r/AITAH • u/WideCorners • 6d ago

My daughter just contacted me after 17 years asking if I want to meet my granddaughter. AITAH for telling her that I don’t care about her or her daughter and to never contact me again?

I am not sure if am I an AH. Going to provide some background.

I am in my 60s now. I was married to my ex wife, and we had a daughter. Our marriage was going through its ups and downs but I was really close with our daughter. But as our marriage was going through its difficulties, I made a huge mistake I still regret to this day. I started having an affair with my coworker. She was in an violent physically abusive relationship at home. We became friends at work, and things just escalated from there. She got “an out” from me, she got the support she needed to file for divorce from her husband, who is currently in jail now. The affair went nowhere and we called it off shortly after, but I was glad that she got off her abusive relationship and that she was safe. 

But when my ex wife found out about the affair, things expectedly didn’t go well. She lashed out and said a lot of horrible things about me to our daughter, who was 15 at the time. I admitted full fault with the affair, but even after the divorce, I sensed that the distance between me and my daughter was growing, until one day, my daughter said she wasn’t going to speak with me anymore, and she was going to cut me off from her life forever. That was the most painful thing anyone had ever said to me. I begged her to please reconsider. I still remember that day.

But time passed on. My daughter kept her word, and after trying to connect with her for the first year, I gave up. I found out from one of my mutual friends that my ex wife married a great guy. I was happy because I was hoping that would remove the hatred from my ex wife and my ex wife would advise our daughter to at-least rekindle a relationship with me. But that never happened. I moved states a year later. 

I am at peace now, but still have some aching sadness. I have retired. Both my parents have passed away, my brother passed away tragically a couple of years ago. To be honest, I am waiting for my turn. I have only my dog and my sister left.

A couple of hours ago, my daughter called me on my phone. I haven’t spoken to her in 17 years. I instantly recognized her voice, but I didn’t feel anything. No happiness, no sadness, just indifference. She was crying a lot on the call, and we caught up on life. She’s married, and she has a daughter who’s now 12. She apologized for cutting off contact, and she says her mom asked her to reconnect with me, as her mom felt guilty about how everything played out. She said she really wanted me to meet her daughter, and her daughter was constantly asking about granddaddy. But, I wasn’t feeling anything. After we caught up on everything and our life, I told her I don’t care about her or her daughter, and to never contact me again. I then hung up.

Was I the AH?

UPDATE:

Look, I was extremely drunk last night. The words which came out of my mouth weren’t the best, and my comments on my post weren’t great either. Seeing how everyone said I was the AH, I decided to call my daughter again an hour ago. I didn’t really expect her to pick up the call but she picked up immediately. I apologized for last night, and she said there was no need to apologize. I then sent her a link to this Reddit post on messages, and told her I know I was the AH, and thousands said so. She again said I wasn’t the AH. She started crying again. 

I told her she’s free to come to my house anytime the next 4 months, because after that I will be leaving the country with my sister and our dog. Our parents left us a nice farmhouse in their home country, and we will be spending the rest of our lives there. 

I sent her my address on messages, and my daughter said she’d come with her husband and her daughter by end of next week. She asked if she was welcome to stay there for multiple days, and I told her she could stay for however long she wanted, as our house was spacious enough.

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u/BojackTrashMan 6d ago

He's also projecting a lot onto his ex-wife when he has no idea what happened to all the years he never bothered to even try to call. "I heard the wife remarried so I really hoped she'd tell my daughter to talk to me" Yeah because this is all the wife's fault. 🙄

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u/EnvironmentalEnd6298 6d ago

My parents divorced as well (cheating wasn’t the reason but it didn’t help) and I didn’t really interact with my dad. I spent years not speaking to him. My mom never disparaged my dad in front of me. However, she was adamant that it was never the responsibility of the child to reach out. If the adult wanted a relationship with the child, the adult must be the adult and reach out to the child.

So OP, yeah, YTA

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u/RedneckDebutante 6d ago

Exactly! I'll never tell my daughter not to talk to her father, but I'm also not cleaning up his mess. He's the one who ignored her for most of her life, while I was always there for her. If he doesn't want to put in the effort, me doing it for him is only going to draw attention to how little he cares. You broke it, only you can fix it.

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u/Ready_Suggestion_929 5d ago

My sons dad and I have a messy relationship. Parental alienation on his end. And same way I did with my bonus kid, I just let them. Let them run me down. I was driving myself nuts trying to fix what they were breaking, and just show him who I am and let him decide himself. My dad did that for me, and it helped a lot not hearing “oh your mom did this” “oh your dad said this”

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u/RedneckDebutante 5d ago

Yeah, alienation is horrible parenting. If the other parent is neglectful or whatever, you shouldn't have to pile on to make it apparent. That's a parent not confident in their relationship with their kid. I'm so sorry you had to deal with that. That had to be crushing. The truth will usually come out, though. Most kids figure it out eventually.

It's funny that if my daughter and I argue, my husband used to try using that to bond with her. Kind of a "you know she's always overreacting" kind of thing. She shuts that shit down every time lol. He would also try "your daughter's mad at you" to try to use her to get to me, but I would always laugh and say that's ok. I'm 100% confident in the strength of our relationship, and it's OK for us not to always agree. I feel guilty sometimes that I benefitted from his neglect with our close bond, but it was also really hard to do it all alone.

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u/Ready_Suggestion_929 5d ago

My family keeps telling me “it all comes out in the wash” and I had to stop myself from feeling like I have to prove myself to my kid, my other kids 3F and bonus kid 23F are great, our relationship is good, I allow them to be mad at me, but they also know I’m here always. So instead of trying to prove myself to him, or “fact check” like when he came home the one time “you were never there!! Only step mom was” whipping out the photo album, or my favorite “you weren’t at my birthday party” saying “honey i can’t be somewhere I’m not invited .

Just showing him through my actions, I spent my whole life, proving myself to everyone, that I wasn’t a bad kid, or I was good, and I got to a spot in adult life where I knew I only had to prove it to me, and then when they’re actively attacking your character it’s hard to not be like “NOT AH!”

My dad was the alienated parent, not by my mom, but after she passed by my aunt. Who is a raging narcissist, and I didn’t speak to him for 7 years, but I called him when I started dating my hubby, and I needed help, he was there instantly. When I Started asking questions he showed me his 5 file boxes of him not giving up.

So I’m doing that for little dude, just putting everything in a special spot for when he does start asking questions.

It makes my heart heavy, thinking about how his little brain is probably so conflicted.

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u/RedneckDebutante 5d ago

That's so awful. You're doing a good thing, a good thing that demonstrates how much you love him. You're a better person than I am. I really, really hope it works out for you, and I'm glad you have the other two.