Family relationships can be tricky, especially when there are multiple parents and co-parents involved. Breaking up with someone you’ve had a child with usually means that they’ll always be a part of your life. But there still have to be boundaries, right?
OP loves her stepdaughter and respects her relationship with the girl’s mother.
“I’m not gonna say much back story besides my husband, John (fake names) has a 6 year old daughter, Sophie, from a previous relationship. He was with her mom Emma from when they were 14 till 19,” OP explained. “They had Sophie when they were 18 and they weren’t ‘together’ but they were messing around until I came along. I have been with my husband for 3 almost 4 years and we have been married for a year with a 9mo daughter and I’m currently 15 weeks pregnant with another daughter,” she continued.
“I love Sophie to death I really do, I view her as my own and treat her like so which has been perfectly okay and completely encouraged by my in laws and husband and me and Sophie have an amazing bond.”
The entire family is planning a trip to visit OP’s husband’s grandmother in California.
Everyone is looking forward to the trip to visit the grandmother. Sophie and the baby will be meeting her for the first time, and all the cousins will be there too. Everyone will be staying at grandma’s “huge” house, so there will definitely be a lot of face time with each other.
Then, OP’s MIL nonchalantly dropped a bomb.
“Well yesterday I was hanging out with my MIL grocery shopping and she casually mentions that Emma is planning on coming on the trip but nothing has been set in stone. I ask questions about living arrangements and she’s supposed to be staying with all of us in johns great grandmas house, John knew nothing about this btw,” OP wrote.
“I get upset and tell her that I am not okay with that and it feels disrespectful to bring her with us to stay in the same house as johns wife and expect us to act like a happy little family when this is not her family anymore and never will be and I understand she’s Sophie’s mom but that’s all she is, nothing more nothing less and if she’s going to bring her along then me and my 2 girls won’t go,” she continued.
The MIL fired back big time.
“Instantly my MIL snaps at me that I’m a selfish ungrateful [expletive] and I hav no right to put them in that situation and she’s as much as family as I am which I do not agree with and we just argued until she took me home and things have been tense since,” OP wrote.
Um, well … that seems pretty out of pocket. We totally don’t get how the MIL doesn’t see how uncomfortable this might be for her daughter-in-law and even the rest of the family. Her response seems completely out of line.
And if you ask us, she’s not wrong.
“I also think it’s straight disrespectful to treat me and her like we are the same, she is johns past, I feel that she is not the one married to John so she is not part of johns family. So, AITA for telling my MIL if my husbands baby mama goes on vacation with us then I will not go?” OP wrote, adding that she completely respects Sophie’s relationship with her mother and that she’s not trying to replace her in any way.
Oh, and we should add that this is her husband’s first year ever getting Sophie for Christmas and they actually had to threaten her mom with court just to get her to agree to it. And OPs husband does not want Emma on this trip either.
As OP explained, “he wouldn’t be comfortable with her going either and he will not go either if his mom is going to let her impose on his first Christmas with his daughter and get in the way of his court ordered parenting time.”
So is the MIL really going to pick Emma over her son and granddaughters? Seems really strange, and Redditors agree.
“Holy crap. NTA. It needed saying and shutting down right then and there,” one comment reads. “But I’d let John handle it from here on, though.”
“NTA!!! I wouldn’t say anything else to them about it about you not going. I would just stay home with your little family (Sophie included) and let Emma go to Cali with your in-laws,” someone suggested. “No one says you all have to go. Let them all go do their thing and you guys just plan on making Sophie’s first Christmas with y’all special and memorable at home.”
“NTA. Though this is far less about it being disrespectful and far more about how she’s disregarding court ordered family time. It’s time she gets to spend with her dad and considering the bad blood between mom and dad she shouldn’t be there,” another comment reads.
“NTA but if your husband agrees with you then this needs to be HIS conversation with his mother,” another user suggested.
After all the feedback, OP and John decided to take it one step further. They got his grandma involved and she put her foot down. Emma is not welcome. Period.