Everyone has heard of the evil stepmother trope.

It exists for a reason, but in most cases it’s not how things turn out, and a bonus family can turn out to be a beautiful thing.

But in this story, there’s not exactly a fairy tale ending…

Let’s untangle this web…

AITA for telling my mother about my stepmom being mean to me?

Hi! Sorry for the weird formatting since this was done on mobile and on a throwaway account since I don’t want my family finding this out.

I’m really desperate for the insight of people who don’t know me and aren’t biased.

My parents 54(m) and 56(f) have shared custody of me, 16(f), so I stay one week in my dad’s house and a week in my mom’s house.

This already sounds like a tricky situation for a kid.

My dad and mom both remarried, mom married Josh, 57(m) and dad married Alice, 50(f).

I have always had a good relationship with my stepmom.

She always treated me nicely and insisted I mustn’t see her as a mom but as a friend.

Keep in mind she is much wealthier than my dad, and purchased his house and the beach house they currently own.

For Christmas, me and my sister, Selena, 19(f), decided to go to my stepmom’s beach house with my dad and stepsibling.

Sounds like a nice getaway.

Also keep in mind that the beach has insects and spiders, as it is very tropical and I have a serious debilitating phobia of spiders which all of my family knows about.

Arachnophobia is no joke.

Everyday I used to find spiders in my room, which was really hard to deal with.

I would just try to pretend I didn’t see them until I could find someone to get them out.

Regardless, one day, my stepmother was helping me get the spider that was in my pillowcase, of course I freaked out.

She decided to go ask Alice…

I suggested that I could get an Uber to my mom’s place, which isn’t far away, since I really wasn’t enjoying the vacation because of that.

Plus, I could see them in the city for New Year’s Eve.

She got extremely upset at that, saying that I was nothing more than a spoiled little b-word and that I was a cow and that I could just call my mom since nobody wants me in their house anyway.

But Alice didn’t respond with a ton of maturity.

I started ugly crying.

This wasn’t the first time she called me stuff like that, but we had a friendly relationship now.

I called my mom and she threatened my dad, who defended my stepmom.

My mom called him a bad father, and now she is fighting for full custody of me and that really hurt my father.

Poor girl feels like no one is on their side.

I know that this has caused a strain on my dad and stepmother’s relationship, and that if they divorce my father is losing the house and a place to live.

He doesn’t work or make money anymore.

My sister is blaming me, saying I could have stayed a few more days.

But my mother says no matter how I freaked out, Alice should have never said these things to me.

This Alice was definitely not in Wonderland.

Was I the AH? How do I navigate this?

No matter how you feel about spiders, this is a tangled web.

What do our commenters say?

One person says, this stepmom is plain wrong.

Someone else agrees; stepmother overstepped.

This person says a spider in your pillow is every reason to run for it.

Another user agrees, she is not being a princess but stepmom is being a villain.

And lastly someone points out, Dad should definitely intervene.

This itsy-bitsy spider caused a great big blow-up.

Hopefully there can still be a happy ending.

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.