A man sought advice on Reddit after his daughter’s ill-intentioned holiday gift to her stepmother led to tensions in the family
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I’ve been with my wife for 4 and a half years. She suffered from breast cancer and we got married after she completed her treatment. This is also our first Christmas together as a married couple.
I have a 16 y.o. daughter who can tolerate but not accept her stepmom and can be passive aggressive towards her sometimes.
She’s done somethings in the past that warented a number of punishements but my wife has been graceful and forgiving saying my daughter is being a typical teeanger and trying to adapt but in my opinion she has gotten out of control especially with lack of consequences.
There’s been tension around the holiday and suprisingly my daughter decided to spend Christmas with us saying her mom went to visit her futur stepdad’s family few towns over.
My wife was thrilled with my daughter staying with us. She prepared everything and I helped here and there while my daughter was on her phone the entire time. I welcomed my inlaws and we had a great time throughout the day.
Christmas dinner went fine though my wife seemed a bit upset. She refused to say what’s wrong til I pressured her. She then opened the box my daughter got her for Christmas and there was a bra inside it.
My wife broke down crying in the kitchen. I was fuming I called for my daughter and confronted her about the gift and she tried to explain it wasn’t malicious but I disagreed and said yes it was and it was purposfully done to offend her stepmom and mock her illness.
I decided to punish her by having her do all the cleaning after the guests left but she tried to evade it by saying ok then turning around and calling her stepbrother to come pick her up and take her to her mothers house.
I caught her at the door and kicked her stepbrother out and told her to start cleaning up immediately. She went hysteric yelling about how cruel I was to punish her on Christmas and how insensitive and unlady like my wife was to be offended by the bra.
I refused to engage in her yelling matches and made sure she did all the cleaning which my wife said was a lot and asked me to let my daughter go to her mom’s house but I insisted not until the punishement was complete.
My daughter called her stepbrother again and left later. She immediately called her mom who came after me on sm and berated me for doing what I did and ruining Christmas for her.
I had a argument with her about what our daughter did but she sided with her and called me abusive and a robot controlled by my wife though my wife asked me to let it go.
She got my former inlaws involved and they have been criticizing me about what I did.