Stepdad Wanted My Inheritance—So I Told Them I’d Take Them to the Cleaners If They Tried

Relationship Stories - After years of emotional neglect, OP learns her stepdad plans to claim her valuable book collection. Furious, she confronts her mother and issues a final ultimatum—fight for what's hers, or burn the bridge forever.

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/lost-genre-reddit-stories--5779056/support.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi everybody, and welcome back to Lost Genre Reddit stories.
This post is from the subredded. Am I the A whole?
Would I be the a cole public? And it's by
user excellent fee thirty ten. Am I the A hole
for telling my parents that I will take them to
the cleaners. The people I will mention in this are
my mom Jen fifty, my stepdad Brian fifty six, my

(00:26):
brother Tom twenty three, and my sister Ruth twenty six.
I am twenty seven. For background, Jen and Brian have
been together since I was eleven. Well, I say that,
but eleven is the age I became aware of their
relationship as she asked if we would be okay with
him moving into the family home. Prior to this, she
never mentioned dating anyone, and we had never spent any

(00:49):
time with Brian. None of our immediate relatives ever mentioned
him to us either. The day Jen asked us, Ruth
was set next to me and asked to be excused
to her bedroom. Tom was not home to have any input.
I was stuck by myself with Jen, who did not
seem to understand how she completely blindsided us. She had

(01:10):
no interest in answering my question about why she had
not told us. Her only interest was knowing if we
accepted this stranger moving in. Brian moved in the following week.
After Brian moved in, there were several times where both
he and Jen threatened to move away without me, Tom
and Ruth. They would say, if you don't like it,

(01:30):
we they We'll get a new house and start over.
This threat could be in relation to something like Brian
telling me I shouldn't be anywhere in the house except
for my bedroom and me standing up for myself. I
used to get called stupid by Brian a lot if
I did something he didn't like, such as finished my
homework before going to dinner. He would say, only someone

(01:51):
this stupid would think to eat first. Any grievance I
had with Brian was never acknowledged by Jen. If I
raised an isse with her, she would deflect and change
the subject. Brian would cause a lot of problems, knowing
that there were no consequences for him. Brian never concealed
the fact that he wanted Jen and only Jen. We
were her baggage that he only had to put up

(02:14):
with for so many more years, Tom, Ruth and I
were no longer taken on family holidays. The last one
we got to go on was when I was my
godmother's bridesmaid and she had a destination wedding. I was ten.
Jen and Brian would go on three holidays a year
without us. Living under that rufe was the loneliest I

(02:35):
had ever felt. The second I became of age, I
bought my first apartment and moved on. No more Brian,
no more Gen. Tom and Ruth wanted to come with me,
but Jen wouldn't allow it, and honestly I don't know
how I was to fight for them. I was working
long shifts, sometimes nights. Though Ruth was a year younger
than me, Tom was not. I doubt a court would

(02:55):
have appointed a fresh eighteen year old as the guardian
with Jen in the picture. One thing I did leave
in Gen's care was my valuable book collection. I won't
disclose exactly how much it is worth, but it is
in the seven figure range. Some of these books were
my inheritance. I was always told that they are to
be looked after, never to be played with, and has

(03:18):
to be stored correctly. I couldn't do that in my apartment,
so Jen continued to keep them for me. I had
no reason to distrust her with them. Earlier today, I
called Tom as I was traveling home from seeing a friend.
Tom mentioned that he had gone to Jen's house to
collect some things. Because he was there, I asked Tom
to find out if Jen had managed to get the

(03:39):
remainder of my books authenticated. She and I had spoken
about doing so a few weeks prior. Tom asked Brian
about my books, and then Brian laughed and said what
books My books? Tom said, no, Op's books that you
have been looking after. Brian then repeated my books, listening

(04:00):
to this through Tom's headphone, so I told him to
get Brian to clarify. Tom asked Brian what he meant
by his books. Brian said they are ours now we
bought them. My heart sank the moment I heard him
say that Jen was not home. I tried calling her,
no answer. Eventually she called me back a couple of

