July 27, 2025 • 21 mins
Relationship Stories - OP, a devoted single father from Scotland, raised his daughter alone after her mother left. But everything changed when he overheard his daughter mockingly confess to manipulating his love for personal gain.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi everybody, and welcome back to lost genre Reddit stories.
This post is from the subredded amy a Hole and
it's by you, sir professional Duck nine two seven. Am
I the a hole for taking away all of my
daughter's luxuries after comments that she made about me. For context,
I am a single father thirty four male to eighteenage
(00:25):
daughter sixteen female, and we're from Scotland. I've pretty much
raised her myself ever since her mother walked on the
both of us when my daughter was still a toddler.
Her mother wasn't fully committed to having a child due
to how young we were at the time. However, I
knew that I wanted this baby girl in my life
and I was determined to go through whatever hardships were
(00:45):
thrown my way. Then the eventuality came and her mother
left us and hasn't factored into our lives ever since.
Fast forward to the present day, and I've developed a
wonderful relationship with my daughter. She's the only person who
who has factored into my life for these past sixteen years,
and every decision that I've made, I've made for her.
(01:06):
There has been challenges along the way in some very
difficult times, but We've always managed to get through them,
and I believe that I've done a good job in
the role of both her father and her mother. She's
very articulate, well behaved, and polite. She is honestly the
best daughter that I could have ever asked for, and
(01:27):
we're incredibly close too.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Due to it being just the two of us, she.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Has always been what they would call a daddy's girl.
All of my disposable income has always gone towards father
daughter days out together, buying her things whenever she has
asked for them, though always within reason and budget and
with conditions such as that she does well in school.
Everything seemed perfect till recently, a few weeks ago, a
(01:53):
few of her best friends were over for the weekend.
My daughter and her friends have known each other since
their infant school days early elementary school. For any us redditors,
they must have assumed that I was too far out
of earshot, because when my daughter's friends were talking about
how envious they are of her and how lucky she
is for having a dad who loves her and will
(02:13):
do anything for her, the words that came out of
my daughter's mouth felt like swords piercing my heart. She
started laughing as she told her friend about how easy
it is for her to behave like a loving daughter
so that she can get anything that she wants from me.
My daughter and her friend then all laughed together and
made further jokes about how easily she can manipulate me.
(02:35):
Hearing these words coming from the mouth of the one
person whom I've dedicated my life to has been the
hardest anguish that I've ever felt, and it feels as
though she has physically ripped my heart from my chest.
I have feelings of hurt, betrayal, and humiliation from the
one person who I've never expected would put me through this.
(02:56):
After her friends left, I sat down for dinner with
my daughter and I asked her what she meant when
she told her friends that she behaves like a loving
daughter just so that she can get anything that she
wants from me. In that instant, I saw the look
in her face that reminded me of a deer in headlights.
She initially didn't know what to say, but after a
few moments, the look on her face turned to one
(03:18):
of ashamed as she tried to apologize and tell me
that she didn't mean any of the words that she said,
I don't believe that she is sorry or ashamed for
her manipulation and lack of respect. I feel that she's
only sorry about being caught. As punishment, I have taken
away the luxuries that I have been spending on her,
such as subscription services to Netflix, Crunchy Role, etc. I've
(03:41):
replaced her contract phone with a simple phone that is
pay as you go so that she can still contact
people in an emergency. And I've also canceled bookings for
upcoming father daughter days that I had planned with her,
barring the basic necessities that I need to provide for
her as her father, such as food, clothing over her head,
money for transportation to school, and money for school supplies.
(04:04):
My daughter feels that I'm being incredibly unfair towards her,
and she has told me that this will permanently damage
our relationship together, which of course I do fear it
could cause an irreparable damage to our relationship and that
I will ultimately lose the one remaining person that I
have left. However, I feel as though this is a
fair punishment. She has taken advantage of my love for
(04:26):
her and manipulated me to get everything that she wants,
whilst also disrespecting me by laughing about how easy I
am forgetting everything that she wants. I do apologize for
what seems to be a rambling. I am just looking
for opinions from those out of my immediate circle because
this entire ordeal has scrambled my entire head and has
left my heart torn into by the one person who
(04:48):
I never thought would break it. Thank you for listening
to this incredibly long rant. It is slightly healing getting
all of this off my chest. To be honest, OPI,
this of course isn't an easy situation, because you do
want to teach your daughter a proper lesson. But the
one thing I wouldn't do is take away the love.
