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The original was posted on /r/amitheasshole by /u/WikidStep on 2024-01-21 19:25:23+00:00.
A few years ago I met my dad for the first time. My mother had given me up for adoption, so he didn’t know about me until the magic of DNA tests connected us. Since we connected, we have been building a relationship, with mutual visits and occasional phone calls. (We live on opposite sides of the country.)
He got divorced a few years ago and since then has been dating “Liz”. Liz is significantly younger than he is, and is an extrovert with a big personality. She was widowed a few years ago and she and my dad (who had known each other for years) started dating shortly thereafter.
My dad recently retired and bought a condo in Florida. He suggested coming to my house for Christmas and then the two of us roadtripping across the country to his condo as a fun father-child bonding experience. I agreed that it sounded fun, and so we spent late December and early January adventuring together.
In the course of our discussions, he told me that Liz had done a number of things which make me concerned for him. For instance, she decided she wanted him to move in with her, so she sent him to see one of his other children for a week and while he was gone she went to his house, gave away most of his possesssions, and moved some of her friends into his house. He was very upset, but she told him he was being irrational and needed to move on. When he decided to buy his condo in Florida, she told him that she would be in charge of decorating it, then proceeded to insist on choices of furniture and dishes which are deeply impractical for day-to-day use — for instance, insisting that the only dishes be his grandmother’s china set, none of which is dishwashable, and which contains so many place settings it completely filled the kitchen cupboards leaving almost no room for food. Whenever he tries to assert his preferences or tastes or the need for practicality, she gets upset and gives him ultimatums.
Over the course of the time we spent together, he talked through all of this with me and was clearly upset by it.
I finally told him that it seemed like many of the dynamics in their relationship aren’t very healthy, and that he needed to be willing to set boundaries that gave him some control over his own life and choices. We subsequently purchased a few needed practical things for the condo without Liz’s blessing, about which she is now irate.
In my subsequent conversations with my father, it seems increasingly likely their relationship is going to end.
Liz told him I’m being TA because she’s known him longer than me (true) and she spends more time with him (also true) and that I’m just stirring up trouble I don’t have to face the consequences for.
AITA?