My (32F) future stepdaughter (12F) destroyed my wedding dress a week before the wedding. I’m torn between giving her another chance or calling off the whole thing.

A Reddit user shared her heartbreaking dilemma about whether to move forward with her wedding after her future stepdaughter destroyed her wedding dress just a week before the big day. Torn between love for her fiancé and frustration with his daughter’s actions, she’s questioning her future. Read the full story below.

‘ My (32F) future stepdaughter (12F) destroyed my wedding dress a week before the wedding. I’m torn between giving her another chance or calling off the whole thing.?’

I am beyond frustrated right now and am on the verge of giving my fiancé, Alan (39M) an ultimatum that I really don’t want to give.
Alan and I have been dating for about 3 years and have been engaged for a year, with our wedding date in a week.

He told me on our first date he was a package deal; his daughter, Rose, is his whole world. I was perfectly okay with it and we started hanging out together. Alan’s ex, Carrie (38F) is still in the picture as she and Alan are coparenting. Carrie doesn’t like me one bit.

Alan told me that he and Carrie had been high school/college sweethearts and she had always held onto hope that he’d come back to her. But Alan also confided in me that Carrie wasn’t a great partner. She adores Rose. But she treated Alan badly during their entire relationship.

You name it, she did it; emotional abuse, g**lighting, financial abuse, belittling, etc. He finally got the courage to walk away from her when he discovered she was having an affair. Rose was maybe 6 when Alan learned about the affair.

Unfortunately, the courts still granted Carrie 50/50 custody, despite the amount of evidence against her. Rose and I have had a bit of a strained relationship. I understand it, having grown up in a divorced home that both parents remarried.

She’s a preteen and has some conflicted thoughts about her dad marrying a new woman instead of going back to her mother. But she’s been really haughty and n**ty to me. She makes cutting comments and will respond with “You’re not my mother” when I ask her to stop.

Alan has tried to set down ground rules but she flippantly tells him that “OP’s not going to last.” I put up with it because I love Alan and, sometimes, Rose behaves herself. Seriously, she’s not a horrible kid. She gets good grades in school, she’s in the youth symphony and takes dance classes.

She’s really popular, bubbly and friendly when she isn’t being mean to me. It’s like Jekyll and Hyde. Alan and I have talked about it constantly and have even involved Carrie but Carrie just brushes it off, telling me to mind my own beeswax. We have tried therapy, groundings and everything else but nothing works.

That brings us to tonight. A couple of weeks ago, alternations on my wedding dress was finished. I was really excited. My late grandma (who I was really close to) made her own wedding dress after seeing photos of Grace Kelly and many women in our family have worn it to their weddings or have had their own dresses designed after it.

As I’m taller than my grandma, I had mine made. It’s really special to me. I have the dress saved in my closet, tucked in a garment bag.
Alan and I don’t live together. However, my apartment is close to one of Rose’s friends so we have an arrangement that on some days Alan has custody,

Rose will hang out at her friend’s house and then come over for dinner with Alan and me. After we watch a movie or play Nintendo Switch, Alan will take Rose to his place. Today was one of those days. Alan was running late from work and called to let me know.

Rose arrived and everything was normal. I stepped into the kitchen to finish preparing dinner, leaving Rose alone. If I had any inkling of what was about to happen, I would’ve done something different.

Dinner was ready and I went to get Rose. I passed my bedroom door and something about the way the sliding closet door was positioned made me want to check. My dress had been cut to pieces with a pair of scissors and was covered with glitter paint. My veil is torn to shreds. It’s completely ruined.

I broke down crying. I was too upset to even be angry. Alan arrived and found me in a mess. He was beyond furious and went to Rose, confronting her about it. Rose admitted it with a shrug of her shoulders and said “What’s the point? She’s just a fat old cow anyway.”

Alan confiscated her cell phone and immediately called Carrie to discuss a punishment. I don’t know how or why, but this is the straw that is breaking the camel’s back. I have gone through so much with Rose. I’ve tried to be caring and compassionate…and this is my reward?

Now that my sadness has faded away, it’s been replaced with a boiling anger. I’m tempted to just call off the wedding and leave Alan to deal with his b**t of a daughter. This wasn’t an accident. This was on purpose. But then I remember that Rose is part of Alan’s life. I love Alan. But I don’t know if I can keep taking it.. What do I do now?

Here’s how people reacted to the post:

esoteric_enigma −  Your relationship with her is a part of the marriage. I wouldn’t get married if that isn’t right. It’d be just as ridiculous as marrying him when your relationship with him isn’t right.

MizzyvonMuffling −  Call it off and sent Rose’s Dad a bill for the dress. Don’t get married, Rose wins but it’ll be much healthier for you in the long run.

littlemissredtoes −  As someone who has watched my sister deal with stepchildren like this for over 20 years – it never gets better.
They will continue to try and hurt you and break up your relationship forever. You can either accept this and live with the abuse, or give them what they want and leave their father.

My sister stayed and she has never been 100% happy, because they are always in the background and their father always lets them get away with b**lshit behaviour because he doesn’t want them to cut him out of their lives.

Suspicious-Height588 −  Is this the future you want. Think about it thoroughly. It’s gonna be a tough road ahead and I think you should prioritise yourself and your mental health.