And I'm talking about particularly the daddy daughter days. Those
(05:10):
aren't a luxury in my opinion, those are needed.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Still.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I think you can have two different reads to this situation.
One is that your daughter is a horrible manipulator. Or two,
she's just a teenager that was trying to look cool
in front of her friends and picked a very hurtful
way to do so. And to that, I'd have a
sit down with my daughter and tell her how hurt
I am that I am disappointed in what she's.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Done and that now, well, my trust is.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Shaken because anything that she says, well, that could be
another manipulation for her to get her way with me. Right,
And I think the bigger punishment here for her is
winning your trust back. And what do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments section, and now let's
check out the community comments.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
JM. Hottioli one to three.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Four says I think you and your daughter would benefit
from some family counseling. Tell her how hurt you were
and that you want to go to counsel with her
to work through it. If she agrees to counseling, you
know she does care, but you have to be open
and honest with your feelings. She needs to see how
much pain she cost you. Price Maximum eighty eight fifteen
(06:13):
says parenting is tough. Sometimes there are no right answers.
Looking back, I feel my kids might have benefited both
from more strictness and more understanding. I would say you
should try to treat this as a learning moment for
both of you. Letting her gradually earn your trust back
as you try to understand her behavior may help grow
your relationship. Good luck, Alternative World six four to three says,
(06:38):
I think you're too dependent on your daughter. This is
totally normal teenage behavior, and you're acting as if your
wife said something bad behind your back.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think the fact.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That she has been the only person in your life
for so long has been incredibly damaging to you, and
it could be damaging to her as well to have
a father so dependent on her. She can't be responsible
for your feelings and needs room to make normal teenage mistakes.
She is a teenager, not your life partner. Give her
some room. Opie's edit. Thank you to everyone so far
(07:10):
for your responses. I do appreciate all of them, and
that includes both the not the ahole and You're the
ahle responses. I feel that both are needed to help
me understand this entire situation. I do appreciate everyone who
has taken time out of their day to post their
own thoughts on the matter. Just a few clarifications and
minor bits of information that I left out in my
original post.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Whilst she certainly did say at.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
First that my punishments would damage our relationship long term,
she has since backtracked on that and has apologized, saying
that she honestly didn't mean that, and that she only
set it out of anger. At the time, she does
seem to be genuinely upset and deeply regrets saying that.
She's also up for counseling so that we can come
to an understanding, and my best friend and my daughter's
(07:55):
godmother has offered to mediate between the both of us.
We all want this sorted, and I genuinely want to
believe what my daughter is saying is true and that
she regrets saying something that she didn't mean, but I
still feel it will take a while to heal those
wounds caused by her words. Once again, thank you everyone
(08:15):
for taking your time to respond to something that has
really been wrecking my mind.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, I think the.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Community gave will be a pretty good read on the
situation and also some good advice, and I think he's
using it. So now let's move on to the first
update to see what happened next. Except for a few
comments about the mother, I am genuinely appreciative of the
comments that have agreed and disagreed with my actions, and
I'm glad that I decided to take this to Reddit
so that I could get an outsider's perspective. I did
(08:44):
this for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't want a biased
opinion from family or friends who will either agree with
my daughter or myself. And secondly, I don't wish to
run the risk of family thinking badly about my daughter.
Even in all of this, I love her and I
want to protect her from the risk of judgment by family.
I've been reading through the comments, getting all your opinions
(09:05):
and experiences, and I am going to take a while
to go over my mind and what I want to
say to my daughter tomorrow when we talk about what
has happened. I want to go into this all with
as clear ahead as possible and understand where I am
at fault myself, and I one hundred percent agree with
those who have said that I am at fault for
a number of my own mistakes and behavior. I deeply
(09:28):
regret canceling the father daughter events that we had planned together.
She has already lost one parent and it is wrong
of me to deny her time with her one remaining parent.
That was incredibly wrong of me, and I do intend
on apologizing to her tomorrow for that. That is my
own fault and I will own up to it. Finally,
looking back on what I included in my original post,
(09:50):
a lot of how I've perceived the entire situation has
most likely come from me being blinded by my own emotions.
But I won't edit it out as I feel that
I need to remain open in what I have already shared,
and that's including if it's stuff that I shouldn't have
shared and regret doing so. Example, I regret saying that
she is most likely only sorry because she has been caught.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I shouldn't have said that. Opie's edit.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Okay, I feel as though that I need to clarify
a number of points that have been brought up. I
haven't emotionally manipulated her into a situation where she feels
like she can't eventually move out of our home. That
actually couldn't be further from the truth. We have been
discussing her future plans, such as university and her career goals.
