AITA for skipping my daughter’s wedding?
I(53M) have a daughter(27F) who is getting married in a few months-we will call her Kay. Kay has been with her soon to be husband for about 5 years now and they are finally tying the knot. I know he makes her happy, and that’s honestly all a father could possibly hope for-especially since I did not have a great time being married to her mother. I did remarry a couple of years back, as has my ex-wife. Because we are divorced and my ex-wife has had primary custody, I have had to accept knowing they’re has been another man helping raise my daughter. I don’t like him, but not for any reason that makes a difference in this case-but they have been together since Kay was a child(around 8 or so).
I used to take Kay every other weekend until she was 15 or 16 and she started working. After that, I tried to see here as much as possible when she had time. I did my best to stay as much in her life as I could, but once she got older she had her own stuff going on, it became hard. I did end up moving down to Florida about 2 years ago with my now wife, so seeing Kay has become impossible unless someone travels, but we still talk.
I know Kay has been busy planning her wedding, and I really don’t get a say in what happens. Kay did call me asking for me to provide the bar charge, which was around $3k. I told her that shouldn’t be an issue since I’ll have some time to get that money together. Other than that, not much has said to me about her wedding.
Well, my sister just came to visit us from Wisconsin and we were talking about K’s wedding. I don’t know what got the conversation going, but my sister filled me in on an interesting fact…apparently Kay wants me and her step-father to walk her down the aisle. This is the first I have heard of this.
This took me by surprise since I thought I had a better relationship with Kay than it seems. This flipped my whole world upside down. Giving her away at her wedding is something I have been looking forward to since the day she was born…and now that’s a moment I have to share with another man? And the fact that I heard from my sister and not straight from Kay.
After my sister left, I called her. I told her that I wouldn’t be able to afford the $3k bar fee-which she seemed ok with…and then I asked her if it was true, her having us both walk her down the aisle-which she didn’t deny. I told Kay that if that’s the case, I wouldn’t be attending her wedding period. At this point, we we’re both upset. I told Kay that if she cared so little about me to take my feelings into consideration that I had no interest in taking part of her wedding…but it really seemed like she didn’t care about me. She never thought to tell me on her own…she never cared to ask me who I wanted to invite to her wedding…she really only brought her wedding up to me when she asked me for money. After all of this happened, I’ve had some people tell me I was a dick…but I think I have every right to not attend her wedding if I don’t want to.