Desperate father suggests family therapy for his 17-year-old daughter and her stepmother to get along, teenage daughter refuses to go: 'I don't care if you're comfortable'

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Briana Viser • Writer and Editor
Sep 18, 2025 1:00 PM EDT

Family therapy sounds like it can either make things a lot better, or just make things more complicated. I couldn't imagine it in my family. My dad would probably just sit there the whole time confused. But in the story here, the father suggests it after years of his daughter and wife fighting. 

The protagonist is his 17-year-old daughter. When she was 11, she lost her mom. Her dad remarried and moved in with his wife, her stepmom. She has held onto animosity since day one. The stepmom insists that there are no photos of her husband's ex, which is insane in mg opinion. How jealous and insecure can you be? Jealousy can really affect things. It's common for jealous people to try to erase their partner's past. In my experience, I think it's important to cherish their past as a means to understanding them. But you'll have to read the full story below for all the details.

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  • 01

    AITA for telling my stepmother that I don't care about her comfort or her feeling like she's home?

    Family therapy
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    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    I (17f) met my stepmother (who I call step irl) her and dad got engaged and married and she moved in with us all when I was
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    11. My mom had d d two years before that. When she moved in with us (her and dad were engaged) she told him she wasn't
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  • 04
    comfortable with any photos of my mom in the house. There were two in the living room and some in my room. The rest were taken
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  • 05
    down by dad before she moved in. I got mad at dad for taking down the last two in the living room and he told me it was her
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  • 06
    home too and she deserved to feel comfortable with us. He asked me why I had a problem with it and I told him because it
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  • 07
    was mom's home first and was supposed to be mine. He repeated that she deserved to be comfortable and didn't I want
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    that for her. I told him nobody cared if I wanted her there or if I was comfortable. He told me mom wasn't being erased and it
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  • 09
    was making space for the new love in our lives. I told him he might love her but I didn't.
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  • 10
    I complained when she could hear too and when she was saying she wanted them hidden
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    or out of the house I said that wasn't fair and she was my mom but she ignored me.
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  • 12
    Once she was settled in stepb was all about trying to make us close and she acted like she was my mom and my best friend. I
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  • 13
    ignored her or would be ride to her and I got in trouble for that a lot. Any attempt she made to spend time with me or bond I
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  • 14
    rejected and I didn't make her feel welcome or wanted because she wasn't. She tried and tried, even trying to make her her maid
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  • 15
    of honor and I kicked up a huge fuss. For years I have either ignored her or been råde.
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  • 16
    It's been 6 years and it was only when I told dad recently that I'll be moving out in November (my birthday month) that she was like
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  • 17
    why am I being like this and she told me she didn't think it was fair that I made her uncomfortable in her own home. She said she did
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    Parents and their child
    via kabita Darlami from Pexels / Canva

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 19
    nothing to deserve being treated like an outsider in her new family. I was like you will always be an outsider to me. She didn't think
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  • 20
    that was fair but I didn't give a cr p. I told her she wanted all traces of mom gone but guess what I was always going to be a
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  • 21
    trace of mom and she was getting what she wanted by removing it all. She told me it wasn't fair and expecting her to live with
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  • 22
    reminders of the ded first wife was cruel. I told her what was cruel was not thinking about the fact the de d first wife had a child
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  • 23
    who wanted to see her face still. She told me that's what other people's houses were for. She said she deserved to feel like this
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  • 24
    was her home too. I told her that I never cared about her comfort or her feeling like she was home just like she didn't care about that for me.
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  • 25
    Dad walked into the fight and was like let's all go to family therapy and work this out and I said we weren't a family so I wasn't going.
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  • 26
    That's when stepb told me I was treating her like on my shoe and she didn't deserve it and the hostility and lack of
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    FAMILY
    via hidesy / Canva

    Image is representative only and does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 28
    regard for her as a person was disgusting because I could say to her face that I don't care about her comfort or deny the fact we're
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  • 29
    family. Dad said we should just work this out and try to mend things because we are in fact
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  • 30
    family but I was like never going to happen and she was saying over and over she didn't deserve this sh. AITA?
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  • 31
    Low-Buy6029 • 19h ago The time for therapy was when she first started the talk about moving in and
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  • 32
    erasing your mother. Dad and his wife created this issue by NOT addressing this then.
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family drama family therapy drama toxic stepmom family feud relationships lol love family reddit thread red flag Reddit funny money dating
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