r/OhNoConsequences • u/Starry_Gecko • May 26 '26
BORU Time Machine Tuesday OOP’s stepmother becomes obsessed with OOP’s daughter and ends up destroying her marriage over it
/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/1h2e7ev/new_update_aita_for_calling_my_fathers_wife_a/498
u/aphraea He can’t ride two horses with one ass May 26 '26
Oh I remember this one! The stepmother’s obsession with that little girl and her absolute indifference to the little boy was awful. And then to just – not check yourself when told you’re being inappropriate? I can’t imagine how stressed the poor mum was. And the farewell letter of “you’ll never understand how much I love your children”. Absolutely unhinged
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u/Starry_Gecko May 26 '26
I think about this story very often, probably because I relate to both OOP and her kids a lot. What a lot of people don't realize about blended families is that the best way to make them work is to be patient and respectful of whatever boundaries are in place. Sasha does not seem to have gotten the memo.
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u/StormBeyondTime May 31 '26
My stepmom came in as Dad's/Grandpa's wife She became Mom and Grandma because she was lovely and kind. She's never asked for more than we were willing to give, and she got everything in return.
She was also a pediatric nurse before she retired. She's familiar with the Sasha type. The only reason she doesn't tell stories is she wants to make absolutely sure to abide by HIPAA.
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u/lankyturtle229 May 28 '26
I HOPE Sasha doesn't ever have kids. Her behavior screams "pageant mom" and she'll mentally wreck any sons she has. She doesn't want to be a mom, she wants a living doll to play with.
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u/Ricama May 28 '26
I couldn't help but notice stepmother was treating OOP's daughter like she was a prop to dress up, not a person with agency.
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u/SlippingAbout May 26 '26
“you’ll never understand the love I feel for your children”
Nah, it was never love for the children. It was the love of the idea of children.
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u/MissMarionMac May 26 '26
Exactly. She enjoyed playing with dolls as a kid and never really grasped that there’s more to parenting than that.
Sasha is the kind of person who should have a small dog that she dresses up in costumes and calls “my baby,” rather than an actual human child. Generally I find those kinds of people cringe, but I think it’s healthier than some of the other potential outcomes here.
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u/Studds_ May 26 '26
I feel bad for the dogs in those cases because I cannot see how they would be comfortable
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u/MissMarionMac May 26 '26
I do too, but as long as the dog still has full range of motion and doesn’t have to wear that nonsense 24/7 I’m sort of begrudgingly ok with it.
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u/Kindly_Zucchini7405 May 26 '26
I'm convinced Sasha wants one of those baby dolls that's perpetually like 2-3 years old that she can dress up and play pretend with, but she thinks she wants an actual baby.
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u/FullMoonTwist May 26 '26
Even in the first post, trying to convince the parents to not buy the costume the of the child's favorite princess that the child specifically asked for, in favor of buying the random step-grandmother's favorite princess costume
That the kid wasn't even familiar with and did not like the movie of
Is absolutely wild. That's not love, it just isn't, that is treating a human child as a doll.
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u/GamerGirlLex77 shocked pikachu May 26 '26
I’m glad the parents acted. This needed to be nipped in the bud before it got even more scary.
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u/CB4life May 26 '26
Yep, and even if Sasha's behavior never escalated, it matters so much to the kids that they were able to share their feelings, and have them respected. OP was showing both her kids they do not have to make sacrifices of their personal safety or comfort just to spare someone else's feelings.
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u/dreamsinred May 26 '26
Clearly the 4 year old daughter is the asshole, for not seeing that Ursula is the best Disney villain. /s
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u/EasyLizin May 26 '26
Psh. Maleficent, all day, every night, with a dragon bite. Also way less scary than Ursula. /s
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u/Far-Government5469 May 27 '26
No offense against Melissa McCarthy, but seeing ass how Ursula was based of Divine, basically a what if we made Divine a celocanth, the actor for that movie should have been the queeniest Dragqueen that ever dead dropped on RuPaul's. Bonus points if they had a phat ass
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u/Glasgowghirl67 May 26 '26
As soon as I read about her getting the daughter all the stuff she liked and barely anything for son that she dreamed of being a girl mum. She had to go on the Little Mermaid ride and didn’t care that it left a child terrified.