I am fully supportive of her future life goals, and
(10:35):
there is nothing that would make me prouder than watching
her eventually go down her own chosen path in adulthood.
Her future dreams madden to me, and her accomplishments make
me proud of the amazing young person that she is
growing to be. Her home life is also very good.
She is very active in sport and has a social
life with her friends. As long as she is home
(10:55):
by a reasonable time, she is allowed to spend her
free time how she chooses, and during that time, I
will spend my free time with either my best friend
or spending time with the local ice hockey club that
I play for. Also, I didn't really want to address
my future plans for a love life because that wasn't
supposed to be the focus on my post, but as
(11:16):
some have decided to bring it up and how they
feel that my daughter is worried that she won't want
they be able to leave the house because I will
be depending on her. I am fully aware of the
fact that once she goes off to UNI, I will
be thirty six and still young enough to find a
lifelong partner. That is something that I want for myself
in the future, but for now, my one focus is
(11:39):
ensuring that my daughter gets through her remaining days at
school and then college. Though if a partner does come
along in the meantime, and the partner is comfortable about
being in a relationship with a single father, then that
would be amazing. My daughter knows this, and besides from
jokingly saying ew at the idea of her old man
dating someone, she is hoping that I will find a
(12:00):
partner to spend my days with. So I hope that
we can get over thinking that my daughter is suffocating
in her home life, because that couldn't be further from
the truth. Yes, she is the only person in my
life right now, but that doesn't mean that she's being
denied a life of her own. All right, then, let's
not waste any time and move on to the final
(12:21):
update to see how the story ends.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
This shall be my final update on this reddit post.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I won't go into great depth about what was said
during the conversation that I had this morning when we
went out to the park for brunch and our much
needed talk, as I feel like enough has already been
said and shared in this reddit thread. However, i'll highlight
a few of the things that we discussed. My daughter
regretted telling her friends what she did for a couple
(12:48):
of reasons, the first being that she didn't mean any
of the things that she said about me to her friends.
She was, as many redditors rightly pointed out, trying to
play it off and not look like she depends on
her death at her age. She said it on the
spur of the moment and continued to go along with it,
and she regrets doing so, knowing that I overheard her
saying something that she didn't mean and was hurtful. And
(13:12):
when we discussed why she felt that she had to
pretend that way to her friends, she admitted that she's
been growing fed up of her friends calling her a
daddy's girl, and I can certainly understand why that would
be frustrating to her, and I can see why she
would have reacted in a way without giving it much
thought or thinking that I would unintentionally hear it just
(13:32):
to get her friends off of her back. She's a
teen girl, and I can see now why she would
feel pressured to present herself in a certain way to
her fellow peers. We also addressed my reaction to what
I heard on the subsequent punishment that I gave her.
On reflecting back, I know that I overreacted because I
was hurt by her words, and I should have kept
(13:53):
the punishment respective to only confiscating her phone or denying
her streaming access for a while. In retrospect, that is
the correct way that I should have handled things. Canceling
our father daughter time together, though, crossed a line that
shouldn't have been crossed, and for that I apologized to her.
That is a decision that I deeply regret making, and
(14:15):
I am one hundred percent at fault for that. There
are no excuses that can be made for what I
did there, and my daughter is well within her rights
to be angry upset at me for denying her that
priceless time that we get together. I value that time
that I get to spend with my daughter. I know
that she also deeply values the time that we spend together,
and that does go back to the fact that I
(14:37):
am the only parent in her life. We still have
a couple of things that we need to address together,
and we will look to seek family counseling together if
we both believe that it would be beneficial to getting
a better understanding of each other. Because while my best friend,
my daughter's godmother, helped to make us both see our
own faults and she gave me a blunt reality check
(14:58):
on just how much my daughter did does love me,
we know that we know that seeing it, we know
that seeing a counselor to get a professional opinion could
be what we need to get that better understanding. My
daughter also wants me to see counseling for the anxiety
issues that has plagued me since my own childhood. As
much as I thought that I was able to hide
and shield her from seeing my own struggles, she has
(15:20):
seen them, but she has never been sure of how
to approach me on them. So a number of editors
were right in saying that my attempts to shield her
away from all of that has failed, and I am
foolish to have thought that I could have hidden my
struggles from the one person who sees me every day.
