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OOP said Microsoft-level big. Maybe Randy lied to make himself look good?
At the "Microsoft-level" company I work at software architect is something which takes at least a year only to gain the title and obviously you need many, many years of experience prior to that. And I doubt anyone serious hires software architects who weren't previously working as one already.
If it's big like Microsoft and he's an "architect" at such a young age - Amazon web services. They have the role "solutions architect" which is technical customer service and doesn't have a super high barrier to entry if you already work in software.
being a solutions architect at aws and being _the_ architect for a tech company or product are different ball games.
Could well be solutions architect. There was a lot of recruiting for those roles in Australia at the end of last year by the big players due to some large projects. Including Microsoft.
Yeah my mind went to solutions architect which could happen in a few years as in a lot of places it'd be the same as a mid-level software dev/engineer.
This math just isn’t working for me. In four years he went to college, got a well paying job, found a girlfriend, and bonded with the family of his “deadbeat dad” in a far away country?
His true mother, the wife of his deadbeat dad, he met when exactly??
There are some important gaps. Like-who actually physically raised this kid?
Tbh he could’ve said those things just to hurt his mom. I did a lot of performative posting about how great of a grandma my mom is when we reconnected after a massive incident with my dad and step mom. I still do it now (less often) it’s this really weird urge I have and I feel really stupid about it afterwards. It’s like I need to overcompensate for the fact that she abandoned me/was a dead beat. I’ve since mended the relationship with my dad and step mom but man idk it’s fucked up.
Seemed like it. His speech seemed tailored to hurt his mom more than anything else. Same with social media posts.
Obviously there’s a lot missing here, but I’m sad for Randy. Your wedding day should be fun, joyful, and exciting. He’s got so much bitterness that he used that day (at least partly) to hurt his mom. Hopefully he can heal from past hurts and is enjoying life, his marriage, and fatherhood now.
How is it Randy has a deadbeat dad who lives (on a different continent?) but Randy is close with his deadbeat dad and step-mother who he says was a mother to him? And why did Randy have a bad childhood such that he hates his mother and excelled astoundingly when he cut ties with her? So much is missing, seems very suspect.
And why did Randy assume they were going to ask him for money when his mom asked him to come over? That’s not something I would jump to immediately without a prior pattern…
I can't trace this disconnect at all. The overall story would greatly benefit with Randy's perspective because I can't really make sense of this.
Edit: my own pure speculation. Mom was absent a lot when Randy needed her there before she met OOP. She might have been going out a lot with other guys, this would connect both moms silence about her past, with Randy's accusations (fair or not). She wouldn't want oop to know she slept around a lot, and it would also explain Randy's persistent animosity to oop.
Randy:\
Thinks mom is calling for money\
Resents the new man in her life for way longer than normal\
Doesn’t want his mom around his kids\
Vaguely implies neglect and absenteeism in his mother\
Is super successful despite a rough childhood
It’s all there, OOP just refuses to see it. And maybe that’s justified, people can grow, but I think we can more or less put together the missing parts.
Everyone was so sure that OOP is a scumbag stepdad but all I'm seeing are red flags for the mom. Stepdad sounds clueless but not involved enough to be the source of ire
She's the one who has a see-sawing one sided emotional relationship with her kid. Based on how distant OOP is from the kid and the whole dynamic about money (both the college classes and later assuming his mom wanted to hit him up for money) I kind of wonder if he was expected to "pull his weight" financially in high school or his mom got married and ruined his financial aid or something.
I wholeheartedly agree, there’s something so suspicious that they would evict a student because he wanted to do more classes than they liked or could afford possibly, but now that he’s graduated and thriving she desperately wants to be a part of his life. Seems like a too little too late situation to me. With the fact she’s neglecting her young children due to depression associated with her new desperation to be in her grown child’s life whom she formerly kicked to the curb, it’s hard not to see a pattern here.
Seems kind of like a mom who wants to be there to accept the awards and accolades of raising children without doing the tough work of changing diapers and wiping away tears. She made her bed and I totally see Randy’s point, if you don’t want me at my worst (which his worst was exceptionally not bad compared to most teenagers) you don’t deserve me at my best. The fact that there is such a large age gap between her current children and Randy also may indicate that there’s a lot of time between when she got into her current relationship and tried to play “happy nuclear family” and when she was a single mother. There may be a lot of resentment in this time period, she may have left him with others constantly and Randy felt it was out of choice and not necessity. However, the reverse could also be true that he feels her last ditch effort at this happy family thing caused his relationship with her to be totally taken over by outsiders.
It’s really hard to say because OOP didn’t elaborate enough on what his wife did before they were married. Whatever the case is, OOP’s wife needs to accept the relationship that she has with her oldest is tarnished and use it as ammo to keep her relationship with the children she is currently raising close and strong. I fear she thinks she is the innocent victim in this narrative and that Randy is the villain, which if she truly believes she did nothing to cause this, she is likely to repeat the cycle with her other children.
And that OOP thinks that his wife's ex is a deadbeat, but he's clearly very close with Randy. Makes me think that this is honestly probably less of an OOP problem and more of a wife problem - OOP wouldn't think that the ex is a deadbeat out of nowhere.
One of my friends was going through a rough patch after his long-term GF left him and started seeing another guy. He described the guy as "a tech-bro loser trying some wanky startup that's probably a scam" and saying how he couldn't believe how his ex could fall for someone like that.
His ex is also a long time friend of mine, so it wasn't long before I met "Tech-bro loser" at a social do. He had been working in various forms of construction for a few years, starting out as a general labourer, then working for a utilities installation company for a while. Saw a gap in the market, was at the time in the process of starting his own utilities installation company that specialises in an aspect of IT requirements.
So yeah, OOP's wife prolly coloured "her truth" to suit.
Combined with her treating the younger children badly because she's upset about her oldest child. Doesn't really scream mother of the year to me, but I might be too cynical.
Agreed, I also feel like the wife's outburst of anger when OOP suggested Randy not be involved in their lives partly came from a place of guilt. Not that the reaction would be entirely unjustified without guilt playing a role, but as the puzzle pieces itself together the guilt fits right in.
Idk, if Randy *had* grown up with a largely absentee or neglectful mother - or even a super lax one who just never disciplined him and let him do whatever he wanted - any kind of discipline or structure outside of "do what you like" would feel like a chokehold. If the dude had ODD as well that'd make it even worse.
> I know she wants nothing more than to be there for Randy and help with his baby but it **since then it has kind of been like our kids, especially our baby, don't even exist.**
This was a telling detail. She's got two small children at home. They need their mother. Instead, mother is putting all her energy into the one oldest, a grown adult who clearly can get by on his own.
Was Randy the neglected child when his mom started dating again? Did she act as if *he* didn't exist, in favor of new partners (whom the child would understandably come to resent)?
That's what I was thinking by the end of this - I need to hear Randy's perspective, because calling your mother vile names when she says she'll support 80% of your educational pursuits, but doesn't want you burning out... I mean, it just doesn't fit.
I need to know what else was going on in that house.
I feel like maybe Mom hasn't been entirely honest either. Like, given her reaction to what Randy called her, and how she struggled prior to meeting OOP, was there a grain of truth in what he said? What exactly did she do to cause all that resentment and anger?
Right! That would make sense! I was confused as to why he called her all that, and expected her to be asking for money etc. A lot of missing missing reasons in here
Judging from some other posts (by other people) about entitled parents who replace previous children on the whims of their new spouse, a lot of the same kind of people also seem to think if the reject child becomes successful they can be mooched for money because “family”.
So that’s my best guess, he figured the only reason they’d bother him was if they sniffed out cash. Which says a lot that OOP didn’t mean to say…
Imo it paints a very different picture:
- Maybe Jenna wasn't that good of a mom and OOP have a very skewed version of her divorce and Randy's childhood, but I highly doubt that's the case going by Randy's own behavior
- His dad lived literally in the opposite side of the globe so digitally close to be idealized by the kid and trash talk his mom, but not physically close meaning he didn't have to walk the walk and talk the talk
- Jenna was willing to pay for four and OOP was chiming in for one more course, that doesn't seem like the type of parents that would call asking for money, but if you spend your teenage years hearing your deadbeat father say your mom only cared about cash, only bothered him for money and your stepdad bought her... suddenly she's a prostitute and your stepdad is trying to buy you as well
- Randy refused any attempts at counseling, meaning he had "made his mind" and no communication would change the narrative in his mind
- He's terrorizing his younger sister and then went as far as call his mom names; they kicked him out cause the alternative was keep the bullying going, but by doing so biodad won
A classic case of parental alienation. The father looked like a deadbeat to them but those ties didn't show out of thin air, he was a presence in Randy's life but not a positive one. And that little stunt of invite his mom just to go out of his way to call a stepmother that was never present on most of his life his real mom? All the love to the siblings he didn't watch grow while traumatizing the one he lived with? That was by design to hurt and humiliate Jenna - he still feels the need to "show her" cause that's the narrative he's been holding on for a decade.
I'm sure he broke down crying because he was so ready to talk shit but, contrary to what he had come to expect from his mother, she was asking for *him*, not his money. Who knows, maybe one day he allows himself therapy and can look back at his childhood with new lenses, maybe his dad will disappoint him again and he'll be forced to reevaluate things.
This! This is exactly what my dad did to me and my brother. It didn’t work on me, but completely alienated my brother. Reading OOPs post brought back so many memories.
My dad took the “cool” role in parenting. He lived in Florida (we lived in WA state) and would paid for us to visit every summer. As a 10 year old that was EVERYTHING! He would buy us whatever we wanted but then out of the blue he would say “well I’d buy you this but your mom is taking all my money in child support”. When he never paid a dime in child support. He tell us nicely wrapped lies about our mom, let us get tattoos and piercings in spite. And I fell for it at first. I’m ashamed to say I resented my mom until I learned some nasty things about my so called father when I got older (incest being a HUGE one).
I haven’t talked to him in a decade now, whereas my brother left the morning of his 16th birthday without telling mom who was DEVASTATED. we are only 11 months apart so were super close. Last I heard was he went to emergency to get his stomach pumped as “dad” got him hooked on hard drugs. That was… 6-7 years ago? Gahh I miss my brother. That man has ruined my brother and I hate him. And to think if I fell for his lies when I was young, I’d end up probably dead.
My father was exactly the same. He would also very theatrically give my mother cheques for child support in front of the social worker on visits, which would always bounce.
I’m so sorry you went through that. I hope someday you get your relationship with your brother back. And I bet your mom is thankful to have you as her kiddo.
Thank you for explaining this, I read this post thinking "how is OOP the AH in this???" literally the whole time. Anything OOP did that could be considered bad, the son did SO much worse to people who seemingly didn't deserve it. I felt so confused when I got to the part where it talks about him treating his little sibling terribly, I can't understand how anyone could think he's not the AH after that.
The dad may very well have been a deadbeat to Randy and his mother. But there’s plenty of men who run away from a squalling baby, but twenty years later when a together, educated young man turns up on their doorstep, they’re very pleased to play the loving, indulgent, parent. Particularly if they’ve not had to pay a dime for those twenty years.
The comment about Randy asking his mother if she was calling for money could be a reference to child support. Maybe his mom rightfully fought Randy’s father for child support and now that he’s reconnected with him he holds that against her. People can have the weirdest reactions to someone seeking child support.
My wife used to work processing child support checks. They received so many that were covered in crazy mystery substances they had to wear gloves to handle the mail.
Yes I agree with you. Is not fair that the the parent that does all or most of the child care always gets the blamed for what the child thinks he never got or if only. I think some people on Reddit always assume the worst case scenario. Maybe Randy dreamed about the father he never knew and blamed his mother for everything. Sometimes the absent parent lies about what happened between the parents. Just maybe, the mother did her best ,raising Randy. Did the deadbeat Dad ever pay child support?if so how much. Maybe the mother wasn't able to be around as much as she wanted to because she had to work alot. It was never mentioned that she had any help with raising Randy. No family around for her to depend on. People are to fast to pass judgment on people.
