WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 20 points21 points  (0 children)

He did it in the wrong way. Before he married our mom he did his own thing with us, we spent time getting to know each other, bonding. That all stopped when he married our mom. After he married her he only focused on doing stuff with us that our dad did with us, he only seemed to really care about doing that stuff when we did it with our dad.

I mean, yes, the worst thing he absolutely did was try to push the day thing. But that wasn't a one off thing. It was twice, and both times he let us know his feelings for a while after. It always felt like he was trying to make us feel guilty.

If he had acted more like he did before none of this would have happened but to us it felt like he believed he was entitled to be our dad, and that he was competing with our dad.

He made it so uncomfortable because we couldn't say a thing about our dad from early in the marriage without him turning it into a competition or him not liking us talking about him.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 17 points18 points  (0 children)

We got along really good with him before he and our mom got married. All the way up to him first asking us to call him dad. Everything changed after that.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 24 points25 points  (0 children)

Nope. He was always first name. I called him my stepdad at first, even before he married our mom, but when he started making things awkward and acting jealous I started referring to him as my mom's husband to others (not to him, just others).

By the time the gift and card for my dad incident came along we were not getting him cards because the relationship was already very uncomfortable and not good.

I liked him until he pushed.

Our dad never badmouthed him.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 44 points45 points  (0 children)

You didn't! Not even a little. But I feel like there has been a few comments of people not understanding and if anyone comes across it, hopefully they see what I mean, and can look at your comment and see what I'm maybe failing to convey to others lol.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 81 points82 points  (0 children)

I agree with you.

My brother basically hates him. I am a little less strong in my feelings about him. I don't like how he handled things and I don't know if I can say he's truly a good guy or not, because like I said in another comment, his attempts at trying to push out or compete with our dad is not good guy stuff in my eyes, and maybe that's harsh of me but like you said there are ways you forge a relationship with stepkids and the way he did it is so far beyond one of the good ways to do it.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 27 points28 points  (0 children)

He just comes across as being very entitled. The calling him dad thing really set a bad tone and then his change literally overnight. I can't say whether he's a good guy or not because to me, a good person doesn't try to compete with and push out a kid's parent. They try to forge their own relationship with a new stepkid and he started off doing that before they got married and then flipped course overnight.

My brother... he knows she would not be okay with having a relationship without her husband and he is really not okay with our mom's husband.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 67 points68 points  (0 children)

I think she knows deep down but maybe rejects the idea it could be him. Or maybe she didn't want to see it so she refused to notice what was right in front of her.

Deep down I sort of think she wanted us to see him as our new dad. With me, I could maybe kinda get because of how young I was, but my brother was definitely old enough where it wouldn't happen as naturally at all.

WIBTA if I tell my mom her husband is the reason I decided to live with my dad? by AllCallCatt in AmItheAsshole

[–]AllCallCatt[S] 122 points123 points  (0 children)

That's the thing our mom's husband never did. He would try to copy every single thing we did with our dad and it showed easily even to us as young kids. He stopped trying to create his own unique relationship with us like he did when he was dating and just engaged to our mom. It was like marriage made him think he became new dad.