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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2024-11-05 05:02:07+00:00.

I am NOT OOP

Wife: u/Lost_Time37

Husband: u/TopVersion2940

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITAH for telling my husband we need to suck it up and buy our daughter a new car?

Thanks to u/Lynavi for suggesting this BoRU

Trigger Warnings: accident, body injuries, emotional abuse and manipulation, possible gaslighting

Husband’s Post:

AITAH for telling my daughter I won’t budge even if she never speaks to me again?: September 13, 2024

My daughter Casey (17f) worked and saved up money for around a year to be able to afford a better car than we could buy her with our family budget. My other daughter Alana (16f, has ADHD) recently got her driver’s license, and asked to drive Casey’s car. Casey allowed it, but Alana ended up having a bad accident around 6 months ago which basically rendered the car unusable.

The insurance payout wasn’t nearly enough to cover the replacement, and with Alana’s medical bills from the accident (thankfully there was no permanent damage, just a broken arm and leg), there was no way we could afford to replace Casey’s car immediately.

Alana was very apologetic to Casey, and so were we since we couldn’t afford to replace her car. Casey didn’t accept our apology, and has been basically avoiding us, skipping family dinners, and pretty much pretending that her mom, Alana, and I don’t exist and only talks to us if she needs a form signed for her school.

I begged her to come to a family therapy session, and she eventually relented but with the condition that Alana wouldn’t be present. In the therapy session, she told us that she won’t be resuming a relationship with us until we replace her car, which realistically won’t be until next year. When the therapist asked how she expected us to do that, Casey said we could just make Alana work to earn the money.

The issue is that Alana has severe ADHD, and already has trouble managing her school work. I’m worried that making her work to earn the money will harm her grades and have significant ramifications for her future. Casey said “well she should have thought about that before destroying my car, I don’t care, I’m not gonna speak to any of you unless I have my car replaced”. I responded that she was free to avoid speaking to me for as long as she wanted to, but I’m not going to permanently harm her sister’s future to get her a car earlier.

My wife agrees with me that we need to stand firm on our position, but is also genuinely afraid of Casey never speaking to her ever again. I understand that her car was ruined, but I as a parent I need to look out for all my children, not just one. I also don’t want to set the precedent that emotional blackmail will work even if what you’re asking for is unreasonable.

AITAH?

AITAH has no consensus bot, the husband was YTA

Relevant Comment

Commenter 1: Anyone wondering how much convincing it took for Casey to LET Alana drive her car

OOP: No convincing at all. We weren’t even involved in the convo between them.

Commenter 2: I’m with Casey on this one. You’re coddling your youngest. And you have no idea if having a job could actually help your youngest learn to manage her time. You’ve left your oldest hanging.

*edit to add. If Alana can get her drivers license she can get a job.

Commenter 3: YTA - You’re shitting all over Casey to protect Alana from the consequences of her actions. If her condition is that bad, why was she allowed to drive in the first place?

Wife’s Posts:

Original Post: October 8, 2024

I (39f) and my husband (43m) have two daughters, 16 who we’ll call Alana and 17 who I’ll call Casey.

Casey has held down a steady job for over a year now and was able to get herself a car, now, she got this car right as Alana passed her own driver’s test, so there was a little issue between who was going to be driving.

After a little persuasion, Casey did allow Alana to use her car, so long as somebody else paid for gas. We told her that wasn’t going to cut it, Alana doesn’t have the money for that, and it’s her car, her responsibility to keep gas in it and keep it on the road.

Here’s where it gets difficult- Alana wrecked about a month ago. Luckily, she was fine aside from a broken wrist and a mild concussion, but Casey was fuming the entire time, and seemed to have this expectation that we would be replacing her car.

Her and my husband got into it, and she threw her arms up like a child and just stopped speaking to us. We coaxed her into going to family therapy with us, though it wasn’t productive, as she and the therapist agreed that it’d be best to maintain the reduced contact until she’s paid back.

Here’s the problem… that car was $15 grand, she saved up every penny for a YEAR for that car. She’d ask us about twice a week if we “changed our mind” and obviously the answer was no, but that was the only thing she’d say to us. It didn’t seem to bother my husband and he kelt saying she’ll get over it, until last week, she packed some things and had MY mother come and get her.

She’s been staying at her grandmother’s for a little over a week now, and she gave me a good earful, whatever Casey told hee worked because earlier today, my husband and I were informed we had 30 days to replace the car in full or she was taking us to COURT.

I think my husband is admirable in wanting to stand his ground, but the way I’m looking at it, we have two options. And I am sick of my daughter not talking to me because of shit that is not my fault. Alana has been a wreck, she’s already battling severe ADHD, and now she’s shaking at the thought of having to appear in court.

So I sat them both down, and said we have two options. We can suck it up, pay $15,000 and have our daughter and sister back, and Alana will just have to buck up and work. Or, we can let my Dad sue my husband and I on Casey’s behalf, and almost certainly lose.

We spoke to four different firms, and all four echoed similar sentiment, that it would probably cost us close to triple in the end to bring it to court and fight it there, so that’s when I told my husband that I am not going $30 grand further into debt for him to hold the pettiest grudge.

He’s saying that I’m being manipulative by holding this whole situation over his and Alana’s heads, I’m not saying it’s not part my fault, all I said was that no matter what, at the end of the day, we owe Casey and he needs to just accept that. We can afford $15k to replace the car, but if we have to dish out double that, just to lose in court anyway, I’m divorcing him before he makes that mistake.

In either case, I’m done not supporting both of my daughters. We’ve tried reasoning with Casey and it has resulted in nothing. We lost this one.

AITA for trying to get my husband to accept it?

I feel I may be, just for how long I was being a passenger (no pun intended) in the situation, and for threatening my husband with divorce, I don’t think we did anything that wrong, but I’m willing to admit when we made some mistakes and we have to make up for it somehow.

AITAH has no consensus bot, wife was also YTA

Relevant Comments

OOP and her husband need to get Alana to pay Casey back for damaging her car

OOP: What is she supposed to do? Magically come up with thousands of dollars to pay my oldest back? It’s not a matter of not wanting to hold people accountable, it simply is not realistic.

I also want to state on record, I was very against Casey getting a car that nice as her first. She never listened.

Insurance would’ve likely paid for some if she would have just put her sister as an approved driver on the plan. If would not have been difficult. But no, it’s not Alana’s “fault” that she has ADHD, it’s not like she wrecked on purpose.

Commenter 1: Casey saved up $15k and didn’t pay the $300/mo to get insurance? Nope. Sounds like Alana wrote this and doesn’t know how insurance works.

Alana, pay for the gas if you drive the car.

OOP: She had insurance, but they really screwed us over because Casey didn’t approve Alana as a driver on the plan. That was a big determining factor in us deciding to hold firm. If Alana would’ve been approved on the plan, we would’ve covered the remainder on what the insurance was offering.

But this is the the result of Casey’s decision, hence, I agreed with my husband that it’s fully her responsibility. I just didn’t expect her to sue us out of nowhere like this, and I especially didn’t expect my parents to be enabling this behavior.

What’s in her best interest might suck now, but she’ll learn from it in the future. My husband’s been fuming for weeks over this and a lot of you are saying he even made a post, but if they ruled NTA then he wasn’t telling the full story.

Alana broke her arm in that wreck and all Casey has cared about the past month is her car. That’s the genesis behind the family therapy, and I’m very concerned that so many people are supporting her entitled behavior.

**OOP is blaming her parents for enabling Casey into sui…

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