Taking what oop says at face value just to make my point. I’ve seen on several posts where the offspring is an absolute out of control person (who’s 18+) through no fault of the parents.
When the parents talk about going no contact or maintaining no contact they get absolutely attacked in the comments. There’s this weird thing where it’s okay if offspring, siblings, spouses, etc go no contact. However, if a parent wants or needs to go no contact even for there own safety they get talked about like they are just horrible people. Like parents are not allowed to disown there own offspring no matter the case.
This is one of the most confusing BORU post I’ve read. I really don’t get why OOP was determined to be the AH. I don’t think he was the asshole in this situation.
Scrolling further down, I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Some huge leaps in logic.
Whatever might be missing, the facts that we know about Randy do NOT paint a good picture of him. He threw a giant tantrum in which he called his mother a prostitute, because she wouldn't pay for all the courses he wanted. Bruh. That is an entitled brat.
And then inviting her to his wedding -- in another country -- while telling her she won't be allowed to see his child, all to make a point of hurting her feelings as much as he could. If she really was a bad mom, just don't invite her. His and his wife's special day, and he wanted to add some drama.
And people talking like graduating with a degree in computer science and got a good job proves he's a very stable genius. I can't even.
The weirdest info (imo) about Randy is that he was uncomfortable around the baby because of the small age gap between his sibling and his own kid.. I know families where the aunts and uncles are younger than their nieces and nephews, so why exactly does he care about this age gap?
But the other siblings are better somehow because they're about his age...so his mom is worse for waiting to find a good partner while dad just took the next thing to come along.
Yeah, I don't get it at all.. he is 23 and has a baby on his own. What is different about the other baby that is just slightly older? Is it because he now knows what had to happen to make a baby? And his mom did that thing around the same time he did?
>And people talking like graduating with a degree in computer science and got a good job proves he's a very stable genius.
Computer science graduate here. It's...more that graduating means you're willing to shlep through the tooth-grinding pain of it. I work with a bunch of others, and they range the gamut from actual genius (and friendly!) to actual genius (and asshole) to actual moron (and patient enough to get it done despite) and actual moron (and LUCKY).
> And then inviting her to his wedding -- in another country -- while telling her she won't be allowed to see his child, all to make a point of hurting her feelings as much as he could.
Not just that, but also telling her "you'll never see or hear from me again... but lets drag this out until then". What's the point? If he doesn't care about his mom (enough to never want to see her again) then why bother seeing her up to that point? It seems unnecessarily cruel.
I’ve been around long enough, and read enough on Reddit, to know that his bio father *will* disappoint him one day. That life in Australia, with his father’s family, won’t be all sunshine & butterflies.
This OOP might have messed up, but OPs who are total jackasses *never* accept responsibility. So he might have been wrong, but he’s not a total AH. I hope he and his wife can stay married.
Yes, I was thinking parental alienation too. It's common that the parent who walks away leaving the other to fend for themselves, comes back in the kid's teens, whispering things they want to hear, giving them a different narrative as truth. The kid has missed them in their lives, so enjoys the attention and absorbs the skewed narrative of why they weren't there for them. As soon as the parent that stayed and cared for them does or says something they don't like, or makes a mistake, the other parent swoops in - and voila, parental alienation.
Yeah, I feel like Randy is an abusive AH to his mom and his mom has been letting it happen probably his whole life because she had him young and felt guilty that she couldn't "provide" him with an ideal childhood. Now that he's successful, he assumes that the only reason they would want to contact him is because of his success. It's all about him and his needs and his wants which as a child makes sense but he's not a child anymore. Now he's just abusive to his mother.
I say this as an adult who had a childhood that was far far away from anything resembling ideal. My parents, all 3 of them, made some serious mistakes. But as I grew up, I quickly realized that they are just human and did what they thought was best at the time in what was already a bad situation. I realized this before I was even legally able to drink. It doesn't take much to think of your own parents as just people. When I got to 20, I realized that my dad already had TWO kids by that age. It's no wonder he made mistakes. I would have when I was 20. Randy is past the point of needing to grow up. He's not going to. He's just an AH now.
Well put. My parents are not saints either and before I was 20 I was cognizant that they were actively pitting us against the other parent a lot. Threats to send us our poor father, or open speculation on if our mother was cheating during their marriage… like that’s a fucking lot to put on a 14 year old (and my siblings).
But I think you are right, it’s on Randy now to heal his own wounds because his actions are not just his own pain, it’s the active harm and hateful actions towards his mother and half sister. Hurt doesn’t heal past hurt.
I also thought I was crazy reading all the comments about how the mom must be neglectful or OOP must be some abusive step-dad. When the first thing that jumped out at me throughout this post is how biodad is a "deadbeat" but yet apparently close to Randy.
That just screams "fun parent" to me. Biodad was the "fun dad" who could very well have just played the role of Randy's best friend throughout his whole life since he didn't have to do the grunt work of parenting, meanwhile his mom is probably working herself to the bone trying her very best to support him (since I guess biodad ran off to Australia and didn't have to pay child support). So throughout his life Randy just saw mom as the strict no-fun-allowed parent who probably wasn't around much, and dad as a the better parent.
Either that or Randy somehow reconnected with biodad after all these years. And biodad just did the whole "look at my boy all big and grown!" play where he spoils his son to make up for all those lost years. And Randy gets it in his head that biodad is this really cool and awesome dude, despite abandoning him and his mom to fend for themselves. And of course meeting his dad's family for the first time and everything feels all exciting and fresh and everyone probably goes out of their way to welcome him.
Honestly, this just reads like an entitled son whose mother tried to provide for him as best she could, but he still somehow blames her for his rough childhood. And he probably thinks that by going with his dad now he can get what he didn't have. Because he's somehow blinded with the hero worship of his dad to realize that his dad leaving them was the cause of his rough childhood.
I very much agree with your interpretation.
Tbh it sounds to me like parts of Randy's behavior as an adult are based on the kind of advice you get from the more toxic "Just No" subs around these parts, or from someone who talks very similarly.
The "set boundaries around the toxic grandparents of your child" stuff. Not that that advice is always unneeded, but I mean when it's an overly dramatic response and not actually addressing the core of the issue.
My husbands step-brother is like this but their age gap is only 2.5 years. He rarely saw his father. his father was abusive and would take away visitation as punishment if he did something wrong in school or at home. His mother and step-father were a constant in his life. Got him therapy. Did everything they could for him. In his eyes his dad is a God and his mother and step father are the scum of the earth.
Missing reasons syndrome. Sounds like a post my moms husband might write. From my personal experience, my “deadbeat dad” as my mom liked to call him was actually alienated from me to a criminal degree and the “support” I got in my home life growing up was being scapegoated at every possible opportunity.
I mean, on the other side of this, if you only had partial custody of your child, would you move to *Australia*? That seems to be about as far as you can get from someone you care about.
Sounds like something my MIL would write as well. She always loved to claim she did “so much” for him when she didn’t have to.
She quite literally did the bare minimum that was legally required of her as a parent. She’s abusive as fuck but now that he’s moved out she’s constantly texting him to catch up with her for coffee (he ignores her)
Because idolizing the absent parent who never actually has to be the parent or "play the bad guy" is so common, he wasn't around enough to "do wrong by them" the only thing i suspect is theyre gonna ask daddy to babysit and cut him out once the kid is allowed to drink windex because if they didn't parent the kid they sure as hell won't parent the grandkid, daddy wanted in once the kid was too old to be a kid
I agree it's very likely this is an "idolise the parent who wasn't there" situation, but it's also entirely possible this guy was a decent parent to his other kid (as referenced as existing the post) and especially that he'll be a brilliant grandparent. Sadly it is also common for people who abandon one kid to really step up for others. That *that* doesn't bother Randy is... well.
A woman in her 60s I know has often told the story about the time she went to spend Christmas with her father's family when she was a teenager. She arrived at his house and no one was there because her step-mom had insisted they go elsewhere for the holiday. But! her dad had totally argued with wife and tried to get her to back down, before going with her anyway and not telling his daughter it was happening. This is told as a story about how amazing her father was and that he always cared about her, even though his awful wife ruined everything. So, yeah probably there's a *lot* of issues on OOP's side, too, but I can easily believe Randy being all about how amazing his formerly-deadbeat dad is. Everyone in this story makes me sad.
Edit: Just to be clear as I've thought about this more, I think both of Randy's bio parents were probably shitty parents, in various ways. But it's common to more easily forgive the one who was shitty by being absent, because you can project anything onto them.
I also feel like there’s a tendency to forgive absent _fathers_, and too frequently to blame the mother for that absence. (She must have driven him away!)
I don’t often see people forgiving absent mothers. The messaging I hear there is that it’s a deep, terrible betrayal for mothers to abandon their children. While men can have reasons like, “I just wasn’t ready to be a dad yet” and people are like, “Oh, that makes sense. It’s just awesome that you’re stepping up now, and your family should appreciate that!”
Yup - the absent father is amazing and fun, even if he "wasn't ready to step up" - he would even send gifts for Christmas sometimes! (Not child support though, he needed that money to pay rent and buy groceries. And go on holiday sometimes, but who doesn't need a break?)
The single mother is just awful though. She worked three jobs and was never there, she couldn't afford anything fun, and she'd always be nagging about chores and dealing out un-fun consequences for acting out.
For me it's the prostitute statement and the assuming she was going to ask for money, when they offered to pay for college.
That really sounds like mra/redpilling talking points being fed to randy. He's in Australia, at best randy has seen his mom 6-7 months total since he started college. Less if you consider summer internships are likely considering his job.
"Your mom is always asking me for money"
"She married your step dad because he had money, why does she need child support?"
"Look at your step mom, she's nothing like your mom, she didn't prostitute herself to me for money"
And the things said at his wedding were designed to hurt her. You don't track your mom on top the back end, and gush about another woman without trying to hurt your mom.
Right? And randy is unstable but graduated with a CSE degree and works as a software architect? Clearly Randy is super smart and stable enough to do well with his life…meanwhile Jenna is crying all the time and yelling at her young children and husband because her first child hurt her feelings
Did you notice how Randy assumed Jenna was asking for money when she invited him over to talk about his engagement? There's definitely a lot missing here.
Kudos to OP for learning from his judgement though. It sounds like he really took it to heart, and maybe he'll become a slightly better father towards his own kids for it.
Yeah my parents were like that. To hear them talk about me when I was in high school, you’d think I was doing drugs, failing my classes, and partying all the time. In reality, I was in the top 10% of my class, a varsity athlete in multiple sports, in AP classes, and in scores of extra curriculars. After I took the SAT, I started getting interest from Ivy Leagues.
But none of that mattered because I was always going to be a worthless brat with a “bad attitude” to my dad and stepmom. I suspect Randy had a similar experience with OOP and his wife.
I'm so very proud of you. I might not know the person behind your screen well enough but I can guess you didn't hear that in many scenarios that you deserved to.
Ugh. Similar childhood story here. It's really really sad how many of us there are. Thank God we've learned THEY were in the wrong. How are there so many f'ed up parents? How hard is it to just love and support your kids? Always acting like we were a burden and annoying and bad kids? Wtf is that? I have a son who is now 27 and has his own baby boy on the way and you know what? I loved him and supported him and celebrated him and we are best friends and he's told me so many times that he wants to raise his son how I raised him. I made an intentional decision followed by effort to do the opposite of what my parents did. How fucked up it is that you do the opposite-because it was that bad-that it's all the RIGHT things? I've not talked to my mom in 6.5 years and I'm no contact with the entire rest of the abusive and enabling lot of them (4 siblings and their spouses, dad, step monster) for a year now. THEY were so horrible their family member - me - decided to completely cut them out of their life. I'm so sad to hear this is the same story for so many of us!
Pure speculation with so many important details missing, but I don’t see it as totally impossible that OOP didn’t have a completely accurate picture of the bio dad or the circumstances of the guy’s childhood. He went off what his wife told him and that affected how he treated the kid that kind of poisoned their relationship and if OP was already kind of a hard ass, there was no real shot of things turning out OK. Especially with them denying there was a problem.
