My dad completely covered my cousin’s college tuition but wouldn’t give me a cent when I was in school, which led to me dropping out and changing my career path. Now he’s angry that I won’t speak to him, and I told him to go talk to his other son instead.
I, 28 male, have been married to my wife, Haley, 28 female, for a couple of years. A few months ago, we had our firstborn, our baby boy. We posted some photos of him on Facebook a couple of weeks ago, and I guess it was a huge mistake because my relatives saw it and decided to forward it to my dad.
My father and I haven’t been in touch for almost 10 years after he refused to pay for college for me but paid off my cousin’s college tuition in full. The funniest part was that the guy didn’t even ask for it, my dad just did it without him having to ask. I knew that my dad always loved to help his brother out, but I think this was going a little bit too far.
For context, my cousin and I were born around the same time, just a couple of months apart. My cousin Peter and I always had a very weird sibling rivalry thing going on, even though he wasn’t actually my sibling. We were still both competing for my dad’s affection all the time.
My mother separated from my father when I was just a few months old because she wasn’t ready to handle motherhood, and so my dad was a single parent. Peter had both his parents with him, but both of them were always too busy at work to pay any attention to him, which is probably why he was chasing after my dad.
My dad was ahead of sales at a firm, while my uncle and his wife ran a cafe of their own. Unfortunately, their cafe business wasn’t doing too well, so they constantly needed financial help from my father. My dad was in a decent position job-wise and could afford to help them out. It never bothered me, and I didn’t even care about it because I didn’t even consider that maybe someday my dad would choose them over his own flesh and blood.
When Peter and I were in high school, both of us had similar grades, but he was a little behind me because a couple of times he failed his math assignments.
By the end of the year, I had taken over. I was pretty proud of myself until it backfired when my dad told me that he wasn’t going to pay for college for me and that I had to apply for a scholarship. But he would gladly pay off Peter’s tuition in full because, apparently, he needed the help more since his parents were struggling financially.
I fought with my dad a lot over that, but there was just no changing his mind. He told me that I needed to have a heart and think of my brother.
When I told my dad that he wasn’t my brother because we weren’t even biologically related, he got pissed off and told me that if I was going to use language like that, then I was better off moving out and living on my own. I was already very upset with my father for not paying my college tuition and choosing Peter over me, so I left the house without thinking things through and lived with some of my friends.
Over the next couple of weeks, I didn’t have any contact with my father after that, even though he tried several times to get me to come back home, but never once offered to pay for college for me.
I did try to get a student loan or something, but since I didn’t have any adults looking out for me, I couldn’t get one and had to drop out of college after a couple of days because I couldn’t pay for anything. I could get a job, but unfortunately, no job would pay enough and also give me enough time to attend classes.
So it was just a very screwed up time for me. But somehow, I managed to get a very low-paying job as a temp at a company, and I worked really, really hard because I had to pay rent, buy groceries, and also cover a couple of other bills. I didn’t have anybody to help me, and I knew that my roommates weren’t exactly going to be friendly if I failed to cough up the money on time. So I had to work my way up without any help.
But thankfully, luck was on my side, and my hard work paid off because now I’m working in the same company but in a much better position. I met my wife through this place a few years ago, and now we even have a son together. So I wouldn’t say that it was all bad for me, and things seemed to have worked out pretty well. Even though I didn’t go to college and get the life that I thought I deserved, I had to work a lot harder than most other people my age back then.
But at the moment, I don’t mind it because I think my hard work is what made me who I am, and I have no regrets really.
I know that Peter is also working at a firm and has a family of his own, but I don’t think he earns as much as I do, which must be a slap in the face for him. A couple of friends have told me that they’ve seen his house and his lifestyle, and it’s not as great in comparison to what I have.
Even though he’s the one with a college degree, I was pretty proud of myself when I found out that he wasn’t living as well as I was. I almost contacted my dad to ask him how he felt about it but didn’t because I didn’t want to be petty. The bottom line was that I won and he lost, even though the cards were stacked against me, and that was good enough for me. I didn’t need to talk to either of them to prove anything.
Over the years, my dad tried several times to reach out to me and get back on good terms with me. He’d wish me on every birthday, every Christmas, and every New Year’s. I never replied, but I never blocked him either because I kept waiting for him to apologize just once.
