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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/LucyAriaRose on 2024-07-03 04:00:42+00:00.
I am STILL NOT the Original Poster. That is still u/Vast-Ad-5383. He posted in r/AITAH.
Previous BORU here. **New Update marked with *******
Thanks to u/Direct-Caterpillar77 for the rec!
Do NOT comment on Original Posts. See rule 7. The latest update is 7 days old due to the rules on this post.
Mood Spoiler: happier ending this time
Original Post: October 13, 2023
For some background info I (43m) have 2 children with my late wife Kayla. Sam (21m) and Liz (16f). All fake names. Kayla passed away when our kids were 15 and 10. I won’t give specifics about how she passed but she was struck by a drunk driver when she was on her way home from work. She really was the love of my life and to say that her passing hit our family hard would be an understatement. I promised myself that if I got back into the dating game I wouldn’t date anyone for at least a couple years for the sake of my kids. 3 years after my wife’s passing, I met my now fiancé. We’ll call her Amanda. Things went slow and I didn’t introduce her to my kids until we had been dating for about a year at that point. Now we’ve been together for 3 years and are engaged. Amanda and my kids have always had a good relationship. Neither of my kids are super close to her but they have always been friendly and welcoming to her, and Amanda has never overstepped any boundaries my kids have, like trying to replace their mother.
At the beginning of Amanda and I’s relationship, she was a bit insecure of the fact that I was a widower. During the first few months of us dating she would constantly ask things like “if Kayla had never passed, would I still be with her right now.” I always kept my answers brief, and told her that I didn’t like thinking about the “what ifs” and that she was the one I was dating now and that was what mattered. Eventually she stopped making these comments and I stopped worrying about it.
Now to the issue. My parents were hosting a family dinner to celebrate my fiance and I’s engagement. It was my mom and dad, my late wife’s sister and her husband, Sam and Liz, and me and Amanda. Dinner was going well, we were all making small talk with each other and talked about wedding plans. About half way into dinner my mom made a comment about how she was “so happy I was able to find the spark I had with Kayla in someone else.” I don’t think anybody really paid much attention to the comment but then Amanda laughed and said “I’m happy she died, otherwise I would have never gotten him to myself.” The tone of the dinner immediately shifted and everyone got extremely tense, especially my kids. Amanda noticed the shift and started awkwardly laughing like she was trying to play her comment off as a joke. I was honestly just frozen as that was the first time she had made a comment like that. My kids looked disgusted and Liz got up and walked out to the car. Sam waited a bit longer like he wanted me to say something but I was still in shock about what Amanda had said.
To make a long story about the dinner short, the dinner was kind of ruined, so I said my goodbyes to everyone, grabbed my fiancé and we all drove home. My daughter hasn’t spoken to me or Amanda since and it’s been 3 days. I got tired of it and pulled my son aside to ask him what I should do. He said something along the lines of “I’m a grown man and don’t care who another grown man marries, but I don’t want a women who speaks like that about our mother around my sister.” Sam’s comment stuck with me and now I’m considering calling off the engagement entirely. She’s never made comments like this before but I’m worried if I let it slide this one time, it will become more frequent and it will affect my daughter. I need some advice from outside perspectives and just want to do right by my kids. WIBTAH if I called of the engagement because of the comment she made?
Edit: Wow I didn’t expect to get this much advice so shortly after posting this. Nonetheless thank all of you for the advice and even the people calling me a bad father. I think your guys words are what I needed to pull my head out my ass. I will try to talk to my kids alone tonight before speaking with my fiancé and we’ll see where it goes from here. I’m pretty sure my fiancé and I are over though. I’ll update late tonight or tomorrow on how the talks with everyone goes. Thank all of you again for setting my head straight.
EDIT#2: I tried posting my update on here but this post wouldn’t allow it. I’ve made a separate post for the update for those interested.
Update Post: October 14, 2023 (Next Day)
This is an update post for those who have read my initial post asking for advice.
Update: I promised I would update everyone after I had talked to my kids so here is the update. it’s kind of long so I hope that doesn’t go against the rules of this community. I’m also gonna use this update as a way to clarify some of the questions people were asking in the comments.
- Did my fiancé apologize to anyone at the dinner party? No she didn’t. I honestly don’t think it even registered or has registered to her that what she said was wrong.
- Does fiancé have social anxiety? Not to my knowledge no. In all the time I’ve known her she’s never shown any signs of social anxiety and doesn’t have a history of it.
- How old was my late wife? She was 37 when she passed and we were the same age. Amanda is 41. A lot of people were asking for clarification on the time frame of her passing and when my fiancé and I met. At this point in time Kayla has been gone for about 6 years and I met Amanda roughly 3 years after Kayla’s passing. I didn’t mention either of their ages as I didn’t believe it was important because we’re so close in age but I understand why a lot of you guys would want to know.
Now that I’ve clarified the things I was most asked about in the comments we can get into the update. While I’m writing this update, it’s the day after I talked to my kids. So last night at around 5:30 my fiancé left for work. She works nights most days of the week so I was able to call my son and ask if he could come over so I can talk to him and his sister. He goes to our local college and lives in an apartment near his school. When he started college he wanted to move out but also wanted to stay close to us so he settled on an apartment a few blocks away from the college.
He came over and I called him and his sister into the living room to talk with the both of them. When they were both seated I told them point blank that I didn’t think the wedding was happening anymore, and that the comment she made was unacceptable. I then (by the advice of the comments) apologized to them. I told them I was sorry for not saying anything for so long and letting the tension thicken in our home. I told my daughter that I understood why she hasn’t spoken to me and that I was sorry for allowing her to think that I was even remotely ok with what she said.
I felt pretty spineless after we had gotten back from dinner that night so I wanted to do everything in my power to make it right with my kids during the conversation. My daughter told me that she felt disgusted at the comment Amanda made and even more so when I didn’t defend her mother. She then told me that the past 2 years that she’s known Amanda, she felt like she’s been gradually trying to push her and Sam away from me.
One of the examples Liz gave when was when my son moved out. He moved out when he was about to start his sophomore year of college, and when he mentioned the idea of moving out, Amanda was the one who took that and ran with it. According to Liz, Amanda was the one encouraging Sam the most to move out. To be clear, I was never against Sam moving out, but I was clear to him to he was welcome to live at home for his college years and even after until he found where he wanted to be.
I asked Sam if he felt pushed out by Amanda, and if that’s why he moved out. He said he hadn’t felt pushed out before he told everyone he wanted to move, but after he put it out there my fiancé kept pushing for him to move out. Liz cut in and said that every time she brings up college, Amanda keeps encouraging her to go out of state. Liz doesn’t plan on going out of state and she’s been open about wanting to go to the college Sam is attending right now. Liz said she feels like Amanda is waiting till she graduates high school and goes to college so she can move out.
A lot of the comments were right about the subtle comments eventually turning into Amanda wanting my kids pushed away from me. Liz said that she was scared that by the time I eventually noticed the way Amanda was acting, too big of a wedge would have already been driven between me and them. I told my kids that I’m sorry it’s taken me this long to notice and that I was also sorry they’ve been been walking on eggshells for so long.
I hugged my kids and told t...
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