I last had counseling when I was younger and found
out at the time that it didn't help. But I
(15:42):
am open and willing to give it another attempt if
it means that I don't allow my anxiety to doubt
and subsequently hurt my daughter again. So yeah, we both
can see where we made mistakes and how we handled
dealing with an uncomfortable situation, and we both hold regrets
on how we've behaved towards each other, intentionally and una intentionally,
myself in particular because I am the adult in our house,
(16:04):
and I dragged this on for a few weeks longer
than I should have.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
We want to.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Move past this entire ordeal with a better understanding of
each other and how that neither of us are perfect
and that will sometimes make mistakes and behave in a
way or say something that we don't mean. We have
sixteen years worth of special memories together that makes those
actions speak louder than words. And whilst unintentional hurtful words
might sometimes sting, that doesn't mean that we don't love
(16:32):
each other as the father daughter duo that have had
each other's backs for the last sixteen years. And once again,
I want to finish this off by thanking those who
did reach out to me in both the replies and
by PM. I wasn't sure what to expect when I
came on to Reddit, but I decided to give it
a chance if it meant that I could have received
(16:52):
an outsider's perspective, and the constructive criticism that many of
you gave truly did help me to get a better
understand of what my daughter was possibly going through in
her own life and to see the bigger picture before
going into the heart to heart conversation with my daughter,
because honestly, even though I've been doing this parenting for
(17:13):
sixteen years now, every day can bring about a new
learning experience, especially when I have to try and raise
a teenage daughter as a single father. I wish that
manual exists for such an occasion. And final side note,
all of the text in my post that I have
left untouched will remain as an archive of the events
that unfolded, or whatever you would wish.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
To call it. Will it be.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Good for you and having that conversation with your daughter
and being so open as well to your own faults
and the things that you need to fix. It sounds
like you guys are gonna be okay as long as
you guys do the work. So here's wishing you both
the best in the future. Thanks for sharing and take
care and now let's finish this video with a mood
booster post. This post is from the subreddit malicious Compliance
(17:56):
and it's by user bartham Blow a minor incident out
of don't mind if I do. I work as an
engineer for a company that assigns me to various client projects.
For one such assignment, I was added to a project
that wouldn't start for a few weeks, so in the
meantime I stayed focused on other ongoing work. A few
days before the project was due to begin, the external
(18:19):
project lead sent me a ZIP file containing technical documentation,
diagram requirements, and other materials relevant to the upcoming project.
I skimmed through it briefly, then moved on with my day.
Nothing unusual. A couple of days later, I got an
email from the external company scheduling manager saying that a
document had been sent to me which apparently contained some
(18:41):
confidential company information, and asking me to delete the email.
That's it, no file name, no explanation, just a vague
please delete it. I shrugged, deleted the ZIP file and replied,
asking if they could resent it without the problematic part.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Then I forgot all about it, that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Is until I got a call from the most condescending, passive,
aggressive person I've ever dealt with, the scheduling manager from
the client's side.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
She went on a thirty minute tie rate about how the.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Previous project lead never should have sent me that document,
how serious the situation was, and most memorably, how she
couldn't trust that I had actually deleted it. I quote,
I can't just take your word for it. I'm not
just going to trust you because you say so. Right,
So at that point I figured I'm done with you.
(19:31):
If you're going to act like I've just been handed
nuclear launch codes, then I'll treat it like I've just
been handed nuclear launch codes. I said, you're absolutely right,
I'll contact our security operations team and report a formal
security incident. They can't coordinate with your sikops team, and
together we can do a full scrub of all relevant
mail service to ensure the document is completely gone. It's
(19:53):
really the only way to be certain. Suddenly her entire
tone changed. Oh no, no, no, there won't be necessary.
It's fine, I believe you. She practically stumbled over herself
trying to shut it down, because escalating this to both
companies SECOVS teams would have turned it into a bureaucratic nightmare,
incident reports, compliance reviews, and probably someone getting thrown under
(20:15):
the bus. I politely reiterated that I really didn't mind
escalating it if it would give her peace of mind.
She very quickly decided she had enough peace already. We
ended the call and life moved on. If you act
like I've compromised national security. Don't be shocked when I
offered to treat it like a national security incident. Wellbe
(20:37):
I guess she learned her lesson to not try to
throw whatever weight she was trying to throw around you.
Thanks for sharing, Opie, And that's it for today's video.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
If you've gotten to this point in the video, I
assume that you like these stories that I'm reading out,
so here are a couple more that you might enjoy.
And if you don't have any time to watch another
story right now, say for later. And also, don't forget
to hit that subscribe button.
Hi everybody, and welcome back to lost genre Reddit stories.