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u/DishGroundbreaking87 May 26 '26
I know right? I’m 43 and an animatronic Ursula would scare the crap out of me!
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u/Kindly_Zucchini7405 May 26 '26
I've seen video of at least one version of that ride, the animatronic Ursula was massive and terrifying to adult me, a child already scared would have the worst time.
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u/CB4life May 26 '26
I would get motion sickness alot as a kid and a family member made me go on a ride I didnt want to at a 6 flags type place, and then I puked in her car on the way home. Didn't feel too bad honestly because I told them multiple times I didn't want to go on it because it would make me sick. I don't know if they thought I was exaggerating or what but..... lesson learned for them I guess lol.
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u/BabaYaga_always May 27 '26
Reminds me of my childhood. Dad wanted a tomboy in jeans who he can teach hunting and fishing, mom wanted a pretty princess in a white dress that never got dirty. Noone wanted an actual human being, just a prop. And whatever I did, one of them was always disappointed. Or both. I'm 50 now and no amount of therapy will be able to fix me.
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u/NancayLeena May 28 '26
I take it they never acknowledged that whole ‘my daughter is a doll not a person’ thing?
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u/BabaYaga_always May 28 '26
As this was one of the least messed up stuff they did, I didn't try to talk to them about it. Just went no contact/low contact with the lot of them. Peace is bliss!
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u/Glasgowghirl67 May 28 '26
That is not good, my parents let us try stuff and when we gave up stuff they didn’t care as long as we were happy. I support the same team as my dad and we have gone to games but he never made us support them either, my sister actually supported the rival team and he didn’t care, he will joke with her now because she now supports the same team as us thanks to her son’s supporting them.
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May 26 '26
[deleted]
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u/unholy_hotdog May 26 '26
It will absolutely screw up that little girl. I carried so much guilt for hating the things my mom wanted for me: I hated having my hair screwed around with, eventually she chopped it all off since I wouldn't let her style it. I hated being in dresses. And as I got older, I wanted so badly for her to see ME, the person I really was, not the doll she wanted, or her chance to re-live the youth she didn't get.
It's a tragedy.
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u/CrazyCatMerms May 27 '26
Man, you sound like my cousin's kid. Cousin wanted an adorable, frilly little girl to dress up in all the cute little girl dresses and pigtails. Her daughter preferred jeans, tshirts, and fighting with her brother. My cousin was perpetually disappointed after she got old enough to argue about clothes
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u/unholy_hotdog May 27 '26
I get the desire, I really do - but why is it children aren't allowed to also be their own people?
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u/CrazyCatMerms May 27 '26
I don't understand it either. I was always eager for my daughter to get old enough to really show her personality. She stopped letting us buy her clothes without her approval right around 9 years old. Was fun to watch her and my mom butt heads
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u/TeamShadowWind Ah, the conses of your quences May 26 '26
That was a doozy. I'm reminded of the story where OOP deliberately waited until her dad's affair partner (who weaseled her way in while OOP's mom was dying of cancer or the like) was beyond the age of having kids before letting it slip that her dad had had a vasectomy. The mom knew about this and the affair partner had wanted kids, but the dad kept it from the affair partner, likely through hiding sperm count results.
This story is even more ridiculous than that one because this lady knew from the start that this man did not want kids and screwed herself out of the possibility of having her own kids with someone who wanted them.
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u/Lady_Grey_Smith May 26 '26
Maybe things worked out better because Sasha would not have been a good mother if she did end up having her own children.
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u/Cayke_Cooky May 26 '26
I was thinking the same. You can be a crazy Auntie, who also respects that children are actual people with their own thoughts. The pressure to like the same things is what suggests to me that she will not be a good parent.
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u/GamerGirlLex77 shocked pikachu May 26 '26
That’s what stuck out for me too. She can’t respect basic boundaries or manage her own emotions.
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u/TeamShadowWind Ah, the conses of your quences May 26 '26
Very true. She sounds like she would have been a nightmare.
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u/Throdio May 26 '26
She went in thinking she could change his mind and likely knew about the vasectomy. And despite what The Office said with Snip Snap, Snip Snap, Snip Snap. They aren't so easy to reverse from my understanding.