(04:21):
hours later, but not before Brian called me a pathetic
liar and also spoke ill of Ruth and made claim
to her books, which she had in fact sold years ago,
still insisting mine were also his property. To confirm I
never sold anyone a single book. They did not buy
me any books. All the books in my collection are
to be sold at a future date or passed down

(04:43):
to my children. Brian and Jen never gave me a
single penny, so I can confirm this is not the case.
Jen was unwilling to confront him about it. I am
not allowing them to steal part of my children's inheritance.
Jen agreed that she never b my books, but Brian
refuses to give them back to me. I told Jen

(05:04):
that her inadequacy as a parent, failure to repriment Brian
over the years, and her lack of love for her
own children has meant this moment was a long time coming.
I said something along the lines of you neglected me.
You allowed him to take my happiness away for years.
You let him walk all over me. I will not
let you steal from my children. If this is how

(05:26):
it has to be, I will take you to the cleaners.
I will report you both for theft. I will sue
you for everything I can. I will cut you out
of my life again. You mean nothing to me. I
am not in need of legal advice on this. I
have a lawyer. I just want to know if I
was out of line for what I said to Jen.
I was very emotional at the time. Thank you. If

(05:49):
you read all of this will be the only question
I would have in order to know how to judge
you would be is it true or not? And it
sounds like it is so everything you said was well deserved.
So no, I don't think you're an a whole. I
think that this confrontation, as you said, was a long
time coming. You've had to endure this a hole's abuse,

(06:10):
your mom's neglect, and all of the other crap that
you three were put through over the years since you
were eleven. So no, Opie, I don't think you're the
a hole. If you need to take them to the cleaners,
please do so. And what do you guys think? Let
me know in the comments section, and now let's check
out the community comments. Blue Topaz eighty three says, I

(06:30):
don't think you were out of line. They were sucky parents.
You told the truth. I have to ask, though, is
it documented that the books were left directly to you?
Do you have a copy? And Opie responds, I do.
I have payment receipts for the authentications, as I have
to send them abroad to get them done. I keep
a spreadsheet so I can update it. Everything has been

(06:52):
paid for by me and I can prove my ownership.
I also have messages from Jen where we discuss my collection,
including the number of books, their names, value, et cetera.
Wendy in Phoenix says, I would take the documents to
the police station and ask them to provide an escort
while you get your property back from your previous home.
Don't give any warning that you are going to do this.

(07:16):
And Opie response, You're actually required to give notice about
collecting property because it is called a breach of peace
and access has to be given by those living at
the property. In the case of this being theft, they
could retrieve it for me with a warrant, but then
it would probably become evidence civil versus criminal. Godess from

(07:36):
Cyprus says, not the ahole, Make that police report and
ask your lawyer to do something to stop him getting
rid of them, as he sounds vindictive. Do it now,
not tomorrow, take them to the cleaners and then some
all out of chef Wingham says, not the ahole, obviously,
but I think we all want to hear some backstory
about how a teenager acquired a seven figure book portfolio.

(07:59):
Assuming we're not talking Pakistani rupees or something, and OPI response,
I think I mentioned above mostly inheritance. I added to
my collection over the years. I wasn't a teenager when
I inherited them, I was a child. Due to me
being a child, Jen had physical care of them, but
I was allowed to see them at any time, and
she respected my wishes when it came to them. When

(08:21):
I got my first job at sixteen, I had them
valued by an appraiser. The values of books, especially the
kind I have appreciate over time. I'm from the UK,
Great Britain. Pounds and spinner of yarn says, not the
a whole. I think you handled it appropriately. I saw
your comment that you can prove the books are yours,
that no one else bought them, that Gen's holding on

(08:42):
to them for you, et cetera. I hope you get
what you're owned and that they get what they deserve.
All right, Well, the community agrees that Ope is not
the a whole and Opie can definitely prove ownership of
her books. So let's move on to the update to
see how this story ends. I am so so sorry
for leaving things so long. I was busy with the
situation then traveling, and I thought it would be best

