aita for siding with my friends step daughter over her?
AITAH for siding with my friend’s stepdaughter against my friend?
My friend Molly (21F at the time) started seeing a man who was 45 and very much married. At first she used to complain that he “would never leave his wife” and kept pressuring him to choose her. Eventually he did. The divorce dragged on for a while, but last year they finally got married in this huge over the top wedding that literally became the talk of the town.
To be honest, our friend group never fully supported the relationship, especially me. I told her from the beginning that if a man is willing to cheat on his wife for you, he’s probably capable of doing it to you too.
She hated hearing that and accused me of “judging their love story.”
Maybe I took it more personally because of my own upbringing. My parents had a horrible marriage, my father cheated constantly while my mother slowly broke apart in silence trying to hold the family together. Watching Molly celebrate a relationship that started with betrayal honestly brought up a lot of ugly feelings for me.
The part that made it even harder was his daughter, Sabrina, She was 15 during the engagement and 16 at the wedding. I met her a few times during the wedding preparations and she always seemed uncomfortable around Molly.
During one dress fitting, Molly wanted to take these “cute blended family” photos together for social media, Sabrina clearly didn’t want to participate and kept trying to stay off to the side, but her father kept encouraging her to come over and at least take one picture.
Molly immediately got annoyed and later complained to us that Sabrina was being “harsh” toward her and refusing to even try, when honestly the girl just looked hurt and uncomfortable the entire time.
Another time during an engagement dinner, Sabrina barely spoke the whole night and Molly kept making passive aggressive comments like “I guess some people just don’t want us to be happy.” It felt less like she wanted a relationship with the girl and more like she wanted everyone to see this perfect happy family image.
At the wedding, I went to the powder room to touch up my lipstick and Sabrina was already in there sitting by the mirror on her phone taking selfies and fixing her makeup. I pulled out a brand new Dior lipstick and noticed her looking at it a few times, so I offered it to her. She refused at first, but I insisted she keep it.
She smiled abit and
We ended up talking for a while and she admitted she didn’t even want to come to the wedding but was basically forced into it because her father didn’t want drama. She said everyone expected her to smile and act supportive when she was still angry and embarrassed over everything that happened with her parents.
I told her quietly that things would get better eventually and that none of this was her fault.
Apparently Molly later found out about the conversation and got upset with me. She accused me of “encouraging Sabrina’s attitude” instead of supporting her on her wedding day. I told her honestly that Sabrina is still a teenage girl watching her family fall apart publicly and maybe she deserves a little empathy instead of being painted as the villain for not pretending to be happy.
Now Molly is angry at me and some mutual friends think I should’ve stayed out of it because “it wasn’t my business.”
AITAH?