Just because you have a step-parent, doesn’t mean you will instantly create a bond.

And yet, this is what this man’s stepmother thinks should have happened since she married his dad.

She even expected to dance with him at his wedding and was upset when he danced with his grandma instead.

Does he owe her an apology?

Let’s find out.

AITA for not giving my dad’s wife a heads up that I was dancing with my granny at my wedding?

I (28, m) got married in November.

Ever since the wedding, there has been an ongoing disagreement over my choice to dance with my granny while my wife danced with her dad.

The big thing appears to be that I didn’t give my dad’s wife, who I met when I was 11, a heads up about this and she found out about the dance while it happened.

She was very upset, and he did not see it coming.

But the other layer appears to be that I asked my granny instead of my dad’s wife.

This has been brought up at least 7 different times since my wedding in November and over the weekend it was brought up again but it became an actual fight.

The short version is I never considered telling her about it before my wedding because I didn’t expect it to be an issue.

And she was not on my mind while I was planning the wedding.

This deeply offended his dad’s wife.

Longer version is that I didn’t consider warning her in advance or anything but I know there’s some more complexity to this.

I never considered her a mother figure.

I met her when I was 11 and she moved in with us when I was 12 and married dad when I was 13.

To me she was my dad’s girlfriend and then wife.

Not my mom or parent.

He never considered her a ‘stepmom’, but she had expectations.

When I was a teenager, we went to family therapy together because our relationship wasn’t developing like she expected.

She didn’t like feeling like she was only in mine and my sister’s life as long as she was with dad.

But that’s how we saw it (my sister is older btw).

She tried to be a mother figure but backed off by the time I left for college.

I thought it was her accepting the reality of the situation.

I still feel like my relationship with her is contingent on her being married to my dad and him being alive.

For this reason, he didn’t consider dancing with her at his wedding.

I’m not attached to her personally.

In February 2020 she and my dad separated and didn’t get back together until May 2022.

I didn’t speak to her from February 2020 until July 2022 when I saw her again for the first time since their breakup.

Things seemed fine at the time. She didn’t ask why we (my sister or me) didn’t call or anything.

But now it turns out she was still holding onto the hope that she was more.

And that she was a motherly figure enough that I would have asked her to dance with me instead of granny.

She is making sure he knows how upset she is.

Her feelings are hurt and she feels like I was disrespectful to her by not telling her beforehand.

On Saturday when it came up again she told me she felt insulted that I asked granny when she was there.

She said the fact that she and dad were sitting next to my wife’s parents made it more obvious that she was being snubbed and wasn’t considered a parent like the other three people sitting with her.

My sister told her she knew where we all stood and she thought we’d put it to rest when we were teens and went to family therapy with her and dad.

But she is still holding a grudge and creating expectations.

My dad’s wife said she figured there’d be enough respect for her to give a warning at least so she wasn’t blindsided.

I told her honestly I didn’t even think about doing it because I believed, like my sister, that any hard feelings about that were put to rest.

She said we’re both adults now.

That my sister is 31 and I’m 28.

She said she believed at our ages we would have come to see her in a different light.

Then things escalated.

She said it was cruel for me to give her no consideration at all when I planned the dance and I left her to be humiliated.

My dad said nothing during this and hasn’t spoken up at all when this was brought up in the last few months.

I told her I was sorry her feelings were hurt.

She said that was a crappy apology and hurt her feelings even more.

She told me I was inconsiderate.

Then she and my sister ended up fighting about it all.

Then I exchanged some heated words with her because she tried to place some blame on my wife for not warning her.

AITA?

Feelings are always valid, but acting upon them and shaming him, his wife and his sister is crossing the line.

Let’s see if Reddit agrees.

A reader shares their thoughts.

This commenter suggests what to tell her.

Someone says his dad should interfere.

This person suggests cutting ties entirely.

Another reader chimes in.

Just copy and paste.

He has the right to dance with whomever he wants at his wedding.

She is making it about her and it screams narcissism.

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.