This post is from the subredded amy a Hole and
it's by you, sir professional Duck nine two seven. Am
I the a hole for taking away all of my
daughter's luxuries after comments that she made about me. For context,
I am a single father thirty four male to eighteenage
(00:25):
daughter sixteen female, and we're from Scotland. I've pretty much
raised her myself ever since her mother walked on the
both of us when my daughter was still a toddler.
Her mother wasn't fully committed to having a child due
to how young we were at the time. However, I
knew that I wanted this baby girl in my life
and I was determined to go through whatever hardships were
(00:45):
thrown my way. Then the eventuality came and her mother
left us and hasn't factored into our lives ever since.
Fast forward to the present day, and I've developed a
wonderful relationship with my daughter. She's the only person who
who has factored into my life for these past sixteen years,
and every decision that I've made, I've made for her.
(01:06):
There has been challenges along the way in some very
difficult times, but We've always managed to get through them,
and I believe that I've done a good job in
the role of both her father and her mother. She's
very articulate, well behaved, and polite. She is honestly the
best daughter that I could have ever asked for, and
(01:27):
we're incredibly close too.
Speaker 2 (01:28):
Due to it being just the two of us, she.
Speaker 1 (01:31):
Has always been what they would call a daddy's girl.
All of my disposable income has always gone towards father
daughter days out together, buying her things whenever she has
asked for them, though always within reason and budget and
with conditions such as that she does well in school.
Everything seemed perfect till recently, a few weeks ago, a
(01:53):
few of her best friends were over for the weekend.
My daughter and her friends have known each other since
their infant school days early elementary school. For any us redditors,
they must have assumed that I was too far out
of earshot, because when my daughter's friends were talking about
how envious they are of her and how lucky she
is for having a dad who loves her and will
(02:13):
do anything for her, the words that came out of
my daughter's mouth felt like swords piercing my heart. She
started laughing as she told her friend about how easy
it is for her to behave like a loving daughter
so that she can get anything that she wants from me.
My daughter and her friend then all laughed together and
made further jokes about how easily she can manipulate me.
(02:35):
Hearing these words coming from the mouth of the one
person whom I've dedicated my life to has been the
hardest anguish that I've ever felt, and it feels as
though she has physically ripped my heart from my chest.
I have feelings of hurt, betrayal, and humiliation from the
one person who I've never expected would put me through this.
(02:56):
After her friends left, I sat down for dinner with
my daughter and I asked her what she meant when
she told her friends that she behaves like a loving
daughter just so that she can get anything that she
wants from me. In that instant, I saw the look
in her face that reminded me of a deer in headlights.
She initially didn't know what to say, but after a
few moments, the look on her face turned to one
(03:18):
of ashamed as she tried to apologize and tell me
that she didn't mean any of the words that she said,
I don't believe that she is sorry or ashamed for
her manipulation and lack of respect. I feel that she's
only sorry about being caught. As punishment, I have taken
away the luxuries that I have been spending on her,
such as subscription services to Netflix, Crunchy Role, etc. I've
(03:41):
replaced her contract phone with a simple phone that is
pay as you go so that she can still contact
people in an emergency. And I've also canceled bookings for
upcoming father daughter days that I had planned with her,
barring the basic necessities that I need to provide for
her as her father, such as food, clothing over her head,
money for transportation to school, and money for school supplies.
(04:04):
My daughter feels that I'm being incredibly unfair towards her,
and she has told me that this will permanently damage
our relationship together, which of course I do fear it
could cause an irreparable damage to our relationship and that
I will ultimately lose the one remaining person that I
have left. However, I feel as though this is a
fair punishment. She has taken advantage of my love for
(04:26):
her and manipulated me to get everything that she wants,
whilst also disrespecting me by laughing about how easy I
am forgetting everything that she wants. I do apologize for
what seems to be a rambling. I am just looking
for opinions from those out of my immediate circle because
this entire ordeal has scrambled my entire head and has
left my heart torn into by the one person who
(04:48):
I never thought would break it. Thank you for listening
to this incredibly long rant. It is slightly healing getting
all of this off my chest. To be honest, OPI,
this of course isn't an easy situation, because you do
want to teach your daughter a proper lesson. But the
one thing I wouldn't do is take away the love.
And I'm talking about particularly the daddy daughter days. Those
(05:10):
aren't a luxury in my opinion, those are needed.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
Still.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
I think you can have two different reads to this situation.
