Blended families come with some unique challenges, but with the right effort from everyone, they can be a wonderful thing.

What would you do if while at a family get together for your long-term girlfriend, her dad intentionally excluded you from family photos?

That is what happened to the boyfriend in this story, so he tried to photobomb the pictures, which made the dad upset, and then his girlfriend got upset at the dad.

The boyfriend wants to apologize, but the girlfriend won’t let him, so he isn’t sure what to do.

Check it out.

AITA for apologizing for a Dad Fight at my kids birthday party?

My (27M) girlfriend (31F) is divorced (amicably, he came out as Gay) and I’ve all but moved in with her and her son who I will call Jason (11M).

We’ve been dating for about a year (known each other for longer than that) and I’ve been picking up her kid after soccer while she’s at her job late some days (Pediatric Dentist).

He isn’t interested in calling me Dad but he DOES call me Dude (he says it sounds like Dad but isn’t dad because I’m “Just A Dude”), he’s a great kid and I love him dearly.

This is a reasonable request.

Jason’s 11th birthday party was this past week and my girlfriends father pulled me aside and asked me if I would stay out of their Family Photos, a tradition they’ve been doing every year since he was born where they take the picture in the same group pose so they can all line up in their album.

Now, I thought I’d be real funny and photobomb this with a funny face and a peace sign, and while Jason and I were both giggling afterward my FIL was not.

They did get the family photo later, even after I went and asked him more formally if i could be in it (he declined), and I have to say it did kind of get under my skin a bit.

I had been pretty much living with them for some time now and it really stung to be formally uninvited from a family tradition centered around my kid.

Come on, grow up. It isn’t about you.

This ended up hitting me harder than I expected honestly and I was morose and silent throughout the rest of the party.

Now, her dad seemed like a really good guy. However, he was not at all happy with me now.

He pulled me out to the back porch and yelled at me about how I was so disrespectful to family tradition that started when my girlfriends mother was still alive (She passed away during Covid) and when her sister (older, adopted when she was a teenager, moved to Germany a few years ago) was living with them.

This is awkward.

I had not been aware of the severity of the situation and started crying and apologizing. It was loud and the neighbors 100% heard it.

Its at this point my girlfriend comes out and she sees her dad yelling at me and me crying. She was very angry at him for how he was treating me behind her back and he ended up leaving in a huff.

I can see why she is upset with both.

She was very mad at him but also at me for starting a scene over something that she thought was so silly.

This is my question. I wanted to call him to apologize for the way I acted. My girlfriend, however, when I asked her for his phone number didn’t want me to.

She said I didn’t do anything wrong, and I didn’t know the situation at the time, and that he needed to have someone not bend over backwards for forgiveness just because of a disagreement.

I understand that she feels like that but her dad already isn’t 100 percent on me.

I work at a weed shop, and he’s given me stern warnings before about the kind of long term responsibility he expects from me if I’m going to be his grandkids’ parent.

He is in a difficult situation to be sure.

I don’t want to go behind my girlfriends back when she has expressly told me not to apologize.

So I guess I have to ask: AITA for still planning to?

The safe move is to do what the girlfriend says, or at the very least tell her what you are planning.

Hiding things like this never goes well.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say.

He was causing problems and should apologize.

This commenter says he shouldn’t be making things about himself.

Exactly, who intentionally photobombs family pictures.

This guy is very weird.

Yup, this is very immature behavior.

He needs to grow up.

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.