Hairy_Caregiver7136 −  My great uncle married a woman who had a daughter like this! She was apparently a n**ty little s**t who put sugar in his gas tank, would play jacks near the back tires of his vehicle so he’d run them over, puncturing the tires, bury his tools,

taking his clothes off the line when they were drying and throwing them in the lot next door which was basically a mud pit when it rained. The last straw was when she snuck little rocks she found outside in his soup. It was like pozole or menudo or something he couldn’t see through the broth and was semi-hardy.

He swallowed a couple of rocks and had to go to the hospital, but he was done. They’d tried everything with her, and her mom even tore up her behind, but he wasn’t having it and divorced her.

My family would talk about that A LOT when we all got together. Apparently, the bio dad was a “going out for cigarettes” and never came back kinda dad. The girl was young but old enough to remember him, and I don’t know, maybe hoped he’d come back.

And this was the 50s, so there wasn’t therapy or anything, to really deal with it, maybe a lobotomy which we all know is 🫣. But I always felt bad for the mom because she was struggling before she met my uncle,

and he took care of her and the girl, not rich but comfortable and safe and they had to go back to struggling and I think moving away to be with family after the divorce. All I can say is I can’t imagine what would happen if Rose found out you were pregnant.

How miserable you’d be your entire pregnancy, a time that’s supposed to be super happy, how scared you’d be to leave the baby alone around her, how badly she’d treat your child. Carrie would pitch a fit at not being the only woman who has his kid and who knows what she’d instruct Rose to do. I wouldn’t want to find out.

It’s just something to think about. Put yourself and your happiness first here because he’s always going to put his kid first as he should. She needs major therapy, and he needs to focus his time on getting her help and away from her mom.

rembrandtismyhomeboy −  I have been in a similar position, but I ran after 1,5 years because no man is worth my peace. In hindsight the best decision ever. My current fiance has an almost 18 yo and he actually parents her.

This makes all the difference. Don’t do this to yourself, you’re worth so much more. Send Alan and Carrie the bill and never speak to them again after that.

Fjordgard −  Rose is a product of her upbringing. Obviously, Carrie has likely done more than a bit of talking to Rose about treating you badly, but Alan isn’t an innocent man here, either.

Therapy, grounding and anything else will not work because Carrie is likely praising Rose or making promises to her about her dad coming back once you are out of the picture. And Rose has a mission: Making you “not last” – she said so herself.

And why should she stop trying? Mom is praising her and likely waiving any punishment the moment Rose is with her, things like getting grounded or therapy are also not exactly the most debilitating things when to Rose, the breakup of you and Alan is a lot more important.

Confiscating her phone for ruining a whole wedding dress? That’s hardly a big reaction. A more fitting reaction would be that Rose isn’t allowed in your house anymore.

My instinct says that she should also symbolically pay with her allowance for parts of the dress for some time, but her mother will likely just give her the money when Alan isn’t looking.

I think the biggest punishment would be if Alan would finally set some boundaries with Carrie, mainly. Like, the punishment doesn’t have to be discussed with *Carrie* first, but with *you*. *You* are supposed to be his new family, after all.

Coparenting doesn’t mean that every single decision has to be checked with the other parent. As long as Alan doesn’t see that Carrie is the main issue , nothing will change. She will keep indoctrinating Rose.

Particular_Disk_9904 −  I would run OP. You have to acknowledge that this will be your life and won’t stop.

tiny-pest −  You walk away. If after 3 years this is still at this level and getting worse, it will not change. There is no ultimatum you can give. He is a father, and he will always choose his child like he should. The fact that he has done nothing to set hard boundaries. Therapy only works if the child is willing.

Grounding doesn’t do anything when mom will not back him. You can say he has tried everything but when she cut up your dress he took her phone. Nothing else. I am sorry, but he isn’t going to change. Nothing will change.

Unless she either has her mom cut off or he takes a harsh route, then it won’t, and her mom is good enough even though she is encouraging this behavior. So she will remain in her life. He won’t take a harsh route because what good is that if mom won’t back him or kiddo decides she doesn’t want to visit because of it.

In the end, he will always choose his child. You can s**k it up and let him and yourself accept her abusing you. Letting it escalate until possibly her becoming physical. And what about if you have kids. Do you trust your child is safe growing up in this environment. Or you walk away.

You can love someone, but love is not always enough, and hunny, I don’t see anything changing if after years she is only getting worse.
So it’s up to you to decide. Stay and your life 50 percent of the time is being abused. Or walk away and find a relationship where you are not abused by someone in their life.

Yes, she is a child. Yes, she is most likely being pushed to these things. Lied to that dad would be better alone. That if he is, he might get back with mom. She is being manipulated and striking out.

You can feel for her while saying no, I will not put up with this. She is old enough to know she is doing wrong. She just won’t stop until something drastic stops her.

buncatfarms −  When you call it off, you need to share what she did. It can’t be you guys called it quits cause you don’t love eachother. She’s old enough to know better and people can know what she did.

If it was my daughter and she did that to anyone else even if it’s someone I didn’t like – she would get every right taken away because that is disgusting behavior. And I am sensitive to how she feels because I also have divorced parents who dated others but I never thought to do something like this.

Do you think the relationship can survive this act of sabotage? Should the Redditor give her fiancé and stepdaughter another chance, or is this a sign that the dynamic will remain too toxic? Share your thoughts below!