Divorce is almost never easy, even if everyone involved has the best of intentions going on.

Kids are usually the ones stuck in the middle, and this situation is no different.

The poster and his wife were raised with different ideas of privacy and sharing, which led to their separation.

When his daughter complained about how her mother’s family treats her things, he told her she was old enough to choose where to live.

Check out the details to find out whether or not you think his ex was right to be upset with his response.

AITA For “Alienating” My Daughter Against Her Mom?

I (36m) have a daughter “Jane” (12f) with my ex “Mary” (37f) and one of the reasons we divorced was because our stances on family and personal boundaries were just too different.

Mary was one of six and grew up believing that “family always shares” to the extreme.

After we got married there were times where Mary would let her brothers borrow my stuff without asking and if it wasn’t returned in the exact condition that it was given she’d just shrug it off and say “we’re family so it’s okay.”

I hated it.

They just couldn’t get past it.

I did grow up with siblings and we did share but my parents instilled the importance of asking before taking, treating the items gently, respecting a person’s decision to say “No,” and understanding that there were just certain things that you don’t touch.

My family wasn’t rich but we were more financially stable than Mary’s side and that was always her go to argument whenever I would bring up how upset I was along with our differences in culture.

The final straw for me was when Mary allowed her sister to take my car while I was out of town.

Her sister wasn’t listed as a driver of the vehicle so when she got into an accident with it my insurance wouldn’t pay up (unless I filed charges) after the accident was ruled as her fault.

Mary’s sister refused to help pay the costs and Mary didn’t want to touch her own savings either and got an attitude when I needed to use her car, and I was just done.

Now their daughter is getting caught up in her mother’s philosophy.

We have 50/50 custody and unfortunately this “family shares everything” mentality is being passed down to the next generation and Jane’s cousins almost always take her things.

Her cousins can get pretty reckless with her stuff because they know none of the adults will raise much of a fuss and she “has a rich daddy” who can just buy her a new one.

Jane hates it and hates going over to her mom’s place or events with her mom’s side of the family because in addition to having to share her mom is now offering her up as a free babysitter for the younger cousins.

When she opened up to him, he told her maybe she could decide to have more time at his home.

Jane has never really talked to me about this because her mom made her feel as if this was something that she HAD to do no matter which parent she was with.

But one day when she was getting ready to go back to her mom’s she broke down and told me everything and I told her that when she’s 13 she can decide to stay with me longer if she wants to and that seemed to make her feel better.

My plan was to talk to Mary about this privately but when Jane and Mary got into an argument Jane let it slip what I said and now I’m being accused of brainwashing Jane and my ex is threatening to take me to court over it.

AITA?

You have to feel badly for the kid in this one.

I bet Reddit has some advice for this guy.

The top comment says mom is alienating herself.

Maybe it’s time to talk to his lawyer.

This person isn’t impressed with Mom, either.

Document, document, document!

His daughter is worth it.

She is old enough to have a say.

I’m curious what she’ll decide.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a daughter who invited herself to her parents’ 40th anniversary vacation for all the wrong reasons.