Reddit Stories - Spouse DEPARTED for my mother, but then RETURNED begging when he DISCOVERED she

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

#redditstories #askreddit #aita #relationships #familydrama #spouseissues #motherinlaw #unexpectedreturnsSummary: A spouse left for the narrator's mother, creating a shocking family rift. However, after realizing the consequences of his actions, he returned, pleading for forgiveness. This situation raises questions about loyalty, love, and the complexities of family dynamics, leaving the narrator to navigate a challenging emotional landscape.Tags: redditstories, askreddit, reddit, aita, tifu, familyrelationships, emotionaldrama, loyaltyissues, forgiveness, complicatedlove, familyconflict, relationshipadvice, personalstories, lifechoices, betrayal, reconciliation, heartache, familydynamics, spousebetrayal, motherdaughterrelationshipBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/reddit-stories--6816713/support.This episode includes AI-generated content.

Episode with two stories, first part. I hope you enjoy this story. Spouse departed from my mother, but then returned begging when he discovered she did not receive anything and I obtained everything. Greetings, I am currently facing a dilemma. Because of my deranged mother and equally stupid soon-to-be ex-husband who have teamed up to absolutely destroy my peace of mind just for their own greed. I wish I could talk about this to the people I'm friends with, but this feels just too personal

and embarrassing to discuss with anyone I know in real life and trust me, y'all will know why I'm saying that once I tell you guys what I'm going through. I don't have much family to speak of so I can't exactly talk to anyone else either. So I'm here, turning to the Reddit community mainly to get this off my chest and also make sure I'm not the bad guy here in any capacity like I'm being made to believe. So this all started just two weeks ago when, out of absolutely nowhere, my husband of three years, let's call him Kevin, told me that he wanted to break up with me because he developed feelings for my mom. Yeah, you're reading that right, and no, I'm not joking. Believe me, I was just as taken aback as you guys probably are right now and definitely a lot more disgusted

when he confessed when he told me that he'd been having an affair with her for three months now. I'd never noticed because I'd been busy with work and his behavior had really never been suspicious enough for me to take note anyway. For context, my mother is just 20 years. years older than I am. I'm 27 right now and my mother is 47. My mother had me while she was in college but my dad was never in the picture. He broke up with my mom the day she told him she was pregnant and even tried to get her to terminate the pregnancy but she wanted an excuse to drop out of college back then, so she decided to have me anyway and told my grand, her mother, that she wanted to be a song. My grandparents were rich enough to let her do that, but they still weren't

happy with her decision to drop out of college. They tried to get her to go back after I was born, but she refused and instead dabbled in a bunch of professions before settling on interior decoration. Not an interior designer, she doesn't design anything but just advises people on where to put their furniture and how to decorate their rooms to make it visually appealing. It's a whole rich people shindig so she's pretty good at it. She's not a qualified professional but since my grandpa was a well-known realtor, he'd get her jobs. My mom is the flakiest, most unreliable person I've ever known and she's really lucky that she belonged to an affluent family because otherwise, she'd be out on the streets. I was practically raised by my grandparents because my mother never had

enough time for me. She wasn't busy with work, she was busy being a social butterfly while I was a kid and I actually used to think that my grandparents were probably my biological parents and my mom was my older sister or something. That's how I spent my child. and by the time I hit my teens, I had no hopes for my mother because she was still just as carefree about her life as she was in the past. My grandpa passed away while I was in seventh grade and then on, it was just me and my grand against the world. The world, including my mother, because most of the time, she was a total pain to deal with. I mean, if you ever have to explain to your mother as a 15-year-old why it's not a good idea for her to go to Iceland with a guy she

met on Tinder just two days ago, then you'd know what my teen years were like. She's a total idiot and has no concern for how her behavior affects other people, not even her own family. Gran had drilled the idea into my head that I was on my own after she passed on because my mother would never be of any help to me. So I worked bloody hard and made my way to the top of the company I work in right now because I didn't want to leave anything to chance. I'm the C.O at my firm and I earned twice the amount Kevin does. He's the head of sales at a smaller firm but I'd never, ever judged him for it or made him feel smaller. Part of the reason for that was the fact that I'd graduated from one of the finest business schools