(09:05):
to lead things until it was fully resolved. It has
been a little over two weeks, but it has felt
like an eternity. I'll start off by saying there is
good news and bad news. The good news is I
got my books back, all of them unscathed. They are
physically in my possession and will remain in my care indefinitely.
The bad news I did not take Jen and Brian

(09:27):
to the cleaners. Ultimately, my goal was to get my
books back. I have a mixed collection. First edition books
and rare and valuable comics make up the majority. No
matter the route I had to take to do so,
I'm sure you'll mostly agree that it was a good
outcome either way, even if I am not suing my parents.

(09:47):
After speaking with Tom, I had already contacted my lawyer
to set things in motion. They had advised that they
would contact Jen and Brian as a matter of urgency.
Not long after speaking with me, Jen had contacted Ruth
to try and convince her to get me to speak
with her. It was only going to be her attempt
to get me to back down. I do not bluff.

(10:09):
She knows this, Ruth said, She told Jen that she
hopes I do follow through with things, and then she
ended the call. Jen tried to call back. Ruth ignored
her side note on Ruth and her books, she mentioned
selling some to Jen and Brian years ago, maybe ten now.
She didn't want to sell them, but she needed the
money to move out. The only way Brian was going

(10:31):
to allow Jen to give money to Ruth was in
exchange for some books. If I had known at the time,
I would have given her the money myself. I found
out years later there are boxes of books that belonged
to Ruth still in the room. She said she will
keep them there for now. I will help her to
move them when the time comes. The ones Jen and
Brian bought were removed long ago to his own storage. Anyways,

(10:55):
then it was Tom's turn. Jen tried to get Tom
to talk to me and Ruth. Jen was still in
agreement that my books were mine, but Brian still was
not having any of it. Jen was not putting him
in his place. Tom said he agreed with what I
was doing. I was told that Brian was shouting obscenities
about me in the background, things like O ngrateful bitch,

(11:16):
you get the picture. Tom told me they deserve it
and so much more. My lawyer had contacted them on
my behalf two days later. All contact with me was
to go through the firm from then on. This is
what Jen told me happened after they were contacted as
I was packing up. It was a one sided discussion.
She told Brian that he needed to stop trying to

(11:38):
claim my books. If he was intent on keeping them,
he needed to make me an offer of their current
value plus thirty percent, but if I said no, it
means no. How honorable of her, Brian was still adamant
he didn't need to offer me anything because the books
already belonged to them and I won't be getting anything.
He also did not seem to think that I would

(12:00):
win a legal battle against them, despite Jen confirming I
had everything that meant they were guaranteed to lose. A
couple more days later, my lawyer said that Jen reached
out to them on her own and said that she
wanted me to retrieve all of my books. I had
already made them aware that Brian was an issue because
of his presence in the family home, but she assured

(12:21):
them that he would be gone for the whole day
out of the city some days ago. I arranged for
suitable transportation for the books to my house. A few
days ago. I went to collect the books. When I
got to the family home, Brian's carr was not in
the garage or front patio, which they always are whenever
he is home, so I proceeded into the house. I
know he would have tried to provoke me, even though

(12:43):
I am not a violent person, because he wants to
have a way to make me squirm. I walked right
past Jen and went to where the books were. Brian
has never been granted access by Jen, so they were
perfectly secure, and I loaded them all into the van.
It took a while. Brian won't notice they're gone because
he has never been able to get into that room,

(13:04):
and Jen probably won't say anything even if she does.
Neither of them know my address and about the room.
It is a little difficult to explain how the room is,
but the door is a heavyweight security door. It has
a smart lock, and Brian never got access to it.
Imagine a more regular looking safe room. I think that
is the easiest way to explain it. Entering the room

(13:25):
triggers the security system, like going home and having to
put the alarm code in. Jen never needed to use
this room once we got older, so Ruth and I
were permitted to change the code. Anyway. Jen was talking
to me throughout, trying to get me to sit with her,
to speak like adults. She was saying cliche things like
she regrets how she treated me and blah blah blah.