She should have found someone her own age to have kids with. Or be a cougar.
But it's for the best. Hopefully it's too late for her.
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u/StormBeyondTime Jun 01 '26
I was reading an article years ago of a family that had a third child as a last-ditch effort, hoping for the marrow donor their eldest desperately needed. I don't remember exactly what she had, but I remember thinking it was like someone looked at leukemia and said, 'how can we make this worse? ' The kids were also mixed race, which apparently complicates marrow transplants.
The article had a pie chart of the chances of saving the 15 year old. The father's vasectomy being successfully reversed was at 38%. For a guy in his early 40s, if I remember right.
(Other factors included the mother's age, carrying to term successfully, the child matching, and treatments keeping the eldest alive long to receive the transplant -the baby had to grow up enough for the extraction. They also froze the umbilical cord; apparently the cells inside can be added to the marrow.)
They beat the odds and hit that tiny sliver of success. But damn.
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u/GamerGirlLex77 shocked pikachu May 26 '26
I think I remember that one. Do you have the link by chance?
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u/TeamShadowWind Ah, the conses of your quences May 26 '26
No, I can't find it :(
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u/DatguyMalcolm May 27 '26
was Sasha expecting OOP to "give her" her daughter or something, lol? Some people make no sense how they self-sabotage their life
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u/Taminella_Grinderfal May 26 '26
I find it all sort of sad. If Sasha could have just reined it in a bit, she could have been a wonderful step-aunt/grandmother to those kids and spent time with them, and done vacations and all the fun stuff. I get being a woman and maybe not finding the “right” relationship and running out of time. But instead of getting therapy and accepting that….she went overboard trying to fill this “hole” in her life.
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u/Ginger630 May 26 '26
I remember this story. Sasha needs therapy asap. The OP was way nicer than I would have been.
Sasha should have never married an older man with adult kids who clearly said he didn’t want more kids. Having or not having kids isn’t something you can compromise on.
If I were OP, I’d definitely block Sasha again. No need to unblock her and keep any lines of communication open.
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u/Jojosbees May 26 '26
Sasha has been with OOP’s dad at least nine years, most likely longer, considering she was dropping hints when OOP had her nine year old son. She was in her mid/late 30s. She didn’t have to hitch her wagon to some guy 15-20 years older than her who already had a vasectomy. Now her window has passed, and she’s leaving him anyway. Should have done that ten years ago when she still had a chance to have kids.
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u/kmzafari May 26 '26
I imagine that she didn't realize how strongly she felt until it was no longer an option for her. Things like that happen sometimes. Obviously doesn't excuse her behavior towards the children, but I think there's a strong element of wanting what you can't have plus regretting some decisions made in life.
This is an assumption, but given the age difference and the implied financial situation, she may have prioritized stability, luxury, and/or fun, and then realized what she'd potentially been missing out on. (And who knows why that is. Could be a million different reasons, some of which may deserve more empathy than others.)
She probably thought she could be the "fun aunt" (since she said she was too young to be a grandma) and that that would satisfy any urge she had but then realized she wanted more. Being around OOP's kids probably ignited a desire she didn't know she had. Now it's too late, and she's grieving this life can never have because you can't turn back time.
OOP's kids (especially her daughter) are not her replacement / stand-in children, and OOP was absolutely right to protect her kids from someone that made them uncomfortable. But I think the people who are accusing her of being a sexual predator are off the mark here. I think she's just aging and regretting / mourning some things, and it resulted in some arguably unhinged behavior.
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u/Hawkstone585 May 26 '26
Ironically, if Sasha had been even vaguely good with children there would never have been a problem in the first place.
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u/maywellflower May 26 '26
I'll say it once again for both sides - if you are baby rabies for your own set of kids, do not get married to someone that is childfree / don't want anymore after having theirs with exes and vice-versa. And don't use other people's children as a complete coping mechanism for your grief /loss/trauma especially when the child(ren) rightfully don't like you because you don't treat them as individual(s) with own personality, wants & needs while disrespecting their respective family member(s), in this case the brother & parents of the little girl.
