Daughter Won’t Go Home for Christmas Over Dad’s Insistence She ‘Accept’ Stepmom as a Second Mom

A woman turned to Reddit for advice after a painful holiday clash with her father and stepmother — a breaking point that followed years of pressure to “replace” the mother she lost as a child.

In her post, she explained that her mom died from complications related to mental illness when she was 5. “I’ll leave you to figure out what that means,” she wrote. By age 7, her father was dating a woman named Diane, but even then she never felt a deep bond with her.

She said that, from the start, she didn’t view Diane as a new mother figure, and as she grew up, that feeling never changed. “I have one mom and one dad and I don’t want another mom or dad,” she explained. For a while, that wasn’t an issue — until her mid-teens, when her father and Diane began insisting she start calling Diane “mom.”

According to her, they would regularly sit her down for what they described as calm conversations, explaining why it “wasn’t fair for Diane to not be loved and fully appreciated.” They tried to persuade her that she owed Diane more gratitude and affection than she felt.

The poster recalled Diane telling her that, after “what mom did,” she should have been more thankful to the woman who stayed, helped raise her with her father and endured all the hard times. Diane said she had believed, deep down, that the girl loved her — but even when the poster went through something “REALLY important,” she never turned to Diane for comfort. Diane added that it hurt to feel like she could “be dead tomorrow” and still not be truly appreciated.

The woman wrote that Diane claimed she loved her “with all her heart,” and that in Diane’s eyes, she was her daughter. At the same time, Diane was devastated that she wasn’t even seen as a cherished stepmother, “let alone the mom she felt she had earned the title of.”

Her father backed Diane, insisting his daughter “needed a mom” and arguing that she was too young to understand what she was missing. He told her she didn’t have “the right viewpoint” on the situation.

Diane’s emotions escalated further when the young woman made it clear that her feelings hadn’t shifted. Diane said it hurt because she believed she deserved more love and consideration. The poster said that kind of pressure “never stopped” for as long as she lived at home.

After graduation, she moved out and stayed with her grandparents before going to college. When the holidays rolled around, those grandparents invited her to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with them — an invitation she happily accepted.

Her father, however, “hated it” and insisted she return to his house so she could be “with my family.”

“He said I need to come back and be with my family,” she wrote. “I asked if they’d lay off me about Diane and dad said that would still need to be talked about.”

At that point, she declined, saying she wasn’t going to go back just to “fight with them.” Diane later called to ask if refusing to visit was her way of saying she still didn’t feel any different, and whether months apart had made her miss her stepmother at all.

When the young woman answered honestly that she felt the same, Diane cried, ended the call and later texted to say they “have stuff to talk about” and that she needed to be with them for the holidays. The poster stood firm and told her father she would not be coming.

Commenters on Reddit overwhelmingly supported her choice. One person wrote that “Diane is being massively selfish and self-centered, but your dad is much worse for not only allowing her to harass you but also to fully support and participate in it. He should be putting you and your feelings first and he clearly is not.”

Another commenter reminded her that, no matter how much pressure she faces, her late mother is not someone who can simply be swapped out: “Your mother was a human being, not some interchangeable piece. She was not replaceable.”