'AITA for reading my daughter's messages to her stepmother?'
"AITA for reading my daughter's messages to her stepmother?"
My daughter is 14. She and I have what I perceive to be a great relationship - she talks to me, laughs with me, tells me who she has a crush on, gets excited when we spend one on one time together...
gets angry at me when I tell her 'no' and every now and then comes and cuddles on the couch when we watch TV. She spends half her time with me, and half her time at her dad's house.
Her father has a wife and together they have three other children. My daughter loves her stepmother, referring to her as her 'other mum'. That's fine. But I started to have my suspicions about how her stepmother talks about me.
There were little things, like my daughter saying things to me that she clearly hadn't thought of herself. Offering opinions that clearly weren't her own.
So I looked through her phone. Hear me out. Yes, I know that's not ok. I know it's private and that it was an invasion of privacy.
It came from a place of genuine concern. I found that I was right, my daughter's stepmother openly and actively undermines me, says nasty things about me and seems to be trying to get my daughter to hate me.
Things I found:
1. Repeated instances of stepmother encouraging my daughter not to talk to me until I respond to messages stepmother sent me.
2. Screenshots of message I sent to stepmother and she makes fun of my good grammar ('I mean, why does she feel the need to write so formally, it's just a message, it's like she's trying to show off!) I'm a professional brand writer; it's just how I write.
3. Turning things I say into running jokes. For example, I had been encouraging my daughter to find a hobby to get her away from screens, and there were repeated instances of 'haha, maybe that should be your hobby!'.
4. Many, many times where stepmother says things like, 'I mean, I should just ask your mum to come have a coffee with me so we can be friends, but your mum would never come', which, for the record, she has never done.
She also calls me rude. Now, to be honest, I am not the most friendly person to her, because I have had my suspicions for a long time about what has been going on. I am not overly friendly, I am polite, but never rude. I don't actually care what she says about me.
But I do care that my daughter has this constant barrage of negative talk about me because it's never my daughter who instigates it, and she doesn't wholeheartedly engage in any of this. I want to put a stop to it. I want to talk to her father about it, beause maybe he doesn't know what's going on?
But I'm afraid of putting more pressure on my daughter (because I don't actually think the behaviour would stop, I just think they would stop putting it in writing), and I'm also afraid that her father will just belittle my concerns.
Also, to bring anything up, I would have to tell my daughter I had gone through her phone. No matter what my good intentions were, I understand that that is a complete betrayal of trust. What do I do? AITA?
Let's see what internet users had to say.
Technically, yes, YTA. Keep in mind, your question is specifically, "AITA for snooping through my daughter's phone?" Yes, you are. But you're suggesting that because you hit paydirt, that somehow makes you NTA for snooping. It doesn't. You got valuable intel, but you got it the wrong way.
Is there a way that you can legitimately search your daughter's phone? Some excuse that you can come up with to tell or ask her to hand over her phone?
AudreyOnTrack OP responded:
Thank you, I respect your response. I have been contemplating simply telling her I have some concerns about what I believe her stepmother might be saying about me and outright asking her if I could look at what she has been saying about me.
YTA. You admit what you did was wrong. You said you and your daughter have a great relationship, so why does it matter what stepmom says? It would be one thing if what they were saying was impacting your relationship with your daughter, but that doesn’t seem like the case here. Is it annoying and immature? Yea. But your “concerns” are going to end up pushing your daughter away if you pursue this.
AudreyOnTrack OP responded:
I agree that it doesn't seem to be impacting my relationship with her. My concern, which I should have stated in the original post, is that it's putting my daughter in the situation where she is encouraged to participat
pedgebillie writes:
NTA, you’re daughter is still young enough where she can be easily manipulated and influenced, what stepmom is doing is parental alienation and the people calling you the ah for knowing your daughter well enough to know the signs of said manipulation must not have kids or aren’t willing to do what it takes to keep them safe.
okhomework8 writes:
YTA, I understand why you went through your daughter's phone, but at the end of the day, you completely violated her trust. If you'd suspected your ex's wife was undermining you, that was a discussion you should have had with your ex or his wife or even broached the subject with your daughter.