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In an ideal world, all children would grow up in families where they know that their parents or carers love them unconditionally. A life in which they are guided and yet given the space to make mistakes, treated firmly but fairly, and given praise for the little things as well as the big things, alongside being gently chided when appropriate, gives the kid the structure to grow into a healthy adult. Ideally life in childhood would be predictable and structured, with consistency throughout.

However, none of us are perfect, and life doesn’t always wind up the way you might have hoped. Take the family in this story, for example. When the mom and dad had their two daughters, they never imagined a situation where they’d be divorcing when the girls were teenagers. But that turned out to be the case, with the family having to move out of the home in which the girls had grown up. But the way the parents handled the situation led to resentment from one of the girls, and things are about to get tense in this family.

Read on to find out why.

AITA for giving my daughter’s loft space to her sister when she moved in with her dad full time?

I (38, female) and my ex (40, male) have two daughters, Hope (15, female) and Grace (13, female).

We divorced three years ago, and our divorce process was messy, and it unfortunately caused some strain with Hope and I.

My ex had some comments about me breaking up our family by filing for divorce, and she ate it up. I didn’t assume the blame with words, but I didn’t defend myself either.

My ex and I both moved into new houses after the sale of the family home and this was an early sore spot for Hope because it is my fault she lost her home.

Let’s see what their living situation is like.

We currently live in three bedroom home, and one of the smaller bedrooms has a loft area above it. When we moved in, Hope and Grace decided that Hope can have the bedroom with the loft since it’ll help keep her art supplies contained.

My ex and I shared the girls 50/50 until seven months ago when Hope moved in with him full time. She had been asking since our separation if she could just stay with him and I agreed. We still see each other and text frequently and she stays over every other weekend.

Two weeks ago, Grace asked me if she and Hope could switch bedrooms since she is the one who is with me more and it is unfair that Hope has so much space when she is barely here.

I talked with their dad and Hope to ask them how they both felt about our new arrangement, and Hope pointed out that our relationship has improved a lot since we aren’t butting heads so much anymore.

So she allowed Grace to move to the loft room.

Since everyone is pleased with their current sleeping arrangements, I gave Grace the okay to switch rooms. I told Hope of the room change and asked her to sort through her room and loft that way she could keep track of what she has and where it is.

She didn’t take it well. She told me that she knew she was right to leave my house because I favour Grace and she always felt like she was the secnd favorite child.

I never meant to make her feel like second best, but I have to admit that I do have a soft spot for Grace because their dad openly favours Hope since she is more like him and I didn’t want Grace to feel lesser because of it. And yes, Grace is more like me.

I was firm with Hope and reminded her that she was the one who left to go to her dad’s full time, and now she is using the loft more for storage than actual utilisation.

Read on to find out how Hope reacted.

Hope started to cry and said she felt like she was being pushed out of my life. She called her dad to pick her up, which he did.

He told me that I was being unfair because if Hope was still going back and forth between homes, the larger room would have stayed hers so why change it up? Grace isn’t losing anything by being in her old room.

I told him that Grace is the one who spends more time with me, so she should be able to pick which room she wants. His final remark was that I always favored Grace and that’s why I lost Hope.

It’s been two weeks and Hope’s texts have been terse with her sister and I. She won’t eat dinner at the table with us and she hasn’t stayed the night.

AITA?

This is a really tricky situation, and it feels like the parents’ irresponsible handling of their divorce has adversely affected the sisters.

Instead of all this drama, they need to be emotionally there for both of their daughters – even considering therapy – and not speaking negatively about each other in the kids’ presence.

In the end, this isn’t about the bedroom – which understandably hurt Hope – it’s about the parents putting their issues with one another aside to actually be adults and parents to their children.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit made of this.

This person agreed that the kids need professional support with this family upheaval.

While others thought that both parents having their favourites was a bad omen.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a brother who is upset his parents bought his recovering sister a brand-new car but wouldn’t help him out with a used one.

Meanwhile, this Redditor thought that it was right for Grace to have the room, but the parents were wrong to not be supporting Hope through this difficult time.

It really feels like these parents have underestimated the upheaval on the kids. Sure, the mom and dad have lost their marriage and the life they built together – they’re having to both start afresh, and that is stressful and painful to say the least. But the two daughters have lost all the security and certainty that they thought they had – the very foundations that their young lives were built on has been shaken, their family unit broken, and to make matters worse, they’ve had to leave their family home too.

Clearly, with the way the parents are treating one another, their divorce was the right thing for both of them, but it has been orchestrated poorly, with not enough concern for the kids. Because both daughters should know that their mom and dad love them equally, and the fact that it’s blatantly clear to both that this isn’t the case is really unfair. As for talking negatively about the other parent? That’s a really bad idea, and is only going to psychologically impact the girls even further.