The weirdest thing and my biggest issue with him was that he tried to talk to me, but he never apologized for what he did. He just didn’t even think that what he did was wrong and believed that it was completely justified for him to prefer Peter over me, even though I was his flesh and blood and his only son. That’s why I never responded to any of it.
Even when he expressed how disappointed he was that he wasn’t invited to my wedding, he did say that he wanted me and Haley to be happy forever and blessed us by text, which made me feel a little bad. But then I remembered that there was still no apology from him, and that made me stop feeling sorry for him because evidently, he’d never felt sorry for me, not even to apologize.
At least he continued to try and text me even after that, but I still didn’t respond. He never called, which was weird because he could have tried to, but I guess that was just overstepping for him. However, that changed a few weeks ago after my son was born and we posted about him on Facebook.
After that post, I finally received a call from my father after almost 10 years of not speaking to each other. I picked up the call despite not knowing what to expect. I guess somewhere deep down, I was hoping that he’d finally apologize to me, even if it was just for the sake of being able to see his grandson.
Update, I was disappointed yet again because even then he didn’t apologize and didn’t even address what had happened all those years ago. He just called to tell me that he was feeling very upset that I got married without him and now I had a son, but he wasn’t even going to be allowed to see his grandson.
My dad told me that his heart was breaking and that he really wished that I’d forget about everything that happened and just not make such a huge deal out of it as I had been for the past 10 years.
I don’t know in what world it was fair to say that I was making a big deal out of nothing, especially in a situation like that where he had chosen to pay my cousin’s college tuition rather than mine.
Because of this, I literally had to drop out and work my way up from the bottom. I would have had a significant advantage had I not had to drop out of college, but because of him, I didn’t have that. And it wasn’t even as though I was a bad student. I was a pretty decent student but not good enough to qualify for a scholarship and definitely not bad enough that he completely gave up on me and picked Peter over me instead.
I lost my cool and told my dad that I regretted even answering his call and not blocking him in the past 10 years because I’d been hoping for an apology like a total fool. That apology was never going to come, and I understood it now because for there to be an apology, people had to regret their actions, and he definitely didn’t. He tried to fight with me over it and said that I was being unfair, which was crazy coming from him, who didn’t even know what the word fair meant.
I told him in a fit of anger that I was probably his second son and Peter was definitely his oldest son, judging by the way he treated us. I guess I went a little too far with that because I insinuated that he and my aunt had an affair, which is what led to Peter and my dad’s inexplicable favoritism. I didn’t stop there and told him to go talk to his other son instead and stop wasting my time, and then I hung up on him.
I think that it was a mistake because after that, it wasn’t my father who reached out to me but my aunt, who texted me and said that what I said was unforgivable.
She told me that this was something that she wasn’t even involved in and didn’t appreciate being dragged into on purpose by me just so I could hurt my father. Apparently, what I said had hurt all three of them and they wanted an apology from me because it totally crossed the line.
I haven’t replied to her text yet, mostly because I don’t know what to say to them. To be completely honest, I don’t even understand why my father had to go ahead and tell them about it in the first place. This was a private conversation between me and him.
There was no need to involve other people in it, and whatever I said was out of anger. Even then, I was saying it to him and I didn’t mean for it to reach or hurt anyone else.
I don’t particularly care about what my dad or my uncle feels, but I do feel guilty for hurting my aunt because she was pretty much the only person who wasn’t biased and treated both Peter and me equally when we were kids.
She was nice to me and didn’t constantly compare us, even though it was her own son, and she could have just as easily done what everybody else used to do and pit us against one another.
She was actually a nice person, and I feel like an idiot for hurting her. I also feel like I shouldn’t have dragged her into this and made that comment about Peter being my dad’s son because that was personal.
I talked to my wife about it, and she didn’t take sides, but she said that what I said was kind of mean, especially if my aunt had been the only person who was nice to me growing up. I feel like I should apologize, but I really do think that a lot of this is my father’s fault and not mine for opening his big fat mouth when he didn’t need to.
So, am I wrong for calling my cousin my father’s other son?
Update 1. After almost a week of not replying to the text because I didn’t know what to say, I finally responded to her. Yes, I apologized for what I said. I explained to her that my father’s behavior was hurtful to me and the words just slipped out, but I really didn’t mean to hurt her.
