My Stepdaughter Tried to Move Her Grandma Into Our Home Against My Wishes—And It Ended in

My stepdaughter tried to move her grandma into our home against my wishes leading to CPS drama, ultimatums, and a test of my marriage. I, 33 male, have been married to my wife, Lana, 36, female, for about a year, and we were in a relationship for 2 years before that. Lana has a teenage daughter from a previous marriage, Becca, 15, female.

And let’s just say that Becca doesn’t like me. Lana has been divorced for about 6 years from her ex-husband because he’d been in an affair with a co-orker of his, and she caught them in her own bedroom red-handed. That effectively put an end to their seven years of marriage. They’d been together since college and even had a daughter together.

So, that was a huge shock for Lana. And she didn’t date anyone for quite some time after her divorce until we met at a common friends party and got along really well. I asked her out and that was when she finally decided to give men and relationships another chance, which is something I’m really grateful for. So, we began dating and then got into a serious relationship and after around seven maybe 8 months of being together, she introduced me to her daughter.

I tried to be nice to Becca for the first few months, but it wasn’t easy given how she absolutely seemed to loathe my very existence. She would be rude to me all the time. Whenever I tried to speak to her, she’d reject all my attempts to be her friend, and she’d sometimes just leave the room when I’d enter.

It got tiring after a while, so I decided to talk to Lana about it, and she told me that Becca hadn’t been coping well with the divorce at all, and still believed that she and her ex-husband could get back together. They share joint custody of their daughter, but since her ex-husband had a busy work schedule, she could only spend the weekends with her dad.

And for the rest of the week, she would stay with Lana and Lana’s mom. Lana’s dad passed away when she was little. And after his demise, my mother-in-law moved here with Lana. So, her mother was the only family she had. My mother-in-law, Kathy, 58, female, doesn’t like me either. And while her behavior has been less outrageous than Becca’s, it’s still unfair because I haven’t been anything but nice to them.

My only fault in this situation is that I married Lana and that’s why they hate me because for whatever reason both of them think that Lana should have given her ex-husband another chance and patched up. But instead, she chose to leave him and move on with her life. And I’m somehow the bad guy here because I was part of the process of moving on and prevented her from ever returning to her ex-husband.

My mother-in-law and Becca are both quite fond of the guy. And the longer Lana stayed with me, the worse their behavior towards me was because, according to them, I was the only obstacle standing in the way of Lana and her ex-husband’s reconciliation. The fact that the guy had been cheating on my wife for god knows how long didn’t matter to them.

But after our first year together, I made my peace with it and accepted that Becca and Kathy were just never going to like me. And that’s just how it is. No matter what I did and how nice I was to them, they wouldn’t accept me because, in their opinion, I was the guy who was responsible for making sure that Lana didn’t get back with her ex, which is supposed to be a bad thing for whatever reason.

Eventually, despite Kathy and Becca’s best efforts, Lana and I ended up moving in together and have stayed together against all the odds. I don’t speak to Kathy at all and try not to visit her. And when she visits us, I leave the room because I don’t want to be in her presence at all. Of course, I can’t do the same with Becca because we live under the same roof, but I try to avoid interacting with her as much as I can because I don’t want to be at the receiving end of her rude remarks all the time.

It’s not ideal, but it’s peaceful. And before anyone starts blaming Lana for how she’s raised Becca, I just like to say that my wife has gone above and beyond and trying to discipline her daughter. But sometimes some kids just don’t care about anyone except for themselves. And Becca, unfortunately, happens to be one of those kids. She’s selfish and cruel.

And every time Lana tries to reprimand her and teach her to be more respectful towards me, Becca turns it around on her and brings up the divorce and blames her for whatever happened despite knowing full well what really happened. Lana doesn’t have it in her to continue fighting with her daughter when she says things like that because she just breaks down into tears and I have to end up consoling her.

So, it was better for us to just let Becca and I keep our distance. I couldn’t watch Lana allow her daughter to walk all over her because she’s told me how difficult it was for her to come to terms with her divorce, especially because she had no support from her family since Cathy wanted her to forgive her ex-husband and get back to him and had trained Becca to believe the same thing.

And since they were all living together, she couldn’t exactly prevent them from sharing the same beliefs either. Funnily enough, her ex-husband never expressed any desire to get back with her after the divorce and was quite content with being separated from his wife and daughter. So, I don’t know why exactly Kathy and Becca were so sure that he’d love to have her back.

