It is not easy to blend a family when one remarries after divorce. It can get especially muddy when the ex-spouse gets in the way. One frustrated dad found himself in exactly this position.
This dad wanted to take his whole family on vacation, which included his two children from his first marriage, his three children from his current marriage, and his stepdaughter. When his ex-wife refused to give him permission to take their shared children out of the country because of her racist views, he decided to just take part of his family. He took to Reddit to see if he was in the wrong.
Here's what you need to know.
Before he got into the travel situation, this dad gave Reddit users the backstory. He began: “My ex-wife Kate and I have two kids (Mike, 16 and Abby, 14). We had a turbulent marriage and split for many reasons. It wasn’t amicable and I had to fight for custody.”
He continued: “Kate and I both remarried. She didn’t have children with her new husband. I have three (9F, 7F, 5M) kids with my wife and also gained a stepdaughter (19). My stepdaughter’s father left after he found out my wife was pregnant, so she never knew her father. When I came into their lives I took on the role of a father figure. As far as blended families go, I am really lucky that we are all happy. My stepdaughter and I have good relationship and Mike and Abby love their siblings from my wife.”
Things were not perfect.
Sounds too good to be true right? Keep reading. “The only person that is against my family is my Kate,” he goes on to explain. “My wife is black and this has been a point of contention since the beginning. Especially the fact that my wife is a very dark-skinned black woman is problematic to her. Kate, her husband and I are very white. Kate hates my wife and, especially, my stepdaughter (her bio-dad is also black). Kate’s racism was one of many factors of our divorce. She has been mostly silent on my biracial kids even though they present as black. Thankfully Mike and Abby haven’t taken over her racism. Because of this, Kate has been on a crusade, trying to make my families life as difficult as possible. It came to a head last week. We were planning to go on a vacation abroad with the entire family. Including Mike and Abby. Everyone was looking forward to it. Especially, my stepdaughter was looking forward to it. But Kate wouldn’t sign the documents that would allow Mike and Abby to travel abroad (because they are minors). Everyone was really disappointed. It would be the first vacation abroad for my three bio-kids with my wife.”
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Plans moved forward anyway.
Dad decided to try and make the best of a bad situation. “I then decided to go and book the vacation anyway but without Mike and Abby,” he explained. “Understandably, they were not happy. Normal I don’t badmouth Kate in front of them, but I told them its because of her that they can’t go. This caused Kate to become really angry, saying I was prioritising my new family, and abandoning Mike and Abby. She somehow placed the blame for all this on my stepdaughter. Saying my stepdaughter was taking their father away. Also calling me a ‘race traitor’, which didn’t make sense.”
Things got messy.
Dad was not prepared for the backlash he was about to receive. “This unleashed a s—storm with everyone of our friends weighing in, with some saying I am an [expletive]. Mike and Abby are pissed at me for not going on vacation, and place the blame on me, after I deflected blame away from my stepdaughter. Kate calls me an [expletive] for going on vacation. I am beginning to think booking the vacation was a mistake,” he concluded adding a plea for the forum to weigh in.
Most of the users sided with dad.
Most of the Reddit users were firmly on team dad, with a few dissenters. Understandably, there was not much love for Kate on the site.
One user weighed in: “NTA. Kate is a racist and her kids should know.”
“NTA and your kids deserve to know the truth,” chimed in another. "Mom would not let you go. Take it up with her. End of story."
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Another user agreed with dad but also took the opportunity to weigh in on the custody arrangement.
“Do you have a case for parental alienation?" the person asked. "If not, time to start collecting evidence to get your kids away from an unhinged racist.”
Not everyone was completely on the dad's side.
Some Redditors did not agree with dad for taking only part of his family on vacation.
One user ruled that “everyone sucks here.” They went on to explain their reasoning: “You are at also fault here for booking a vacation that two of your six children cannot go on and then expecting them to be fine and dandy with the idea of being left out while you take the rest of their siblings on vacay, no matter whose fault it is. The correct thing to do here is to cancel the vacation for the entire family, and book a new lovely vacation somewhere in the country where you live that EVERYONE can go on.”
Reddit was divided on this.
Many agreed and offered their own explanations about why.
“You can be technically in the right and emotionally in the wrong,” mused another user in agreement. “Dudes abandoning his kids with his difficult ex wife, and fueling the fire of the alienation his ex wife is participating in.”
No easy conclusions here.
The bottom line is this is not an open and shut case. Now that this dad has been given a wide range of opinions, he can do his own soul searching to come up with the best solution for his family. It won’t be easy, but no one ever said fatherhood would be easy, just worth it.
These stories are based on posts found on Reddit. Reddit is a user-generated social news aggregation, web content rating, and discussion website where registered members submit content to the site and can up- or down-vote the content. The accuracy and authenticity of each story cannot be confirmed by our staff.