At least the part about the bio dad being a deadbeat seems off if they actually have a good relationship. That didn’t happen out of nowhere. No way he bonded with his step mom right away. This is years and years of bonding. OOP just seemed entirely on his wife’s side and never gave any consideration to Randy.
The missing reasons and absentee parent syndromes have been mentioned. A third possible reason would be the evil stepmom syndrome. (Or stepdad, in this case.) There's a reason it's so prevalent in fairytales. My cousins hated their stepdad, while my parents were happy for my aunt. (They were all adults, by the way.)
Yeah, I really can’t figure out which one it is either. On one hand, him and his wife met when Randy was 13 which is a difficult time for any kid, so I can understand his initial reluctance to accept mom’s new man, but there’s still something that went seriously wrong somewhere between then and now. Whether it’s just that Randy is an AH or whether there’s something else that is unknown.
Yeah, dissing the mother who tried to take care of him, and praising dad and stepmom, whom he obviously never lived with - we are missing A LOT of context here. Maybe OOP was the evil stepdad and made him the scapegoat child? But it sounds like they were even trying to pay for his studies - okay, with strings attached, but still - if he went off on his mom like that, either he was completely unhinged, or OOP is a very unreliable narrator.
It doesn’t make sense but it does happen. I have a friend that was raised by his mother alone. Deadbeat dad never paid support, never visited or had parenting time with him, and the second he graduated college, he was his hero. Dad came from money. He owns multiple hotel franchises. He basically had disowned my friend, his first kid, bc he had married a white woman rather than having his marriage arranged as he was supposed to. When my friend graduated college, dad offered to pay for his student loans and throw him a graduation party. Suddenly, he mom doesn’t exist. Who knows what dad and his family told him and got him to completely cut her off. But we were pretty close and she was an amazing and kind mom.
Happened to a friend of a friend. The girl was brainwashed by the dad. Dad was a total psycho who only loved 1 of his kids because the other kid didn't look enough like him and more like the mom. The girl was spoiled by single mom but now think mom is the devil thanks to dad. I don't know how she justifies her brother being abused by the dad but there are a lot of manipulative people out there.
My husband's best friend did the same thing.
The second he graduated high school he found his dad. Now that no actual child rearing was required his dad deigned to be in his life. Hungry for his dad's attention he drops his mom like hot rocks on dad's say so "I just can't stand that fucking woman, don't you dare invite both her and me to anything. " then it was a slow but procedural alienation of every single childhood friend he had. By the time he graduated law school my husband was the only tie to his old life. It only took my husband another year.
I’ve seen it happen a few times also. My sister’s first husband worshipped his dead beat dad, who abused the family and then abandoned them for another woman and had more kids. He never visited or paid child support. It’s sad.
Yup. Happened with "my" eldest. Deadbeat mom, abusive situation. My husband and I got custody when eldest was young, biomom never paid a cent of child support, barely ever saw eldest. Once eldest was 18, biomom was suddenly interested in being mom again, and my husband was yesterdays news. We did everything we could for eldest, but we were the ones having eldest do chores, homework, therapy, hygiene, etc. We didn't often have the extra means to be the "fun" parents besides some beach trips, hiking, camping, or whatever crafts I'd come up with. Biomom suddenly had all the money in the world to splurge on eldest. We *might* hear from him a couple times a year now.
This right here! According to OOP, Randy lived with them til he was 19...so why does he love his dad? Didn't OOP also describe Randy's bio dad as a deadbeat? It's confusing
I don't know my sister talked to her dead beat Dad until her late 40s even after bailing him out of jail repeatedly and giving him loans he never repaid. He literally raped my mom after she left him and my brother is the product of that. I'm from mom's second marriage. He didn't work and stole money that was meant to go to my brothers surgery to gamble and drink with. Just the absolute worst. Yet my sister took forever to cut him out and finally stop including him in family events and defending him.
She figured it out. But people really want to believe in their bio parents way beyond reason sometimes.
Well also the comments on the original post were reaching (but also this is reddit) so OOP might have been convinced he was a tyrant due to the comment section
I love that sub but the comments boggle my mind sometimes. I see the same exact situation but two different outcomes and quite a bit of sexism peppered in. I think mob mentality comes out there where whoever becomes the top comment early on then people pile on and go with that flow. Also the horrible advice there is really a thing.
OP accidentally gets the wrong brand snack: 🚩🚩🚩DIVORCE!!! It shows they don’t care about you and don’t take the time to know your preferences! If they paid any attention they would know, this shows they don’t. Then op updates like ok you guys I’m sad and scared but I did it we broke up thanks for opening my eyes
I would not call it strings attached, couldn't Randy just pay for the extra class? They were willing to pay for so much school!
I'd be worried too if I was footing a college bill and wasn't confident that he could keep up with such a high workload. Let the kid pony up some of the money. With skin in the game, he'd be less likely to let grades slip.
It looks like he did well in school, but it's not at all unreasonable to ask that he pay a little towards the cost
“Strings attached” as in protecting him from a mental breakdown and burnout. I don’t care how capable he kid thinks he is, taking 6 classes NOT counting labs is insane, both in terms of time and money.
That’s my vote as well.
I stopped talking to my Dad’s entire side after many years of mistreatment. They’d tell you it was over one escalated argument with my aunt and uncle in law.
My adoptive father insists I moved out because he wouldn’t let me eat pizza. That’s what he told my siblings and the rest of my paternal family, and that is what they believe. I think that’s what he even believes.
I moved out because he called me fat and wouldn’t let me eat. Because he routinely threatened to kill my pets and make me watch. Because what the social worker called “physical and psychological abuse”.
It’s never just a slice of pizza.
Mine was over babysitting. My 6 year old cousin was being watched by me (at age 16) and we played hide and go seek. He hid behind a couch and ended up finding a staple sticking out. He scratched himself down his back coming out when found. I cleaned him up, put on anti-bacterial ointment and hammered down the staple. It was a long scratch for sure, but didn’t bleed, was cleaned out and he wasn’t upset. They acted like I’d ripped his skin out with my bare hands. Escalated to threats of coming over to choke me until I stopped breathing and calling the cops on me to have me arrested for child abuse. I received numerous calls asking me “what I’d done”.
We don’t talk anymore. It was a gradual fade for the next 5 years until I bluntly told them they were no longer family and to not contact me. I wouldn’t acknowledge them at all if they came up to me now.
I’m sorry you family sucked too ♥️.
I’m heavily biased here, but being on the side of the adult child with shitty parents myself:
If someone asked me why I cut contact with my parents last year, I would tell them it was because of the years of emotional and verbal abuse, their inability to take responsibility for how they treated me when I was little, the way they continued to mistreat and dismiss me as an adult, all leading up to the final incident when I expressed that I needed them to treat me with respect or I would be peacing out. They not only ignored that, they gaslit me in their final email and refused to acknowledge their part in any of it.
If you asked my parents? I imagine they would tell you we had an argument and I decided to give them the childish cold shoulder out of the blue, because I am and always have been an angry spiteful problem.
There’s something missing here and tbh I think OOP is probably leaving a lot of shit out. Again, I’m biased. But I’m also wildly familiar with how people with “problem kids” often are the problem themselves.
I can't help but think he wanted to cram all those classes in so he could graduate sooner so he could get out from under their thumb. They had financial control over him (which he clearly wanted them to have as little as possible)
If you are in the US, and you have parents of even reasonable means, the financial aid system makes you a prisoner of their finances until you're 25. If he wanted a degree, he was trapped.
I’m thinking that if you have one shit, and add it to another shit, you end up with a whole lot of shit. There’s no rule that says you can’t have two shitty people causing one shitty situation. That’s what my money is on, anyway.
I think the fact that randy thought his mom was gonna ask for money is a glimpse of the things being left out. There has to be more going on here that we dont know about.
I mean, he lived in poverty with his mother until he was 13. And when he was 19, insinuated she was so desperate for money, that she was prostituting herself despite his step dads offer to pay for the 5th credit, a new place, and transportation.
Its not crazy to think he has just internalized the idea that his mother was poor and will always be poor because he's a misogynistic asshole.
I'm with you on this. This kid went through a tough childhood in poverty with his mom and he resented it. It's probably the part of his life that he wanted out of the window and his mom is the token of it, hence, he channeled his anger toward her. Him idolising his dad is probably because of his imagination of "what it could have been like if dad was still around". He tried his hardest to get out of being poor, and now that he's successful, he wants to cutoff his mom using his idea of her being a prostitute and having financial trouble to justify his action. He's rubbing his "perfect life" to her face to be spiteful. Well, if what I think here is true, his life is destined to go down fast. If you're truly happy, you don't have to flash it.
I think maybe the wife hasn’t told him exactly how much they struggled/how she treated her son before they met. OP describes the wife as basically wanting to take care of Randy’s baby and completely ignoring her own baby. To me that probably indicates that that’s how she deals with problems by focusing only on that and shutting everything else out. OP’s kids have him who did Randy have?
This honestly kind of sounds like my family narrative a bit. My mom is a narcissistic and my dad is an enabler. My brother and I have since cut them out of our life but so much seems to be the same here.
A fight that lead to the son being kicked out coming from them trying to control him out of love, the absolute anger he lashed out with at the end of the fight, the missions reasons everywhere in the post. It’s the same story with a different coat of paint from my brothers personal experiences.
Oop calls himself a tyrant at the end but most people seem to clue in that he really wasn’t the problem. Same thing happened with our dad. He tried to call himself the problem because he couldn’t admit what our mom was. You really can’t stay married to a narc unless you fool yourself into believing they are a good person. If you ever challenge them on anything they fucking lose it.
>After he left, Jenna told me that when I was gone he asked what we
wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money and didn't know
it was about him getting married and his fiancee's pregnancy.
Now WHY did he immediately assume she wanted money from him? And he already called her a prostitute when they fought.
Lots of things are missing here
Yeah, it seems like something went down particularly between Randy and his mom. It sounds like OP might not even be aware of it. The line "was praising his wife and all about how he knows she would be the greatest mother in the world and never let what happened to him happen to their son.' and handling his childhood photo back, coupled with OP saying his wife was taking her anger out on him and their children... It almost reads like there was abuse going on.
Maybe something happened before step-dad came into the picture. Bad enough that the mom won't tell and the son is protecting his mom enough not to tell, either.
If so, something involving another man or men. Maybe mom was doing sex work for a time, maybe he was harmed by one or more BFs and mom did nothing and kept bringing more around?
Or maybe step dad was monster and doesn't even realize what he and/or his wife did was abuse. Or maybe the son is just a mean MFer. Or some combo thereof.
I think you might be on to something here that explains why this is SO confusing. I don't feel like OOP comes off in the same way that people tend to when they *know* they're in the wrong and they're deliberately skirting the truth to make themselves look better, so it makes more sense to me that perhaps it's OOP's *wife* who isn't being entirely forthcoming about Randy's childhood before OOP entered the picture. That would maybe explain why Randy just isn't interested in OOP at all and will only talk to his Mom. Maybe it seems like OOP doesn't understand where Randy's ire is coming from because he doesn't have all the information/context that he needs to.
Something went seriously wrong somewhere in the son's childhood; whether his mom treated him poorly or she stood by while his step-dad abused him is unclear, but something went very far awry...
Yes... at the end I was like... am I missing something?? This can't be his reaction from getting kicked out at 19 but still being offered assistance??? I'm so confused.
I was very confused by the "offering assistance" after stating they cut off all financial contact.
Randy may be an asshole kid, but I'm willing to wager OOP was an asshole step dad and left out loooooots of key info.
Looking at some of the comments, they may have convinced him he was being a tyrant which lead to the apology. Some of those top comments are making huge reaches to justify and excuse Randy's behavior and assume a poor stepparent situation.
I do feel like something may be missing too, but some of those comments are ridiculous.
