“AITA for not getting rid of my dog for my stepdaughter?”
My husband and I have a modern Brady Bunch with my two kids, his daughter, and our child together. My two are early elementary school, our child together is a year old, and his daughter is 15. His daughter only comes around in the summer, and due to…things, this is her first summer visit since her father and I got together. She’s a very good kid, gets good grades.
The only issue is that his daughter has a deep fear and disgust around one thing and one thing only, dogs. I was told that there was a general culture against dogs where she was raised, but that culture intensified when there was a tragedy a few years ago involving dogs and some neighbor children. My husband’s daughter saw the entire thing, and it stuck with her.
I have a 6 year old golden retriever who my kids and I love dearly. I was worried that it could be a problem, but my husband told me it wasn’t a problem because it “wasn’t the same kind of dog” and “she could be polite about it”. It took about 4 hours. The day she landed, we came home from dinner and then suddenly hear screaming coming from upstairs.
It sounded like an emergency, so we rushed in, and it was because a few dog hairs had gotten on her clothes from Auggie walking through the room. She spent hours freaking out over it. She ran everything she got through the wash 3 full times, using an entire container of Oxyclean in the process, and deep cleaned the entire room.
We obviously did everything possible to prevent Auggie from going near her room after that and always kept the door closed, but it only got worse from there. She refused to sit on the living room furniture because it was “dirty”, obsessively vacuumed anywhere he could have been until I hid the vacuum, and jumped back and screamed any time that he could have gotten near her.
It was very clear that something not good was going to happen if they continued living together, so we found an airbnb down the street solely for her and split time there. It was incredibly expensive but worked for the summer and allowed for some normal visit time.
We absolutely can NOT afford to do that again for 3 more summers. My husband now wants to get rid of the dog because he thinks it’s unfair to his daughter to be “kicked out of her home” anyway even if we did have the money. I will NOT get rid of Auggie. He’s part of the family.
I love him, and the children that are all here more than her love and are bonded to him. It’s not fair to them to get rid of him for a part-time child. We’ve been arguing about this for days now and now his mom and his ex-wife are involved because of this affects his daughter. They’re all saying I don’t love his daughter and am playing favorites. I don’t think I am.
Here’s what people had to say to OP:
forcryingoutmeow said:
NTA. Keep your sweet pup and insist on therapy for the kid. Living life scared of dogs is no way to live. This kid doesn’t even live with you. They’re just a visitor. You’d do more harm to the children who do live with you and are bonded to Auggie if you rehomed him.
OP responded:
Therapy is a new concept for both of her parents and their backgrounds. Her mom didn’t think it was necessary because she also believes dogs are something dirty to be avoided at all costs.
Her father did try, but the first therapist was so bad that it was counterproductive. It was less than a year after the incident. The therapist wanted to diagnose her with OCD before ever meeting her, which was already a bad sign, but it had to be cut short when the therapist brought his own dog as “exposure therapy” for the first session involving her.
Both families still talk about it and now the attitude about therapy is only negative.
crazycatlady45325 said:
NTA and her parents need to get her therapy ASAP. This is extreme behavior. She is not over the trauma of what happened.
OP responded:
They’ve tried. It was so bad that it made things worse.
