Reminder: I am not OOP. Do not harass OOP.

Originally posted in r/amiwrong by u/ThrowRADangDan

Original: Oct 19, 2023

Update: later the same day

Original

So I 44m have a daughter who just turned 17. I own a caravan, which is left on a plot of land on a holiday park. I have owned it for around 5 years and we visit multiple times a year. Last year when she was 15, she didn’t want to come down and go to the holiday park with the family, and I trusted her as a 15 year old to be okay by herself for the weekend. Well she was caught throwing a party at which the TV was smashed and the surround sound was broken due to someone spilling wine on it and the carpet was the end of that. Now whenever we come down to the caravan she has to come with us.

At first she hated it, and it was a huge ordeal to get her to come along, with a lot of sulky teenage girl behaviour. Over time she warmed up to it though, and she seemed to really enjoy coming, even looking forward to it. Well last weekend, while we were down we were in a sports bar that we frequent on the resort, when a girl who works in the bar asked my daughter if she would be going to “M”s (that’s his initial) House this weekend. My daughter looked horrified when she said this and she just said “I don’t know”. She had just been outed. Well when we get home I ask who the hell the guy is and when exactly she has been seeing him. Turns out that for the last 10 months she has been sneaking out the caravan when everyone else is in bed and seeing a guy who lives down there.

Needless to say she was in deep trouble. The next day we are in the sports bar again and I go up to order a drink and notice the name tag of a guy who’s serving me my pint. I strike up a conversation with him, and we make small talk. I ask him how old he is. He says TWENTY FOUR!!!. I am not yet certain if it’s the same person, or just a coincidence and don’t want to jump to conclusions, so I quickly finish my drink and take everyone back to the caravan for a family meeting. When we get in I confiscate my daughters phone, and this is in fact the guy she has been seeing. I go through their messages, and my worse fears are confirmed, they have been in a sexual relationship for months, beginning when she was 16. But what makes this story worse is my daughter has lied about her age. I see through their messages she has told the guy she is 20. I lose it at her and tell her how awful what she is doing is etc.

My wife is strangely quiet and I ask why she isn’t saying anything. She admits that she knew my daughter had a crush on him, and had been encouraging her crush, by pointing out the guy checking her out. And she even knew they had been texting. However my daughter lied to my wife and told her he was 18. My wife claims that they had only spoken about the guy since this summer (when my daughter was 17). She also says she had no idea my daughter had been meeting the guy in secret, but this part I am currently unsure if I believe. Using her phone I ring the guy and explained the truth of the situation. To say he was horrified is an understatement. He apologised to me maybe 100x and has blocked my daughter.

My daughter has lost her phone privileges, as I pay for it, and if she wants a knew one she will be getting it herself. I am also going to sell the caravan. She has so far refused to speak to me other then to say I ruined her life over and over. I say this all starts and ends with her being untrustworthy. She lied to me and my wife by throwing a party, then she lied to the guy about her age, then she again lied to my wife about the guys age, then she again lied to both of us by sneaking out every weekend. I told her I am ashamed and disgusted by her behaviour as I didn’t intend to raise a liar, and that she has pulled in and likely traumatised some innocent young man and could of even ruined his life by her own selfish lies.

My wife thinks I’m being too hard on her, and that she’s a teenage girl doing teenage girl things, and is worried about this permanently damaging my relationship with her. I think no way. I am horrified by her behaviour. This is too much. AITA?

Just to clear a few things up, as a lot of people are making repeat comments.

1. The punishment of forcing her along was only until the end of the summer last year, as we would be down there a lot then. At the end of the summer last year is when she developed the crush on the bartender, and decided to keep coming to oogle at him. We went down there again for the Christmas break and she asked for his number, and that’s when their relationship begun. I did allow her to drink wine with our dinners a few times during the Christmas break, so I wonder if that contributed to her image of being 20.

2. MY WIFE DID NOT KNOW HIS AGE. My wife noticed the two of them looking at each other and exchanging smiles a lot this summer, which is when she questioned my daughter about him. My daughter then confided in my wife that they had been texting this summer, and told her he was 18. My wife encouraged the relationship, and said she was happy my daughter had met a handsome young man, and was getting to experience a holiday romance. My wife also noticed a huge attitude improvement since they had been talking so she thought it was a good thing. My wife has been devastated upon finding out she had been encouraging the relationship, now she knows the truth of the matter.