It was something that I said in a fit of anger, but I had no intention of hurting her or my uncle. I also mentioned that I didn’t think my father would go out of his way to tell them what I said. I was trying to be subtle with it, but I wanted my dad to know that I blamed him for the situation too because that wasn’t my fault entirely, and I knew for a fact that my aunt would tell my uncle and my father about the apology.
So, he definitely got to know if he was smart enough to figure out what I meant.
Haley thought it was the perfect apology for my aunt and also the perfect non-apology for my father. Honestly, he didn’t deserve an apology in any way because he should know exactly how I feel about him and what he did.
He can try to downplay it and make it seem as insignificant and petty as he wants to, but it’s not going to change the facts. His picking Peter over me, forcing me to drop out of college, never feeling sorry about it, and never apologizing for it meant that he was just a despicable person. So, I don’t owe him any apology.
As for my uncle, I pretty much have nothing to do with him.
Even while I used to stay with my dad, we didn’t have a close relationship. At least my aunt was nice to me, but my uncle not only used to pit Peter and me against each other, but when it came down to it, he was also just as avoidant and weird as my father. So, the two of them can be as hurt as they want to. It doesn’t matter to me because I’m not going to apologize to them. I apologized to the one person that I actually felt like I owed an apology to, and that’s it. I’m not going to say anything else to anyone.
Even if she doesn’t accept my apology, I’ll be cool with that because I did my part, and now it’s up to her if she wants to be okay with it or not. Update 2. So, my aunt replied to my apology today after three days. I’d almost given up any hope of her responding. She told me that she was okay with it, but her husband and my father still expected an apology from me because what I said was disrespectful to them as well. So, I told her very plainly that that wasn’t going to happen because I didn’t really care about what my father or my uncle felt.
It was a very tit-for-tat thing. They don’t care about my feelings, so I don’t care about their feelings. The only reason I even apologized to her was because she was nice to me when I was a kid. They weren’t. So, I don’t feel the need to apologize to them. My father was the one who taught me that we shouldn’t say sorry, especially when we don’t feel sorry, so I was just following him and refraining from apologizing.
Update. When I didn’t feel it, my aunt got a little ticked off and told me that I couldn’t behave this way with people and expect them not to get mad at me. Honestly, I don’t care if they’re mad at me, and I thought it was pretty clear. So, I told her yet again that I just didn’t care. I did my bit, and beyond this, I’m not going to do anything because they are not my priority right now.
Right now, I only care about my wife and my son, and that’s it. So they can go cry about it as much as they want too, but it’s not going to affect me. I could see that she was typing some more, and I wasn’t interested in carrying on with the argument, so I blocked her. Hayley thinks that this is the end, and I wish it were, but as far as I’m concerned, I know that they’re going to try their best to milk this and make a huge thing out of it.
Update 3. I guess my hunch was right, and I don’t know if I’m happy about it or upset. Peter put up a long post on his Facebook account about what I said and accused me of disrespecting his parents only because he was favored more by my father and I was jealous of it.
I don’t understand why he thought that it was going to be a huge shocking revelation because I think I was pretty clear about my problems with him right from the beginning. I never hid that I was jealous, and I guess pretty much all our friends knew about our rivalry. So, he really wasn’t doing what he thought he was doing with that post. He publicly announced that he demanded an apology from me, not just for his mother, but also for his father and my father, his uncle. It was just ridiculous all over, and I almost typed out an entire paragraph to comment and tell everybody what was really going on, but then I decided against it at the last minute, backspaced my entire comment, and just didn’t say anything because it wasn’t worth the drama.
I knew that this was exactly what they wanted me to do. They wanted me to comment on that post and engage in conversation with them so the drama would escalate, and I would somehow end up looking like the bad guy here, even though it was my father who instigated me first.
So, by not responding to the post at all, I was making sure that they didn’t have any opportunity to create more of a fuss out of practically nothing. Hayley thinks that I had the right idea because commenting on that post and stuff is just going to make things worse, and I don’t really need to explain myself because I apologized, and I did what I had to. But even after that, if they want to continue playing the victim, then they’re free to do that as long as they keep me out of it.
