The subreddit “AITA,” or “Am I the Ahole,” is meant for people to get the perspective of outsiders on difficult and personal situations they are dealing with. The users of Reddit then decide who in the situation is the ahole. The father was looking for advice — and financial retribution — after falling out with his daughter.
The father wants his daughter to pay back the money he has given her over the years.
The father said that the fallout started when his 15-year-old daughter, Aria, “abandoned” him and their family to live with her birth mother full time. Up until this time, Aria’s parents shared joint custody, but the father said that his ex-wife “always let Aria do what she wants and has never had any home rules. She also buys Aria everything she wants so she will want to live with her.” RELATED: Woman Wonders If She’s Wrong For Confronting Sister Who Refuses To Speak To Her Daughter In A Baby Voice This prediction eventually became true. After a 5-day school trip to another country, her father grounded her for not staying in touch as much as he wanted. The result of this was that she was disallowed from going to a popular girl’s birthday party, and the father made a point to imply that Aria is not often invited to such events. At the end of that week, when her mother came back to pick her up, Aria’s father told her “that she didn’t have to come back if she didn’t want to.”
Aria never went back to live with her father.
Aria took her father’s advice and did not return to her father’s house after that. Her father believed it was because “she didn’t love us and that she preferred staying with her mother, her parties and her free-of-rules life.” However, despite the falling out, her father was expected by law to pay child support, including half of her college expenses. This did not sit right with him.
Now, he is expecting all of that money back.
After Aria turned 18, he began counting up all of the child support he was paying for her. He made an Excel sheet which he sent to Aria’s mother so, as he says, “she knows what damage she is doing to our daughter.” This is because Aria’s father wants all that child support paid back from his 21-year-old daughter. RELATED: Woman Argues With Date After He Taunts Server & Denies Her A Tip Because It Isn’t A ‘Respectable Job’ He says, “I expect Aria to pay her debt, but I gave Sandra the option to pay for her to which she refused,” before adding, “We are now at 18K.” With Aria now attempting to reach out again, he told her “we can’t fix the emotional part unless we fix the money part first.” Finally, he opened the floodgates of the subreddit by asking, “So, AITA?”
The verdict, swift and ruthless, says the father is the a**hole.
Many users were horrified by his handling of the situation, many even comparing him to their own estranged father’s and empathizing with Aria for deciding to with her mother. Additionally, as touched on by the last user as well, many other commentors found the idea laughably infuriating that this father believed his child support could function like a loan when she is no longer a minor. Legally, this is not how child support functions and many of the comments were up in arms over his belief that he could make it work in a way most convenient for his personal finances instead of the wellbeing of his daughter. Ultimately, if Aria’s father was looking for support in his quest to get his $18,000 in child support back, he did not find any of that on Reddit. And he probably won’t find much legal support for it either — if most of the commentors are to be believed. So, hopefully, Aria will be able to finish out her college career without another $18,000 debt tacked onto whatever college debt she’ll inevitably face anyway. RELATED: Bride Wonders If It’s Wrong To Not Change Wedding Date After Sister-In-Law Demands She Postpone Because She’s Pregnant Amanda Hartmann is a writer and editorial intern at YourTango who writes on various topics such as news and entertainment.