3. I AM SURE THE GUY DID NOT KNOW HER AGE. TRUST ME THINGS WOULD OF GONE VERY DIFFERENTLY IF NOT. You are all free to make your assumptions all you want. But you forget I know my daughter and what she looks like, as well as reading their conversations. My daughter is 5’8, which is tall for her age and women in general. She has a passion for make up and does hair and beauty at college. It is not a stretch to believe she is actually 3 years older. Especially when you add the lies I MYSELF READ HER SEND TO HIM. Lying about being in university, lying about losing her ID when being invited to a club, lying about living alone at university. etc etc etc.

4. We are NOT American. We are from the UK. No statutory rape occurred. The guy isn’t and wouldn’t be in any legal trouble if this came out. But it would likely ruin his life regardless. A 24 year old sleeping with a 16/17 year old is hugely not okay over here. It is generally understood that the low AoC here is so that teenagers can sleep with other teenagers. And even then a 19 and a 16 year old would still be frowned upon. A 24 year old would be seen as a predator, and ostracised for this.

Please do not slut shame my daughter. It is perfectly acceptable for a girl her age to have crushes, date, and have sex. Just with people her own age.

Please do not make the mistake of thinking for a second you know the situation better than me, or have my daughters best interest at heart more then me. Thank you.

...

Update: same day

So I have today taken on a lot of feed back and decided to go back and talk to my wife. During the conversation my wife admitted that there was times she knew my daughter was going out and meeting him, and that she had made her download life360 to do so. She claims that she picked up on it toward the end of this summer, after catching my daughter trying to leave the caravan in the dead of night. I told her no wonder where our daughter gets her habit of lying from.

Because of this revelation I have decided I will be giving my daughter back her phone. It is not fair to punish her for something she was actually given permission to do. Me and my wife had a big fall out, as I said that if she is going to go behind my back and make decisions unilaterally she at least owes it to my daughter and myself to do the due diligence to make sure that everything is above board and safe. My wife has been very apologetic but despite her pleading me not to go I have gone to stay in a hotel for a few days as I cannot even look at her right now.

My wife claims that the reason she didn’t inform me is that my daughter begged her not to, as she was embarrassed about the idea of me knowing she is having sex. I’m not an idiot. I assumed my daughter had probably had sex, or at least experimented. Hell I was the one who suggested to my wife we look into BC for her at 16. I don’t care what she does as long as she’s safe and responsible.

I spoke to my daughter and told her that even though I’m disappointed in her, I love her. She tells me she was in love. I say love is meaningless if it’s built on a lie, which is why I’m leaving for a few days. She seemed to understand this, at least I hope. We hugged, she cried some and then I left.

I don’t know if I will update this again. I don’t know if there is much else to say. I’m just gonna relax and play some pool I think. I don’t have work until Monday so I will probably return some time Sunday. I feel like this whole thing is gonna give me an aneurism.

Comments

User says:

Hopefully, this moment is a wake-up call for your wife to realize what being a "cool mom" has resulted in. Your daughter is going to be off on her own pretty soon here, expected to make adult decisions. It's better that she face consequences for her actions now and learn from them instead of making these same mistakes further down the road, when the consequences could be more severe. It's a tough situations, but hopefully it's a good learning experience for your wife and your daughter.

Just out of curiosity, have you given any thought to how you're going to proceed with your wife? Has she shown any signs of changing as a parent after all this?

OOP replies:

Truthfully as soon as my daughters lies came out she seemed extremely remorseful. She was crying herself to sleep saying she failed as a mother, and I spent most the week reassuring her she hadn’t.

Now I see the real reason she took it so hard, which makes it sting even more. She thought she was enabling a cute teenage holiday romance, but actually she was letting my daughter run around with some clueless man in his mid 20’s.

Some space from her for the meantime followed by some form of marriage counselling feels like the only way forward for me.

Reminder: I am not OOP. Do not harass OOP.

Marked Concluded per OOPs final update. OOPs account has also been suspended.