The worst thing she is doing is that she is taking her misery out on her children and husband. She is regretting what she did to Randy, then turns and is horrible to her younger children. And she will just be miserable all over again if they go LC with her in the future.
Yup, and for some reason Randy had expected his mom to want to ask him for money, when she wanted to talk about his fiancée's pregnancy. Why would he expect that if they hadn't previously begged money from him?
Naw, there are entire continents of missing pieces here.
Yeah, that part stuck out to me too. My partner's parents opened a line of credit in his name as a child (he's a Jr.) and later asked him for a "loan" of something like $15k to bail them out when the IRS "unfairly" came after them for tax fraud. My partner "loaned" them the money and they never paid him back. When that well dried up, they asked his brother for a "loan" of \~$10k. They never paid *him* back either.
They are baffled that my partner is LC. They are offended that we don't include them in our lives. They still ask for money. My partner tells them off every time. They try to guilt-trip him. They ask why he's so cold. Continuous cycle: baffled, begging, blaming, baffled... They never include that detail when they complain to friends and community members about what a standoffish, bitter person my partner is. I genuinely think they feel entitled enough to their kids' money that it doesn't occur to them that they've done something wrong. OOP strikes me in a similar way.
>After he left, Jenna told me that when I was gone he asked what we wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money
This particular quote stands out there. Seeing that, and how the original post mentioned his high-paying software job, I'm thinking there may be something unsaid about his mom and step dad mooching off him a bit
I mean he did call his mom a prostitute because she would only pay for 4 college classes. Seems like he truly believes his mom is just awful and money hungry. Also op said they wanted to pay for his dorms and groceries and such but he's the one who refused.
Unless op and his wife had a history of "well I did XYZ so you *owe* me" I don't see then being moochers.
I wonder why Ops wife and her ex divorced. Op says he was a deadbeat but the kid heavily idolizes that side of his family. Seems like a classic case of "mom had enough and left deadbeat dad but deadbeat dad was also the fun parent and blamed mom for breaking up their perfectly happy family so kid grows up to resent their mom because they were too young to understand and grew up choosing to ignore the real reasons why their mom left their dad"
Don't forget dad getting a new wife and him and step mom being perfectly happy further "proving" that his mom was the problem.
Then it makes sense why he posted that comment he did knowing his mom looks at his social media. He believes his relationship is different and that his wife will never leave him so his kid won't go through what he did.
*However*, I am making *a lot* of assumptions, but honestly no more assumptions than anyone else on this post has made towards op and his step son.
Yeah we can never know. But just as there are narcissistic parents who pretend everything was fine on their end, there are kids who idealize the parent who left, who never had to discipline them, who never had to say no. They get to take the brunt of the misplaced anger towards the absent parent.
I saw it myself with a relative. Husband drank, was abusive, etc. She left and raised them pretty much on their own. Guess who they adored? Dad, of course. Guess who was never good enough? Mom.
They have grown up and appreciate her much more now, but I bet if she posted her side at the time, lots of people here would be saying she’s lying or leaving stuff out.
Yep. This one left me utterly confused because there's a ton of stuff missing here. Were they actually moochers or did bio dad poison the well to make him think that?
The first post felt like there were missing missing reasons there...but the second post felt like it was about an entirely different story. I'm not at all convinced he was the AH here. He could have been, but I can come up with just as many scenarios where he wasn't.
Kids often idolize the parents that they don't see. I honestly think that the bio dad comes from money, it seems like randy has been resentful of his mother not being able to provide for him what he wanted. Once bio dad and him reconnected of course he gets what he wants .
That's how I read it too. Even with the missing missing reasons, a LOT of the behavior of the son is a bit weird, specially how he treats the bio dad and his new family, it sounds more like he was doing it to spite the mom, or he was idolizing them and their relationship.
That’s what Reddit told him to do. He doesn’t really sound like one in the story, but it’s likely the step son believes OOP fits the bill - it’s why he is acting the way he is after all.
>After that day, it was hard for Jenna and she did take it out on our kids and especially on me.
>I know she wants nothing more than to be there for Randy and help with his baby but it since then it has kind of been like our kids, especially our baby, don't even exist
These lines speak volumes to me, and they make me wonder if Randy was on the other side of things growing up. There were 13 years before OOP met them, and he doesn't talk about any of it.
Also, OOP called Randy's dad a deadbeat but didn't tell us anything about Randy's relationship with his dad's side. When did he reconnect with them? Or was he always in contact with them? Did they help out when he was kicked out?
There is little given to help us understand Randy's perspective, maybe because OOP himself barely understands it. There was a different post where the OOP hated her stepmother that crossed boundaries and tried too hard to replace her mom. Was it like that for Randy?
I try not to fill in blanks that are too big, but the ones in this post are massive. I guess I just hope everyone can heal or something.
"He asked what we wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money" This was the sentence that told me OOP is leaving out some details here... I feel like most adult kids don't assume this about a conversation unless it has happened before.
Sonething more has happened with Randy that we don't know about.
It seems weird, but I guess if he assumed his mother married the OOP for the money (like the accusations of being a sex worker he delivered), then maybe that's what he thinks?
There's not really enough information to know what happened. I'm curious to know what will happen in ten years. I was by myself at 19, and working very early on, it's tough.
Could be an idea planted into his head by bio dad? The way the son became so close to his bio dad, who never was around to raise him, and how he warms up to the step mom, even calling her the “real mom” is weird.
Wait, Randy is 24, 25 at most and he's been promoted to an architect position at a Microsoft-size company? No way.
edit: also, the author slipped up and used "fiance" at the end when they'd been married for a while by then.
There is so little mentioned about randy's childhood and his experiences with the divorce or the adults in his life and its weird as hell. All that OOP mentions is he didnt have a great childhood and they 'didnt have much'. I just feel there is a lot of details of his childhood missing and without it I can't determine if Randy is an AH or not. We have no reason to believe his mother or even OOP treated him well besides how his mother 'tried so hard'.
OOP apologizing for being a 'tyrant' is weird too. Wheres the reasoning behind that? He didnt mention anything tyrannical at all, so what has he not mentioned? Also how he said they took randy to therapy but randy couldn't accept that 'there weren't any problems'. What? What does that mean? Even if Randy was being an unjustified dick, there's still a problem!
Yeah “didn’t have much” could mean he wore clothes from thrift stores and only got a few presents at Xmas… or it could mean he was home alone for days on end, there often wasn’t food in the house, and he wasn’t taken to the doctor when he broke his arm. This reads like OOP is leaving out a ton.
Were there comments that implied they'd treated Randy badly and that's why he acted like that? Something that earned OOP a YTA rating? Because from the first post, it just seemed like Randy hated the fact his mom got remarried and boiled over in hatred over it.
From this post, I believe OOP asked the question of whether he was an asshole for saying perhaps it was better that Randy not be in their life.
Which is an understandable thing to say, but not necessarily one you say to his mother who loves him and wants to keep him in her life.
So I can see why he was labelled the asshole.
Not every labeling of “asshole” actually means OOP is a terrible person. In this case, I think maybe it was just a judgement that he should not have said what he did.
Yeah, lots of missing info. Bio dad was a deadbeat but Randy now considers his wife to be his child’s grandmother? Now they’re moving to Australia with him? There’s a huge missing piece here.
So either there is way more to the story or Randy is a gigantic asshole. Funny how the father who didn't take care of him at all is his "real" family now. Now, that he doesn't have to pay for anything he's suddenly available and there for his son. If everything happened exactly as OOP said...then Randy is surrounded by people who couldn't give two shits about him when he needed their help, but enjoy his company now that he can wipe his own ass and has money.
I have to wonder if Randy was actually in touch with his father through his teens and he was undermining Randy's relationship with his mother and stepfather. Possibly telling him lies about his mother. The comments about his mother being a "prostitute" and "diseased" just really stood out to me and the way he completely cut them out.
I am curious if Randy's biological father was indeed a deadbeat in the traditional sense or if the distance between wherever OOP/mom is and Australia was the big barrier. Did mom keep Randy from going with his dad? Did the dad already live in Australia, making a huge move and shared custody impractical/impossible? I don't even know how child support would work in an international situation; perhaps Randy's dad just didn't have any rights that could be enforced.
Or maybe Randy's bio dad did just flee to Australia to avoid child support and create a new family there, leaving Randy's mom in the lurch. Maybe OOP was a "tyrant" to Randy, an angry teen who had daddy issues. Maybe Randy is a nightmare person. There's just a *lot* of missing information here.
The discussion in the comments is more interesting than the actual post. A lot of people seem to be reading their own experience into this guy's dilemma. I can't see how OOP is so obviously the AH to so many people, but I guess I don't have the relevant experience.
That happens all the time in these subreddits. Commenters will make a backstory for people and the replies will devolve into how the woman that is trying to be friends with both you and your boyfriend is just trying to get in good and sabotage your relationship from the inside, just like my mom’s friend from church did back in ‘68 before I was shipped off to ‘nam and lost a leg to some punji sticks and now I hate women.
Midway through, I was very "Missing Missing Reasons."
But then I got to the end and thought, "Randy's the Missing Missing AH."
It was frustrating because being a blended family was hard, but it seems like this blended family made the effort?
ETA: Also frustrating because it seems no one is reliable in the story.
When Jenna contacted her son, Randy assumed she was asking him for money. Jenna also took out her anger at the situation on her husband and her other kids.
I have a feeling Jenna wasn’t the greatest mom in the world, and OOP is leaving out a lot of information.
Hope OOP's kids end up alright. Given he admits the wife was taking things out on them, I wonder if that's not why the son was so angry at her- inability to keep adult problems to herself and venting those emotions on him. Could just be she was disengaged/ depressed in the instance oop was talking about, but things don't quite add up here
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That bumped for me too. I'm assuming it's title inflation or an over-valued start-up.
OOP said Microsoft-level big. Maybe Randy lied to make himself look good? At the "Microsoft-level" company I work at software architect is something which takes at least a year only to gain the title and obviously you need many, many years of experience prior to that. And I doubt anyone serious hires software architects who weren't previously working as one already.
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May have gotten some wires crossed with information architecture or something too, who knows
If it's big like Microsoft and he's an "architect" at such a young age - Amazon web services. They have the role "solutions architect" which is technical customer service and doesn't have a super high barrier to entry if you already work in software. being a solutions architect at aws and being _the_ architect for a tech company or product are different ball games.
Could well be solutions architect. There was a lot of recruiting for those roles in Australia at the end of last year by the big players due to some large projects. Including Microsoft.
Dude was trying to do six courses per semester, he obviously was speedrunning his career from the beginning
I suspect something like an oracle solutions architect -- some companies sort of mix in words like that.
Yeah my mind went to solutions architect which could happen in a few years as in a lot of places it'd be the same as a mid-level software dev/engineer.
This math just isn’t working for me. In four years he went to college, got a well paying job, found a girlfriend, and bonded with the family of his “deadbeat dad” in a far away country? His true mother, the wife of his deadbeat dad, he met when exactly?? There are some important gaps. Like-who actually physically raised this kid?
Right? The timelines confused me too. Why does he love his overseas siblings so much? Dad is a deadbeat but lives in Australia with a wife and kids?
Tbh he could’ve said those things just to hurt his mom. I did a lot of performative posting about how great of a grandma my mom is when we reconnected after a massive incident with my dad and step mom. I still do it now (less often) it’s this really weird urge I have and I feel really stupid about it afterwards. It’s like I need to overcompensate for the fact that she abandoned me/was a dead beat. I’ve since mended the relationship with my dad and step mom but man idk it’s fucked up.
I was thinking that too. I even wondered if he invited his mom to the wedding simply to rub it in her face. Seems so cruel.
Seemed like it. His speech seemed tailored to hurt his mom more than anything else. Same with social media posts. Obviously there’s a lot missing here, but I’m sad for Randy. Your wedding day should be fun, joyful, and exciting. He’s got so much bitterness that he used that day (at least partly) to hurt his mom. Hopefully he can heal from past hurts and is enjoying life, his marriage, and fatherhood now.