Lana couldn’t move out either because at the time she didn’t earn as much as she did now and was counting on her mother to help her out. I can’t say anything to Becca because I’m not her biological dad and I don’t want to act like it either. Anyway, I really think that despite everything, Lana made the best of her situation and was able to rise above her problems.

The least her daughter and I could do for her is to not constantly be hostile towards each other. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do ever since they moved in together. She didn’t suddenly start being nice, but she toned down her behavior after a while. And even that was a significant improvement. Things were going all right until about a week ago when Becca came to me when her mother wasn’t at home and asked me if she could speak to me about something important.

That was really weird for me because, like I said, Becca and I avoided speaking to each other as much as we could. But nevertheless, I told her to go on. And she told me that since her grandmother Kathy was getting older and needed more help with her day-to-day activities, she wanted Cathy to move in with us. Other families might have agreed to this arrangement in a heartbeat and even been proud of the thought behind it.

But not me, because as far as I was concerned, Cathy was in perfect health and didn’t need any help with anything at all. And it was painfully obvious that Becca was bluffing. She only wanted Cathy to move in with us so that they would have more control over me and Lana because Lana was too sensitive to actually be able to stand up to them.

One way or another, they’d try their best to separate me and Lana. There couldn’t be any other reason for her to come up with this suggestion. And I knew that for a fact, so I didn’t think twice before rejecting her suggestion and told her that she was welcome to visit her grandmother as frequently as she wanted to. But I wasn’t going to let Kathy move in with us, and that was a non-negotiable.

She gave me a nasty look, but didn’t pursue the matter further, which was kind of weird, but I was relieved that she wasn’t trying to make an issue out of this and throwing a tantrum about it like she usually would have done, so I didn’t think about it much. The next day, however, she got back at me in the most psychotic way possible.

In the evening, I had CPS show up at our house and go through Becca’s room because apparently she’d called them and claimed that I was trying to starve her and torture her mentally. None of it was true, and it didn’t take much time to prove otherwise because the stupid girl hadn’t even bothered to throw away the food wrappers from her room to frame me correctly.

Lana and I explained the situation to the officers, and they gave Becca a stern talking to and then they left us on our own, but the damage was already done. I was furious, and for the first time, I completely lost my cool and got into a horrible argument with Becca. I’d had enough of her BS and couldn’t continue putting up with this unreasonable behavior of hers.

I don’t think anyone else in my place would have even put up with her for so long at all. But I did out of love and respect for my wife. But now it was getting more and more ridiculous because clearly I was being penalized for trying to be a decent and accommodating guy. I tried my very best to understand Becca’s behavior and treat her like a child and put up with Lana’s inability to correct her daughter’s behavior because she was too fragile.

But that incident was the limit. Lana was also really upset, but yet again, she just had a mental breakdown and couldn’t bring herself to even talk. I’m not trying to be insensitive or put her trauma down, but at that point in time, I really couldn’t be selfless and try to comfort my wife when I was the victim in this situation. I needed someone to be there for me and have my back.

But unfortunately, my wife was too emotionally fragile. And Becca was obviously relishing this entire experience and was screaming at the top of her lungs about how she wished she’d planned this better so she’d finally be able to get rid of me. and it would be just her, her mother and grandmother. Once again, I was so disappointed and frustrated with the entire situation that instead of comforting Lana or wasting my time by continuing my argument with Becca, I just left the house with nothing but my phone and wallet and got into my car. I started

driving and continued driving until I reached a bed and breakfast a little out of town where I’m currently staying. It’s been close to a week since the incident and since I left, and Lana has called me several times since then to try and get me to come back so we can have a discussion about what to do next, but I’ve refused.

I think my reasons are pretty valid and I’ve told her that after what Becca did, I cannot trust her anymore. And I definitely cannot be in the same house as her because there’s just no telling how far she’ll take things just to get rid of me. She’s 14. I get that. But that’s no excuse to pull off something as deranged and psychotic as this just so she’ll be able to live with her grandmother again.

I told Lana that I’ve put up with enough. And while I really do respect her past and the hardships she’s had to endure, I cannot put up with this any longer for my own peace of mind. This time she failed to get me in trouble because she hadn’t thought things through. But the next time she might have a better plan and one that could end with me behind bars.

