Dad Cuts His Biological Kids Out Of His Will & Leaves Everything To His Stepson After Finding Out They Knew About Their Mom's Affair
His fury is certainly understandable. But is it fair?
insta_photos | Canva Pro Infidelity can put everyone in a family in a terrible position, and the kids often get caught in the middle of the couple's drama. But what happens if the kids in question are adults and choose a side?
That's the question raised by a story on Reddit written by a dad who is feeling deeply betrayed by his kids, and making drastic moves because of it.
The dad cut his kids out of his will and is leaving everything to his stepson instead.
In a since-deleted Reddit post, the dad wrote that the situation in his family "has been agonizing for me, both physically and mentally," and has left him questioning everything, from his own actions to his children's loyalty.
After his previous marriage ended due to his wife's affair, the dad remarried and has a devoted and loving relationship with his 16-year-old stepson. His own 30-year-old and 27-year-old kids, on the other hand, not so much.
"Long story short, I've cut my bio son and daughter out of my will," he wrote. "They are to inherit nothing."
And what his kids stand to lose and his stepson to gain is substantial. "I run a rather successful business and own a few houses which are worth a lot," he wrote. It had always been his dream to leave this to his kids. But after recent events, he's changed his mind.
The dad recently found out that his biological kids knew about his ex-wife's affair and agreed to hide it from him.
He found out about his wife's infidelity in the most cliché way possible — after 35 years of marriage, he walked in on her in bed with another man, resulting in a divorce and sending him spiraling into a mental health crisis that took years to heal.
His relationship with his kids stayed close, however, until now. "They understood what I was going through, or so I thought," he wrote until his daughter recently confessed that she and her brother knew about the affair long before he did. "But … their mother had begged them not to tell me that they knew," and his son "convinced my daughter that this would be best."
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Obviously, he was in shock, and his daughter said they were angry at their mother but that they "couldn't cope" with the situation. His son added that they went along with their mom's begging to "protect" their dad — which has made his anger and hurt even worse.
"At that point, I felt very empty and cold inside," he wrote, and he decided he didn't "want much of a relationship with them either." So he sat them down and told them he was disinheriting them and leaving everything to his stepson.
His kids, of course, were devastated and furious. "They accused me of being heartless and cruel, and [asked] how can I love my stepson more than them when 'he's not even really my kid,'" he wrote. "I told them both, 'he's more of my own than either of you.'" But now that the dust has settled, he too wondered "whether I went too far on this."
As difficult as this situation is, the dad's ex-wife is the villain, not his kids.
People on Reddit really struggled with where to place the blame in this situation, and it's easy to understand why. What his kids did was hurtful and egregious, and that they were full adults when they did it makes it even worse.
But at 25 and 22 at the time, they were still young. You have a completely different relationship with your parents at that age than you do in your 30s, 40s, or even your late 20s. And the simple fact remains: What their mother did to them is unconscionable.
Putting kids in the middle of parents' disputes is always damaging. But she went one step further, putting them in the unforgivable position of having to choose between ruining their family or betraying their father's trust — all because their mother was too cowardly to own her actions.
As one Redditor put it, "Their mother is terrible for putting them in that position. Let's see, which parent do I betray? Which parent do I break trust with? Which parent do I try to protect more?" That is astonishingly, unforgivably cruel parenting.
What his kids did is not right, and he has every right to be profoundly hurt and angry about it. But severing a relationship with your kids is almost never the right choice.
The ex-wife is the villain here, not the kids. The dad has to do what he thinks is best, but parting ways with his kids won't take away the pain he feels — nor will it save either him or his kids a lifetime of regret and heartache.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice, and human interest topics.