in the state and interned at the very company I work in right now, thanks to Grand's connections. She taught me to be humble, unlike Kevin and my mother who thought they were real big superstars over something they weren't even sure of yet. I met my husband at a common friend's birthday party about five years back and we got along like a house on fire because we shared a lot of common interests. We went out for two years and when he proposed, I didn't have to think twice before I said yes. He was a good man, or at least I thought he was back then. He'd always joked about how I had a hot mother which wasn't entirely untrue. I would never call her hot because she's insane

and also she's my mother, but I cannot deny that she fits the beauty standards well for her age. I mean she's made a significant amount of money from scamming people into believing that her so-called feng shui decor worked. And a lot of that money has gone into makeup and Botox, so of course she's attractive for her age. Also, I don't mean to demean the actual professionally trained decoration specialists and I guess maybe the real feng shui works but whatever my mother does is a scam because she literally doesn't know the first thing about it. I respect the people who actually know what they're doing but since my mom doesn't count as one of those professionals and she's also just a generally crappy person. I think I'm allowed to speak badly of her. I thought Kevin

would be different from the other men I dated in the past, though, and that I'd be able to trust him but that turned out to be a bust as well. He'd joke about how my mother was hot enough to pass off as my sister and despite my strained relationship with her, I'd laugh it off because nobody would imagine that something like this could actually happen to them. I'd only ever kept in touch with my mother because of Gran. She made me who I am and I'll be eternally grateful for that, even if that meant having to deal with her psychotic daughter. She was never ready to give up on mom because she was a good woman who loved her daughter in spite of all her flaws and then there's my mom, who could never bring herself to love me more than herself in spite of all the efforts I put in.

Even after Grand passed away almost a year ago, I still tried to keep in touch with my mom. Our relationship was bad, but I still found myself looking out for her, more out of a sense of obligation towards Grand than for her sake, but that ended when Kevin told me about the affair. Two weeks ago, he sat me down after I returned in the evening from a business trip and told me with a straight face that he was in love with my mother and that they wanted to be together now. I thought he was joking at first and laughed at it but for the first time, he didn't laugh. He went on to tell me, in great detail, how he and my mom had been fooling around behind my back

for three months. Kevin and I fought over something stupid and my mother had texted him at the time to ask for advice on how to fix her headphones. That's how they got to talking and slowly it turned into something more than a friendship. They didn't intend to take it far initially, but it just happened and they couldn't help themselves. I'm sure Kevin didn't mind that my mother looks so much like me, too. I kicked him out that very night and he left without much of a fuss because he knew that he could just go to my mother's place instead. I think I must have finished an entire bottle of wine while crying like a

damn baby that night. I was up till the wee hours of the morning, just sobbing so much. hard that my eyes swelled up to twice their size. At around 4.30 in the morning, not being able to deal with the overwhelming anger and pain of it all, I decided to text my mother. I was drunk and that was probably what pushed me even more to send that text. I called her a lot of names and told her she was a crap daughter to Gran and a crap mother to me and was getting even worse with age. I told her that she was a con artist at best and once her Botox and fillers wore off, Kevin would see her for the ugly which she was and dump her as well. I didn't expect her to respond to that, but she did and boy was that response eye-opening.

She told me that she might lose her beauty one day, but she'd never lose her bank balance which was about to increase tenfold. Thanks to Gran's will. I'd totally forgotten about that while grieving Gran, but her lawyer had told us that we'd be informed of what exactly she'd left us after the probate period passed. It would take almost six to nine months and it had already been seven months. so we'd be hearing from him shortly. Grand had instructed her lawyer not to inform us of what exactly to expect before the probate period passed. The only thing that we were allowed to know

was where she wanted to be buried and that's all. So neither my mother nor I knew what she'd left us but since she had a lot of money, assets, and property, we were expecting a lot. Or rather my mom was because all I cared about at the time Gran passed away was that she was gone and now, I was truly on my own. The contents of her will didn't matter to me much because either way, I don't care for money more than my relationships, but evidently, Kevin did and that's why he chose my mom over me because both of them expected her inheritance to be greater than mine. They must have been confident about it, too, because the way my mother bragged about it to me made me feel as if she'd already heard back from the lawyer and knew what she was going to be inheriting before I did.

