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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Agreeable-Yam3062 on 2023-09-17 02:46:49.

Me (43M) and my wife (45) have lived together for 12 years. My stepdaughter Kat (24) does not work and lives with us. I work full time, my wife sometimes part time.

Kat suffers from severe social anxiety, and has written a note to her mother about not wanting to live anymore when she was only 14; reason being that she was too afraid to go to school. She’s been through three therapists since and has been with the fourth for over a year now. She would leave therapy for a while, then ‘relapse’ and return a few months/years later.

This might sound callous, but even though she has been officially diagnosed, Kat’s disorder is not very visible. She’s very introverted and dislikes family gatherings, prefers staying at home over doing any activity and even going on vacation with us, but that aside she’s normal. She can hold a conversation fine, and has plenty of online friends that she talks to daily. It never seemed like a huge issue, as she did graduate just fine, but it’s become a problem ever since said graduation.

Kat went to university and even moved out to do so for a year, but came back home after not attending classes after the first month and then obviously failing them. She claims it was because classes were too difficult to keep up with while also having to be among people all day, so she stopped going and shut herself in her dorm room.

I know she’s not stupid, but she is also not very ambitious. This is another problem, as she has had severe difficulty finding work after she’s come home. She worked for a few weeks after we found her a job working in a school kitchen, but was fired. Her work ethic as a whole was reportedly okay - again, not stupid, just little effort.

Since then, she’s applied to very few jobs and gotten no interviews. She specifies her disorder in every job application. I believe this is a stupid idea, as employers would probably skip over any applicants that have issues from the get go, especially because she doesn’t outwardly show that she has a disorder anyway. I think Kat knows this as well, and does it on purpose.

After so many years of being in and out of therapy for something that she has always lived/managed with, I can’t help but feel like she has just weaponized it to not have to work.

My wife supports her daughter fully, and has even taken on to working herself so that she doesn’t feel guilty about me supporting her daughter. She doesn’t have to do this; I make enough money for all three of us and Kat doesn’t cause any expenses beyond food and affordable clothing. Kat feels guilty in turn because of this, but nothing has changed with her behavior.

I think it would be better if Kat just worked and moved out to learn some independence. My wife thinks this would only make Kat miserable and that we should support her since she is ‘working on it’ in therapy. I don’t know how long we have to wait until Kat will be done ‘working on it’ - it’s been over 10 years.

AITA?