A 22-year-old woman on Reddit refuses to befriend her 46-year-old dad’s much younger new girlfriend.
“My dad has been a widower since my brother and I were 11. We all took it really hard when my mom died, and for the rest of when my brother and I were in middle school/high school he didn’t date at all, even though we and the rest of our family (including my mom’s parents) encouraged him to. Only when my brother and I went off to college did he start to date, though he was always pretty private about it and never introduced us to any of the women he was dating,” she wrote.
“When I’d ask him for details he’d always explain that my mom would always be the love of his life and that he didn’t have anything to share since he was dating just for companionship and not seriously,” the young woman continued on Reddit.
When her dad recently asked her to meet the woman he’s been dating lately, she was shocked to learn about their age gap.
“I was excited for him and said I’d love to meet her… but it turns out she’s 26, so only 4 years older than me. Apparently they’ve been seeing each other ‘casually’ (yuck) for over a year, but things became serious after they found they really liked spending time together and realized how much they have in common,” she shared.
“I was obviously super upset because this girl is my age and so much younger than my dad, so later I confronted him and he said that he didn’t see what the big deal was, and that most of the women he’d been seeing in the past were in their late 20s, which is just… yuck,” she continued.
Now, the woman feels uncomfortable visiting her dad and has been trying to find reasons to avoid him when his new girlfriend is around, which he’s definitely noticed.
“My dad called me out on it and said that he understands that it’s probably not easy for me to see him dating someone after so long, but that he would really appreciate it if I would put in more of an effort to get to know her or at least be civil,” she concluded.
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Users in the comments rallied behind the woman, with many suggesting she shouldn’t be forced into a relationship with her dad’s new girlfriend.
“She needs to have a friend’s dad or uncle prank him and have a double date with the two of them. See how dad reacts,” one person joked.
“Pretty gross for an older dude to be dating a woman who’s only in her 20s,” another commented.
“He can date who he wants, but has to deal with the consequences. You aren’t required to ‘get to know’ her. Doesn’t seem like you’ve been uncivil, you just leave when she’s around,” someone else reasoned.
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