Blending families can come with a lot highs and a lot of lows, especially if all adults involved aren't being completely fair. As one man shared on Reddit, his wife recently overstepped in a major way.
He explains: "I (M37) have a daughter (now 13) 'Olivia' from my former relationship. Currently, I'm married to my wife who has a daughter (16) 'Britney.'"
He notes the two girls have "opposite" personalities on many levels, with Britney being social while Olivia is much more introverted.
His daughter wanted a chocolate birthday cake.
"Olivia's 13th birthday was 2 days ago. She loves chocolate and I decided this is the flavor I was going to go with when I contacted the bakery. However, my wife objected since Britney absolutely hates chocolate and suggested we go with Vanilla. I said no way because for one, Olivia hates vanilla and it's also her birthday so, she gets to have her cake with her favorites flavor. My wife got upset and took it as in I had no regard for Britney and that we should just choose another netural flavor instead. I shut that down and said no more discussing this because I'd already decided to go with what Olivia wanted."
His wife changed the cake order behind his back.
"At the day of the birthday, I was supposed to go get the cake but I was surprised to see my wife coming home after picking up the cake from the bakery. I looked at it and discovered that it wasn't a chocolate cake but a vanilla cake with small pieces of chocolate on top. I got pissed thinking they got my order wrong and was about to contact them, but my wife said there was no mistake and that she called the bakery the day before and made 'slight changes' to the cake to please both girls."
He got mad and his wife got defensive.
"I was stunned I lost it on her and asked why the hell she did that. She got defensive saying that birthdays are no 'excuse' to show favoritism and that her daughter is 'watching' and 'observing' how I'm treating both girls. I told her off since I was the one paying then called the bakery and explained what happened. I had the cake returned and replaced with a chocolate cake. although this one is smaller but it was fine."
The two are in a major fight.
"My wife declined to take part in the celebration and later we got into a huge argument where she called me controlling and selfish for returing the cake instead of using this opportunity to teach Olivia to compromise so everyone's happy. now I'm teaching her to be 'selfish'. I said that my daughter gets to act 'selfish' on her birthday and that she (my wife) was teaching her daughter to be entitled. Word for word and it led to a bigger argument. We're not talking as of now."
People think the stepmom is 100% wrong.
As one person put it, this is part of how birthdays just go. The commenter wrote: "It’s Olivia’s birthday, not Britney’s birthday. The cake should be the flavor of what the birthday kid wants. This is a special day for Olivia, therefore there doesn’t really need to be 'fairness' between your daughters. I don’t like chocolate, but when it’s my sister’s birthday, we get chocolate because it’s what she likes. I suck it up because it’s her special day."
They also think the stepmom has been pulling stuff like this.
Quite a few people worry this is a pattern of behavior for the stepmother. As one person wrote, "This is just the first incident that he’s noticed. he should take his daughter out on a daddy daughter date (so she’s out of the house and feels safe) and ask if similar things have happened."
Ultimately it seems the stepmom isn't considering her own stepdaughter at all.
In conclusion: "A birthday cake is for the person [whose] birthday it is. It's not selfish or demeaning to get the person's favorite flavor. Your step daughter could've had a vanilla cupcake. But, no, you're wife made the point to go behind you back and change it for her daughter.
"Your wife talks about how her daughter is observing how you treat her. So your daughter doesn't matter? Your daughter would see a step mom who doesn't give two shits about her. Hypocrisy much?
"You did well in changing the cake. But you have way bigger problems in your home. The fact that she did this so flagrantly tells me she's been messing with your kid for a while. You probably just caught on."
