Reddit Stories - BETRAYED HEARTLESS Spouse Rejects Senior Father as PARASITE_

Episode Date: October 5, 2025

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #betrayal #family #relationships #heartless #seniorsSummary:A heart-wrenching tale on Reddit discusses a spouse rejecting their elderly father as a "parasite." The community debates the ethical implications and offers support to the devastated family.Tags:redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, betrayal, family, relationships, heartless, seniors, elderly, father, rejection, familydrama, support, community, ethics, debate, devastated, heartwrenchingBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6237355/support.

I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse heartlessly labeled my senior father a parasite and declined to allow him to reside with us following an incident. Consequently, I departed, relocated with my father, and submitted a formal request. For divorce to teach him a lesson. So for context, I have been married to my husband for almost two years now. He and I have been together for five years and I thought we were a good match, up until now. I am 28 and he is 30 and we met each other through friends. While we were dating, we did not really have any problems as such.

The only thing I ever noticed was that he seemed to be a little uncomfortable around my father. I had to try to talk to him about it several times, but he told me that it was nothing and he was just shy. I found it a little strange because my dad was somebody who could make everyone feel comfortable around him, so I didn't understand why he was shy around my dad. He would never speak to my father and whenever my dad would come around to visit, he would be very quiet and distant. But that was not the case with any other family members, and he seemed quite comfortable with them. I tried to get him to talk to me about it, but every time that I brought this up, he would just tell me that I was overthinking things and he did not have anything

against my father. He told me that he spoke to my father just like he spoke to everybody else and acted the same way around him. So I decided not to talk to him about it again. again and again because every time, it was the same conversation. I figured out that maybe I was just being a little oversensitive, and decided to let it go. After he proposed, I did not bring it up again. The reason that I stopped talking about it was because if I'm being honest, I could be a little too sensitive about my father. My father is not young, my parents had me when they were way past the average age of conception. So naturally, my dad is a lot older than the average father of somebody around my age.

He is already 72 and when I was younger, a lot of people used to be very insensitive and they used to make fun of me for having parents who were so much older than everybody else. It was a whole thing and I was really sensitive about this. Besides, I had also lost my mother a couple of years before I met my husband, and my dad was my only surviving parent.

So he was very important to me, and I could not stand the fact that my husband did not seem to have a very comfortable relationship with him like he did everybody else. But I had discussed it with my father, and he said that he did not have a problem with it. He believed that maybe my husband just needed some time to open up to him and he was fine with it. And as long as my dad was fine with it, I did not have a problem with it either. However, after we got married, things started getting even weirder between them. It was mostly my husband's fault because whenever my father would come by to visit, he would start acting very

iffy. It just felt like he was waiting for my dad to leave and was not us, he would look very uncomfortable and he wouldn't even bother to try and hide it. If my dad tried to talk to him, he would only reply in a very brusque manner and shut the conversation down quickly most of the time. He would make up some excuses about having work to do and then leave the room. He would only come back out from his office once he knew that my father had left. I found it very insulting and I tried to tell him that this was not cool and it was quite disrespectful to my father. But he kept gaslighting me and told me that he actually did have a lot of work to catch up on

and this had nothing to do with my father. I stayed with him and I believed all of these things because I really loved him and I wanted to make it work. Besides, apart from the issue with my dad, he and I were pretty much perfect together. We literally did not have any other problems apart from this one. And I kept consoling myself, trying to make myself believe that eventually, he would get over this weird thing he had with my

dad and accept my family instead of trying to run away from it. I really thought that it was going to work out eventually, but a couple of days ago, I had an eye-opening realization. So my father recently had an accident because he lost his balance and had a nasty fall from the stairs. Thankfully, it was not from a great height, and he only sprained his ankle and broke his wrist while trying to break the fall. Luckily, he had shouted loud enough for his. neighbor to be able to hear it, and they had been kind enough to attend to my father and take him to the hospital. It was a pretty bad sprain, and even though he insisted that he was fine, I knew that he needed my help. He had to stay overnight at the hospital because he was in no

condition to be moved back home and there were also a few concerns about his advanced age, so he stayed overnight for observation and I stayed with him. That day, after I had told my husband about it, I expected him to at least visit my dad at the hospital, but he didn't. However, at the time, I did not have any time to worry about it. I was pretty shaken up from the incident and I was not ready to let my father go back home alone, so I called my husband up and suggested that I bring my father home with me so I could help him recover from the next couple of days because they were the most crucial. And after one week, I would help him move back into his own house and hire a nurse for him.