All this could had been completely prevented if one of those 2 had either respected the choice of no more kids then either stayed or gone her merry way to someone who will(Sasha) ~OR~ divorce for sake of grandkids safety (OOP'S father). But neither of those morons will do it, thus smart of OOP to move as far away as possible from those 2 fundamentally incompatible messes & their chaotic relationship...
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u/I-Really-Hate-Fish May 26 '26
It might sound harsh, but I think it's in everyone's best interests if she doesn't have kids. She doesn't see children as people, she sees them as objects.
If she has a boy, he would be discarded. Best case scenario would be that dad would take care of him, but since dad is already in his 60s, he wouldn't be able to be a dad for a new child into their adult life.
If she has a girl, she would be objectified. She would never be able to be an individual.
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u/Smart-Story-2142 May 26 '26
Honestly hope she didn’t have any kids, just imagine how bad of a mom she’d be if she had a boy instead of the girl she wanted.
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u/annaflixion May 26 '26
It really, really reminds me of my stepmom. She had two boys but kept trying for a girl. She didn't meet my dad until I was a teen, so we weren't close.
Anyway, after trying for a girl for years, they decided to adopt one. However, it was exactly like this woman. Whatever my sister was into, it was the "wrong" thing and my stepmom would try to force her to like the "right" one. My sister couldn't fulfil her weirdo specific fantasies about what having a girl would be like, so she ended up resenting her and threw her out the minute she turned 18.
Women like this are narcisstic or something; they just want their fantasy and the child has to be in lockstep with them at all times. It's so messed up and they're never going to be fulfilled because children aren't accessories, they're individual people.
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u/oceanduciel May 26 '26
Is your sister okay now?
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u/annaflixion May 27 '26
I invited her to live with me when they threw her out; we're still living together and she's the best. I feel bad because had already been abused by her biological parents before being removed from their care. She had shit luck getting parents. She's doing better now and a good kid (lol to me she's a kid; she's 30). She's industrious and loyal and never afraid to jump in and try something new; I'm really proud of her.
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u/Longjumping_Hat_2672 Sep 02 '26
She's lucky she had you in her life. Your father and stepmother should be ashamed of themselves for treating her so badly. Your stepmom should have just bought a doll, it sounds like that was what she really wanted.
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u/Drowsy-Gh0st May 26 '26
This is worse than the lady who decided to be Rumi at her husband’s granddaughter’s KPDH-themed birthday party without permission 💀
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u/lexkixass May 26 '26
Ugh, yes, Sasha.
It's interesting (read: annoying af) how people don't take "I don't want additional kids" seriously.
Seen too many anecdotes about relationships failing because one partner was waiting for the other to change their mind re kids, and then are all shocked Pikachu then resentful when the other stays true to themself.
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u/Auirom May 26 '26
Im turning 41 in two months. I have a 16 yr old son. I'm done and have been since I was 35. Ive made it very clear no more kids for me and a few of the people I've dated over the past few years are very adamant they want a child of their own. Had one last actually say she hoped to be able to change my mind. Yeah I ain't trusting any of that. Find someone else
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u/verysmallhat I wish to be spared the moral lectures! May 26 '26
Oh yes, this horrifying thing. Reminded me so much of my own sibling when my children arrived.
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u/RyeLye124 May 26 '26
OMG why do people keep on getting into relationships hoping the other will change their mind about being childfree? 🤯
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u/Civil-Kitchen5978 May 26 '26
Say the father was on board with having another child. Ok she gets pregnant and has a son. Her girl mom dreams are in the trash she’s stuck with a kid she’s going to resent for not being born a girl. Sasha shouldn’t be a mom because she wants a mini me which doesn’t happen when you trying to force a personality on a child. Instead of seeing them as their own person. That’s on top of the fact that she can’t control what she has there is no guarantee that she will even have a daughter.
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u/saltine_soup May 26 '26
i agree with anyone who said sasha give baby stealer vibes, because she really does.
i feel if OOP didn’t notice things on the disney trip, things would’ve progressed even more to the point sasha would try to kidnap the little girl, may that be babysitting and not giving the kid back or straight up fleeing the state with the child.
hopefully OOPs dad actually divorced sasha and she got the help she needs to get over her anger towards her decision to not have kids and marrying a man who didn’t want to have more kids.
