AITAH for digging to find out the reason my parents divorce and hate each other so much?
I (16m) have grown up with parents who can’t stand each other. They did their best to keep it from me and my sister (15f) but there were times it slipped. It happened a couple of times when my dad would bring his girlfriend Anya along to events for me and/or my sister and my mom would be bursting with anger. She was never able to hide how much it bothered her that Anya was present and she was 3+ years with dad before she started coming or playing any kind of role in our lives. It would piss dad off when mom was rude to Anya or just overall looking hostile.
The other time was when our dad and stepdad were in the same space at the wrong time. One time even though they probably thought we couldn’t see, we saw the two of them screaming at each other and my dad walked away but I honestly thought he was going to punch my stepdad.
Me and my sister never knew the reason for the divorce. We just knew that our parents would pretend things were civil and dad never spoke badly about mom or our stepdad and our mom didn’t much but it happened once or twice.
After that fight where I thought dad would hit my stepdad I started to really question what was going on. So I asked around. I asked so many family members and family friends until I found out my mom and stepdad had an affair and it was going on for long enough that dad had to DNA test me and my sister. We’re his. But there was bad blood. Mom wanted our stepdad to be seen as equal dad and he wanted the same but she hated that me and my sister liked Anya and really gave her and dad hell for us liking Anya so much.
I always promised my sister I’d tell her if I found out what happened and I told her. We were both really angry and we told dad we knew first. We talked to him and he still wouldn’t say much but he said he wanted us to be happy even if he had to tolerate certain things. We confronted mom after that and she was furious and demanded to know who told me. I told her I asked around a lot of people and I wouldn’t tell her who actually spilled.
She told us we couldn’t let this change anything because her and my stepdad are our parents and will always be and he’s a good man who loves us as his own and we better not pull any shit over this. She said it was nothing to do with us. I told her it did when we had to be DNA tested and when we didn’t get to have a happy family. I told her she was the cheater and she created the awful environment for us and our stepdad helped her.
My stepdad came home when we were still talking and he was so fast to blame dad but I told him it wasn’t dad and that he had no right to be mad at dad when he tried to take his whole family from him. I got into trouble for saying it but I’m calling it like I see it. Even as a kid I knew he would try to come up with stuff to make us ask dad to spend less time with him. He’d offer to take me to a game, or he’d be planning a camping trip or other stuff.
My mom has this issue now with the fact I asked around like I did. She told me I should have minded my own business because I made everything worse. She asked me what I gained and I told her I gained better respect for dad and the ability to see through her and my stepdad. We told her and our stepdad we wanted to live with dad full time. No more 50/50. My mom said no. But when my stepdad realized he wasn’t going to have a good relationship with us anymore he told mom to let us go because it would only upset our half siblings to live like that.
Now we live with dad and mom’s more angry that I dug like I did. She told me I ruined our family and destroyed everything. AITAH?