Anyway, I didn't reply to that text afterward and tried to erase it all from my mind. I spoke to my lawyer the very next day and told her that I wanted to file for divorce at the earliest. Within a week of Kevin's confession, I'd filed for divorce and he'd been served. Now all we had to do was wait for this to end so he could live out the rest of his days with his ex-wife's mom but something miraculous happened and I truly have to thank Gran for this one because even after she's gone, she still has my back. I'd already requested Gran's lawyer, the executor of the will, to inform us separately because I couldn't bear to be in the same room as my mother and Kevin. So five days back, she told me that my mother had already been informed of what she'd inherited and it was my turn now. I visited her with zero expectations because I really didn't know what was going to happen but while leaving, I think I must have been the

happiest damn person to exist on this planet at the time. I'd inherited all my grandmother's money, assets, and property while my mother inherited nothing but a diamond ring and matching diamond earrings that Gran used to wear. That's all my mother inherited. Apparently, the reason Gran left everything to me was because she'd looked after my mom her entire life but now that she was nearing 50, my mother was old enough to start looking after herself. So ironically enough, my Gran who had always told me that I'd be on my own after she passed away, had made sure to make me independent enough not to rely on my inheritance and the one

woman who'd been counting on Gran her entire miserable life had been left with absolutely nothing. So really, she was the one who was on her own. It was karma at its wicked best and I'd never felt as vindicated as I did in that moment. My mother had come to know just an hour before I did but after that, I didn't know what was going to happen. I was excited because I knew that even if my mother didn't try to contact me, Kevin surely would and that's exactly what happened. The guy could have waited it out just for the sake of putting up a show but he had no patience and texted me the very next day, saying that he'd made a huge mistake and wanted to come back to me if I'd still have him.

He said that he and my mother were never meant to be and spending those few days with her had made him realize how good he had it with me so now, he'd come to his senses and wanted to give our marriage a second chance. I literally laughed out loud when I read his lousy attempt at reconciliation. They probably had no idea that I knew my mother had inherited barely anything and there was no huge inheritance to look forward to anymore. After one whole day of contemplating what to say to Kevin, I finally responded to his text with a clown emoji and then blocked him. I was also 100% sure that he must not come clean to my mom either so for good measure, I took a screenshot of the text he'd sent me and sent it to my mother with three clown emojis. I turned my phone off after that because I didn't want to deal with any of the drama that was inevitably going to happen next.

Instead, I chose to watch Netflix and enjoy my night without letting Kevin or my mother bother me anymore. The next morning, I got to know about the aftermath of my text. My mom's next door neighbor's daughter is the one who told me about. about everything that went down. My mom still lives in the house I grew up in, FYI. My grandpa had left that house to his wife and daughter to live in so after Grand's passing, my mother continued to live there. The neighbor's daughter and I are friends so she was quite candid with me and told me that around 10, she started hearing a lot of yelling from my mom's place

but nobody bothered to check because their family knew what kind of person my mom was and didn't like her one bit. Then there was screaming all of a sudden and that's what finally brought them out. My crazy mother had physically kicked Kevin out of the house and he was lying on the pavement while my mother threw all sorts of stuff at him and screamed the most vile, disgusting things at him. Kevin had screamed because she'd grabbed a hardcover book and thrown it at him and unfortunately it had hit him right in the forehead. When her neighbors discovered him, he'd already been hit and was trying to stop the bleeding with his hand. It was a deep gash and he'd had to get five stitches for it which was pretty horrifying to hear. He also pressed charges

against my mother and while she only had to pay a huge fine because it was a misdemeanor at most, it was still scary because Kevin was actually badly hurt. She hadn't intended for him to get so hurt and neither had she been in her senses at the time so the cops let her off easily. It also helped that she had a really good lawyer and was friends with the DA's wife. Of course, my mother blamed me for it once she got back home and texted me a bunch of horrible things from her second number that I hadn't blocked, which I've been trying my best to ignore, but I really can't help wondering if what happened really was my fault or not. What Kevin and my mother did to me is definitely unforgivable, but now, I feel like I should have just counted my own

blessings instead of trying to meddle in their lives to mess with them. What I did was out of spite and anger too, and it's not like I'm proud of it or whatever. If I'd known that this would have such insane consequences, then I never would have sent my mother that screenshot. I literally only just wanted to make them both feel bad, but I did never intend for anyone to seriously get hurt. My mother has never had any history of physical violence, not to my knowledge at least, so this wasn't something I could have ever thought of beforehand. I feel terrible about what happened and my mother's constant attempts to victimize herself and make me look like the bad guy are making it worse.