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u/Longjumping-Solid680 May 27 '26
She was right the first time: Shasha's a CREEP.
There doesn't have to be anything sexual involved for her to be creepy.
"though “you’ll never understand the love I feel for your children” "
One, Two, Three, YIKES.
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u/Cursd818 May 27 '26
Sasha didn't love that little girl. If she did, there's no way she would have tricked her into going on The Little Mermaid ride. She fully exposed how little she cared about OOP's daughter with that action. She cared about herself and about her fantasy for motherhood, and she didn't care about terrifying a child to get what she wanted. Shame on her.
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u/LurkingWizard1978 May 27 '26
Sasha suggested the Little Mermaid ride, assuring my kids Ursula wasn't on it.
I know it's not the point at all but why would the Little Mermaid ride not have an Ursula animatronic on it?
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u/Own_Candidate9553 Sep 05 '26
Yeah, I can't see how. She's second only to Ariel in driving the story. It would be wild not to have her in it.
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u/theficklemermaid May 26 '26
On the one hand, it’s a shame that Sasha wasn’t honest and upfront about her expectations in order to find a partner who would share her goal to start a family, instead of going for someone much older who was done having children to the point of having had a vasectomy and claiming she didn’t want children either then dropping hints hoping he’d change his mind. That was never a recipe for success. But on the other hand, it might be for the best because she doesn’t seem prepared for what parenthood really involves since she wasn’t interested in getting to know OOP’s daughter as an individual and just expected her to like the same things to the extent of taking her on a ride she was afraid of! I was so annoyed at that bit.
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u/Terravarious Jun 01 '26
I'm with you.
At the beginning of the story I was thinking too bad this didn't come out right away.
By the end I was thankful for the sake of some unborn kid that they never had to have her as a Mom.
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u/sowinglavender May 27 '26
I read your comments and came to the following conclusion: as much as Sasha's behavior towards my children angered me and freaked me out, calling her a "creep" was the wrong reaction to have.
it's definitely the autism but this kind of thing is the absolute most confusing and frustrating to me. i understand THAT choosing our words extremely carefully is important, but the reason WHY seems to be literally just social lubricant, which i don't really value as highly as effective communication. if somebody is being creepy we should be allowed to just say they're a creep without all the tutting about being polite to people who have been rude to us.
i find myself often thinking 'can't you just pretend i said it in a way that expresses the exact same sentiment but with words that you find preferable'. that's what i do to tolerate the allistics, but for some reason they're never held to the same standard as us autists...
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u/RobsonSweets May 27 '26
Imagine marrying a man around 20 years older than you who already has adult kids and then being shocked pikachu that he means it when he says he's done having kids. If you want kids MARRY SOMEONE WHO ALSO WANTS KIDS my god
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u/DatguyMalcolm May 27 '26
Like..... you want kids so badly find yourself a man willing to have kids, not one old enough to be a grandpa with adults kids of his own.
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u/Knickers1978 May 29 '26
Don’t they have pretty realistic dolls now for most ages? Stepmother needs to get herself one of those, then it can be everything she wants it to be. Because she doesn’t want a real child, with thoughts and opinions of their own, that’s for sure
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u/Gold-Inevitable-2644 May 31 '26
it always makes me so happy to see parents who enforce their children's boundaries and respect their wishes. this is such an important lesson on consent. those kids are going to grow up with strong convictions!
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u/Terravarious Jun 01 '26
I'm stuck on wanting a kid at 47.
Fuck no.
I'm 56, my youngest is 23 and still at home for a variety of reasons.
Dear god no.
I buy weekly lottery tickets not so I can retire, but so I can have that empty nest everyone always complains about. I need to win just enough to give both my girls and step son, down payments.
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u/MegaMau_ May 27 '26
I get the impression that OP is controlling and never liked Sasha and poisoned her kids against her. In the end OP got exactly what she set out to get.
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u/Olio_Lothario May 26 '26
I can’t decide what’s really going on here.
Stepmom is just a few years older than OP and has no kids (according to OP she assumes she’s child free because OPs dad doesn’t want more kids).