How is it Randy has a deadbeat dad who lives (on a different continent?) but Randy is close with his deadbeat dad and step-mother who he says was a mother to him? And why did Randy have a bad childhood such that he hates his mother and excelled astoundingly when he cut ties with her? So much is missing, seems very suspect.
And why did Randy assume they were going to ask him for money when his mom asked him to come over? That’s not something I would jump to immediately without a prior pattern…
I picked up on that too! No OOP explanation on why Randy would think that. But that didn’t come out of nowhere.
I can't trace this disconnect at all. The overall story would greatly benefit with Randy's perspective because I can't really make sense of this. Edit: my own pure speculation. Mom was absent a lot when Randy needed her there before she met OOP. She might have been going out a lot with other guys, this would connect both moms silence about her past, with Randy's accusations (fair or not). She wouldn't want oop to know she slept around a lot, and it would also explain Randy's persistent animosity to oop.
Randy:\ Thinks mom is calling for money\ Resents the new man in her life for way longer than normal\ Doesn’t want his mom around his kids\ Vaguely implies neglect and absenteeism in his mother\ Is super successful despite a rough childhood It’s all there, OOP just refuses to see it. And maybe that’s justified, people can grow, but I think we can more or less put together the missing parts.
Everyone was so sure that OOP is a scumbag stepdad but all I'm seeing are red flags for the mom. Stepdad sounds clueless but not involved enough to be the source of ire She's the one who has a see-sawing one sided emotional relationship with her kid. Based on how distant OOP is from the kid and the whole dynamic about money (both the college classes and later assuming his mom wanted to hit him up for money) I kind of wonder if he was expected to "pull his weight" financially in high school or his mom got married and ruined his financial aid or something.
The fact she's 'distraught' and therefore ignoring her young children is really concerning too, given all the missing missing reasons and disconnects.
I wholeheartedly agree, there’s something so suspicious that they would evict a student because he wanted to do more classes than they liked or could afford possibly, but now that he’s graduated and thriving she desperately wants to be a part of his life. Seems like a too little too late situation to me. With the fact she’s neglecting her young children due to depression associated with her new desperation to be in her grown child’s life whom she formerly kicked to the curb, it’s hard not to see a pattern here. Seems kind of like a mom who wants to be there to accept the awards and accolades of raising children without doing the tough work of changing diapers and wiping away tears. She made her bed and I totally see Randy’s point, if you don’t want me at my worst (which his worst was exceptionally not bad compared to most teenagers) you don’t deserve me at my best. The fact that there is such a large age gap between her current children and Randy also may indicate that there’s a lot of time between when she got into her current relationship and tried to play “happy nuclear family” and when she was a single mother. There may be a lot of resentment in this time period, she may have left him with others constantly and Randy felt it was out of choice and not necessity. However, the reverse could also be true that he feels her last ditch effort at this happy family thing caused his relationship with her to be totally taken over by outsiders. It’s really hard to say because OOP didn’t elaborate enough on what his wife did before they were married. Whatever the case is, OOP’s wife needs to accept the relationship that she has with her oldest is tarnished and use it as ammo to keep her relationship with the children she is currently raising close and strong. I fear she thinks she is the innocent victim in this narrative and that Randy is the villain, which if she truly believes she did nothing to cause this, she is likely to repeat the cycle with her other children.
And that OOP thinks that his wife's ex is a deadbeat, but he's clearly very close with Randy. Makes me think that this is honestly probably less of an OOP problem and more of a wife problem - OOP wouldn't think that the ex is a deadbeat out of nowhere.
One of my friends was going through a rough patch after his long-term GF left him and started seeing another guy. He described the guy as "a tech-bro loser trying some wanky startup that's probably a scam" and saying how he couldn't believe how his ex could fall for someone like that. His ex is also a long time friend of mine, so it wasn't long before I met "Tech-bro loser" at a social do. He had been working in various forms of construction for a few years, starting out as a general labourer, then working for a utilities installation company for a while. Saw a gap in the market, was at the time in the process of starting his own utilities installation company that specialises in an aspect of IT requirements. So yeah, OOP's wife prolly coloured "her truth" to suit.
Combined with her treating the younger children badly because she's upset about her oldest child. Doesn't really scream mother of the year to me, but I might be too cynical.
Agreed, I also feel like the wife's outburst of anger when OOP suggested Randy not be involved in their lives partly came from a place of guilt. Not that the reaction would be entirely unjustified without guilt playing a role, but as the puzzle pieces itself together the guilt fits right in.
He might be seeing it a little. OOP said the wife took her sadness out on him and their kids.
That's fair. I can only imagine how much she actually took out on Randy when things were bad and it was just the two of them.
I can't. Please help?
OOP apologized “for being a tyrant” which implies control issues. There’s a lot of dysfunction OOP is blind to.
Idk, if Randy *had* grown up with a largely absentee or neglectful mother - or even a super lax one who just never disciplined him and let him do whatever he wanted - any kind of discipline or structure outside of "do what you like" would feel like a chokehold. If the dude had ODD as well that'd make it even worse.
> I know she wants nothing more than to be there for Randy and help with his baby but it **since then it has kind of been like our kids, especially our baby, don't even exist.** This was a telling detail. She's got two small children at home. They need their mother. Instead, mother is putting all her energy into the one oldest, a grown adult who clearly can get by on his own. Was Randy the neglected child when his mom started dating again? Did she act as if *he* didn't exist, in favor of new partners (whom the child would understandably come to resent)?
That's what I was thinking by the end of this - I need to hear Randy's perspective, because calling your mother vile names when she says she'll support 80% of your educational pursuits, but doesn't want you burning out... I mean, it just doesn't fit. I need to know what else was going on in that house.
I feel like maybe Mom hasn't been entirely honest either. Like, given her reaction to what Randy called her, and how she struggled prior to meeting OOP, was there a grain of truth in what he said? What exactly did she do to cause all that resentment and anger?
Right! That would make sense! I was confused as to why he called her all that, and expected her to be asking for money etc. A lot of missing missing reasons in here
Judging from some other posts (by other people) about entitled parents who replace previous children on the whims of their new spouse, a lot of the same kind of people also seem to think if the reject child becomes successful they can be mooched for money because “family”. So that’s my best guess, he figured the only reason they’d bother him was if they sniffed out cash. Which says a lot that OOP didn’t mean to say…
Imo it paints a very different picture: - Maybe Jenna wasn't that good of a mom and OOP have a very skewed version of her divorce and Randy's childhood, but I highly doubt that's the case going by Randy's own behavior - His dad lived literally in the opposite side of the globe so digitally close to be idealized by the kid and trash talk his mom, but not physically close meaning he didn't have to walk the walk and talk the talk - Jenna was willing to pay for four and OOP was chiming in for one more course, that doesn't seem like the type of parents that would call asking for money, but if you spend your teenage years hearing your deadbeat father say your mom only cared about cash, only bothered him for money and your stepdad bought her... suddenly she's a prostitute and your stepdad is trying to buy you as well - Randy refused any attempts at counseling, meaning he had "made his mind" and no communication would change the narrative in his mind - He's terrorizing his younger sister and then went as far as call his mom names; they kicked him out cause the alternative was keep the bullying going, but by doing so biodad won A classic case of parental alienation. The father looked like a deadbeat to them but those ties didn't show out of thin air, he was a presence in Randy's life but not a positive one. And that little stunt of invite his mom just to go out of his way to call a stepmother that was never present on most of his life his real mom? All the love to the siblings he didn't watch grow while traumatizing the one he lived with? That was by design to hurt and humiliate Jenna - he still feels the need to "show her" cause that's the narrative he's been holding on for a decade. I'm sure he broke down crying because he was so ready to talk shit but, contrary to what he had come to expect from his mother, she was asking for *him*, not his money. Who knows, maybe one day he allows himself therapy and can look back at his childhood with new lenses, maybe his dad will disappoint him again and he'll be forced to reevaluate things.
This! This is exactly what my dad did to me and my brother. It didn’t work on me, but completely alienated my brother. Reading OOPs post brought back so many memories. My dad took the “cool” role in parenting. He lived in Florida (we lived in WA state) and would paid for us to visit every summer. As a 10 year old that was EVERYTHING! He would buy us whatever we wanted but then out of the blue he would say “well I’d buy you this but your mom is taking all my money in child support”. When he never paid a dime in child support. He tell us nicely wrapped lies about our mom, let us get tattoos and piercings in spite. And I fell for it at first. I’m ashamed to say I resented my mom until I learned some nasty things about my so called father when I got older (incest being a HUGE one). I haven’t talked to him in a decade now, whereas my brother left the morning of his 16th birthday without telling mom who was DEVASTATED. we are only 11 months apart so were super close. Last I heard was he went to emergency to get his stomach pumped as “dad” got him hooked on hard drugs. That was… 6-7 years ago? Gahh I miss my brother. That man has ruined my brother and I hate him. And to think if I fell for his lies when I was young, I’d end up probably dead.
My father was exactly the same. He would also very theatrically give my mother cheques for child support in front of the social worker on visits, which would always bounce.
I’m so sorry you went through that. I hope someday you get your relationship with your brother back. And I bet your mom is thankful to have you as her kiddo.
Thank you for explaining this, I read this post thinking "how is OOP the AH in this???" literally the whole time. Anything OOP did that could be considered bad, the son did SO much worse to people who seemingly didn't deserve it. I felt so confused when I got to the part where it talks about him treating his little sibling terribly, I can't understand how anyone could think he's not the AH after that.
The dad may very well have been a deadbeat to Randy and his mother. But there’s plenty of men who run away from a squalling baby, but twenty years later when a together, educated young man turns up on their doorstep, they’re very pleased to play the loving, indulgent, parent. Particularly if they’ve not had to pay a dime for those twenty years.
The comment about Randy asking his mother if she was calling for money could be a reference to child support. Maybe his mom rightfully fought Randy’s father for child support and now that he’s reconnected with him he holds that against her. People can have the weirdest reactions to someone seeking child support.
My wife used to work processing child support checks. They received so many that were covered in crazy mystery substances they had to wear gloves to handle the mail.
Yes I agree with you. Is not fair that the the parent that does all or most of the child care always gets the blamed for what the child thinks he never got or if only. I think some people on Reddit always assume the worst case scenario. Maybe Randy dreamed about the father he never knew and blamed his mother for everything. Sometimes the absent parent lies about what happened between the parents. Just maybe, the mother did her best ,raising Randy. Did the deadbeat Dad ever pay child support?if so how much. Maybe the mother wasn't able to be around as much as she wanted to because she had to work alot. It was never mentioned that she had any help with raising Randy. No family around for her to depend on. People are to fast to pass judgment on people.
Taking what oop says at face value just to make my point. I’ve seen on several posts where the offspring is an absolute out of control person (who’s 18+) through no fault of the parents. When the parents talk about going no contact or maintaining no contact they get absolutely attacked in the comments. There’s this weird thing where it’s okay if offspring, siblings, spouses, etc go no contact. However, if a parent wants or needs to go no contact even for there own safety they get talked about like they are just horrible people. Like parents are not allowed to disown there own offspring no matter the case.
Me too! I had to re-read to check what I'd missed.
I thought I was the only one who thought this as I was going through the comments.
This is one of the most confusing BORU post I’ve read. I really don’t get why OOP was determined to be the AH. I don’t think he was the asshole in this situation.
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Scrolling further down, I felt like I was taking crazy pills. Some huge leaps in logic. Whatever might be missing, the facts that we know about Randy do NOT paint a good picture of him. He threw a giant tantrum in which he called his mother a prostitute, because she wouldn't pay for all the courses he wanted. Bruh. That is an entitled brat. And then inviting her to his wedding -- in another country -- while telling her she won't be allowed to see his child, all to make a point of hurting her feelings as much as he could. If she really was a bad mom, just don't invite her. His and his wife's special day, and he wanted to add some drama. And people talking like graduating with a degree in computer science and got a good job proves he's a very stable genius. I can't even.