Even Kevin has been posting cryptic quotes about betrayal and stuff which is highly ironic, but that's beside the point right now. I feel like they're making me the bad guy just to shift. the blame onto someone else, but I don't know. I'd offer trying to mess up my mother and soon-to-be ex-husband's relationship after my mother bragged about how she stole my man with an inheritance she doesn't even have? Update 1. Okay, so thanks you guys for being so, so incredibly supportive in the comments. Thank you for all your kind words, especially the people who were appreciating Gran. Yeah, she was one of a kind and I think I was very, very lucky to have her in my life.

truly one of the luckiest people alive to have had a magnanimous personality like Grans as a part of my childhood. That does make up for having a mother like the one I do, L-O-L. I don't feel guilty anymore about what happened because what I did was not that big of a deal. They ruined my marriage so I ruined their relationship, tit for tat. My mother's the one who went ballistic and attacked the guy she allegedly loves, so I'm not going to feel bad about that at all. She's the crazy one here, not me, And she's sure as hell isn't going to make me feel like the villain when she did everything wrong. Kevin got hurt, I do feel bad for him because a physical attack is never justified, but at the same time, he's the same guy who literally cheated on his partner of so many years with their mother.

That's just gross and I can't imagine anyone thinking they still have the right to ask their partner to forgive them and take them back after doing something like that. He was too timing both me and my mother. I'm sorry that he got hurt, but that's also not my fault. Not my fault and not my problem either, so I've decided to block all of them on every single platform that exists. Heck, I even blocked my mother on PayPal. So you know it's serious, ha.

On a serious note, though, I've also been thinking about a restraining order because my mother lost it. There's no telling what she might get up to next and if she's annoyed at me for ruining her relationship, she might come for me next. I don't want that, but neither do I want to give up the home and career I've worked for for so long and relocate just because my mother's crazy. So a restraining order is my best bet to protect myself against that psycho dinosaur now. I just hope it doesn't come to that.

Update 2, it seems that I might have to file for a restraining order after all. I'd ignored my mother altogether for almost two weeks and was beginning to move on. Kevin had also responded to my divorce petition and he wasn't contesting it so it felt like things were falling back into place and with copious amounts of therapy and self-loven. love, I'd finally get over this nasty incident. Unfortunately, my mother decided to return to terrorize me and yesterday, I found her waiting for me in my front yard right outside my door. I'd just come back home after a long day of work and I was in no mood. I told her to get away or I'd call the police from inside the car but she didn't budge and instead told me that I could try whatever I

wanted to but she wasn't going to move until she had a word with me about the inheritance. I told her she could speak to me from a distance because I was curious to know what she was wanted to say. So she told me very plainly that she wanted half of whatever I'd inherited because it was fair since Gran was her mother and not just my grandma. I actually laughed in her face and told her that she was the last person who should be talking about what's fair. Then I told her to get out because I wasn't giving her jack and dialed 911 in case she tried anything funny. She glared at me then started walking towards my car and I instinctively rolled up my windows. I did it just in time too because as soon as she came close to the car, she gave it one swift

kick in the passenger side panel and dented it. I saw the dent only after I got out of the car which I didn't do until I'd watched her get into her own car and drive away a considerable distance. I photographed it for evidence and I'd already have the security footage from the cameras outside my house to prove that my mother had caused the dent. Then, I called my lawyer and told her what had happened and said that I wanted to file a restraining order against my mother as well. So now, that's happening as well. I guess my mother just doesn't like the idea of living a peaceful life and has to screw things up all the time. I did try to file a

police report for it, but since she's friends with the DA's wife, the precinct head told me that his hands were tied and he couldn't help the situation. It's fine though because at least I have the security footage and she can't change that. It shows her face and everything as well. I've even downloaded it and backed it up on my laptop so that I don't lose it at any point. The next couple of days are going to be stressful as hell with all the trips I'll have to take to court but at least I'll get rid of these people. Update 3. Hey, everyone. It's been busy lately with the divorce proceedings and everything.