I thought that he wouldn't have a problem with it because what I was asking for was quite reasonable. I thought that he would agree with it quite readily and I was only asking as a formality before bringing my dad home. But instead, he told me that he was not comfortable with that. I was very pissed off and exhausted from the previous day already, and when he said that he was not comfortable with it, I got quite annoyed. I started fighting with him immediately, and he told me that I was being unreasonable and that I should consider the fact that we don't really have a spacious house so we will have to compromise on our privacy if we decide to let my father live with. with us. I thought he was being stupid because I did not care about our privacy or anything

petty like that because this was my father that we were talking about. It was just a matter of a few days and then, once he had recovered, he would be back in his home in no time. My dad is very important to me and I thought he should have been more sensitive but he thought that he was being reasonable and I was asking for too much. I was already very pissed off and that argument just made things worse. So I told him that I had noticed that he hadn't even shown up for my father when he heard from me that he had been in an accident, and it was the bare minimum that he could have done. So I confronted him, once and for all, and I asked him what the real reason was and why he was not fine with my father living with us. And he said something that I don't

think I can ever forgive. He told me that he feels like my father is always trying to leach off of us and he was not comfortable with it. So far, he had just been trying to avoid my father because he did not want to say anything about it, but since I had insisted that he tell me the truth, he had to say it out loud. I was really shocked, and I didn't even know what to say, so he went on talking and explained that the reason he had come to this conclusion was because every time we could meet. My dad would start complaining about how little he made now and how all his money would go into paying off the bills and then he would have nothing left for himself at the end of the month. And then I would give him money, out of obligation, and he would just find that entire

ordeal really annoying. He believed that I did not owe it to my father to give him an allowance every month and he thought it was very weird that I was fine with this arrangement. That really irked me because it was my money that I was giving to my father because I knew that he was retired and I wanted to be able to help him. I did not think there was anything wrong with what I was doing, especially since it was the money that I was spending. I never asked him to contribute to it. and I expect that from him. So he had no right to ask about it. Even though he would occasionally send money to his family, I never questioned him about it, so I did not understand why he felt that he had the right to comment on this. My father had been a high school teacher before he

retired and he had saved up some money but now that he was getting older, I wanted him to be able to live well. He did have his own retirement fund set aside, but everything was getting more expensive by the minute and you would only complain about it to me because he did not want to ask for help directly, even though he needed it. And I did not want to have to ask, so I would just offer it to him. It was an unsaid agreement between the two of us and as long as my father and I were okay with it. I did not understand why my husband thought that he had the right to make this into something ugly. I did not appreciate the fact that he had said something so cruel about my father like he was leaching off of us. And I hung up the call while he was still trying

to explain what he meant because I was just not interested. Even if my dad was leaching off of anybody, it was me. I was his daughter, he had every right to ask me for money and he's my father, and this is my money, so I can give it to whoever I please. As long as it's not affecting my ability to split the rent with him and contribute equally to the household expenses, I don't think it's any of his business what I do with my money. That was my thought process and so, I decided to live with my dad for the next couple of days. I was very upset with my husband, and I expected him to apologize to me, but he just kept texting me and telling me that I was being childish and unreasonable and that I needed to understand his perspective as well. My father did not have any

idea, and still doesn't know anything about any of this. He has asked me about my husband a couple of times and he seems a little disappointed that his son-in-law has not come to visit yet, but I'm not going to tell him about what my husband said about him because I know it's only going to hurt him and I don't want that to happen. However, it's getting increasingly difficult for me to keep this a secret from him. I did spend a couple of days at my father's place, but I could not live there indefinitely as I had to get back to work, so I had to hire a nurse and move back home. I haven't spoken to my husband since that fight that we had on the phone that day at the hospital. I'm not speaking to him. We did talk a couple of days ago, but even that ended in a fight, so we are back to not

talking to each other. I continued to visit my father every day, after work, and once I would come back home, I would just go to bed and not interact with my husband at all. I was very upset about everything and I had been thinking about a divorce, but I just couldn't come to terms with the fact that this was how it was and I was just really miserable. He did not try to talk to me or apologize to me, and it was very clear from his behavior that he thought that he had not said or done anything out of line. This went on for a couple of days and then last week, one day, he finally spoke to me. He seemed very disturbed, and when I asked him what was going on, he told me that his sister had called him crying and told him that she needed his help because she had been evicted from her rental

unit. Apparently, she and her friends had been smoking pot while her landlord was out, which was a very common occurrence. However, they had not anticipated that the landlord would come back home earlier than he usually does and he figured out from the stench that something funny was going on. So he decided to check on the apartment and when he went up, she and her friends were not even clever enough to hide the evidence and it was all laid out in the open. Her landlord was kind of conservative and did not appreciate any of this. It also violated the terms of their lease agreement, so she was evicted on an immediate basis and she needed a place to stay. His sister, Stacy, is 21 years old and she graduated from college two months ago.

