My name is Heidi. I’ve been married to my husband Simon for 12 years.
I have an 18 y.o. daughter from a previous relationship, and he has a daughter from his first marriage.
In September, my stepdaughter turned 16, and my husband bought her a brand-new car, an Audi.
I asked him to contribute to my daughter’s college fund to make things fair for both girls.
My daughter has been working double shifts to pay for her college and he should contribute too.
He replied, “I’m not responsible for your child. Get a job if you want to help her, or ask her dad!”
He knows full well that her father is not in our lives.
I smiled because I had a plan. That night, without telling anyone, I listed everything in the house that was mine for sale online: furniture I had brought with me, belongings I’d purchased before quitting my job to focus on raising the girls. Nearly half of what filled that house was mine.
The next day, I went to our closet and wrinkled every piece of clothing I had carefully ironed for him. In the kitchen, I left a deliberate mess.
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When Simon came home from work, he shook with shock at the sight, half the house empty and my luggage waiting at the door. I told him I could no longer live with a man who treats my daughter like a stranger, even though he’d been in her life since she was 6.
He reminded me that he had raised her. I answered that while he’d done the bare minimum for my child, he had spared no expense for his own, and this was the breaking point.
I wanted him to see the truth: it was me who had turned his house into a home all these years. Without me and my daughter, it would be left empty, both literally and emotionally.
I am filing for divorce, though my friends insist I shouldn’t throw away 12 years of marriage over this.
Am I overreacting, or am I finally doing what’s right?