We're in the middle of settlement negotiations right now and it's so damn frustrating. At least I managed to get a restraining order against my mother last week so that's done with. Few. Kevin and his lawyer have concocted a bunch of lies so I'm trying to put together all the proof of him cheating for the next meeting and hopefully that'll be an end to this. It's annoying but I'm going to therapy regularly to deal with my anger and process it so it doesn't get in the way of my daily life. If I've learned anything from this, it's that I don't want to end up like my crazy mom. I just had to vent here for a while but I feel better now and I guess I'll be back whenever the divorce is finalized. For now, this is it.

of the first story. Let's begin the second one. I hope you enjoy this story. Father and new wife plan to leave a larger portion of the estate to my stepbrothers and stepsisters since I have my birth mother. I, a 25-year-old woman, was informed by my father, a man in his 50s, and his new wife, also in their 50s. F, want to split there will by 40-40-20 between me and my step-siblings. I'm conflicted. So, a little background on the situation. My parents divorced when I was 10, I am an only child. Both parents are remarried and they do not interact with each other.

My mom married my stepdad, who has no children. My dad married my stepmom, who has a daughter, 27-F, and a son, 23-m. My step-sister has three kids, six-m, four-slash-m, and a newborn son couple weeks old. I have always felt a little slighted on my dad's side of things. My teenage years were pretty rough, switching back and forth between households where I was an only child in one and a middle child in the other. My dad always tried really hard to make me feel comfortable. But my stepmom never really liked me.

However, we do get along now that I'm an adult and not living with them. There was a lot of drama because my stepmom has a lot of issues, and not just with me, with her own kids as well. My step-sister and I moved out as soon as I turned 18 just to get away from her, and my stepbrother, the golden child in her eyes, had been MIA for almost two years because of a huge fight he had with her, but recently waltzed back into everyone's lives and is back to being the fave. My dad is aware that she can be pretty crazy,

and he has told me before that if I didn't love her so damn much, I wouldn't put up with her baggage. Anyways, onto the most recent situation. My stepmom's father just passed away, so they decided to update their will. My dad called me last night, saying they are working on their wills and they want to be fair to everyone. So he said we were thinking 40-40-20-20 going to you. I basically just said okay, because he called right as we were sitting down for dinner and I didn't

really have time to think about it. The more I think about it, though, the more I feel slighted. This is the thing, my stepmom's ex, their dad, is sort of out of the picture, at least as far as my dad and stepmom know. He has actually reached out to both of them once they turned 18, and he has been in contact with them for a while now. My step-sister did cut contact with him once she got pregnant with her first baby, because she basically had to make the decision of telling her mom that she's been talking to her dad, or cut off her dad. So she cut off her dad. When my stepbrother went M-I-A,

he apparently stayed at his dad's for a while. My stepmom is not aware of any of this and speaks very ill of their dad, but I've gone with my stepsister to dinner there before, and he actually seems like a normal guy, and got sucked into my stepmom's craziness. She turns everything around on everyone else always. Anyways, the whole reason my dad said that they were thinking 40-40-20 was because I'm probably the sole executor of your mom's will, and they don't have another set of parents. I asked, how do you know that they aren't in their dad's will?

to which he said he hasn't been in contact with them for 20 years. So, these are my things. He has no idea that I'm the sole executor of my mom's will. This is an assumption, I am, but this was only just changed in the last six months, and he does not know this. I spoke to my mom about this, and she said, along with my boyfriend, that my mom's will have absolutely nothing to do with my dads, and it's not my fault that my parents got divorced and didn't have any more kids.

The fact that they do not know that my stepbrother and step-sister have been in contact with their dad is frustrating to me, because I'm the one being slighted based on a lie, but I don't think it's my place to reveal this information. It will cause a lot of drama. I find it hard to believe that they won't get something in his will, but perhaps I'm wrong. I feel like they could have split at 35-35-30, or something a little bit more fair if they felt this way. But from my POV on paper it looks like I'm worth half as much as my stepmom's kids are and that feels pretty crappy. It's not about the money, 20% of their assets would probably change my life anyways, it's honestly not about that, it's more about the principle for me, but when I said this to my dad, he said, but that's all this is about money, it has nothing to do with anything else. But I guess I disagree, I did tell him that it's his money and he has every right to do whatever he wants with it and I don't feel like I'm entitled to anything, but am I being unreasonable for feeling this way? Everyone that I've talked to about this says this is insane and I'm being treated unfairly,

which has caused me to think about it more and more, and now I can't think straight. I'm wondering what you guys think. I realize this sounds petty and I'm trying really, really hard to look at this objectively, but this is also kind of a serious thing and I don't want to not say anything if I should be saying something, or should I just shut up and not cause any drama? More info, I would be totally okay with my stepsister getting more because she has children, that would make sense to me, but that fact that I'm getting half as much as the kid who walked out on a temper tantrum and didn't speak to any of us for almost two years, that's frustrating to me.

