom but can generally tolerate her.
Despite the stress that has built up around Christmas, my daughter has surprised us all by choosing to spend the holiday with us instead of her mom, who she claims went to see her future stepdad’s family a few towns over.
While my daughter was engrossed in her phone conversation, she took care of everything while I offered a helping hand here and there.
We had a wonderful day together after I greeted my in-laws. Despite my wife’s apparent distress, Christmas dinner went well. Until I persuaded her, she would not tell me what was wrong. After that, she took out the Christmas present from my daughter and discovered a bra inside.
She attempted to get out of my plan to make her clean up after the visitors left by stating she would do it, but then she turned around and called her stepbrother to come get her and take her to her mom’s place.
She lost it and started screaming about how inconsiderate it was that my wife was offended by the bra and how terrible it was that I punished her on Christmas.
I stayed out of her screaming bouts and made sure she cleaned everything, even though my wife thought there was a lot.
Our daughter’s actions sparked a debate, and she took her side, accusing me of being harsh and a robot controlled by my wife—even though she begged me to stop thinking about it.
Because of her, my ex-inlaws are now involved and have been harshly condemning my actions.