One is that your daughter is a horrible manipulator. Or two,
she's just a teenager that was trying to look cool
in front of her friends and picked a very hurtful
way to do so. And to that, I'd have a
sit down with my daughter and tell her how hurt
I am that I am disappointed in what she's.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Done and that now, well, my trust is.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
Shaken because anything that she says, well, that could be
another manipulation for her to get her way with me. Right,
And I think the bigger punishment here for her is
winning your trust back. And what do you guys think?
Let me know in the comments section, and now let's
check out the community comments.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
JM. Hottioli one to three.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Four says I think you and your daughter would benefit
from some family counseling. Tell her how hurt you were
and that you want to go to counsel with her
to work through it. If she agrees to counseling, you
know she does care, but you have to be open
and honest with your feelings. She needs to see how
much pain she cost you. Price Maximum eighty eight fifteen
(06:13):
says parenting is tough. Sometimes there are no right answers.
Looking back, I feel my kids might have benefited both
from more strictness and more understanding. I would say you
should try to treat this as a learning moment for
both of you. Letting her gradually earn your trust back
as you try to understand her behavior may help grow
your relationship. Good luck, Alternative World six four to three says,
(06:38):
I think you're too dependent on your daughter. This is
totally normal teenage behavior, and you're acting as if your
wife said something bad behind your back.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
I think the fact.
Speaker 1 (06:47):
That she has been the only person in your life
for so long has been incredibly damaging to you, and
it could be damaging to her as well to have
a father so dependent on her. She can't be responsible
for your feelings and needs room to make normal teenage mistakes.
She is a teenager, not your life partner. Give her
some room. Opie's edit. Thank you to everyone so far
(07:10):
for your responses. I do appreciate all of them, and
that includes both the not the ahole and You're the
ahle responses. I feel that both are needed to help
me understand this entire situation. I do appreciate everyone who
has taken time out of their day to post their
own thoughts on the matter. Just a few clarifications and
minor bits of information that I left out in my
original post.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
Whilst she certainly did say at.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
First that my punishments would damage our relationship long term,
she has since backtracked on that and has apologized, saying
that she honestly didn't mean that, and that she only
set it out of anger. At the time, she does
seem to be genuinely upset and deeply regrets saying that.
She's also up for counseling so that we can come
to an understanding, and my best friend and my daughter's
(07:55):
godmother has offered to mediate between the both of us.
We all want this sorted, and I genuinely want to
believe what my daughter is saying is true and that
she regrets saying something that she didn't mean, but I
still feel it will take a while to heal those
wounds caused by her words. Once again, thank you everyone
(08:15):
for taking your time to respond to something that has
really been wrecking my mind.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Well, I think the.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
Community gave will be a pretty good read on the
situation and also some good advice, and I think he's
using it. So now let's move on to the first
update to see what happened next. Except for a few
comments about the mother, I am genuinely appreciative of the
comments that have agreed and disagreed with my actions, and
I'm glad that I decided to take this to Reddit
so that I could get an outsider's perspective. I did
(08:44):
this for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't want a biased
opinion from family or friends who will either agree with
my daughter or myself. And secondly, I don't wish to
run the risk of family thinking badly about my daughter.
Even in all of this, I love her and I
want to protect her from the risk of judgment by family.
I've been reading through the comments, getting all your opinions
(09:05):
and experiences, and I am going to take a while
to go over my mind and what I want to
say to my daughter tomorrow when we talk about what
has happened. I want to go into this all with
as clear ahead as possible and understand where I am
at fault myself, and I one hundred percent agree with
those who have said that I am at fault for
a number of my own mistakes and behavior. I deeply
(09:28):
regret canceling the father daughter events that we had planned together.
She has already lost one parent and it is wrong
of me to deny her time with her one remaining parent.
That was incredibly wrong of me, and I do intend
on apologizing to her tomorrow for that. That is my
own fault and I will own up to it. Finally,
looking back on what I included in my original post,
(09:50):
a lot of how I've perceived the entire situation has
most likely come from me being blinded by my own emotions.
But I won't edit it out as I feel that
I need to remain open in what I have already shared,
and that's including if it's stuff that I shouldn't have
shared and regret doing so. Example, I regret saying that
she is most likely only sorry because she has been caught.
Speaker 2 (10:12):
I shouldn't have said that. Opie's edit.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
Okay, I feel as though that I need to clarify
a number of points that have been brought up. I
haven't emotionally manipulated her into a situation where she feels
like she can't eventually move out of our home. That
actually couldn't be further from the truth. We have been
discussing her future plans, such as university and her career goals.