I do not feel entitled to their money at all and I agree that it is generous for them to give us any money, I just feel if you're going to do that, it should probably be equal, or at least not one child getting half as much as the others. I actually did ask my stepsister what she thinks about this. I told her the situation about the reasoning behind their ratios. She told me that she wouldn't blame me if I tattled about their dad, that it would probably come out eventually, but she also hasn't been in contact with him for years, so is that really fair of me to bring it up? I also don't know for certain that my dad wouldn't tell my stepmom.

I'd like to think that I could trust him, but with something like that, I'm not so sure. Anyway, their father was really happy when they were back in his life, and when my stepsister cut him off, he said he would always be there if she changed her mind. He let my stepbrothers stay there when he left, so, based on assumption, I wouldn't think he would leave them out completely, and for those wondering, I know for a fact that she did not bring more financially than my dad did into their relationship assets. She had always been a job jumper and is now a secretary at an elementary school, and my dad is an upper management at a huge aerospace company here in Canada and does very, very well financially. He's a huge car guy,

has two beautiful classic cars that he's completely redone and are worth a lot of money as well. I know through the grapevine, my dad, my step-sister, that my stepmom had a lot of debt being a single mom too. Edit, holy I did not expect this many responses. Thank you so much for all the input. I will be having lunch with my dad on Thursday, and I'm still not entirely sure what the conversation will entail, but I have a few key points from commenters here that I will be bringing up. I have to go through all the responses again and make sure I know what I want to say. I will update after our lunch for those who are interested. Thank you again, kind Internet strangers, good night.

Update, I, 25-F, got told by my dad, 50-s-slash-M, that him and my step-mong, 50-s-slash-F, want to split there will 40-40-20 between me and my step-siblings. I'm conflicted. I just wanted to start off by saying that I am. overwhelmed by the amount of responses I received. I did not expect that. I read every single comment and took everything that was said into account. As I said in my op, I was genuinely unsure about how to feel about the situation, and that's why I came here for an outside perspective. I wanted to go about this with a level head. I didn't want to come across as selfish or ungrateful. I am beyond grateful that I'm getting anything at all from them. Never once did I feel entitled to anything.

I've never even thought about the situation until my dad asked for opinion on the phone that night. I also just want to clarify that I never told my dad I deserved more and I never told them how to distribute their money. He specifically said to me, we are doing our wills and we don't want to make anyone upset. We are thinking 40-40-20-20 going to you. Do you think this is fair? So I want to express the fact that he asked me for my thoughts on this. The more people I spoke to about it and the more I thought about it, the more slighted I felt, which is why I came here, because I needed clarity on the situation. One more thing before the update.

I want to express that my dad is not a bad person. In this situation, he may come across that way to some, but we are actually quite close. Maybe that's why I was so conflicted and he has always been a good dad to me. Sure, he can be an ass, aren't we all sometimes, and perhaps he is a little weak, as one comes commenter put it when it comes to my stepmom. But I guess that's what happens when two people are in love, especially when all your kids have moved out and have their own lives. I know that I, for one, would do anything in the world for my boyfriend. That being said, we don't have children yet. So I don't know at this point in my life who would take precedence over who in this scenario.

I'd like to think I would always have everyone's best interest at heart. And I know my dad does as well. He is only trying to be fair to everyone. And I know this. Yes, I felt slighted for more than half my life with that side of the family. Always feeling the like the odd one out in almost every situation. Being treated this way strictly because I had my mom on the other side of things. My dad basically just tried to keep the peace, tried to keep everyone happy, and his wife the happiest. Can I really fault him for that?

I don't know. I have my mom who would walk to the ends of the earth for me and I am so very thankful for that. And my step-siblings don't necessarily have that. However, I do think they would if they didn't keep their relationship with their dad a deep, dark secret dash, but that's not my business. Anyways, on to the actual update. I guess this is equally as wordy, I talk a lot, I had lunch with my dad today. I went in with a list of things I wanted to know.