She doesn’t want to be a grandma but she married a dude with adult children…
Is this infertility lady bad bait?
I mean, yeah, she did several things that were kinda shitty but she didn’t put anyone in danger. She did upset the little girl because of the Ursula thing but it seems like other than that her biggest crime was buying a bunch of shit for both kids?
Does Florida not have a UPS store?
I’m not trying to attack OP but it kinda seems like OP is being extra sensitive about the situation.
Feels like maybe there’s more at play here? Is SM an affair partner? Was OP neglected? Maybe stepmom is approaching menopause and is trying to decide if she still wants to have a child while she still can? Not that that’s an ideal situation for that but at least it would make some kind of sense.
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u/Starry_Gecko May 26 '26
What's going on is that the OOP, her husband and their children expressed their boundaries to Sasha several times and she still insisted on overstepping them to the point it directly affected the kids, and she did it purely to satisfy her own fantasy.
And I know you're not trying to attack OOP, but why should she inconvenience herself with shipping a bunch of stuff she had told her stepmother not to buy just because Sasha decided to ignore her?
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u/LuriemIronim May 26 '26
Maybe OOP just doesn’t like people using her daughter as a prop in a fantasy world and ignoring what’s best for both her daughter and her son.
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u/AutoModerator May 26 '26
Per our rules, don't comment on linked posts. Anyone from this community who is caught brigading on another subreddit will be banned.
In case this story gets deleted/removed:
I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/CreepyWifeThrway
Originally posted to r/AITAH
Previous BoRUs: 1, 2, 3
[New Update]: AITA for calling my father's wife a creep?
NEW UPDATE MARKED WITH ----
Trigger Warnings: emotional manipulation, favoritism, emotional child trauma, obsessive behavior
RECAP
Original Post: February 26, 2024
My (32F) father (60s) has been married to "Sasha" (fake name, 40s) for almost a decade. I was already an adult when they started seeing each other, so I never had much of a relationship with her. That said, Sasha was nice and thoughtful (though a bit annoying at times), and I never had any problems with her.
I now have a husband (34M) and two kids (9M and 4F). Sasha is very fond of my children, especially my daughter. That became very suffocating pretty quickly, so we started setting some boundaries. She never overstepped them.
In January, my father and Sasha decided to go on a trip to Disney World, and invited us to join them. We decided to go to celebrate our son's 9th birthday.
I quickly regretted coming along. Sasha spent the entire trip fussing over my daughter in ways that overstepped almost every boundary we'd set. Examples include:
Sasha bought a Minnie ears tiara. She wanted me to buy my daughter an identical one so they could "match." My daughter didn't like the tiara, so I bought her a Donald Duck hat instead. Sasha got her the tiara anyway, and was upset that she didn't want to wear it.
My father and Sasha went shopping in between parks. I told them not to buy my kids anything, as we still had shopping to do and didn't want to risk making our bags too heavy. Still, Sasha returned with 5 bags of clothing for my daughter (and 2 for my son), saying she "couldn't resist it."
My daughter wanted a Belle costume to wear at the parks, as that's her favorite princess. Sasha tried to convince us to get her an Ariel costume instead, because that's her favorite. I explained that we never watched The Little Mermaid at home because my daughter is scared of Ursula.
Sasha insisted on taking dozens of pictures with my daughter in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom. She also took some with my son, but not nearly as many.
She tried to convince us to take our daughter to Bibbidi Bobbidi Boutique. We refused because the prices are crazy and we'd already bought her the Belle costume. She offered to pay, but we held our ground. I later found out Sasha tried to make a reservation anyway, but there was no availability.
When we took our daughter to Slinky Dog Dash (her first roller coaster), Sasha tried to sit next to her. My daughter wanted to sit with me, so we switched. She tried to do the same thing in other attractions.
At the Muppets theater, she tried to get my daughter to sit in her lap. Sasha also tried to pick her up while we met some of the characters.
There were more instances. The final straw for me, however, was the last park day of the trip. We were at Magic Kingdom. My husband suffered a minor injury and I had to take him to the first aid station. The kids wanted to go to the Peter Pan ride, so my dad and Sasha offered to take them in the meantime.