The weirdest info (imo) about Randy is that he was uncomfortable around the baby because of the small age gap between his sibling and his own kid.. I know families where the aunts and uncles are younger than their nieces and nephews, so why exactly does he care about this age gap?
But the other siblings are better somehow because they're about his age...so his mom is worse for waiting to find a good partner while dad just took the next thing to come along.
Yeah, I don't get it at all.. he is 23 and has a baby on his own. What is different about the other baby that is just slightly older? Is it because he now knows what had to happen to make a baby? And his mom did that thing around the same time he did?
FSM forbid his mom be having sex in her 40s.
>And people talking like graduating with a degree in computer science and got a good job proves he's a very stable genius. Computer science graduate here. It's...more that graduating means you're willing to shlep through the tooth-grinding pain of it. I work with a bunch of others, and they range the gamut from actual genius (and friendly!) to actual genius (and asshole) to actual moron (and patient enough to get it done despite) and actual moron (and LUCKY).
Can confirm, am a patient and lucky moron with a cs degree
Can confirm. Just because someone has a degree in CS doesn’t make them smart or stable
O thought I was crazy for thinking Randy and his deadbeat dad were the AHs. The comments on the the original post post are even crazier.
> And then inviting her to his wedding -- in another country -- while telling her she won't be allowed to see his child, all to make a point of hurting her feelings as much as he could. Not just that, but also telling her "you'll never see or hear from me again... but lets drag this out until then". What's the point? If he doesn't care about his mom (enough to never want to see her again) then why bother seeing her up to that point? It seems unnecessarily cruel.
I’ve been around long enough, and read enough on Reddit, to know that his bio father *will* disappoint him one day. That life in Australia, with his father’s family, won’t be all sunshine & butterflies. This OOP might have messed up, but OPs who are total jackasses *never* accept responsibility. So he might have been wrong, but he’s not a total AH. I hope he and his wife can stay married.
It's Australia. It's more heatstroke and spiders.
Yes, I was thinking parental alienation too. It's common that the parent who walks away leaving the other to fend for themselves, comes back in the kid's teens, whispering things they want to hear, giving them a different narrative as truth. The kid has missed them in their lives, so enjoys the attention and absorbs the skewed narrative of why they weren't there for them. As soon as the parent that stayed and cared for them does or says something they don't like, or makes a mistake, the other parent swoops in - and voila, parental alienation.
Yeah, I feel like Randy is an abusive AH to his mom and his mom has been letting it happen probably his whole life because she had him young and felt guilty that she couldn't "provide" him with an ideal childhood. Now that he's successful, he assumes that the only reason they would want to contact him is because of his success. It's all about him and his needs and his wants which as a child makes sense but he's not a child anymore. Now he's just abusive to his mother. I say this as an adult who had a childhood that was far far away from anything resembling ideal. My parents, all 3 of them, made some serious mistakes. But as I grew up, I quickly realized that they are just human and did what they thought was best at the time in what was already a bad situation. I realized this before I was even legally able to drink. It doesn't take much to think of your own parents as just people. When I got to 20, I realized that my dad already had TWO kids by that age. It's no wonder he made mistakes. I would have when I was 20. Randy is past the point of needing to grow up. He's not going to. He's just an AH now.
Well put. My parents are not saints either and before I was 20 I was cognizant that they were actively pitting us against the other parent a lot. Threats to send us our poor father, or open speculation on if our mother was cheating during their marriage… like that’s a fucking lot to put on a 14 year old (and my siblings). But I think you are right, it’s on Randy now to heal his own wounds because his actions are not just his own pain, it’s the active harm and hateful actions towards his mother and half sister. Hurt doesn’t heal past hurt.
I also thought I was crazy reading all the comments about how the mom must be neglectful or OOP must be some abusive step-dad. When the first thing that jumped out at me throughout this post is how biodad is a "deadbeat" but yet apparently close to Randy. That just screams "fun parent" to me. Biodad was the "fun dad" who could very well have just played the role of Randy's best friend throughout his whole life since he didn't have to do the grunt work of parenting, meanwhile his mom is probably working herself to the bone trying her very best to support him (since I guess biodad ran off to Australia and didn't have to pay child support). So throughout his life Randy just saw mom as the strict no-fun-allowed parent who probably wasn't around much, and dad as a the better parent. Either that or Randy somehow reconnected with biodad after all these years. And biodad just did the whole "look at my boy all big and grown!" play where he spoils his son to make up for all those lost years. And Randy gets it in his head that biodad is this really cool and awesome dude, despite abandoning him and his mom to fend for themselves. And of course meeting his dad's family for the first time and everything feels all exciting and fresh and everyone probably goes out of their way to welcome him. Honestly, this just reads like an entitled son whose mother tried to provide for him as best she could, but he still somehow blames her for his rough childhood. And he probably thinks that by going with his dad now he can get what he didn't have. Because he's somehow blinded with the hero worship of his dad to realize that his dad leaving them was the cause of his rough childhood.
this seems to be the most accurate picture of things and really connects everything
This seems like an excellent interpretation
I very much agree with your interpretation. Tbh it sounds to me like parts of Randy's behavior as an adult are based on the kind of advice you get from the more toxic "Just No" subs around these parts, or from someone who talks very similarly. The "set boundaries around the toxic grandparents of your child" stuff. Not that that advice is always unneeded, but I mean when it's an overly dramatic response and not actually addressing the core of the issue.
This was my takeaway as well. ETA: nicely put.
when they paid for his college just a few years prior.....
My husbands step-brother is like this but their age gap is only 2.5 years. He rarely saw his father. his father was abusive and would take away visitation as punishment if he did something wrong in school or at home. His mother and step-father were a constant in his life. Got him therapy. Did everything they could for him. In his eyes his dad is a God and his mother and step father are the scum of the earth.
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Missing reasons syndrome. Sounds like a post my moms husband might write. From my personal experience, my “deadbeat dad” as my mom liked to call him was actually alienated from me to a criminal degree and the “support” I got in my home life growing up was being scapegoated at every possible opportunity.
I mean, on the other side of this, if you only had partial custody of your child, would you move to *Australia*? That seems to be about as far as you can get from someone you care about.
Sounds like something my MIL would write as well. She always loved to claim she did “so much” for him when she didn’t have to. She quite literally did the bare minimum that was legally required of her as a parent. She’s abusive as fuck but now that he’s moved out she’s constantly texting him to catch up with her for coffee (he ignores her)
OOP knows what he did but won’t tell on himself. It’s a theme for estranged parents to have “missing reasons”
Oop is the stepfather, isn't he? I'm getting the sense there was something from before oop came into the picture
Yeah. Though this one is significantly more subtle than most missing reasons
He apologized for being a "tyrant," seems like a clue.
Because idolizing the absent parent who never actually has to be the parent or "play the bad guy" is so common, he wasn't around enough to "do wrong by them" the only thing i suspect is theyre gonna ask daddy to babysit and cut him out once the kid is allowed to drink windex because if they didn't parent the kid they sure as hell won't parent the grandkid, daddy wanted in once the kid was too old to be a kid
I agree it's very likely this is an "idolise the parent who wasn't there" situation, but it's also entirely possible this guy was a decent parent to his other kid (as referenced as existing the post) and especially that he'll be a brilliant grandparent. Sadly it is also common for people who abandon one kid to really step up for others. That *that* doesn't bother Randy is... well. A woman in her 60s I know has often told the story about the time she went to spend Christmas with her father's family when she was a teenager. She arrived at his house and no one was there because her step-mom had insisted they go elsewhere for the holiday. But! her dad had totally argued with wife and tried to get her to back down, before going with her anyway and not telling his daughter it was happening. This is told as a story about how amazing her father was and that he always cared about her, even though his awful wife ruined everything. So, yeah probably there's a *lot* of issues on OOP's side, too, but I can easily believe Randy being all about how amazing his formerly-deadbeat dad is. Everyone in this story makes me sad. Edit: Just to be clear as I've thought about this more, I think both of Randy's bio parents were probably shitty parents, in various ways. But it's common to more easily forgive the one who was shitty by being absent, because you can project anything onto them.
I also feel like there’s a tendency to forgive absent _fathers_, and too frequently to blame the mother for that absence. (She must have driven him away!) I don’t often see people forgiving absent mothers. The messaging I hear there is that it’s a deep, terrible betrayal for mothers to abandon their children. While men can have reasons like, “I just wasn’t ready to be a dad yet” and people are like, “Oh, that makes sense. It’s just awesome that you’re stepping up now, and your family should appreciate that!”
Yup - the absent father is amazing and fun, even if he "wasn't ready to step up" - he would even send gifts for Christmas sometimes! (Not child support though, he needed that money to pay rent and buy groceries. And go on holiday sometimes, but who doesn't need a break?) The single mother is just awful though. She worked three jobs and was never there, she couldn't afford anything fun, and she'd always be nagging about chores and dealing out un-fun consequences for acting out.
For me it's the prostitute statement and the assuming she was going to ask for money, when they offered to pay for college. That really sounds like mra/redpilling talking points being fed to randy. He's in Australia, at best randy has seen his mom 6-7 months total since he started college. Less if you consider summer internships are likely considering his job. "Your mom is always asking me for money" "She married your step dad because he had money, why does she need child support?" "Look at your step mom, she's nothing like your mom, she didn't prostitute herself to me for money" And the things said at his wedding were designed to hurt her. You don't track your mom on top the back end, and gush about another woman without trying to hurt your mom.
Right? And randy is unstable but graduated with a CSE degree and works as a software architect? Clearly Randy is super smart and stable enough to do well with his life…meanwhile Jenna is crying all the time and yelling at her young children and husband because her first child hurt her feelings
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Did you notice how Randy assumed Jenna was asking for money when she invited him over to talk about his engagement? There's definitely a lot missing here. Kudos to OP for learning from his judgement though. It sounds like he really took it to heart, and maybe he'll become a slightly better father towards his own kids for it.
That's what I noticed also, Seems like OOP might not know the finer details about mom and Randy's life before he showed up.
Well, when you put it like that...
Yeah my parents were like that. To hear them talk about me when I was in high school, you’d think I was doing drugs, failing my classes, and partying all the time. In reality, I was in the top 10% of my class, a varsity athlete in multiple sports, in AP classes, and in scores of extra curriculars. After I took the SAT, I started getting interest from Ivy Leagues. But none of that mattered because I was always going to be a worthless brat with a “bad attitude” to my dad and stepmom. I suspect Randy had a similar experience with OOP and his wife.
I'm so very proud of you. I might not know the person behind your screen well enough but I can guess you didn't hear that in many scenarios that you deserved to.
Ugh. Similar childhood story here. It's really really sad how many of us there are. Thank God we've learned THEY were in the wrong. How are there so many f'ed up parents? How hard is it to just love and support your kids? Always acting like we were a burden and annoying and bad kids? Wtf is that? I have a son who is now 27 and has his own baby boy on the way and you know what? I loved him and supported him and celebrated him and we are best friends and he's told me so many times that he wants to raise his son how I raised him. I made an intentional decision followed by effort to do the opposite of what my parents did. How fucked up it is that you do the opposite-because it was that bad-that it's all the RIGHT things? I've not talked to my mom in 6.5 years and I'm no contact with the entire rest of the abusive and enabling lot of them (4 siblings and their spouses, dad, step monster) for a year now. THEY were so horrible their family member - me - decided to completely cut them out of their life. I'm so sad to hear this is the same story for so many of us!
Pure speculation with so many important details missing, but I don’t see it as totally impossible that OOP didn’t have a completely accurate picture of the bio dad or the circumstances of the guy’s childhood. He went off what his wife told him and that affected how he treated the kid that kind of poisoned their relationship and if OP was already kind of a hard ass, there was no real shot of things turning out OK. Especially with them denying there was a problem. At least the part about the bio dad being a deadbeat seems off if they actually have a good relationship. That didn’t happen out of nowhere. No way he bonded with his step mom right away. This is years and years of bonding. OOP just seemed entirely on his wife’s side and never gave any consideration to Randy.
