Dad Was Going To Pay For His Daughter’s College, But Changed His Mind When He Didn’t Follow His Orders

Many parents want to be able to help their children out with college expenses, because graduating with loans can make getting out on your own hard.

That said, kids starting out in life really don’t like being told what to do – I feel like that should go without saying.

OP has college funds for all of his children – but they do not come without strings.

My ex-wife and I (51M) have 3 children together. We have 2 sons who are 15 and 13, and a daughter who is now 18.

Their mother and I agreed on a 50/50 custody arrangement after we split up and have stuck to it until this issue arose.

My daughter hasn’t spoken to me since last summer due to an argument she and I had about college.

I have college funds for all 3 of my kids, and had an agreement with them that they would receive it after graduating high school as long as they attended a state university (not community college).

I wanted to set them up for success later on, and I knew future employers would take them more seriously if their degree was from a legitimate 4-year college.

When his daughter went against his wishes, he pulled his support.

Last Spring my daughter and I got into an argument about this. She was filling out financial forms for college and asked me for my tax returns.

While we were going over the forms I noticed that she put down a local community college, and when I pointed it out she told me that her mother encouraged her to because they waived the tuition fees for first time college students so we wouldn’t have to pay for any of it.

I told her that she shouldn’t be asking me for my information if she was going to use it to do something that I’ve made clear I don’t support.

She told me that she thought I just meant I was against paying for it and I told her that I had been crystal clear and that she knew what I had meant, and that she was being sneaky and taking the easy way out.

Eventually I stormed out. I figured that it would blow over by the next day, as it usually does when we have a fight.

However, she told me a few days later that she reached out to the financial aid company and asked to submit the forms with only her mother’s financial information.

It cost her a semester (or maybe a year) of college and also their relationship.

They ended up approving her request but it was a long process and didn’t get completed until after the deadline to enroll in most universities for the fall semester. As a result, she wasn’t able to start college last semester and ended up getting a job instead.

My daughter told me that since I “clearly wasn’t going to help her”, that she would move in with her mother full time after she turned 18 (which was during the summer) and she started college this semester.

I told her that was ridiculous and that she was being petty, and that she sabotaged herself and if she had just enrolled in a real college like I told her to, she would’ve been able to complete the paperwork without a problem.

She told me that she hated me and was cold and distant to me until she moved out permanently.

He’s wondering whether or not he was too rigid.

That was all during Spring and Summer of last year and my daughter hasn’t spoken to me since.

I pretty much forgot about it until my youngest son told me this morning that he misses her being there when they spend the week at my house and how he wishes I hadn’t been so harsh.

In retrospect, I might HAVE been too harsh with it. AITA?

I bet Reddit is about to pour out some much needed tough pills!

The top comment is wondering why he’s being so judgy.

This person adds “controlling” to the list of issues.

And this commenter says she may never speak to him again.

The cherry on top.

This guy is a real piece of work.

He obviously didn’t even give it a thought for the past 12 months.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.