Imagine inviting your dad and stepmom to join you at a family dinner with your mom, aunts and grandma. If your stepmom complained about how many people were there, would you be annoyed since these people are your family, or would you simply ignore her?

In this story, one woman is in this situation, and she can’t ignore her stepmom’s disrespectful words about her family. Calling her out on it just leads to more drama.

Let’s read the whole story.

My(30F) Stepmom (50F) wants my dad to scold me in FRONT OF HER!

My(30 Female) father (48 Male) married my stepmom (50Female) a year ago.

Initially the relationship with my step mom was great. She didn’t get along with the rest of my dad’s side of the family, but she hadn’t done anything directly to me.

I figured it was just small town attitudes and tried to stay out of it.

It doesn’t seem like there’s any real drama in this family.

My dad and my mom (48 female) never married and have not been together since before I was born, so there is no hard feelings there.

If I do a birthday dinner both sets of parents come etc. So when I went to OKC to visit my grandmother and my mom’s side of the family, my dad and my stepmom were going to be in the area as well at the same time to visit my stepmom’s best friend.

I suggested we all get dinner together one day we are there.

This seems odd.

When we arrived at the dinner I set tables aside for the kids and then had a long table for the adults.

My stepmom beelines it to the kids table and sets herself and my dad’s things there.

I didn’t want them to feel left out (even though she did it) so I sat at their table and went back and forth.

She mentioned she invited her friend which was fine but when the friend got there they just huddled in the corner whispering.

Talk about rude!

Later in the dinner my stepmom pipes and up says to her friend, “I’m so sorry, had I known all these people would have been here and it was going to be this weird I wouldn’t have invited you.”

I was really offended because “all these people” are my mother, aunts and grandmother. And we didn’t invite the friend!

I went back to my hotel and thought about it and it really bothered me so I send a nice text basically saying, hey I appreciate and love you, but I didn’t like that you said that in front of me, and in the future please keep the comments to yourself, or say it when I’m not around.

Sometimes ignoring a problem is better than arguing.

She told my dad I was so disrespectful to her for this and she complained about the text and told him he should “talk to me” their whole way home.

He didn’t tell me about it, my little sister did.

I thought about it awhile, but I let it go. I moved on like everything was normal and when she acted weird I just ignored it.

Her stepmom clearly isn’t over it.

FLASH FORWARD TO LAST WEEK – I saw on social media she posted about liars and not being prioritized and that if people wanted to prioritize you they would.

Come on. I grew up around the start of social media beef. I know it when I see it.

I reached out to my little sister to see if anything happened and she let it all out.

There was lots of turmoil and arguing. She felt in the middle. (This is not her mom but she wanted to adopt my sister, another whole story.)

Her stepmom got mad again!

I reached out to my dad and my stepmom’s mutual best friend. My dad and this friend have been friends since they were in high school and my step mom and the friend recently got very close.

I asked if she could please see what was going on and check on them both because of the post I saw. I didn’t think they would want to hear my advise as their “child”.

Due to this my stepmom told my dad that this is the 2nd time I disrespected her and that he better call me and basically put me in my place.

My dad told her he would call me the next day on his way home from work and she said no she wanted to be there because she didn’t believe he would call me and talk to me about this.

I wonder why she doesn’t see her kids more often.

Then it’s brought up that they always see me yet never see her kids. She has 2 adult children as well that live 10-20 minutes from them and I live 2 hours away but still make it to visit once a month which is more than her kids visit.

She doesn’t respond when that is brought up and feels like he is treating me better than her kids and feels like my dad isn’t “defending” her against me?

My dad told her he would call me and talk to me about how she felt, and see how I felt, then we would all three talk.

She replied that she had no intention at all of being on that call.

I don’t know where to go from here.

She handled the situation very politely.

I reached out to my stepmom and said, “Hello I’m always open to having a respectful conversation directly, just you and me, whenever you’re ready. But I’m not comfortable being “corrected” through a situation where I’m being talked to instead of spoken with. I value peace and want our family time, especially with the holidays coming up. I want things to stay positive, so whenever you’re ready for an adult conversation where we both get to speak, I’m here. Until then, I’m moving forward calmly and with no hard feelings.”

She left me on read and forwarded the message to my dad.

My poor dad I’m sure feels in the middle of this and said why don’t we just move on and forget this ever happened but I can’t let this go.

AITAH if I don’t come around to events she is at until we have a talk? I don’t even mean apologize, but at least until she stops ignoring me and we try to talk it out to whatever conclusion?

Her stepmom is crazy. Who invites a friend to a family dinner and then complains about all the people (family) who showed up? And then to get mad about being called out about it? It’s probably best to avoid her drama.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

She should let her dad handle it.

Another person thinks the stepmom is way out of line.

Here’s another suggestion to avoid the stepmom.

She shouldn’t avoid her sister.

At least she’s an adult and doesn’t have to live with her crazy stepmom.

If you liked this post, you might want to read this story about a teacher who taught the school’s administration a lesson after they made a sick kid take a final exam.