People Want To Know If We Hate Them In Their "Am I The Jerk?" Stories

“I don’t like calling her my half-sister, so I’m going to call her Chelly.

In order, we are John (32), Sierra (24), Allison (also 24), Chelly (23, resulting from our father’s affair), and myself (21, the make-up baby). For the most part, we all get along well enough that we don’t introduce each other as half-siblings, just siblings.

Chelly grew up with only her single mother until she was 9. Then her mother allowed her to visit most weekends so that we would get to know her as our sister. Our whole family treated her very well and she is well adjusted to the family and knows she is always welcome.

Chelly has keys to the house and her own bedroom here now that the older kids have flown the nest. It’s also closer to the community college we both go to.

She holds an understandable resentment towards our father for not being there for her, and she uses the notion that our father never paid her child support.

I was upset at hearing this so I started doing research. I didn’t want to accuse my father outright of being a deadbeat dad to Chelly, so I started with my three older siblings. They all stated that because our father paid her mother so much in child support, they hardly had any funds for basic school supplies, field trips, and new clothes among other things.

But it still wasn’t enough for me, so I confronted my father about it (I probably should’ve done this first). He showed me an old filing cabinet FILLED with orders and checks each one $2500+ all directed to Chelly’s mother.

I was astonished. My father saved them in case her mother claimed in court that he never paid. But turns out Chelly’s mother only told her that father never paid. He doesn’t actually know what she was doing with the money and she wouldn’t tell him.

Now for the hard part, Chelly has an extreme amount of respect for her mother, for being a poverty-stricken single mother. Recently, Chelly has been making jokes to me about our father for being cheap and never paying her child support.

It bothers me a lot. I know she’s allowed to resent him, but he worked himself to the bone to pay that child support and support all his children. I told my older siblings about what she has been saying and they suggest I call her out and show her the proof he did.

My sister, Allison even said, ‘Chelly better not say that around me.’

The thing is though Chelly only says these things around me, possibly, because I, myself, never lived in poverty. Our parents had me when their luck was turning and was more financially literate, so maybe I just don’t understand.

I also don’t feel like it is my place to say that her mother was probably spending it on herself. It would change her whole worldview, but at the same time, it infuriates me when Chelly talks trash about our father.

I don’t want to tell her this just to get back at her, which is what my mother says. Would I be the jerk in telling Chelly her mother was probably spending the child support funds on herself to get Chelly to stop talking trash about our dad?”

Another User Comments:

“NTJ. She should know the truth but your delivery of that information is crucial.

As you don’t know what her mum spent the on, accusing her of spending it on herself isn’t the way to go as she may have been using that moolah to pay the rent or something in order to appear more stable/capable in front of her daughter, and saying your dad is a deadbeat who didn’t pay covered the fact that they couldn’t have more than the bare minimum.

I think that you should sit her down and have a conversation where you’re perfectly honest with her, like your comments about our dad being a deadbeat and cheap have been bothering me, so I’ve been looking/asking around and confronted dad about it because I needed to know for myself if that’s the kind of man he is, and he showed me all this paperwork that shows he paid your mum moolah from Xy to Yy and I don’t know what your mum’s said to you all your life but our dad did all he could to take responsibility for all of us and I’d appreciate if you stopped talking smack about him that’s based on a lie.

Your dad is being open and transparent, you should be open and transparent. Show her the filing cabinet and the paperwork if that’s the type of proof she needs.

I know that people are gonna say stuff like mind your own business or that this is her parents’ problem but I sense that you care about your dad and that what she says about him bothers you.

I’m very big on honesty, especially as I grow older. Chelly may get upset with you or she may blow up on her mum on this but here’s the thing: this all started with the narrative her mum was trying to create of your dad while she was growing up.

Since she started building a relationship with you guys, you have taken her in with open arms and she even has keys and her own room in your home.

She may even have inherent feelings due to her criticisms that you guys had it great while she suffered due to not being part of the main family unit but as the baby of an affair, which is not the case.

I feel that because of this image she has of your father that she’ll feel an unspoken bitterness/distance towards him which I do not feel he deserves. Heck, since you confronted him about it and he had to show you the cabinet, he might even feel bad now because he now knows what she really thinks of him.

If you wanna tell her, tell her and focus on the facts and don’t go into talking bad about her mum or assuming where the moolah went. If her view of her mother changes due to hearing the truth and seeing the evidence, that should be her choice to make and her mother’s consequence to bear but you would not be the jerk for doing it.” sarusagi

Another User Comments:

“YWBTJ.

If Chelly’s mother lied to her about never receiving child support… then that would be a wicked thing. Somebody needs to let Chelly have the information that her father did in fact pay child support to her mother, especially if proof is available.

But you would be the jerk to claim the mother just spent the moolah on herself and didn’t spend the child support on providing room, board, and other essentials for Chelly.

The part of your story I find dubious is that your father showed you a filing cabinet filled with canceled checks and order receipts all paid to his mistress for child support.

Also dubious is the claim your father’s legitimate children were deprived in order for him to pay what would be incredibly generous, not to say the excessive amount of child support considering how many other children he had.

I do not think you know the truth about child support and should proceed with caution.” lonnielee3

Another User Comments:”

You YWNBTJ if you corrected her and I can’t say she’s a jerk for believing her mother. But you don’t know what she did with the moolah, so perhaps simply showing the receipts and leaving that between her and her mother would be a better course of action.

It’s very hard to hear about someone you hero-worship is not actually who you thought they were. It’s not her fault that her mother lied to her but it’s going to feel like a personal attack regardless.” Mindless-Solution-32