Losing a mother is heartbreaking, as is losing a spouse.

What would you do if your mother passed away years ago, and then more recently, so did your step-mom, and your father wasn’t dealing with the grief in a healthy way?

That is what happened to the daughter’s father in this story, and sadly, Dad is taking it out on her, and things really blew up over Thanksgiving.

AITAH for not accepting my dad lashing out at me because I didn’t honor his late wife when I graduated?

My dad’s been a widower twice now.

This would be awful.

My mom died when I (18M) was 7 years old and it was hell for me.

Mom had cancer and the last two years she was alive she was so sick and wasted away to nothing.

Going through this as a child is heartbreaking.

I remember being so afraid of her at the very end and then feeling so guilty about it. Her death wrecked me.

My dad remarried when I was 10 and his wife was diagnosed with ALS three years ago. She died in January.

This is such a terrible situation for everyone involved.

Her death really devastated dad even more than my mom’s did.

My half siblings were just turned 4 and almost 6 when she died and they were really broken too.

Well, this is understandable.

But I wasn’t close to her and didn’t have my own grief when she died.

My dad struggled for months.

He is doing the best he can.

Around May he started to talk about my graduation and it seemed like motivation for him to keep moving.

But right after my graduation he declined again and he became very distant from me. I tried talking to him about it but he shut me down and he shut his siblings (my aunts and uncles) down.

That is good at least.

They got him to agree to spend Thanksgiving as a family.

He showed up and he was more on edge and avoided me for 80% of the day. A couple of family members brought it up and he’d deny it but then he moved away when I approached.

I think this was a smart decision.

I didn’t want to have any kind of fight in front of everyone else so I didn’t push it.

But then he lost it and started lashing out at me.

He really shouldn’t do that, but he is obviously grieving.

He brought up the way I was so okay with his wife’s death and how it didn’t take anything out of me. Then he told me I disrespected him, my half siblings and her by not honoring his late wife at my graduation.

He said I found time to mention mom but not the woman who was in my life for 8 whole years and took on the mom role when I didn’t have another around to do it.

This is absolutely out of line.

He told me he hated me and it was disgusting behavior and he had wanted to beat me for my disrespect.

Two of my uncles tried to calm it down but he kept making threats and implying I was some kind of disrespectful brat or monster or demon (he called me that three??? times).

He has no right, but I can see why it would upset him.

I told my dad he had no right to decide who I would and wouldn’t honor at my graduation and I said I wasn’t going to take him lashing out at me when he knew I wasn’t close to his wife when she was alive.

He yelled over me that I was supposed to realize how important she was to me after she died.

He needs to get some therapy.

I was supposed to act like her death was a huge thing because she was there and she loved me and she loved them and we were a family.

He told me if I had to honor mom I needed to honor both moms or I should be honoring the most recent loss.

Yeah, Dad is not dealing with this in a healthy way.

He said I didn’t even cry when she died and yet when mom died he thought I’d never stop. I said because mom was my mom and I loved her and it killed me to lose her. I told him I was done and he could yell at a wall.

I left. Aunts and uncles told me they were sorry Dad was being like that and they would try to talk to him.

He is still upset about it.

He started texting me for the first time in months giving me attitude for walking away and not being more understanding of his grieving process when he let me cry it out after mom died.

AITAH?

His grief is absolutely understandable, but he is not handling it in a healthy way, and it is sad that he is taking it out on his daughter.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this heartbreaking situation.

Sadly, I think this commenter is right.

This commenter recommends distancing herself from Dad.

Hopefully this family can get some help.

Dad shouldn’t be treating his daughter this way.

Keeping her distance is a good idea.

Dad needs therapy right away.

If you enjoyed that story, read this one about a mom who was forced to bring her three kids with her to apply for government benefits, but ended up getting the job of her dreams.