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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Away_Difficulty4428 on 2023-09-19 14:23:48.

This is a throwaway.

I (58F) have a daughter (34F) 'Mel'. I had her out of wedlock, and it was a very difficult time for me as I was sent away by my family to have her (they wanted me to give her up for adoption, but I kept her). The father (Paul) and I were in an on-off relationship. When Mel was born we lived together for a short while, but ended up breaking up in the 1st year of her life. We (Paul and I) went through some very difficult times and some other things happened I'd rather not talk about here. He wasn't a bad guy at all, just very young and uninterested in being a dad/being committed.

We both moved on, but didn't really keep in touch regularly. I met someone (John) and married when Mel was 4, and we had three other children. Mel and John have not had a great relationship (he has his own demons and they clashed often), but he provided financially for her. She gets on well with her step-siblings, in fact they are very close.

Mel rarely asked about her biological father growing up, and I gave very few details when she did as I thought it was best to leave all that in the past. He did contact me a number of times over the years (either directly or through family), asking if they could meet, but I never thought it was a good idea. As far as I was concerned she had a dad (John), and he had an opportunity to be with us back then and turned it down. Mel did get contacted by a family member of his in her teens, and she came to me to ask if I thought she should meet him, but I told her he was probably just looking for money or something (John is wealthy, Paul is not). She told the family member that she didn't want to meet him. A few other things happened in her 20s that I'm not proud of, but long story short they never met.

Now on to the AITA. Last year I was contacted by Paul's sister, telling me Paul is dying, and he didn't have long to live. He wanted to know if Mel would meet him, and I told his sister I would ask her. I thought about it a lot and decided that it's best to let sleeping dogs lie, so I never told Mel about the request. I told his sister she wasn't interested in meeting him. He died 2 weeks later. I went to the funeral to pay my respects and when his family asked about Mel I lied and said she didn't want to come.

Recently, a member of Paul's family found Mel on social media and has told her everything. Mel says she never wants to speak to me again, but from my perspective I was just protecting her from pain. Now our whole family is in chaos.

So, AITA for wanting to keep the past in the past?