'I feel betrayed': Father abandons daughter after she chooses stepfather to walk her down the aisle
NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A devastated father abandoned his daughter on her wedding eve after she told him that he would not be playing father duties on her big day. The 58-year-old father noted that he paid a hefty share for his daughter Jackie’s luxurious wedding but she chose her stepfather to walk her down the aisle and take part in the father-daughter dance.
The disgruntled father explained the situation in a post on the 'AITA' subreddit, where he noted that he and his wife got divorced when Jackie was just 2 years old. “They settled in Texas while I'm in New York. I also have a son Mike. Their mother married a man named Joe when Jackie was about 15. I don't have a particularly high opinion of Joe, but no real complaints about him either. Jackie always seemed lukewarm about him,” he wrote in the post, according to Someecards.
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The user said he religiously performed all his father's duties including visiting his children every six months and paying for their studies and health expenses. “It was VERY expensive to do this, but I never balked, never complained. I was there for every big event, and also any small event they ever asked me to attend,” the father continued. He said Jackie recently announced her wedding and he “contributed a lot of money towards it. As in more than half the budget”.
'I tell Jackie that I feel unbelievably betrayed'
But, at the rehearsal dinner, the father suffered a major heartbreak when he brought up the discussion about the duties of walking Jackie down the aisle and the father-daughter dance. “Jackie got very silent and told me that she already asked Joe to do it.” He wrote in the post, adding, “I said to her ‘but I'm your father,’ and she tells me she appreciates how kind, loving and generous I had always been towards her but that she had to make a hard choice. I tell Jackie that I feel unbelievably betrayed”.
The father said he felt “very manipulated” as Jackie told him about the decision just a day before her wedding and, "especially after she had me pay the lion's share of the costs". “I asked Jackie if she knew I wouldn't be getting the father of the bride role when she took the money and she went dead silent,” he stated further. After discovering that her decision was made before she asked him to fork out for her wedding he said “I told her that if I'm not her father at her wedding, then she can't call upon me to be her father elsewhere in her life.”
“If I've spent 24 years doing the work, paying for college, paying for her wedding, flying all around the country, and carrying all the freight of being a parent but at the biggest day of her life (her words), if she's pointing to another man as her father, then that's a life choice.” The heartbroken father wrote, “Joe can take over paying for her law school tuition and I'm changing my will to leave everything to Mike.”
'She chose to announce all this on the eve of the wedding'
His 24-year-old daughter then started “screaming at me how it is her wedding and it is her right to say who is a father to her and who isn't”. She also told him that he was an awful father for “abandoning her on the eve of her wedding”. But the father defended himself saying “I told her that she was the one to announce a change to the relationship. She can't tell me I'm not a father to her and then have me continue considering her a daughter. Also, she chose to announce all this on the eve of the wedding”.
The father’s emotional story soon garnered immense social media attention, with many people defending his decision. “NTA She was very manipulative to not tell you this until the day before the wedding. She knew what she was doing. She got what she needed from you before she told you that you weren't going to be the father of the bride.” One user wrote while the second user said “NTA. Actions have consequences, and for Jackie to hide information like this is intentional and dishonest. I just worry that you’re going to regret it down the line.”
Another user said “NTA. Guessing she's realized she's up shit creek without a paddle if Joe can't afford to pay for her law school, she'll have to work and get student loans. You haven't been a deadbeat Dad, you've done a lot for her and unfortunately, your former daughter has turned into a selfish entitled AH.”
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