A teen whose father disappeared after endangering him as a child wants nothing to do with the man, or the new family he built without him.

But when his dad’s stepdaughter and wife start demanding he form relationships with their kids, things escalate fast.

From school counselors getting involved to being guilt-tripped about “family,” he’s wondering if opting out makes him the bad guy.

My dad isn’t in my life but he’s married and has kids AITAH for not wanting to have a relationship with them?

My dad (and he is 100% my bio dad) isn’t a part of my life.

When he and my mom were going through their divorce, I was about 5 at the time, he saw me every other weekend and he tried to see me more than that and then he got arrested with a DUI while I was in the car with him.

He ended up getting fined but serving no time because it was a first offense. But I never saw him for visitation again after that. He was supposed to see me for supervised visits but he never showed.

Yikes.

From what I (17M) know he never paid child support either but my mom doesn’t talk about that with me. All I know is for a few years she was in and out of court and we were tight on money at times when I was younger and he never appeared to struggle with that whenever I saw him.

He lives 20 minutes from where me and mom live. I have always seen him around. He never tried to say hi or anything and I remember one time he looked angry when he saw us and turned around and walked away from me and mom.

It stunk when I was younger and it hurt my feelings. Then I got to a point where I was like, forget him! He’s the one who put me in danger driving with alcohol in his system and he’s the one who chose to stop seeing me.

This seems like a him problem.

I got to the point where I just don’t care about him or having anything to do with him or anyone connected with him.

I always knew there was a chance he’d end up having more kids. It wasn’t until a few months ago I realized he was married, raising a stepkid and had two more bio kids.

It was his stepkid (15ish) who reached out to me and told me that her mom and her wanted to get to know me and for me to know *our* siblings. She told me she was pretty excited to have an older brother and that my dad had been so good to her.

Oh?

I was like you don’t have an older brother and sorry I’m not interested. She asked me a few more times and I always said sorry no.

Then her mom picked her up from school one day and asked me why I was denying my blood siblings. She told me that two of her kids are related to me and they deserve to know their family whether it’s a half family or not.

I told her that wasn’t my problem and I had nothing to do with dad or anyone related to him and if she had a problem with it to take it up with her husband.

Sorry not sorry.

This woman ended up contacting my mom and giving her a hard time. My mom asked me if the woman had spoken to me and I told her she had. Mom said if she ever approached me like that again to let her know and call the cops if she wouldn’t leave me alone. She hasn’t approached me since.

But her daughter goes around school telling everyone we’re siblings. She even got the school counselor involved who wanted to know why I was against the idea of having a relationship with *my siblings*.

I just don’t care. We share some blood so what. That’s not important to me and neither is giving some strangers what they want.

AITAH?·

Most readers felt he’s justified in guarding his peace, biology alone doesn’t obligate anyone to build relationships, especially when the parent in question never showed up.

This person has a suggestion.

This person says to contact a lawyer.

And this person says there’s zero reason to stick up for the dad.

Not wanting to play big brother to strangers doesn’t make you heartless, it just means you learned from the one adult who didn’t show up.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.