I am fully supportive of her future life goals, and
(10:35):
there is nothing that would make me prouder than watching
her eventually go down her own chosen path in adulthood.
Her future dreams madden to me, and her accomplishments make
me proud of the amazing young person that she is
growing to be. Her home life is also very good.
She is very active in sport and has a social
life with her friends. As long as she is home
(10:55):
by a reasonable time, she is allowed to spend her
free time how she chooses, and during that time, I
will spend my free time with either my best friend
or spending time with the local ice hockey club that
I play for. Also, I didn't really want to address
my future plans for a love life because that wasn't
supposed to be the focus on my post, but as
(11:16):
some have decided to bring it up and how they
feel that my daughter is worried that she won't want
they be able to leave the house because I will
be depending on her. I am fully aware of the
fact that once she goes off to UNI, I will
be thirty six and still young enough to find a
lifelong partner. That is something that I want for myself
in the future, but for now, my one focus is
(11:39):
ensuring that my daughter gets through her remaining days at
school and then college. Though if a partner does come
along in the meantime, and the partner is comfortable about
being in a relationship with a single father, then that
would be amazing. My daughter knows this, and besides from
jokingly saying ew at the idea of her old man
dating someone, she is hoping that I will find a
(12:00):
partner to spend my days with. So I hope that
we can get over thinking that my daughter is suffocating
in her home life, because that couldn't be further from
the truth. Yes, she is the only person in my
life right now, but that doesn't mean that she's being
denied a life of her own. All right, then, let's
not waste any time and move on to the final
(12:21):
update to see how the story ends.
Speaker 2 (12:24):
This shall be my final update on this reddit post.
Speaker 1 (12:26):
I won't go into great depth about what was said
during the conversation that I had this morning when we
went out to the park for brunch and our much
needed talk, as I feel like enough has already been
said and shared in this reddit thread. However, i'll highlight
a few of the things that we discussed. My daughter
regretted telling her friends what she did for a couple
(12:48):
of reasons, the first being that she didn't mean any
of the things that she said about me to her friends.
She was, as many redditors rightly pointed out, trying to
play it off and not look like she depends on
her death at her age. She said it on the
spur of the moment and continued to go along with it,
and she regrets doing so, knowing that I overheard her
saying something that she didn't mean and was hurtful. And
(13:12):
when we discussed why she felt that she had to
pretend that way to her friends, she admitted that she's
been growing fed up of her friends calling her a
daddy's girl, and I can certainly understand why that would
be frustrating to her, and I can see why she
would have reacted in a way without giving it much
thought or thinking that I would unintentionally hear it just
(13:32):
to get her friends off of her back. She's a
teen girl, and I can see now why she would
feel pressured to present herself in a certain way to
her fellow peers. We also addressed my reaction to what
I heard on the subsequent punishment that I gave her.
On reflecting back, I know that I overreacted because I
was hurt by her words, and I should have kept
(13:53):
the punishment respective to only confiscating her phone or denying
her streaming access for a while. In retrospect, that is
the correct way that I should have handled things. Canceling
our father daughter time together, though, crossed a line that
shouldn't have been crossed, and for that I apologized to her.
That is a decision that I deeply regret making, and
(14:15):
I am one hundred percent at fault for that. There
are no excuses that can be made for what I
did there, and my daughter is well within her rights
to be angry upset at me for denying her that
priceless time that we get together. I value that time
that I get to spend with my daughter. I know
that she also deeply values the time that we spend together,
and that does go back to the fact that I
(14:37):
am the only parent in her life. We still have
a couple of things that we need to address together,
and we will look to seek family counseling together if
we both believe that it would be beneficial to getting
a better understanding of each other. Because while my best friend,
my daughter's godmother, helped to make us both see our
own faults and she gave me a blunt reality check
(14:58):
on just how much my daughter did does love me,
we know that we know that seeing it, we know
that seeing a counselor to get a professional opinion could
be what we need to get that better understanding. My
daughter also wants me to see counseling for the anxiety
issues that has plagued me since my own childhood. As
much as I thought that I was able to hide
and shield her from seeing my own struggles, she has
(15:20):
seen them, but she has never been sure of how
to approach me on them. So a number of editors
were right in saying that my attempts to shield her
away from all of that has failed, and I am
foolish to have thought that I could have hidden my
struggles from the one person who sees me every day.
