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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/RororonoRowan on 2023-10-02 22:14:33.
I (26M) do not have a great relationship with my Father Tony and Step Mother Alannah (49F) and I am content on letting it stay that way. Tony never wanted to be a father, He was a career military man and a serial cheater.
My Mother Cait (52F) and Tony were very off and on during my childhood and it was always hard seeing him leave for what I thought would be forever. The last time they had gotten back together things seemed fine, until it was revealed that Tony was seeing Alannah the entire break and the entire time they had gotten back together.
Its not like Alannah was unaware that Tony was married and had 2 kids, she knew the entire time and was not only fine with it but encouraged it as well.
It broke my heart seeing him choose her over his family and after it was all revealed she made it evidently clear she wanted nothing to do with my sister Ann (24F) and I, even after many attempts on our end to try to get to know who she was as a person.
Tony had us on weekends in which he would try to buy us extravagant gifts in return for our loyalty and silence whenever he would shit talk our mother to us. If we ever refused he would say that we are "being ungrateful" after everything that he had done for us and would call us "awful spoiled brats"
A year goes by and Tony informs us all that he is currently being deployed to Iraq and would be gone for a whole year. After we talked and were saying our goodbyes Ann storms off upstairs extremely upset, when Tony had called to her for a hug she did not respond. This is when he yells out to her "Your father is going to a war torn country and could very possibly die and you aren't gonna come down and give him a Hug? Wow" and left. For clarification purposes I was 13 and she was 12 during this time.
Tony was never deployed to Iraq at that time, but instead went to Brazil to marry Alannah and invited his entire family, except for his two children. We didn't even find it out from him but from a Facebook post made by my Aunt about the wedding. Cait demanded to know why he lied about the wedding and why Ann and I were excluded from the event entirely. Tony then says that I "sexually harassed Alannah" and that there was proof. Whenever Cait or I would ask Tony for the proof he would say that he did not need to show the evidence since his word should be enough.
We stopped talking for a while then, the first 10 years was no contact but after I turned 22 we spoke on and off until last month. He had called me and asked why I didn't reach out to him more often and after I told him that I was not interested in a one sided relationship again he goes off calling me a fucking asshole for not wanting to fix what i apparently ruined and told me that I needed to fucking apologize to Alannah.
AITA? Should I allow my father back into my life after everything he has done to me and my family? Should I apologize to Alannah about something I never did?
There needs to be a dedicated subreddit for step relations related AITAs