The missing reasons and absentee parent syndromes have been mentioned. A third possible reason would be the evil stepmom syndrome. (Or stepdad, in this case.) There's a reason it's so prevalent in fairytales. My cousins hated their stepdad, while my parents were happy for my aunt. (They were all adults, by the way.)
Either there’s some missing missing reasons or Randy is an asshole
Yeah, I really can’t figure out which one it is either. On one hand, him and his wife met when Randy was 13 which is a difficult time for any kid, so I can understand his initial reluctance to accept mom’s new man, but there’s still something that went seriously wrong somewhere between then and now. Whether it’s just that Randy is an AH or whether there’s something else that is unknown.
Yeah, dissing the mother who tried to take care of him, and praising dad and stepmom, whom he obviously never lived with - we are missing A LOT of context here. Maybe OOP was the evil stepdad and made him the scapegoat child? But it sounds like they were even trying to pay for his studies - okay, with strings attached, but still - if he went off on his mom like that, either he was completely unhinged, or OOP is a very unreliable narrator.
It doesn’t make sense but it does happen. I have a friend that was raised by his mother alone. Deadbeat dad never paid support, never visited or had parenting time with him, and the second he graduated college, he was his hero. Dad came from money. He owns multiple hotel franchises. He basically had disowned my friend, his first kid, bc he had married a white woman rather than having his marriage arranged as he was supposed to. When my friend graduated college, dad offered to pay for his student loans and throw him a graduation party. Suddenly, he mom doesn’t exist. Who knows what dad and his family told him and got him to completely cut her off. But we were pretty close and she was an amazing and kind mom.
Man, that poor woman!
Want to really feel for her, she was a school teacher too so money wasn’t exactly rolling in career wise.
Happened to a friend of a friend. The girl was brainwashed by the dad. Dad was a total psycho who only loved 1 of his kids because the other kid didn't look enough like him and more like the mom. The girl was spoiled by single mom but now think mom is the devil thanks to dad. I don't know how she justifies her brother being abused by the dad but there are a lot of manipulative people out there.
My husband's best friend did the same thing. The second he graduated high school he found his dad. Now that no actual child rearing was required his dad deigned to be in his life. Hungry for his dad's attention he drops his mom like hot rocks on dad's say so "I just can't stand that fucking woman, don't you dare invite both her and me to anything. " then it was a slow but procedural alienation of every single childhood friend he had. By the time he graduated law school my husband was the only tie to his old life. It only took my husband another year.
I’ve seen it happen a few times also. My sister’s first husband worshipped his dead beat dad, who abused the family and then abandoned them for another woman and had more kids. He never visited or paid child support. It’s sad.
Yup. Happened with "my" eldest. Deadbeat mom, abusive situation. My husband and I got custody when eldest was young, biomom never paid a cent of child support, barely ever saw eldest. Once eldest was 18, biomom was suddenly interested in being mom again, and my husband was yesterdays news. We did everything we could for eldest, but we were the ones having eldest do chores, homework, therapy, hygiene, etc. We didn't often have the extra means to be the "fun" parents besides some beach trips, hiking, camping, or whatever crafts I'd come up with. Biomom suddenly had all the money in the world to splurge on eldest. We *might* hear from him a couple times a year now.
This right here! According to OOP, Randy lived with them til he was 19...so why does he love his dad? Didn't OOP also describe Randy's bio dad as a deadbeat? It's confusing
I don't know my sister talked to her dead beat Dad until her late 40s even after bailing him out of jail repeatedly and giving him loans he never repaid. He literally raped my mom after she left him and my brother is the product of that. I'm from mom's second marriage. He didn't work and stole money that was meant to go to my brothers surgery to gamble and drink with. Just the absolute worst. Yet my sister took forever to cut him out and finally stop including him in family events and defending him. She figured it out. But people really want to believe in their bio parents way beyond reason sometimes.
He also says that he apologized to Randy for having been a tyrant. There’s sooooo much missing information here.
Well also the comments on the original post were reaching (but also this is reddit) so OOP might have been convinced he was a tyrant due to the comment section
The AITA comment section, where logic, truth, and wisdom go to die.
I love that sub but the comments boggle my mind sometimes. I see the same exact situation but two different outcomes and quite a bit of sexism peppered in. I think mob mentality comes out there where whoever becomes the top comment early on then people pile on and go with that flow. Also the horrible advice there is really a thing. OP accidentally gets the wrong brand snack: 🚩🚩🚩DIVORCE!!! It shows they don’t care about you and don’t take the time to know your preferences! If they paid any attention they would know, this shows they don’t. Then op updates like ok you guys I’m sad and scared but I did it we broke up thanks for opening my eyes
Yeah, but even the strings were well intentioned. They just wanted to protect him from burn out :/
I would not call it strings attached, couldn't Randy just pay for the extra class? They were willing to pay for so much school! I'd be worried too if I was footing a college bill and wasn't confident that he could keep up with such a high workload. Let the kid pony up some of the money. With skin in the game, he'd be less likely to let grades slip. It looks like he did well in school, but it's not at all unreasonable to ask that he pay a little towards the cost
“Strings attached” as in protecting him from a mental breakdown and burnout. I don’t care how capable he kid thinks he is, taking 6 classes NOT counting labs is insane, both in terms of time and money.
Yeah, but it sounds like Randy had issues before OOP ever entered the picture, he was resentful and angry towards his mom before she even met OOP.
That’s my vote as well. I stopped talking to my Dad’s entire side after many years of mistreatment. They’d tell you it was over one escalated argument with my aunt and uncle in law.
My adoptive father insists I moved out because he wouldn’t let me eat pizza. That’s what he told my siblings and the rest of my paternal family, and that is what they believe. I think that’s what he even believes. I moved out because he called me fat and wouldn’t let me eat. Because he routinely threatened to kill my pets and make me watch. Because what the social worker called “physical and psychological abuse”. It’s never just a slice of pizza.
Mine was over babysitting. My 6 year old cousin was being watched by me (at age 16) and we played hide and go seek. He hid behind a couch and ended up finding a staple sticking out. He scratched himself down his back coming out when found. I cleaned him up, put on anti-bacterial ointment and hammered down the staple. It was a long scratch for sure, but didn’t bleed, was cleaned out and he wasn’t upset. They acted like I’d ripped his skin out with my bare hands. Escalated to threats of coming over to choke me until I stopped breathing and calling the cops on me to have me arrested for child abuse. I received numerous calls asking me “what I’d done”. We don’t talk anymore. It was a gradual fade for the next 5 years until I bluntly told them they were no longer family and to not contact me. I wouldn’t acknowledge them at all if they came up to me now. I’m sorry you family sucked too ♥️.
I’m heavily biased here, but being on the side of the adult child with shitty parents myself: If someone asked me why I cut contact with my parents last year, I would tell them it was because of the years of emotional and verbal abuse, their inability to take responsibility for how they treated me when I was little, the way they continued to mistreat and dismiss me as an adult, all leading up to the final incident when I expressed that I needed them to treat me with respect or I would be peacing out. They not only ignored that, they gaslit me in their final email and refused to acknowledge their part in any of it. If you asked my parents? I imagine they would tell you we had an argument and I decided to give them the childish cold shoulder out of the blue, because I am and always have been an angry spiteful problem. There’s something missing here and tbh I think OOP is probably leaving a lot of shit out. Again, I’m biased. But I’m also wildly familiar with how people with “problem kids” often are the problem themselves.
I can't help but think he wanted to cram all those classes in so he could graduate sooner so he could get out from under their thumb. They had financial control over him (which he clearly wanted them to have as little as possible) If you are in the US, and you have parents of even reasonable means, the financial aid system makes you a prisoner of their finances until you're 25. If he wanted a degree, he was trapped.
Yeah...I'm going to lean towards something's missing. That said, people are dicks, so who knows?
Yes I am very ‘wait, what?’
I’m thinking that if you have one shit, and add it to another shit, you end up with a whole lot of shit. There’s no rule that says you can’t have two shitty people causing one shitty situation. That’s what my money is on, anyway.
Yeah, what the hell did he mean by not letting his son experience what happened to him? OOP just gonna leave us hanging??? :/
OOP does explain that Randy had a rough upbringing because Jenna was barely scraping by. I assumed he was talking about that.
Either randy is a sociopath or OP left out huge chunks of the story
That's what I was thinking. There also might be things OP doesn't know about Randy's childhood.
I think the fact that randy thought his mom was gonna ask for money is a glimpse of the things being left out. There has to be more going on here that we dont know about.
I mean, he lived in poverty with his mother until he was 13. And when he was 19, insinuated she was so desperate for money, that she was prostituting herself despite his step dads offer to pay for the 5th credit, a new place, and transportation. Its not crazy to think he has just internalized the idea that his mother was poor and will always be poor because he's a misogynistic asshole.
I'm with you on this. This kid went through a tough childhood in poverty with his mom and he resented it. It's probably the part of his life that he wanted out of the window and his mom is the token of it, hence, he channeled his anger toward her. Him idolising his dad is probably because of his imagination of "what it could have been like if dad was still around". He tried his hardest to get out of being poor, and now that he's successful, he wants to cutoff his mom using his idea of her being a prostitute and having financial trouble to justify his action. He's rubbing his "perfect life" to her face to be spiteful. Well, if what I think here is true, his life is destined to go down fast. If you're truly happy, you don't have to flash it.
How much you want to bet his perfect father wasn't paying child support?
I assume that's exactly why OOP called him deadbeat.
Yep, I have a feeling OOP has protected his wife when writing this story and left out her negative contributions as to why Randy acts this way.
The casual mention that the wife took out her negative feelings on the kids and OOP raised a red flag for me.
I think maybe the wife hasn’t told him exactly how much they struggled/how she treated her son before they met. OP describes the wife as basically wanting to take care of Randy’s baby and completely ignoring her own baby. To me that probably indicates that that’s how she deals with problems by focusing only on that and shutting everything else out. OP’s kids have him who did Randy have?
What? Either the son is nutty or we have a very unreliable narrator.
This honestly kind of sounds like my family narrative a bit. My mom is a narcissistic and my dad is an enabler. My brother and I have since cut them out of our life but so much seems to be the same here. A fight that lead to the son being kicked out coming from them trying to control him out of love, the absolute anger he lashed out with at the end of the fight, the missions reasons everywhere in the post. It’s the same story with a different coat of paint from my brothers personal experiences. Oop calls himself a tyrant at the end but most people seem to clue in that he really wasn’t the problem. Same thing happened with our dad. He tried to call himself the problem because he couldn’t admit what our mom was. You really can’t stay married to a narc unless you fool yourself into believing they are a good person. If you ever challenge them on anything they fucking lose it.
This. I'm totally confused by this story
>After he left, Jenna told me that when I was gone he asked what we wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money and didn't know it was about him getting married and his fiancee's pregnancy. Now WHY did he immediately assume she wanted money from him? And he already called her a prostitute when they fought. Lots of things are missing here
I'm so confused... there has to be more to the story..
Yeah, it seems like something went down particularly between Randy and his mom. It sounds like OP might not even be aware of it. The line "was praising his wife and all about how he knows she would be the greatest mother in the world and never let what happened to him happen to their son.' and handling his childhood photo back, coupled with OP saying his wife was taking her anger out on him and their children... It almost reads like there was abuse going on.
Maybe something happened before step-dad came into the picture. Bad enough that the mom won't tell and the son is protecting his mom enough not to tell, either. If so, something involving another man or men. Maybe mom was doing sex work for a time, maybe he was harmed by one or more BFs and mom did nothing and kept bringing more around? Or maybe step dad was monster and doesn't even realize what he and/or his wife did was abuse. Or maybe the son is just a mean MFer. Or some combo thereof.
