Who gets to decide how you decorate your own home? You or your parents?

You, obviously, at least, that’s the way it should be.

In today’s story, one woman isn’t sure what to do after her stepdad criticized a decorating decision she made in her own home.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for displaying my parents wedding portrait in my place but not from my mom and stepdad’s wedding?

My dad died when I (23f) was 7 after having cancer for 5 years.

I remember him but a lot of those memories are so bittersweet.

I was 9 when my mom met my stepdad and I was 13 when they got married.

To me he was always more mom’s husband than my parent or father figure and he and I do not agree on most stuff (politics, general life stuff and religion) so I never felt very close to him or had much of a fondness for him.

Her mom and stepdad are upset with a decorating choice she made.

I bring this up because my mom and stepdad are unhappy with my decision to have my parents wedding portrait on display in my new place with my boyfriend but not one from their wedding.

My boyfriend has his parents wedding portrait up there too. We each chose the one that was used most from our memories.

My boyfriend lost his parents so it’s also kind of a memorial for us even though mom is alive.

There’s a good reason why she made this choice.

I’ll be honest I don’t care enough about the marriage between my mom and stepdad to want to display their wedding in my house.

But I like to look back at my dad being healthy and my parents happy.

My mom was bothered way less than my stepdad.

Her stepdad was really vocal about her decision.

My boyfriend and I had a small house warming which is when they saw it and my stepdad mentioned it 6 times during the house warming. 5 of those times to me, 2 of those times to my boyfriend and once to a few others who were there.

He said it was an act of disrespect toward him to display one and not the other. And he told me it hurt because he feels like he’s been more of a dad to me than my dad got to be but here I am idealizing someone I lost over a decade ago. He said he’s always been respectful of us remembering and missing dad but that’s just saying he doesn’t matter.

I held my tongue but I wanted to tell him he matters to mom not me.

Her mom was kinder.

Mom’s only comment was that it was a shame I didn’t consider how it would come across but she said it was nice to see the little display we had for the two photos and she hadn’t seen the photo in a decade herself.

But my stepdad told me I ruined my own house with that photo.

AITA?

The stepdad is way out of line to criticize what pictures she does and does not have on display in her own home.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks she should be just as honest as her stepdad.

Her stepdad can’t dictate who she loves and how she grieves.

It doesn’t matter if her stepdad is upset. She didn’t do anything wrong.

This person thinks the stepdad sees her as a possession he’s trying to control.

This person’s comment relates to the mom.

Her stepdad should’ve kept his thoughts to himself.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.