I know that 21 years old is quite young, but I think even then, it's old enough to know the difference between trying to have fun and just being irresponsible. And I think that she was just being irresponsible, so I did not have any sympathy to spare for her. Also, I was really pissed off about what he had said about my father, so when he told me that he was thinking about offering Stacey a place to stay, I told him that I was not okay with it. And that's how everything started. When I told him that I was not fine with Stacy living with us, he flipped out on me and started

accusing me of being selfish and he couldn't believe that I was being so vindictive. I don't think there was anything vindictive about what I was doing, I was just giving him a taste of his own medicine. I got into a huge fight with him, and a lot of things were said, and he ended up cursing at me, which he'd never done before. I was very hurt by this, and I decided to tell him that since we were having so many problems, I thought that was best for us to just get a divorce and get it over with. It had become increasingly obvious to me that these were issues that he could not work past

because he was not willing to work on them or acknowledge the fact that this was wrong. So I packed my bags and I moved out to live with my father because I believe that I never should have given him so many chances. If a man can't respect my family and where I come from, it's very unlikely that he will be able to respect me as a person. I have decided to block him everywhere and haven't been talking to him. I also told my father about everything and he was upset, but he told me that I could still give him a chance if I wanted to.

That's how large-hearted my dad is. But I don't want to give him a chance, that's for sure now because he had the chance to apologize and he chose not to. Instead, he chose to make the situation even worse by acting the way that he did. And I was not going to tolerate that kind of disrespect anymore, I was done. However, recently, a couple of days ago my mother-in-law and Stacy called me up separately, but they had the same thing to say. They called me on the same day and told me that I was being a total drama queen and that

there was no need for me to act this way. They told me that the least that I could do was at least unblock my husband and let him say what he has to say, instead of acting like I don't even want to hear his side of the story. I tried to tell them that the things that he has said to me can be no justification for that, and I didn't want to hear what he had to say. But they told me that I was being unreasonable and that these things keep happening when you're married, it's not an option for me to just give up and then leave. I don't understand why not, since I have been disrespected over and over again I gave him

the chance to apologize, but he didn't care enough to do that. And I can still forgive him for disrespecting me. I don't think I have to forgive him for disrespecting my father. That is a very sensitive topic for me and I don't appreciate the things that he said. He's also well aware of how sensitive I am when it comes to my dad, yet he chose not to care about that and voiced his very wrong opinions. But they insisted that I talked to him. And I really don't want to do that.

So, I'd offer refusing to talk to my husband after he disrespected my father and said that he leeches off of us? Update 1. Okay, so the general consensus in the comments is that I should leave my husband immediately because he is a huge red flag. And you know what? I agree with that. I can't believe that I was able to ignore it for so long, maybe because I loved him. But I can't pretend that there is nothing problematic about the way he acts around my father

anymore. What he said about my dad, I can't pretend that I didn't hear it. He could have apologized for it, but he did not. So now, I am left with no other option to leave. I have already spoken to a lawyer, and we are filing for a divorce in a couple of days. I have also blocked my mother-in-law and Stacy, even though I did not have a bad relationship with them. That's actually the reason that I had answered their calls earlier, even though I was not speaking to my husband. I had always had a very good relationship with both of them, in fact, with all of his family.

I never had a crossword to say about anybody from his family. However, I understood that even my husband and I definitely had negative qualities as well. but there was no need for anybody to make an issue out of it. I don't think what he said about my father, it was not even a negative quality, it was just something that had happened because of circumstances. My dad needed money, and I wanted to be able to provide for him. We had an agreement, it was our thing. No need for him to get involved in it at all.

I know that I'm being repetitive, but it just pisses me off every time I think about it. I can't believe I put up with this guy for so long. long, hoping that he'd come around and he just kept gaslighting me. I feel like a fool but no worries, I'll get him back. I'm definitely not going to let the divorce be easy and make sure that he pays for everything that he has put me through and said about me and my family. I am in no mood for forgiveness right now. Update 2. It has been two weeks since I moved out of my house and yesterday, my husband was finally served with divorce papers. I have no idea why, but he was actually shocked on receiving it.

I don't know what he was expecting. I have not been speaking to him for the past two weeks, and I have blocked him and his entire family. I think it was pretty clear that I was heading towards a divorce and our marriage was over. If I really wanted to give him a chance, would have gone back to him. He was very upset when he received the papers

and called me up almost immediately, I think. He started yelling at me on the phone. He had called me from his work phone number. which I had not blocked since I had forgotten. But I still answered the call when my phone started ringing because I wanted to know what he had to say about this. The second that I picked up, he started screaming at me. It felt like he had been screaming for a long time.