(13:47):
If she had said all of this years ago, maybe
I would have listened. But even now I had to
retrieve my own possessions in secret because she couldn't stand
up for me as she should have. Her words are empty.
I did not say a word the entire time. My
lawyer said everything that needed to be said, including that
as long as Jen and Brian do not try to

(14:09):
falsely make claim to my books, the matter was resolved
once they were returned to my custody. Once I finished
loading everything, I returned my keys to the family home.
Jen tried to convince me to keep them, but I
have no intent of returning there. The truth is that
place stopped being the family home the day Brian moved in.

(14:29):
I have zero happy memories of it. My old room
makes me sad to think about because it is a
constant reminder that it was the only place I was
permitted to be even writing these hurts, I needed my
parent to look out for me. She failed in all
other aspects apart from these books. I wish Jen had
loved me like a parent should. But yes, I have

(14:51):
my books back. That's a good outcome. She and Brian
have their own child now. They got their wish, and
I hope it was worth it. It was never really
my parent, and Brian made it clear that we would
not get anything from him once he dies, not that
we expected or wanted anything. He would say, my children
will get everything I have. You are not my children.

(15:13):
Your mother will probably leave you something, but she will
need to provide for our children first. Such a lovely man.
Jen once told me that she wouldn't add to their
biological children to her will because Brian will leave them
everything he has. Either way it goes, I'll be okay.
She also put me in therapy when I was a teenager,

(15:34):
and I still do sessions now. Seeing her face as
I left made me feel empty. She looked sad, but
I felt mostly nothing. Now I feel something. I will
request some sessions with my therapist. Closure is best. Thank
you for the earlier support on the previous post. That
is all from me. Well, OPI, Jen made her choice

(15:55):
and she chose Brian. Of course Jen sucks, but the
good thing is that you have your books back and
you don't have to go back there anymore. So here's
wishing you the best. Ope. Thanks so much 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 and it's by user consistent Shoe ninety six

(16:16):
oh two. Boss yells at me for following instructions and
tells me to do the opposite next time, which bagfires.
About twenty years ago, I used to work as an
office assistant at a small company where we would receive
orders from clients and then we would assign the work
to one of our freelancers, who were well compensated and
respectable professionals. My boss was such a professional herself, and

(16:40):
when possible, she would assigned that work to her. I
accepted the minimum wage job because she told me I
could sometimes get tasks assigned as a freelancer with the
nice freelancer compensation, that she would personally train me and
that in less than a year, I would most likely
be promoted to a regular freelancer and make very good money.

(17:01):
This sounded like a great career path to my young
and naive ears. One of the things she had told
me in the very beginning was that when you take
over an order, you become like a project manager for
that order. You need to make sure that the freelancer
would finish the work on time, as the work was
usually time sensitive. Additionally, she loved going on long lectures

(17:22):
about how she is paying me minimum wage for me
to use my brain and figure things out when necessary.
These lectures were mainly a vehicle for her to stroke
her own ego by explaining to her employees how our
brains were not as smart as hers. One day, our
biggest corporate client had placed a large order that was
due on a Monday by noon, and we had assigned

(17:44):
the task to my boss to do over the weekend.
It was Monday morning, time was ticking and my boss
hadn't arrived at the office. The client had called to
see if we are going to provide the work soon,
as it was urgent. I called half an hour later,
in texted her no answer or reply while noon was
fast approaching, so I called her landline at home. Her

(18:06):
husband picked up, told me she wasn't home, and I
explained very briefly why I was trying to get hold
of her. Less than an hour before noon, my boss called,
furious that I had been so insistent on getting a
hold of her that I had created a state of
stress and emergency at her house. Her home number was
for emergencies only, and this wasn't an emergency. It's not

