AITAH for not paying for my daughter’s wedding where I’m supposed to be just a guest?
I have 4 kids, my oldest is a 26 year old daughter I had when I was 17 with my then girlfriend, we stayed together and raised her until we were 20 then we realised we weren’t really meant together and we broke up, at 25 my ex got married and moved hours away across the country, we were sharing 50/50 custody and the courts were basically fucking useless, it went from each of us having her every other week to seeing her once every few months, I eventually got married at 27 and I had 3 more kids with my wife. I always tried to stay connected with my daughter via phone but back then it was harder and life just happened and she just grew closer to her stepdad.
Fast forward to a few years ago and they hit a really rough patch, her stepdad was a mechanic but he got injured and was almost disabled, it was really bad, he had to retire and he has been living on disability benefits ever since. Her mom is a nurse, they’re surviving but definitely not rich, I’m not rich either. Just doing better because both me and my wife work respectable jobs.
My daughter got engaged earlier this year and she’s getting married next April, her mom and stepdad can’t afford to pay for the wedding so she came to me, she asked if I could pay for the wedding, I asked if I’d be part of the wedding, she tried avoiding the question and talking about something else and I outright asked her if her stepdad is getting the father role and she said yes, he’s gonna walk her down the wedding and he’s having the daughter father dance and he’s having the father of the bride speech, her logic is that I have 2 other daughters so I’ll still experience all of those while he only has her, I asked her if there’s literally any part for me in the wedding and she said no and that I’d be just a guest, I asked her if I could at least walk her down with him and she again refused saying that again I have two other daughters who I’ll walk down alone and that this is supposed to be his special moment. And I told her I’m not paying then, I love my daughter but it’s not fair for me to pay for a wedding that I’d just be a regular old guest at especially since I’m not rich, paying for something like that is huge and would take away from my underage kids that depend on me. She got super angry at me and started cursing me out saying she always knew I was a deadbeat, I was never one, I always paid child support even though it was incredibly unfair and I always did my best to visit her as much as possible but again I’m not rich and she lived across the country. I did my best and I do love her, but I just can’t justify paying for basically a humiliation ritual to me.
Am I in the wrong here?