My only concern right now was not to let there be a next time at all. So now she had to choose between Becca and me. I’ve told her very clearly that either her daughter stays in that house or I do. I can’t go back to living with Becca anymore. And I know I’m putting Lana in a difficult spot, but I just cannot imagine any valid reason for me to continue living like this.

I’ve done nothing wrong. And yet I’m being punished time and again by her mother and her daughter while she breaks down over it. And I end up having to comfort her. This is not the life I’d envisioned for myself. And I refuse to go back to living like that again. So, I gave her an ultimatum and told her that she could either send her daughter to live with her grandmother or father and live with me or all of them could move back in with Kathy like earlier and I’d file for divorce.

It would be really difficult for both of us. But that was the only solution to this problem. Now, it’s been a couple of days since we discussed this and she’s still trying her best to convince me to come back and sort things out, but I’ve been very firm about my conditions. We’ve been in touch regularly through phone calls and texts, but I haven’t told her where I am exactly because if she cannot promise me that she’ll send Becca away, then I can’t come back.

That’s my only condition. She’s free to talk to her daughter and even go live with her whenever she wants, but she cannot force us to live in the same house anymore. Last night, while we were on a call and going through the same arguments once more, I tried to explain Becca’s side as well by saying that neither of us wanted to live in the same house.

And for so long, both of us had been tolerating our living arrangement for her sake only. But now that Becca had crossed a line, it clearly meant that she wasn’t willing to live this life either, and that she had to let one of us go for our own good. Once again, Lana started crying and told me that she couldn’t do either of those things because she loved us both and didn’t want to lose either of us.

She’d grown to love me more than her husband and couldn’t imagine a life without me, which was really touching to hear and made me feel better since I’d really begun to believe that our relationship was doomed. But she also told me that she couldn’t let her daughter go either because even though she was being a crappy human being right now, there was a time when Becca was the only person who could cheer her up.

And even through the divorce, she tried to be there for her despite her belief that Lana should have gone back to her ex-husband so she couldn’t just pick one and let go of the other. She told me that she feels completely lost since she’s trying to hold her family together, but it’s all falling apart. Becca has been trying to persuade Lana to leave me while I’ve given her this ultimatum to deal with.

And she confessed that she has no idea what to do anymore and feels like she’s failed as both a mother and a wife. I felt really awful when she was telling me what she was going through and felt like part of this was my fault for giving her an ultimatum. I can’t imagine anyone who’d know whom to pick between their spouse and their child, especially in a situation like ours.

I feel like a total jerk for demanding that she choose, but at the same time, what else can I do? Anyway, I feel just as lost as she does, and so I need help from the Reddit community right now. AITASA for asking my wife to pick between living with me or living with her daughter after my stepdaughter made a false complaint to CPS against me. Update one.

Hi everyone, thanks a lot for the advice. Although I would like to touch on one subject and say that my wife is an emotionally fragile person and she is well aware of it and so am I. So the hatred against her for being a bad mother or a bad wife is kind of harsh because she’s been through something really awful and in spite of that she’s managed to build a life for herself and her daughter.

Her family didn’t support her emotionally when she needed it the most. And she was literally cheated on by a man she’d known for half of her life. So, of course, she’s easily triggered when it comes to her failed marriage, and especially when she has to hear those same things again and again from her own loved ones.

I’m not saying that it’s okay for her to not teach Becca how to behave herself and be a better human being. But, I do think everyone should cut her some slack because she’s been through a lot. I know being fragile isn’t something that excuses everything, but at least it explains her behavior, and I know she feels awful about it, but just didn’t have the capacity to do anything about her situation.

That being said, I also do think that I did the right thing by standing my ground and refusing to take back the ultimatum. The day after I read the comments on my original post, I called Lana up and told her that I was sorry that she was feeling upset about everything, but there was real danger in store for me if I continued to live with Becca, and I couldn’t afford that.

I told her that I’d always love and respect her, but this was where I drew the line. and she needed to make a decision for herself once and for all because she can’t just let Becca walk all over her time and again simply because she’s her daughter. That’s not going to end well for anyone involved, least of all me because she’s proven that she’s capable of anything just to get her own way.