(18:28):
professional to call people when they are not at work.
She told me she got everything under control and she
was now sending the work to the client directly. When
she arrived at the office, she gave me a big
scolding in person and told me that I needed to
hound other freelancers, but not her. She said it was
her business and she got everything handled. She knew all

(18:50):
the clients and they were clients speakers of her. She
looked me in the eye and told me, if I
take over a task, it's not your task anymore. It's
my task. You don't need to bother me with reminders.
You just give me the instructions from the client and
I'll handle everything myself. From that point on, your job
is done. I never miss deadlines. If the client calls,

(19:11):
you tell them I'm on it, and you don't call
or text me about it. Fair enough. I apologized for
this stress and repeated the new instructions back to her
for confirmation. She was very happy with that and confirmed
I had understood everything. She once more gave me her
favorite lecture about how she is paying me minimum wage
for me to use my brain, with a lot of

(19:33):
condescending examples of how she always uses her brain unlike
us normal workers. I could only nod along as if
her narcissistic grant was actually teaching anybody anything. About a
month or so later, another client comes in with an order.
I accepted it. My boss was available to handle it,
so I forwarded everything to her, and I considered my

(19:55):
work in regards to that order done as instructed. On
the day of the deadline, I was on vacation and
was hiking in a remote area with spotty cell coverage.
The other office assistant called me and told me the
client had called the office to check if the work
was ready. I told my colleague that our boss was
on it and that we didn't need to worry as

(20:15):
our boss was going to handle it, and that my
clear instructions were to tell the client our boss was
personally on it the task would be done by the deadline,
and explicitly not call our boss to remind her of
the deadline. Then, since I was on vacation, I needed
to conserve my battery and everything at the office was handled.
I switched off my phone, and approaching deadline that my

(20:38):
boss had to meet was explicitly not an emergency. Also,
I had recently realized that my boss had knowingly misled
me about the career opportunities this job was affording me,
so I wasn't going to be on call on my
rare day off while I was hiking without a care
in the world. My boss had managed to forget about
the deadline. By the time she realed she had missed it,

(21:01):
the office was closed. My boss had urgently finished the work,
but it turned out she didn't know the clients so
well as she didn't have their contact details. As the
order was in the office and my phone was off,
she had to go there herself, fetch it and use
the contact details to deliver the work late. This was
particularly embarrassing as my colleague had informed the client our

(21:24):
boss was personally doing the work for them when I
came back to work. It was pandemonium. She screamed at me,
but I simply pointed out that everything I had done
was following her instructions. Why did you do this you
told me to? Why didn't you do that you told
me not to? She was fuming, but she knew I

(21:44):
was correct and I had acted exactly as instructed. She
also screamed at me for my phone being off, but
I said I needed to conserve my battery for emergencies,
and this was clearly not an emergency, and I am
not on call on vacation anyway. Malicious can clients further wind? Right? Well,
narcissists never accept the blame, and she had an idea

(22:05):
of how to shift the blame to me. After all,
but you didn't provide me with the client's contact details
with the order assignment, how could I have delivered them
the work? It was your fault for not providing me
with all the information. I pointed out that she told
me she knew all the clients personally, but if she
had used her brain like she is constantly telling us to,

(22:27):
she could have easily noticed that the order instructions were
on the client's letterhead, with all their contacted details spelled
out on every single page, bottom and top. Now that
was a huge slab to her fragile ego, and remembering
her face in that moment still makes me smile. Needless
to say I was fired, of course I didn't mind.

(22:50):
Don't you just love happy endings? Yes? I do, and
actually breaking a narcissist's spirit like that would be fantastic.
Thanks so much for sharing, And that's it for today's video.
Thank you so much for taking the time to watch
it now. If you've gotten to this point in the video,
I assume that you like these stories that I'm reading out,

(23:11):
so here are a couple more that you might enjoy.
And if you don't have any time to watch another
story right now, save it for later. And also, don't
forget to hit that subscribe button.