**I am NOT OOP, OOP is** u/Status-Silver1722 **Originally posted to r/AITAH** **AITA for refusing to allow my stepdaughter to use one of my cars...
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The original was posted on /r/bestofredditorupdates by /u/Choice_Evidence1983 on 2025-06-29 04:02:06+00:00.

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Status-Silver1722

Originally posted to r/AITAH

AITA for refusing to allow my stepdaughter to use one of my cars and telling her to get a job and buy one instead?

Thanks to u/queenlegolas & u/soayherder for suggesting this BoRU

Trigger Warnings: entitlement, manipulation

Original Post: June 20, 2025

My husband and I have a 5 years old son together and he has a 18F daughter Sally from his previous marriage. Sally is an entitled, manipulative young lady who has spend her entire life milking the “child of divorce” card in order to make her parents feel bad for her and give her everything she wanted. As a result, she is now a lazy adult, has poor grades in school, no perspective, no job, no desire to get a job or do something with her life.

Although my husband and her bio mom are both responsible for how she turned out, instead of coming together and work towards helping her do something, they prefer to blame each other and they do everything they can to undermine the other one. For example, if my husband punishes Sally by not giving her spending money, her mom will immediately throw money at her. If her mom takes her car away as a punishment, my husband will immediately give her his car to use to go places. It’s a very strange dynamic they have and very different of what he has with me. When I asked him why he is so different in terms of parenting my son with me vs Sally with her bio mom, he said I am his wife and I am a normal, sane woman who he can actually communicate with. Whatever, I feel like they are both wrong but Sally is not my daughter and I am happy I don’t have to spend too much time with her.

Now that the summer break started Sally has the most important problem in the world: her car broke and she needs one to use this summer to go places, meet her friends, go to parties etc. Her mom is not willing to give her car because she needs it to go to work, my husband needs his car to go to work and neither of them is willing to buy her a new one. So Sally the genius found the perfect solution and asked me to give her one of my cars. To be clear I have 2 cars: a big SUV that was given to me by my employer and a smaller one that I use when I go into town because it’s easier to park. I refused and I told her she can’t use any of my car. She insisted and said I don’t need two cars at the same time but she needs one to get around. I told her she is free to use the public transportation or get a job and buy one herself.

Now Sally is going around to my husband’s relatives complaining that I am trying to exploit her and send her to work. I had a good laugh about this with my husband’s sister but my MIL claims I could have just refused instead of telling her to get a job. I am a little confused what it’s so bad about telling an adult to get a job. It’s not like I sent a 12 years old to work for her food or anything.

AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: NTA. You are spot on. Tell your husband that since Sally is 18, she can move out now. She either gets a job or goes to live with her mom. You need to focus on your kid.

OOP: Fortunately for me she lives with her mom and just visits us or spends a couple of days here

Commenter 2: If you start getting messages from her family members about how you are trying to manipulate her into getting a job you need to confirm that shit as clearly as possible. You are trying to make her get a job, and will continue to do so as long as you can.

You have the opportunity to erase some of the damage done by her 2 enabling parents. Do not be deterred.

OOP: The strange thing is that my husband agrees with me, her mother totally hates me and is teaching her that everything I say is BS, my husband sister’s agrees with me and my MIL babies her because she is her first grandchild. But I feel like no one in this situation is doing her a favour. I am not trying to manipulate her but her situation is so different to what I am used to or how I parent my own child that it’s insane. Like how can it be so horrible to teach an adult responsibility? To want to give her a direction in life. I don’t know what they expect to do with her honestly…they can’t support her for the rest of her life. And it’s sad because she is a capable, healthy adult. Even people with disabilities work and want to do something with their lives, so she has ni excuse

Commenter 3: ESH Sally is how she is as a direct result of the parenting you described. Why would you knowingly marry and children with such a poor, childish excuse for a father?

OOP: The thing is I have a totally different parenting experience with him. We agree on everything we do in regards to our child, he disciplines our son and is a good father. His excuse when it comes to Sally is that her mother is insane but I don’t agree with him and I told him that. Even if the other parent is indeed insane, this is not an excuse for him to accept and tolerate poor behaviour from his daughter. I guess he does not want to push her too much so that he does not lose her?

OOP explains more about her work vehicle and if there are rules for it*

OOP: I can use the work car for personal needs as well, not only for work related activities. But I was handled that car by my employer and it was given to me to use, not my family members

The car is in my employer’s name but I can use it all the time, even for personal use. However it was given to me for me to use, not my family members and especially not for stupid reasons like going to the movies with friends or going to parties

Commenter 4: She learned early the fine art of playing one parent against the other and now expects to be a leech. Nothing wrong with pointing out the obvious fact of she needs to get a job. Don’t give in-NTA

OOP: Oh she did. Even now at 18 she still does it. Like she will come to us and complain about her mother, mom does this, mom does that, mom is like this. And of course then she goes to her mother and complains about us. I guess this is part of the reason her mom hates me. I am sure that Sally goes around telling her stuff that is mostly not true. I would have expected and wanted her mom to be an adult and come talk to me if she had any doubts but she barely talks to my husband so… I was made aware I am not a parent, just her father’s wife and I have no say in her upbringing

Is the stepdaughter in therapy to deal with her behaviors towards her parents and OOP?

OOP: She refuses therapy and her mother exploded when it was mentioned in the past. For her and her mother only insane people get therapy, so what can we do? We can’t force her.

Also, I understand what you are saying but the truth is she is manipulative and cares for no one except of herself. She will come to our house and talk shit about her mother. Mom does this, mom does that, mom is like this. Why? To gain sympathy from my husband, to make him feel like he needs to compensate for what her “horrible” mother is putting her through. Then she will go to her mother’s place and talk shit about us to fuel her mother’s dislike for us and make her also feel guilty and compensate. I think over the years she managed to convince both her parents that the other one is crazy.