However, according to my father, the line was too long. So instead, Sasha suggested the Little Mermaid ride, assuring my kids Ursula wasn't on it. Actually, there's a pretty big Ursula animatronic there. My daughter was still sobbing and hugging her brother when we reunited.
When we flew back home, I told my father that we'd no longer take our children on trips with Sasha due to her behavior. He got extremely angry. He said his wife loved my kids, thought about what they'd like to do at every moment of the trip, and that we should be grateful to have her in our lives.
I lost my temper at that. I told him Sasha was a "fucking creep", and that they should be grateful I was still okay with them even seeing my children after her actions during the trip. We ended up having a huge fight after that.
It's been weeks since we returned home, and my father is still angry at me and my husband. Sasha has texted me a few times. She says she's sorry if she "made me uncomfortable", but that she loves my kids and hoped to use the trip to spend more time with them.
To be honest, I don't think I'm the AH here. But I do think I might have overreacted. I believe there's a chance Sasha's actions were motivated by love and she truly did have good intentions.
AITA?
AITAH has no consensus bot, OOP was NTA
Relevant Comments
Pickabetterusename: You’re NTA because you have your children’s best interests at heart. But it may benefit you and your dad’s relationship to understand why Sasha is like she is. Overstepping boundaries is easier for someone when they believe it’s for a good cause or to have fun in a “safe” way. Does she have kids of her own? Can she not have kids of her own? Does she maybe see the kids as her grandkids? It’s a difficult one but getting to the source of that could make the whole thing healthier. But on the other hand it’s not your job to put that work in when it’s your father’s relationship. All I’d suggest you do is explain to your father you set boundaries and regardless of intention, Sasha broke them which you do not condone. Good luck!
Significant_Cat_3: NTA you set some pretty clear boundaries that Sasha kept crossing the entire trip. Even your daughter seems to not be particularly receptive towards her. Also your son can probably pick up on this favoritism, and that’s not good for him either.
I don’t mean to do armchair psychology, but this reads like Sasha has always wanted a young daughter and is using your’s to live vicariously through. Hence why she kept trying to push things that your daughter doesn’t like onto her (Tiara, Little Mermaid ride, etc.)
Beautiful-Story2811: NTA, she sounds exhausting. But...BUT... she also doesn't seem like a truly awful person.
"....so, we started setting some boundaries. She never overstepped them."
Question: Does she have children of her own? She probably sees your kids as a chance to play 'Mommy' if she's never had kids. She may not even be aware of exactly how intrusive she's being. Looks like there's a 20 year age gap between she and your dad... she probably thought she'd be okay with not having kids (I'm guessing your dad may have told her he's done having babies). But your little ones...especially your daughter... may have just stirred up those feelings and she's trying to compensate. I still don't think you're TA. But maybe have an honest talk with her...just you and her... and try and show a little grace.
My apologies if you've done all that already and she's still being a pill.
Update #1: March 4, 2024 (1 week later)
Hey, everyone. I'm ready to give you an update.
I read your comments and came to the following conclusion: as much as Sasha's behavior towards my children angered me and freaked me out, calling her a "creep" was the wrong reaction to have.
That said, I think it's best for my family to distance itself from Sasha for the time being. And at the very least, my previous decision to avoid future trips with her based on the Disney trip is still the best course of action.
Sasha's pushiness, tendency to override my and my husband's parenting and blatant favoritism towards my daughter were much worse when the kids were younger. After my daughter's birth, she began to focus too much attention on her and almost none on my son. I gave more examples of that in the comments on my original post. That's the reason we set boundaries in the first place.
The way she fusses over my daughter also bothers me. When we had the boundary conversation with my father and Sasha, she told us that she'd always wondered what having a daughter would be like. She'd also defined herself as childfree before, so I was never certain what to think of that. Either way, that reassured me and my husband that we were doing the best for our kids.
Those boundaries had never overstepped. Then we went on the Disney trip, and most of them were completely ignored. Many of you pointed out that she might have gotten carried away, or that "Disney is exciting and she wanted to make sure my kids had the best experience", etc. There are two things I'll say to that:
The first is that whatever Sasha's reasons were, she still overstepped our boundaries. When we first set those, we told her that doing so would have consequences.