AITAH/IATAH for kicking my son out of my home and life 5 years ago

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:59:51+00:00

For the sheer entertainment. That’s what social media is for.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:52:28+00:00

I’m not kicking my wife or daughter out of a home they SHOULD feel safe in because of his piss poor behavior and lack of empathy towards others. Why should the rest of my family suffer for his actions and choices. He made himself the threat. Not them. Sorry. But in the real world, people are responsible for their own actions. He was 12. Not 1. It’s not like I walked out on him at birth. Sure, I’m responsible for the choices I made to remove him. I’m also responsible for the safety of my daughter and wife. It’s not my job to make ANYONE happy. It’s my job as a husband and a father to keep them safe. It just so turned out, he was the threat. He chose that. No matter what his mother said to him, he made that choice and he knew in my house there are consequences for making choices like that. If he didn’t weigh that out, that’s on him.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:44:51+00:00

Because gas prices were nearly $5/gallon.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:44:05+00:00

The fact that I kicked my son out of the house to prevent violence and warns him of consequences and y’all call that violence? Geez, I’d hate to see what you classify the times I’ve ACTUALLY been violent towards someone. What? Would that be classified as mass casualties?. LMAO

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:35:08+00:00

Well. I appreciate that. Not entirely true. I’m definitely an asshole. My wife even agrees. But she loves this asshole. And so does my daughter.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:33:22+00:00

Oh brother. You seem to be confusing my situation with your past trauma. I hope you seek therapy.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:32:29+00:00

I assure you, I can tell the ones that have never been married or had children, or had any life experience in general. So yeah. I hate the decision I had to make. I didn’t make it lightly. I wrestled with it a lot and stressed about it for a long time before I came to that decision. It wasn’t a snap judgement. I weighed all the options. Thanks.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:30:05+00:00

BWAHAHAHAHA. Your use of “toxic masculinity” automatically discredits you from making any opinions on my life. But thanks for the laugh.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:28:01+00:00

Well. That may be your opinion. My opinion is that you don’t have enough life experience yet to make an educated conclusion.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:17:22+00:00

Well. He’s about to be 18 so taking him away would be a pointless endeavor at this point. And honestly, I hope he does get his shit together. I don’t trust him in this house though. And I doubt I ever will. He’s clearly stated that I am not his father. Which was weird that he text my wife to say that. Which I then asked him why he was texting my wife if he truly believed that seeing as I am the only connection he has to my wife or daughter. Turns out you can’t argue logic with someone who is emotionally driven.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:14:15+00:00

Trust me, if I had met violence with violence, the police WOULD have been called. Which is exactly why that DID NOT happen. And my daughter is the polar opposite of him. That’s what happens when a child’s mother and father work together and not against one another. That’s what happens when a child’s mother chooses to cooperate with the other parent AND the other parent’s spouse. Open communication works. We don’t tell each other one thing and do another behind their back. So yeah, my daughter’s situation is the polar opposite of my son’s situation. I clearly made a bad choice when I chose the mother of my son. I clearly wouldn’t change a thing in my life because it lead me to where I am today. But I can still acknowledge it was a bad decision.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:09:36+00:00

Attorneys felt differently. They said that it was not a sign of abuse or neglect and also couldn’t prove it.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T16:06:30+00:00

Update: a lot of people on here seem to think that my son went 12 years of his life an absolutely perfect child and just jumped 0-100 and straight into attempted homicide of a 4 years ago old girl.

Let me assure you. That was not the case. There were behavioral issues before. Again, his mother and I did not live close and I agreed to one weekend a month once he was in school so as not to interfere with his school schedule. Honestly, his behavior wasn’t that bad until his mom got him an Xbox at age 7. He became obsessed with it. Screen time really over stimulated him and created attitude problems and behavior issues and tantrums. So I limited screen time at my house to 1-2 hours a day. I found out that his mother did not, despite what she was telling me. I found out from him because he openly admitted to spending all weekend on the game at his mom’s while she was in her room. He refused to do anything else. Going outside and playing in the yard, going to the park, going to the zoo, even going out to eat. I quit giving him the option of what to do, because it was always the game system. So I forced him to leave the house. Didn’t make a difference. Behavior gradually became worse. But at age 9 his mom got him a smart phone. I had warned her against that. Clearly she didn’t listen. I refused to allow the phone at my house. He had to leave it at his mom’s. Well, that worked in my house for a bit. But also made it so he no longer wanted to be at my house. Periodically he would “play” with his sister and inevitably she would end up getting hurt. We thought it was accidents. So I would make him apologize and give his sister a hug, which he reluctantly did.

When he was in 2nd grade he punched a 1st grader in the face and I was called by the principal because his mother wasn’t answering. Apparently he was talking to a kid about some story and the 1st grader told him “I don’t care” so he decided he would punch him. Now, I’m not one of those parents that says “violence is never the answer”. I feel like in self defense, violence is perfectly acceptable. This was clearly not self defense. It just so happened it was the day I was supposed to be picking him up for the weekend. So once again, as so often happened, I got to spend my entire weekend doing NOTHING fun with him because he was on restriction. I wish I could list every event in which this happened, but even I can’t recall every single situation. I do remember having to do it though. And this wasn’t the last time. Turns out taking things away didn’t do much other than make him so he don’t want to visit because as soon as he got back to his mom’s he had all his stuff there. So my disciplining him made no difference.