How did the stepdaughter’s car break down?

OOP: Her car was an older one and some parts broke. There is a way to fix it, like they can replace all the parts that are broken but as far as I know it’s not worth repairing because the costs will exceed the actual value of the car entirely

bored36090: I don’t change my behavior to protect adults from themselves. Keys are on the table, my wallet is over there, beer in the fridge. However, choices have repercussions. You’re right, unfortunately, there will be ZERO accountability for “Sally.” But that’s something they can talk about when the cops show up. OP comes home, car is gone. I could wonder who stole it or just call the cops 👍🏾

Update: June 22, 2025 (two days later)

Hello again! Thank you for all the feedback you provided to my previous post, I really appreciate you spent your time to give me some ideas.

The majority of you advised me to hide my cars keys because Sally would most likely try to steal one of my cars when I am not home. You are not far from the truth because she oftentimes does this with her mother’s car, meaning she will take the car when her mom is not home without asking her if she needs it later or ask for permision. So your advice makes a lot of sense. However I refuse to do such thing in my own home. I believe if I end up in a position to have to hide my things in my own house, we’ll have a bigger problem that needs to be solved. Also where does this stop? Today I have to hide my car keys, later my money, later my purse? This is not the kind of life I want to have and it never happened to me as a teenager/young adult. When I used to live with my parents, I knew where everything was (car keys, m…

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  • Spacehooks@reddthat.comMEnglish
    1·
    14 days ago

    The majority of you advised me to hide my cars keys because Sally would most likely try to steal one of my cars when I am not home. You are not far from the truth because she oftentimes does this with her mother’s car, meaning she will take the car when her mom is not home without asking her if she needs it later or ask for permision. So your advice makes a lot of sense. However I refuse to do such thing in my own home. I believe if I end up in a position to have to hide my things in my own house, we’ll have a bigger problem that needs to be solved. Also where does this stop? Today I have to hide my car keys, later my money, later my purse? This is not the kind of life I want to have and it never happened to me as a teenager/young adult. When I used to live with my parents, I knew where everything was (car keys, money, documents, jewelry etc) and I have never taken anything without asking.

    So after reading the comments from r/bored36090 (thank you btw, I had a good laugh), I decided to follow their advice but in a less dramatic way. I sat my husband and his daughter down to have a chat. I made it clear in front of my husband that Sally insisted she uses one of my cars and I do not agree with it. Then I told Sally that I know she sometimes takes her mother’s car without asking and warned her not to dare do something with my cars when I am not home because if she does, I will call the police and report the car stolen. She was shocked and asked me if I would stoop so low as to report her for stealing just for a car that I don’t use or need anyways. I told her it’s not me who would stoop so low, but her because taking something that does not belong to you especially after being told no it’s the clear definition of stealing so yes, I would report it. I think for the first time in her life she understood there will be consequences for her actions and she did not protest further.

    After this I asked her to clarify in front of my husband how is it that me suggesting she gets a job makes me a person who tries to “exploit” her, based on what she told my MIL and SIL. My husband had no idea about it and he just…exploded. After hearing what happened he told her it’s good that we hear what she talks behind our backs because he will give her even more resons to complain. My husband told her she will not be seeing any money from him during this summer. Sally started crying and told him he can’t do this but husband told her he can and he will. His responsibility as her parent is to feed her, buy her clothes and help her pay for school items but that’s it. She is an adult and if she wants to party or see her friends she should start paying for it herself since she never appreciated anything she was given. Apparently this is the hill my husband he is willing to die on and he even told his ex wife about his plans, making it clear that if she wants to support Sally’s activities this summer she will have to do it alone because he will not contribute for anything that’s not a neccessity.

    So yeah, this is where we are at now. Sally stormed out of our house and of course went to her grandmother to complain. But I am waiting. If MIL opens any discussions about it with me I will make it clear she is free to support Sally as much as she wants, we are not stoping her.

    Relevant / Top Comments

    OOP responds to a downvoted commenter’s comment 1 and comment 2 accusing OOP, her husband, and his ex for failing to be a decent parent to the stepdaughter.

    OOP: I just love how simple minded you seem and how you look at things ignoring the nuances and the facts. Sure, you can blame everything on the parents but the reality is different. Yes, her parents did not get along and they made mistakes in raising her but I would not go too far saying they sucked completely.

    Guess what, there are kids in this world who had true horrible parents, abusive ones, or had no parents at all. And they managed to become decent human beings. How could that happen? It must be magic, right? But hey, you can keep up with this trend in blaming everything on someone else. You and people like you will have a great time in life.

    I am not going to bother since you seem to be the same level of entitlement as her. Keep up this mindset tho, as I said, it will help you a lot in life. And when you turn out to be a failure, don’t forget to blame others because based on your logic every basic, decent thing in this world needs to be taught. Screw common sense, screw respect, screw logic. If people don’t spell things to you, then you have no responsibility for your actions 🙂

    Just a funny thing to maybe reflect on. In his early years, I taught my son how to behave with pets by telling him that he needs to be mindful when playing with smaller beings because his force can hurt them by mistake. I have never spelled it out to my son not to hit babies. Guess what? He does not hit babies. Why? Because kids are not idiots and they have the capacity to think and make logical conections. If a child has the capacity to know not to hit babies because he can hurt them, an 18 years old has no excuse. Also fyi, I have told her countless of times it’s not ok to act entitled. And she still does 🙂 So spare me your nonsense

    Commenter 1: Good to hear spouse supports you. Not always the case.

    Commenter 2: Seems like a healthy dose of reality was served. And kudos to your husband for supporting you. Remember, you’re not being cruel, you’re teaching her responsibility. Keep us updated!

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