Basically, I wanted to know if they were talking about a joint will, or separate wills, and if this 40-40-20 was the ratio on his will. I wanted to know if he died before my step-mom, what would happen? Does everything get passed on to her and then she's free to change the will at that point? If so, how does he know she wouldn't write me out of the will completely dash and does he think it's fair to leave that option open? Also, the fact that they were basing this decision partially on the fact that my step-sibling, haven't had contact with their dad in 20 years, it was going to be a game-time decision whether or not I was going to tell him that simply was not true, as my step-sister did give me the okay to tell him if I had to. However, I didn't feel it was my place and opted to keep it a secret dash it is not my secret to tell.

He said that it was one will with both their assets, so I guess that's a joint will, and that if he died before my step-mom, everything would go to her and vice versa. I asked what was stopping her from changing the will at that point and giving her kids everything, And he said she would never do that, she's not that kind of person. I said maybe so, but legally, what is stopping her from doing this? He said technically nothing is. I asked if he thought that was fair. And he said it doesn't matter because he would never marry someone who had morals like that.

I asked if he could see my point though, and he said he could and he will discuss this with my step-mom. I don't know where that will go though. Also, might be worth noting that I asked him whose idea the 40-40-20 ratio was, he said it was his, not hers. I'm unsure if he's lying to cover her or if he's telling the truth. I don't know what I was looking for with that question, because I guess both answers are frustrating.

But there it is. Now that I know the answers to these questions, I thought that it would be best for me to be the bigger person. I am fully aware that it is their money to do as they please, never thought otherwise. If that means that they think I should get less, then that's just the way it is. Do I agree? Honestly, whether I do or not, I don't think it would have mattered. Not my money, not my business. I expressed my point of view to my dad, because I thought I would regret it if I didn't. Now that I have, I'm in the mindset that it is what it is. Personally, I don't have the energy to

argue about it. I just don't care. I stress and worry about enough in my own life. It wasn't about the money at all. I wasn't upset that I was getting less than my siblings money-wise. I was feeling slighted because it looked like I was worth half as much to them as my step-siblings were. I know that isn't true, for my dad anyways, and I never thought he was doing this maliciously. If he wanted to hurt me, he would have just not told me and would have left me to be blindsided at the time of his death. But he kept expressing that he wanted to be fair and asked for my thoughts, so I told him how I felt about it. I still felt a bit slighted, but that's just the way I feel with that family anyways. I'm the outsider and I don't think that will ever really change, and this situation just kind of

solidified that, and yet, on the other side of things, I'm the center of my mom's universe. It's an interesting dynamic, one that was, and still kind of is obviously, hard to get accustomed to, even after all this time. It's not my fault that my parents divorced and didn't have any more children. It's not my fault that my parents decided to share custody so I was always having to move back and forth, thus only being at each place half the time. It's not my fault that my mom married a guy who didn't have any kids of his own, and it's not my fault that my dad married a woman with two other kids and a mess of issues. I had no control over any of these things, just like I have no control over this, again, dash not that I expect to. I told him all of this. I felt I needed to get it

all off my chest and I feel better after saying it. I don't think he realized that this is how I've always felt. He apologized for making me feel this way and assured me that this was never their intention, and I knew that it wasn't. He kept assuring me that even though this is how it might be perceived and he respects that, it isn't how it actually is. He told me he loved me, that I am his only daughter and he loves me the most dash even though he would never say that in front of the other kids, but that it was true and that he would do anything for me. I think I just took this whole thing more personally than it was meant to be, but my dad also said he didn't think about how it would make me feel on a personal level, and he was only thinking about it in a monetary way.

At the end of the day, I have decided to let this go. I don't know if they will change anything or not, but after talking to my dad, I feel like I was candid about how I felt, and so was he, and I guess that's all I needed to hear. Like I said a hundred times, it was never about the amount of money I was or wasn't getting. So, it's just not worth the fight. I am still close with my stepsister, we've always been close and I don't think that will change.

When I was talking to her about this, she told me that she would give up her share if this was going to cause any problems in our relationship. I said absolutely not, that's not what this is about and I would never blame her or resent her for any of this. We are good, as for my stepbrother, we've never been close, and that probably won't change either. He's a weird dude, as for my stepmom, we've never been close either and that also probably won't

change. I'm choosing to spend my time putting an effort and showing love to the people who do the same for me, the people who matter in my life. I'm done putting in any extra effort for those who don't care. So that's it, long story short, I'm letting it go. Thank you again for all of your advice. It really helped me gain perspective on this and I really, truly appreciate everyone's thoughts.