I last had counseling when I was younger and found
out at the time that it didn't help. But I
(15:42):
am open and willing to give it another attempt if
it means that I don't allow my anxiety to doubt
and subsequently hurt my daughter again. So yeah, we both
can see where we made mistakes and how we handled
dealing with an uncomfortable situation, and we both hold regrets
on how we've behaved towards each other, intentionally and una intentionally,
myself in particular because I am the adult in our house,
(16:04):
and I dragged this on for a few weeks longer
than I should have.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
We want to.
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Move past this entire ordeal with a better understanding of
each other and how that neither of us are perfect
and that will sometimes make mistakes and behave in a
way or say something that we don't mean. We have
sixteen years worth of special memories together that makes those
actions speak louder than words. And whilst unintentional hurtful words
might sometimes sting, that doesn't mean that we don't love
(16:32):
each other as the father daughter duo that have had
each other's backs for the last sixteen years. And once again,
I want to finish this off by thanking those who
did reach out to me in both the replies and
by PM. I wasn't sure what to expect when I
came on to Reddit, but I decided to give it
a chance if it meant that I could have received
(16:52):
an outsider's perspective, and the constructive criticism that many of
you gave truly did help me to get a better
understand of what my daughter was possibly going through in
her own life and to see the bigger picture before
going into the heart to heart conversation with my daughter,
because honestly, even though I've been doing this parenting for
(17:13):
sixteen years now, every day can bring about a new
learning experience, especially when I have to try and raise
a teenage daughter as a single father. I wish that
manual exists for such an occasion. And final side note,
all of the text in my post that I have
left untouched will remain as an archive of the events
that unfolded, or whatever you would wish.
Speaker 2 (17:34):
To call it. Will it be.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
Good for you and having that conversation with your daughter
and being so open as well to your own faults
and the things that you need to fix. It sounds
like you guys are gonna be okay as long as
you guys do the work. So here's wishing you both
the best in the future. Thanks for sharing and take
care and now let's finish this video with a mood
booster post. This post is from the subreddit malicious Compliance
(17:56):
and it's by user bartham Blow a minor incident out
of don't mind if I do. I work as an
engineer for a company that assigns me to various client projects.
For one such assignment, I was added to a project
that wouldn't start for a few weeks, so in the
meantime I stayed focused on other ongoing work. A few
days before the project was due to begin, the external
(18:19):
project lead sent me a ZIP file containing technical documentation,
diagram requirements, and other materials relevant to the upcoming project.
I skimmed through it briefly, then moved on with my day.
Nothing unusual. A couple of days later, I got an
email from the external company scheduling manager saying that a
document had been sent to me which apparently contained some
(18:41):
confidential company information, and asking me to delete the email.
That's it, no file name, no explanation, just a vague
please delete it. I shrugged, deleted the ZIP file and replied,
asking if they could resent it without the problematic part.
Speaker 2 (18:56):
Then I forgot all about it, that.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Is until I got a call from the most condescending, passive,
aggressive person I've ever dealt with, the scheduling manager from
the client's side.
Speaker 2 (19:08):
She went on a thirty minute tie rate about how the.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
Previous project lead never should have sent me that document,
how serious the situation was, and most memorably, how she
couldn't trust that I had actually deleted it. I quote,
I can't just take your word for it. I'm not
just going to trust you because you say so. Right,
So at that point I figured I'm done with you.
(19:31):
If you're going to act like I've just been handed
nuclear launch codes, then I'll treat it like I've just
been handed nuclear launch codes. I said, you're absolutely right,
I'll contact our security operations team and report a formal
security incident. They can't coordinate with your sikops team, and
together we can do a full scrub of all relevant
mail service to ensure the document is completely gone. It's
(19:53):
really the only way to be certain. Suddenly her entire
tone changed. Oh no, no, no, there won't be necessary.
It's fine, I believe you. She practically stumbled over herself
trying to shut it down, because escalating this to both
companies SECOVS teams would have turned it into a bureaucratic nightmare,
incident reports, compliance reviews, and probably someone getting thrown under
(20:15):
the bus. I politely reiterated that I really didn't mind
escalating it if it would give her peace of mind.
She very quickly decided she had enough peace already. We
ended the call and life moved on. If you act
like I've compromised national security. Don't be shocked when I
offered to treat it like a national security incident. Wellbe
(20:37):
I guess she learned her lesson to not try to
throw whatever weight she was trying to throw around you.
Thanks for sharing, Opie, And that's it for today's video.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch it.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Now.
Speaker 1 (20:49):
If you've gotten to this point in the video, I
assume that you like these stories that I'm reading out,
so here are a couple more that you might enjoy.
And if you don't have any time to watch another
story right now, say for later. And also, don't forget
to hit that subscribe button.
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