I Chose My Cat Over My Stepson—Now Everyone Says I’m the “Wicked Stepmother”

Stepson needs to take out loans like most students do. I suggest you reevaluate this marriage.

Husbands son is not a child. He's 19. But if this were me, I would leave this man. You give my cat a way, our relationship is dead. I hope OP leaves him and gets her cat back.

Leave before you can't. He'll use your money to trap you.

Your stepson's college expenses are his responsibility. If his dad and mom can contribute that's great but it's not your responsibility. If you want to chip in that's fine but it's not up to you to provide. If you'd raised him since birth it would be different.

My cat is my family I would have been pissed if my husband did this

If you’re that upset about what your husband did, why not just divorce him and marry your cat? I’m sure that would turn out perfectly.

My Father exhibited behaviour like this to my mother. Later he commited financial fraud, signed her name on the documents and lost them both everything. My mother was found not guilty but my father wasnt, at 34 Im watching them go through a messy divorve. Don't wait that long, put half of what he asked for in an envelope, tell him the rest of your savings are for a divorve lawyer. Write a heartfelt note to your stepson explaining how much you care for him and that he isnt the reason for this, put the other half in the note and then move on

Hold the phone...1) how long have you been married to this man? 2) hasn't HE been making contributions to HIS own son's college fund since birth? 3) If dad doesn't have the necessary funds to bankroll his son's college education, why doesn't he a) take out a loan or b) sonny jim get a scholarship or part-time job or student loan himself?
Why should your hard-earned savings (?) 401k (?) be used??

Not right, your private savings are yours, he can co sign a loan w/son for college. Reevaluate this marriage.

I would have called the police I would have filed charges and filed for divorce I'm a man as far as I'm concerned if you have a pet it is equal to having a child if the child is sick and the pet is sick you take care of both. My late wife was a pet sitter and I can't tell you the number of times people left to go on vacation when they had a terminally ill pet I consider the idiots in one house they had 100-year-old China and I purposely loosened the cabinet. The dog died while we were taking care of it we called them and they said oh no big deal I said the dog is going to rot they said well can you bury it I said no but I'll call somebody to come pick it up and it will cost you and it did cost them meanwhile when they came home it turns out accidentally their cabinet fell and about 25,000 worth of old China was destroyed. When they asked what happens we said I don't know we don't go into that room and there was nothing they could do. Later they had a baby if I could have set fire to the house and burnt the baby alive I would have every so often I drive past their house with old meat and throw it on their property because this coyotes in the neighborhood and I hope one day the coyotes kill the child that's where I'm from. If you see an animal on the road I said to a girl I was dating for Iowa and you had babies on the side of the road then you drive into the babies when I was at her house with her parents in Iowa I said to her father I said you don't hit that dog when we were driving I said if you do you might find all your farm equipment on fire tonight and he had a slow down and all the people behind him got pissed but they learned the hard way later that night I had to go to mass with them and would you believe in a Catholic Church people were holding hands while saying the Lord's prayer that is heresy and I pointed it out to the priest it is wreaking of paganism and they stopped. F*** the world

Tell your sister to pay for your stepson's tuition and file for divorce ASAP. Did your husband marry you just for the money? Your cat can't go to work to pay for it's surgery. Your husband and stepson CAN. Anyone that says it's just an animal doesn't know anything about true love or compassion. I'm sorry that your own sister did that to you, without letting you know, OR turning your husband down. None of them deserve you or your money.

Some are commenting oh how the husband just wanted to secure his sons college education.Well why didn’t he do this when his kid was younger instead of relying on the kids stepmom.He's the biological father and shouldn’t put this on her when it’s not even her kid.Besides where’s his bio mom is she contributing in any way?

Absolutely wrong on your husband's part. I'm proud of you for standing up for what you felt was right, and that was spending YOUR money on what was important to YOU. Your stepson or his dad can get a loan for tuition. If his grades weren't good enough to get any financial assistance, who's to say the kid will even finish college? And does your husband make so much money that your stepson doesn't qualify for assistance? I feel like your sister should have talked to you about your husband's proposition before it ever happened. I would have a trust issue with both of them now. (I've been in a relationship with someone who is not an animal person, and I have 2 cats that make me laugh daily, have absorbed years of tears through a divorce, and are sweet comforts after a day of dealing with dying patients. He refuses to have cats in his house, refused my compromise offer to build a sunroom on the back of his house for the cats, so here we are almost 3 years later still in separate houses 3 hours apart. And likely to stay this way until he accepts the compromise or we call an end to the relationship. I love him, but I don't NEED him!)

It's not your kid so you shouldn't have to pay for his college. Why can't the kid that out student loans. I would never ask my husband to pay for my daughters college. What the husband did was wrong.