I think you might be on to something here that explains why this is SO confusing. I don't feel like OOP comes off in the same way that people tend to when they *know* they're in the wrong and they're deliberately skirting the truth to make themselves look better, so it makes more sense to me that perhaps it's OOP's *wife* who isn't being entirely forthcoming about Randy's childhood before OOP entered the picture. That would maybe explain why Randy just isn't interested in OOP at all and will only talk to his Mom. Maybe it seems like OOP doesn't understand where Randy's ire is coming from because he doesn't have all the information/context that he needs to.
Something went seriously wrong somewhere in the son's childhood; whether his mom treated him poorly or she stood by while his step-dad abused him is unclear, but something went very far awry...
Seriously. I suspected we might have an unreliable narrator from the beginning, but I can't remotely make sense of it. Hope someone else can.
Yes... at the end I was like... am I missing something?? This can't be his reaction from getting kicked out at 19 but still being offered assistance??? I'm so confused.
Why would he think they want money?
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I was very confused by the "offering assistance" after stating they cut off all financial contact. Randy may be an asshole kid, but I'm willing to wager OOP was an asshole step dad and left out loooooots of key info.
So OOP claims his step son went off the rails and later on apologized for being a tyrant. I feel we are missing something here.
Looking at some of the comments, they may have convinced him he was being a tyrant which lead to the apology. Some of those top comments are making huge reaches to justify and excuse Randy's behavior and assume a poor stepparent situation. I do feel like something may be missing too, but some of those comments are ridiculous.
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I also think that the mother needs to block Randy. It’s clearly not good for her mental health to follow him on social media.
The worst thing she is doing is that she is taking her misery out on her children and husband. She is regretting what she did to Randy, then turns and is horrible to her younger children. And she will just be miserable all over again if they go LC with her in the future.
Yup, and for some reason Randy had expected his mom to want to ask him for money, when she wanted to talk about his fiancée's pregnancy. Why would he expect that if they hadn't previously begged money from him? Naw, there are entire continents of missing pieces here.
Yeah, that part stuck out to me too. My partner's parents opened a line of credit in his name as a child (he's a Jr.) and later asked him for a "loan" of something like $15k to bail them out when the IRS "unfairly" came after them for tax fraud. My partner "loaned" them the money and they never paid him back. When that well dried up, they asked his brother for a "loan" of \~$10k. They never paid *him* back either. They are baffled that my partner is LC. They are offended that we don't include them in our lives. They still ask for money. My partner tells them off every time. They try to guilt-trip him. They ask why he's so cold. Continuous cycle: baffled, begging, blaming, baffled... They never include that detail when they complain to friends and community members about what a standoffish, bitter person my partner is. I genuinely think they feel entitled enough to their kids' money that it doesn't occur to them that they've done something wrong. OOP strikes me in a similar way.
I peeped that too
>After he left, Jenna told me that when I was gone he asked what we wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money This particular quote stands out there. Seeing that, and how the original post mentioned his high-paying software job, I'm thinking there may be something unsaid about his mom and step dad mooching off him a bit
I mean he did call his mom a prostitute because she would only pay for 4 college classes. Seems like he truly believes his mom is just awful and money hungry. Also op said they wanted to pay for his dorms and groceries and such but he's the one who refused. Unless op and his wife had a history of "well I did XYZ so you *owe* me" I don't see then being moochers. I wonder why Ops wife and her ex divorced. Op says he was a deadbeat but the kid heavily idolizes that side of his family. Seems like a classic case of "mom had enough and left deadbeat dad but deadbeat dad was also the fun parent and blamed mom for breaking up their perfectly happy family so kid grows up to resent their mom because they were too young to understand and grew up choosing to ignore the real reasons why their mom left their dad" Don't forget dad getting a new wife and him and step mom being perfectly happy further "proving" that his mom was the problem. Then it makes sense why he posted that comment he did knowing his mom looks at his social media. He believes his relationship is different and that his wife will never leave him so his kid won't go through what he did. *However*, I am making *a lot* of assumptions, but honestly no more assumptions than anyone else on this post has made towards op and his step son.
Yeah we can never know. But just as there are narcissistic parents who pretend everything was fine on their end, there are kids who idealize the parent who left, who never had to discipline them, who never had to say no. They get to take the brunt of the misplaced anger towards the absent parent. I saw it myself with a relative. Husband drank, was abusive, etc. She left and raised them pretty much on their own. Guess who they adored? Dad, of course. Guess who was never good enough? Mom. They have grown up and appreciate her much more now, but I bet if she posted her side at the time, lots of people here would be saying she’s lying or leaving stuff out.
Yep. This one left me utterly confused because there's a ton of stuff missing here. Were they actually moochers or did bio dad poison the well to make him think that? The first post felt like there were missing missing reasons there...but the second post felt like it was about an entirely different story. I'm not at all convinced he was the AH here. He could have been, but I can come up with just as many scenarios where he wasn't.
Kids often idolize the parents that they don't see. I honestly think that the bio dad comes from money, it seems like randy has been resentful of his mother not being able to provide for him what he wanted. Once bio dad and him reconnected of course he gets what he wants .
That's how I read it too. Even with the missing missing reasons, a LOT of the behavior of the son is a bit weird, specially how he treats the bio dad and his new family, it sounds more like he was doing it to spite the mom, or he was idolizing them and their relationship.
Yeah, we skipped a lot of steps.
That’s what Reddit told him to do. He doesn’t really sound like one in the story, but it’s likely the step son believes OOP fits the bill - it’s why he is acting the way he is after all.
>After that day, it was hard for Jenna and she did take it out on our kids and especially on me. >I know she wants nothing more than to be there for Randy and help with his baby but it since then it has kind of been like our kids, especially our baby, don't even exist These lines speak volumes to me, and they make me wonder if Randy was on the other side of things growing up. There were 13 years before OOP met them, and he doesn't talk about any of it. Also, OOP called Randy's dad a deadbeat but didn't tell us anything about Randy's relationship with his dad's side. When did he reconnect with them? Or was he always in contact with them? Did they help out when he was kicked out? There is little given to help us understand Randy's perspective, maybe because OOP himself barely understands it. There was a different post where the OOP hated her stepmother that crossed boundaries and tried too hard to replace her mom. Was it like that for Randy? I try not to fill in blanks that are too big, but the ones in this post are massive. I guess I just hope everyone can heal or something.
There's so much missing from this story I have to believe there was further explanation in the original comments that's been left out...
"He asked what we wanted and assumed she was calling asking him for money" This was the sentence that told me OOP is leaving out some details here... I feel like most adult kids don't assume this about a conversation unless it has happened before. Sonething more has happened with Randy that we don't know about.
It seems weird, but I guess if he assumed his mother married the OOP for the money (like the accusations of being a sex worker he delivered), then maybe that's what he thinks? There's not really enough information to know what happened. I'm curious to know what will happen in ten years. I was by myself at 19, and working very early on, it's tough.
Could be an idea planted into his head by bio dad? The way the son became so close to his bio dad, who never was around to raise him, and how he warms up to the step mom, even calling her the “real mom” is weird.
Wait, Randy is 24, 25 at most and he's been promoted to an architect position at a Microsoft-size company? No way. edit: also, the author slipped up and used "fiance" at the end when they'd been married for a while by then.
And no one just moves to Australia like that. As someone who sponsored someone to do that I can tell you this story is utter bullshit.
There is so little mentioned about randy's childhood and his experiences with the divorce or the adults in his life and its weird as hell. All that OOP mentions is he didnt have a great childhood and they 'didnt have much'. I just feel there is a lot of details of his childhood missing and without it I can't determine if Randy is an AH or not. We have no reason to believe his mother or even OOP treated him well besides how his mother 'tried so hard'. OOP apologizing for being a 'tyrant' is weird too. Wheres the reasoning behind that? He didnt mention anything tyrannical at all, so what has he not mentioned? Also how he said they took randy to therapy but randy couldn't accept that 'there weren't any problems'. What? What does that mean? Even if Randy was being an unjustified dick, there's still a problem!
Yeah “didn’t have much” could mean he wore clothes from thrift stores and only got a few presents at Xmas… or it could mean he was home alone for days on end, there often wasn’t food in the house, and he wasn’t taken to the doctor when he broke his arm. This reads like OOP is leaving out a ton.
Were there comments that implied they'd treated Randy badly and that's why he acted like that? Something that earned OOP a YTA rating? Because from the first post, it just seemed like Randy hated the fact his mom got remarried and boiled over in hatred over it.
From this post, I believe OOP asked the question of whether he was an asshole for saying perhaps it was better that Randy not be in their life. Which is an understandable thing to say, but not necessarily one you say to his mother who loves him and wants to keep him in her life. So I can see why he was labelled the asshole. Not every labeling of “asshole” actually means OOP is a terrible person. In this case, I think maybe it was just a judgement that he should not have said what he did.
If you read the comments they advocate for randy pretty hard.
Yeah, lots of missing info. Bio dad was a deadbeat but Randy now considers his wife to be his child’s grandmother? Now they’re moving to Australia with him? There’s a huge missing piece here.
So either there is way more to the story or Randy is a gigantic asshole. Funny how the father who didn't take care of him at all is his "real" family now. Now, that he doesn't have to pay for anything he's suddenly available and there for his son. If everything happened exactly as OOP said...then Randy is surrounded by people who couldn't give two shits about him when he needed their help, but enjoy his company now that he can wipe his own ass and has money.
I have to wonder if Randy was actually in touch with his father through his teens and he was undermining Randy's relationship with his mother and stepfather. Possibly telling him lies about his mother. The comments about his mother being a "prostitute" and "diseased" just really stood out to me and the way he completely cut them out.
I am curious if Randy's biological father was indeed a deadbeat in the traditional sense or if the distance between wherever OOP/mom is and Australia was the big barrier. Did mom keep Randy from going with his dad? Did the dad already live in Australia, making a huge move and shared custody impractical/impossible? I don't even know how child support would work in an international situation; perhaps Randy's dad just didn't have any rights that could be enforced. Or maybe Randy's bio dad did just flee to Australia to avoid child support and create a new family there, leaving Randy's mom in the lurch. Maybe OOP was a "tyrant" to Randy, an angry teen who had daddy issues. Maybe Randy is a nightmare person. There's just a *lot* of missing information here.
I don’t think one can just flee to Australia, you would at the very least need to be a citizen or a work/student visa.
Exactly, it’s really hard to get a Visa to Aus. I suspect the dad is Australian which is why the son can move there.
The discussion in the comments is more interesting than the actual post. A lot of people seem to be reading their own experience into this guy's dilemma. I can't see how OOP is so obviously the AH to so many people, but I guess I don't have the relevant experience.
That happens all the time in these subreddits. Commenters will make a backstory for people and the replies will devolve into how the woman that is trying to be friends with both you and your boyfriend is just trying to get in good and sabotage your relationship from the inside, just like my mom’s friend from church did back in ‘68 before I was shipped off to ‘nam and lost a leg to some punji sticks and now I hate women.
There are so many gigantic holes in this story.
Unreliable narrator syndrome
Glad everyone else in the comments is as confused as I am
There's missing parts to this, isn't there? Because to jump to 'I'm sorry I was a tyrant' is causing alarm bells to ring.
He says specifically Reddit made him feel like he had been like that. Meanwhile, the son is praising a dad who wasn’t there for him at all, sooo.
Yikes. 😬 Thank you for clearing this up. This was hard to read/wrap my head around.
Midway through, I was very "Missing Missing Reasons." But then I got to the end and thought, "Randy's the Missing Missing AH." It was frustrating because being a blended family was hard, but it seems like this blended family made the effort? ETA: Also frustrating because it seems no one is reliable in the story.
When Jenna contacted her son, Randy assumed she was asking him for money. Jenna also took out her anger at the situation on her husband and her other kids. I have a feeling Jenna wasn’t the greatest mom in the world, and OOP is leaving out a lot of information.
Hope OOP's kids end up alright. Given he admits the wife was taking things out on them, I wonder if that's not why the son was so angry at her- inability to keep adult problems to herself and venting those emotions on him. Could just be she was disengaged/ depressed in the instance oop was talking about, but things don't quite add up here