I just caught him in the middle of it. He was very angry and he kept telling me that what I was doing was unacceptable and that I needed to take this back. He thought that I was joking about this and I was just trying to scare him into apologizing, but he told me that he was not going to be intimidated and he knew that I was not going to leave him. I don't know why he believed that because I had already cut him out of my life and it had been two weeks since I had done that, I was doing just fine. Maybe not as happy as I could be, but I was doing

fine. I did miss him, but I knew that I could not go back to him, not after what had happened. And even now, he was not letting go of his pride. He still wanted to prove that he was right, it was more important for him than our marriage. It wouldn't cost him a thing to disrespect my father and apologize to me for hurting my feelings by saying what he said. I was just so tired of him that I told him that I did not want to hear from him ever again

and I was serious about the divorce. I had tried my patience with him but since he did not seem to care about it, I didn't want to waste more of my time and energy on him. I told him that our marriage had been nothing but a huge mistake and I was ready to accept that now because he had shown me that he did not care about me as much as he cared about flattering his ego. I hung up and blocked that number as well. It's been a day since then and he has not tried to get back in touch with me,

so I don't know what's going to happen now. I'm just really exhausted from dealing with all of this. The only thing that brings me any sort of joy now is talking to my father. He is so full of life, even at his age. In spite of the injury, he knows that I am upset about certain things and is trying to keep me happy and occupied. And I have to say, it's actually working. Update 3, hey, it has been close to a month since my husband and I parted ways and so far, he has been putting off responding to my petition. But about a week ago, I unblocked him, and I told him that he had to do it at some point. He couldn't just keep putting it off and then expect it to go away, that's not how it works. And it was going to end up in a loss for him if he

avoided responding to the divorce petition. So a couple of days after that, he finally responded and he was not contesting the divorce. He had agreed to all the terms that I had said, which I was pretty surprised by. I had actually believed that he was going to put up a good fight, but he didn't and that was a bit of a shock for me. He told me that he was going to move out of the house in a couple of days since I had claimed it and he essentially just said that I could have it if I wanted to. He got to keep everything else that he had purchased for the house, which I think is fair. So currently, he is in the process of moving out right now and he told me to give him a month before he completes the process. I'm okay with that, until then, I'm just going to live with

my father like I've been for the past few weeks. My dad is getting better, he is healing and he has been able to restore a lot of range of movement back, so that's good news. Everything is going better than expected, but I still feel really upset because I'm going through a divorce and I never saw this coming. It has been really difficult to deal with, but I know that I have to get through it, for my sake, and for my father's sake. He doesn't have anybody to take care of him right now. If I start falling weak, then he'll have to be strong for me and I don't think that's what's necessary right now. I feel kind of bad about everything that is happening and I want to keep myself distracted, but it's really hard to do that since everything in my life used to be about my

husband and my dad since they were my only family. And now, he's gone and I don't know if I can ever fall in love again. There are a lot of things that are really upsetting for me at the moment, but I'm trying to work through them. Update 4, Hi guys, it's been one year since I got divorced. We don't really have a long waiting period for the divorce, so we wrapped it up pretty quickly. We also did not have to get into a long-drawn battle for everything that we had and we divided our assets quite peacefully and amicably. We did not talk during the process except when we met for a couple of negotiations. Both of us just kind of accepted the fact that this was happening. We did not get any closure, but I think no closure is also some sort of closure. He did not

apologize for anything, ultimately. And I did not have anything to be sorry about, so I did not have anything to say to him. But I think both of us were hurting just the same. The only difference is that he was not willing to let go of his ego, even though that would have fixed almost everything. Anyway, that's all said and done now and we have not been in touch after the divorce. I also cut off any mutual friends that we had because everybody reminded me of him and I do not want that. I know it's not the right thing to do, but I did not see any other way out of this. I just want a fresh start and I want to be able to get over this as soon as I can. I moved into my previous house with my dad a couple of days after he moved out, and I have been living with him ever

since. He has healed almost completely, even though he has to put an extra effort to do whatever he used to do easily before. But that's just because of the past injuries and his age, I know that with time, it might get better. And I'm hoping that he has a lot of time. I would hate to lose him as well. He has been my only source of support and strength in these difficult times and I am really truly grateful to him. I don't think anybody would have been there for me like my dad has been. Not even my best friends were there for me like he was and I know it's an unfair comparison, but I just know that we should cherish our parents while they are here. I don't know if it's the fact that he is slightly older than the average parent,

but I always knew that I wouldn't have as much time with him as everybody did with theirs, so I always valued him more. The past few months just made me realize that I was right to do that.