So, I blocked Peter, and since we don’t really have a lot of friends in common, it doesn’t matter what he says about me because the people who know me and the people who know my past are not going to judge me by his post as they know the truth, and that’s all that matters to me, very honestly.
Update 4. Quick update here. So my strategy of not responding to his post actually worked, and he took it down. I guess it also helped that my friends who knew the truth of the situation commented on that post and told him to take it down unless he wanted them to post about my side of the story, which wouldn’t look too good for them.
I guess he got a little intimidated by that because he wanted to retain the pristine and clean image that my dad, his brother, and my aunt had painted of themselves at my cost. So, he deleted that post, but not before he messaged all of my friends individually and told them that they were going to end up on the wrong side of history for this. I’ve got to say that’s unnecessarily dramatic because I highly doubt that our little feud is going to end up in history at all.
So, there was no need for him to message my friends privately and say such weird things. I’m almost embarrassed for him, and I’m definitely embarrassed that I’m related to this family because they’re all cuckoo. But I’m just glad that he’s not airing dirty laundry in public anymore because it would have been really strange if he’d kept that post up, and I didn’t even respond to it. I’m honestly just keeping my fingers crossed that they let go of this now because I don’t want to talk to them again or hear about some new stunt that they pulled off. Like I said, I really want to spend time with my wife and my son, and I don’t have any energy for their useless and unnecessary theatrics.
Update 5. It’s been almost a month since the last update. First of all, thank you so much for following my story and reaching out to me with words of support and all the good wishes for my family. Haley and I are grateful to each and every one of you because it means the world to us that people who don’t even know us are rooting for us.
It’s pretty touching, and I’m really happy that I posted here when I was first dealing with the dilemma of what I should do. Anyway, coming to what happened, I actually received an email from my uncle a couple of days ago, which really took me by shock because the contents of that email were just insane. At first, I was just shocked that he’d reached out to me at all because we didn’t exactly end on a good note.
As such, I almost didn’t even open that mail, but Haley suggested that I at least read it because if they were reaching out to me after so long, then they must have something important to say. I thought she had a point, so I opened that email to read it, and I still haven’t exactly come to terms with what I read in it. First things first, as it turns out, Peter is my dad’s biological
son, and my aunt and father did have that affair. So, I was right about that. I hate the fact that I was actually right about it because that means that Peter and I are biologically linked, which is disgusting. The only thing I had was that at least he
and I weren’t biological siblings, but I guess we are, at least half siblings, and I won’t ever be able to deny that now.
Coming to how my uncle found out, apparently, when my father had gone over to their house all those weeks ago, he was trying to discuss what I’d said with my aunt in private while my uncle was at the cafe. But he barged in in the middle of their conversation, and my dad was at the part where he was telling my aunt about the thing that I said about Peter being his other son.
Since my uncle had overheard part of that conversation anyway, my dad had to repeat it, and he was acting very weird about the whole thing, which is what set off alarms in my uncle’s head, and he began to suspect his wife. My uncle got even more suspicious when both of them started acting a little too outraged at what I’d said and completely blew it out of proportion. He was aware that what I’d said was out of anger, and I didn’t actually mean anything, but the way his brother and wife were reacting to it made him think otherwise. So, it was actually their own behavior that blew their cover.
He thought that they were overreacting, and when they got Peter involved and asked him to put up that post despite my apology, he decided that things were really weird and he needed to get to the bottom of this. But he knew that my father would never even entertain a discussion about this, and he wasn’t going to risk talking to his wife about it just in case he was wrong.
So, he did the only thing that occurred to him and contacted my mother to ask her if she knew anything about it. It took him a while to track her down, but he finally did a couple of weeks ago, and she confirmed everything for him. She told him that she wasn’t ready to be a mother anyway, and when she found out about the cheating, my father’s infidelity just gave her an excuse to leave. It also explains how she got out of paying child support and the hefty amount of settlement money.
But yeah, she came clean to him because it’s been a long time, and now the truth is finally out. My uncle told me all about it in his really passive-aggressive email and thanked me for being an idiot, which is how he finally found out about his wife’s cheating. So, they’re getting divorced now. My dad’s not speaking to either of them anymore, and Peter has completely cut everyone off. Then he told me that he hopes that I’m finally happy, and you know what, guys? Yeah, I am. I am finally happy.
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