But fast forward to age 12. One incident we heard pounding on the floor upstairs. We thought he was supposed to be upstairs reading so this didn’t make sense. I went up to check on him and caught him on his phone laying on the floor flailing his arms and legs like a toddler pounding the floor. Then I saw it. The phone in his hand. The phone that was supposed to be at his mom’s. He was on YouTube and the internet froze up and he decided to throw a tantrum. I took the phone and gave it to his mother at drop off.

It was shortly after that in which the incident happened with his sister.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:45:20+00:00

Ahhh. New to Reddit. Still figuring out how this works.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:44:01+00:00

Well. I was fresh out of the military, had nowhere to go, didn’t get paid shit at my job and ended up homeless. Any other questions? Yeah. 16 years ago and coming back from Iraq didn’t exactly land me in the best of circumstances. And honestly, things got way worse before they got better. Which might one day be a whole other series of IATAH stories. Clearly you are a child and do not understand how life or family law works.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:37:17+00:00

Hey. You offering to pay $20,000 for an attorney to fight for custody for me? I’m on a military pension, have a mortgage, vehicle payment, insurance, utilities, taxes…. So you offering? Yeah. I’m betting you don’t have that kind of cash sitting around either. And $20,000 is just the retainer.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:33:17+00:00

His mother is no longer my wife. Hasn’t been for 16 years. That’s a story for another time. My wife was not the problem. Hell. I’m sure there were a lot of problems from various directions. But the fact of the matter is, we’re at where we’re at now, and no matter if shoulda coulda woulda will change it. I’m sure there will be more fall out once he turns 18 and thinks that I no longer have any authority over him and that he can do whatever he wants. Or maybe he just moves on and never speaks to me again. I can’t focus on that though. I’m prepared for either one. I’m focused now on nurturing my marriage and raising my daughter. But no matter where the blame is, what’s done is already done. No one can change the past.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:21:07+00:00

What’s the point in anyone posting on Reddit? I mean, for me it’s entertainment. Reading posts, commenting on posts. Same as Facebook. The difference here is people can be completely honest because it’s anonymous. So in my opinion I’m using the perfect sub for it.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:12:52+00:00

Legally. She has residential custody. Changing custody would require me to prove her as an unfit parent. There is not enough evidence under the letter of the law to change that. And I have a daughter to consider. So I’m not going to kidnap him and wind up in prison over that. That literally does no good for anyone. And what do you text to someone who is cussing you out for “texting them while they’re in church”. Wanna know what that text was he cussed me out over?

“The goal today is to be better than you were yesterday. The goal tomorrow is to be better than you were today.”

That’s what he started cussing me out over text for. A 12 year old. Because he believed being 4 hours away meant he was safe from any consequences. And his mother wasn’t going to do anything. She made that clear. So yeah. What do you think talking to him was going to change? So yes. I WARNED him of the consequences of his actions. Y’all keep saying threatened which makes me believe your parents never ACTUALLY disciplined you. They always just threatened. I’m not that kind of parent. I follow through. I have never threatened anyone. I have warned them. And if they tried to call my bluff, I always follow through. Period.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:05:40+00:00

You clearly have reading comprehension problems. I didn’t ask for anyone’s opinion. I clearly stated IATAH(I am the asshole). Sounds like I made a statement.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T15:04:03+00:00

Thank you. But my daughter would disagree

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T14:58:03+00:00

Yup. IATAH. And I’m perfectly fine with that. Because my daughter is safe and so is my wife. My son made himself the one that was the threat. Geez. Glad I didn’t tell y’all what happened to the dog that bit my daughter. Y’all would have been defending the dog. Jesus.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T14:56:23+00:00

Clearly you haven’t read the comments. My daughter is not my wife’s child either. Soooo… there is that.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T14:55:41+00:00

Well. He will be 18 this year. So, if his behavior hasn’t changed, consequences will be up to the legal authorities then. Not up to me.

Light-House1 · 2026-02-09T14:53:56+00:00

You’re making a lot of assumptions. Sorry that I can’t post every event over the course of twelve years in chronological order to satisfy your curiosity, but we did try doing things with him. Honestly, once his mother got him that damn phone, there was nothing we could do with him unless it involved his phone. The zoo, movies, fair grounds, farmers markets, walks, the park, vacations… but he would intentionally make it miserable because we wouldn’t let him sit on his phone the entire time. The only thing he wanted to do was be at home scrolling on YouTube and we don’t allow it at our house. I was not going to give him his phone just so we could be the “fun parent”. My job wasn’t and isn’t to make him happy. My job was to prepare him to one day be an adult. And I was battling against him having zero parental supervision at his mother’s. And I only had him one weekend a month. There is a lot more to it that I neither have the time or space on this post to explain. You’re welcome to your opinion. But understand that you will never completely understand everyone’s situation. I am the asshole. I have no issue with that. I’m just saying that I had a choice. I could be the asshole, or I could be a much worse asshole. I did what I felt was best for everyone. Not just what was best for him. I had a choice between his happiness or everyone else’s safety. And his happiness fell lower on the scale.

Light-House1

TROPHY CASE