I didn’t say much, but I just told her to do whatever she thinks is the right thing to do in a situation like this. And she said that she just needed some more time to think about it, and I agreed. Finally, after almost 2 weeks of living separately, I received a call from Lana yesterday and she told me that I could come back home today because Becca has moved out and is living with Cathy now.

So, I went back home and she really was gone, which was a relief because after several years, I finally felt like I could breathe freely in my own house once again. After some time, Lana and I sat down and she told me how her last discussion with Becca had gone about 2 days ago. She’d sat her daughter down to at least get an apology out of her in case that would change my mind and I’d give her one last chance.

But Becca refused and even said that if she had the opportunity to redo it, she’d execute her plan a lot better this time. Lana was shocked at the sheer audacity of a statement like that and the brazeness with which she said it. So, she tried to explain to Becca that her behavior was seriously messed up. But instead of hearing her out, Becca lashed out at her and said that if Lana wanted to stay married to me even now, then she was free to do so.

but she’d make sure that she separated us one way or another so she could reunite her parents. Then Becca stormed out of the house and left to spend the night at Cathy’s place while Lana called her ex-husband up for the first time in ages to ask him if he’d be willing to extend Becca’s stay at his place that weekend so she’d be able to buy some more time for herself so she could sort out this mess.

But unfortunately, she received the shock of her life when her ex-husband informed her that he’s moved to the suburbs. And since it’s a little far away from our current home, Becca hasn’t visited him for a good few months. The last time he saw her had to be about four or five months back, which is around the time that he introduced her to his new girlfriend.

Since then, she’s barely been in touch with him and comes up with an excuse not to visit him every weekend. He wanted to discuss this with her, but didn’t have the time to do so, which is why Lana never found out. Despite the situation, she asked her ex-husband if he’d be willing to let her live with him for a couple of months until she was able to sort out this mess with me.

But he refused because his new girlfriend wasn’t comfortable with the idea of being a parent and she was relatively younger. So, he couldn’t risk the relationship right now and told Lana that he hoped they’d understand where he was coming from. Yeah, mate. We sure do. You’re coming from the land of jerks who think making sure your young hot girlfriend is comfortable with you is more important than taking care of your daughter who’s well on her way to turning into a teenage delinquent.

After that phone call, Lana called Cathy and found out that instead of going to her father’s place, Becca had been going to Cathy’s place instead. And it finally made sense as to why exactly she’d suddenly started acting out so randomly. Kathy proudly bragged about how it was her idea to call CPS on me and get me kicked out somehow so she could move in instead and they’d all be one happy family.

Once more, the woman was so delusional that she said that the real reason Lana’s ex-husband even had a new girlfriend now was because she’d remarried. So, the only solution was to break Lana’s marriage first and then her ex-husband would readily come running back to her as soon as she was single. It was a foolproof plan according to them.

And it really made me wonder how a woman like Kathy had raised someone like Lana because clearly there was something wrong with her. Probably old age or too many soap operas, but she was out of her head and was succeeding in her mission to turn Becca into a mini her as well. This is why Lana decided to cut her losses for the time being and deal with one problem at a time.

The situation with our marriage being the first. To sum it up, she’s decided to let Becca live with Cathy for a while instead of holding her here against her will because that approach is obviously not working anymore. In the meantime, we’re going to work on our marriage and are planning to start marriage counseling by next week.

Lana was afraid she was being a bad mother by letting her daughter go, but to be honest, she tried and tried until she just couldn’t anymore. and I don’t think she did anything wrong. The woman deserves a break. Update two. Hey, so we just came back from our first session with our marriage counselor and it went okay.

A couple of days have passed since I came back, but Lana and I are building our relationship to last through all the tough times because I really do love her and I know she loves me. I just hope we’re able to make this last because Kathy is very upset that I’m back and is threatening to kick Becca out if I don’t leave.

But Becca refuses to come back home in spite of that. At the end of the day, she’s just a poor kid who’s had a messed up childhood and still can’t see what’s good for her. Update three. We brought Becca back today. She’s upset, but she knows she has nowhere else to go anymore. Her dad won’t take her in, and Kathy kicked her out because she doesn’t want Lana or anyone associated with her in her life anymore now that she knows for sure that she can’t drive me out of the family.

Lana is sad that Becca had to learn the truth the hard way. But at least the kid apologized to me. Even though it was short and brisk, still counts. We’re going to get her professional help and make sure she’s all right because I think it’s been overdue for all of us quite frankly.