I Excluded My Stepdaughter From Our Family Trip
Family vacations often bring excitement, but they can also create tension when stepchildren are involved and not everyone feels included. Add in responsibilities at home, like caring for pets or plants, and small disagreements can quickly grow into bigger family struggles. Recently, one of our readers sent us a letter about facing this very situation.
The letter:
Hi Bright Side,
We’re going on a family trip to Spain for 8 days with our two kids (12 and 14). My 15-year-old stepdaughter started to pack, but I told her, “I need you to stay to water my plants. I’ll pay you!”
My husband was silent; he knows how I love and care for my plants. He also knows that there is no one else to care for them. My mother is an option, but she is old and lives 50 minutes away, and it doesn’t make sense for her to come every day just to water the plants.
So my stepdaughter stayed. The deal was simple: I would pay her $30 a day to water the plants.
But once we got to our hotel in Spain, I got a shocking call. My mother was telling me that a truck had shown up at her house and workers were unloading all of my plants there.
I was stunned. When I turned to my husband for answers, I found out he was the one who arranged it. He told me, “This is to remind you that your plants are not more important than my daughter. I don’t want them in my house anymore.”
Then he added, “And if you think you can’t live without them, maybe you should move to your mother’s place too.”
I froze. Our vacation was instantly ruined.
Yes, my husband owns the house, but I am his wife, and I have the right to live there as well.
I wasn’t being unfair to his daughter—I was even paying her to take care of the plants.
Is this really how I should be treated?
Yours,
Reena
Thank you for sharing your story, Reena.
What happened here isn’t simply about plants — it’s about respect, control, and how your husband chose to “teach you a lesson” in a very public, humiliating way.
This is our advice to you:
Call Out the Power Play for What It Is.
That's just sorry, you should've stayed, they're your plants
Your husband didn’t just move your plants — he used them as a weapon to embarrass you and make his point.
Action: Name the behavior clearly: “This wasn’t about your daughter; this was about controlling me by destroying something I love.”
When you expose the tactic, you make it harder for him to frame it as a noble defense of his child.
Reclaim What Was Taken From You.
Anyone who would exclude a family member from a family trip to " water her plants" is the worst kind of abuser. You were telling your step daughter that your stupid plants were more important than she was. How low can you go?
Your husband made the choice to move your plants without your consent, but they are still yours, and they’re safely at your mother’s.
Action: Treat this as a line you won’t let him cross again. Go to your mother’s, bring back the plants, and place them where they belong in your home.
Let him see that he can’t simply erase what matters to you because of anger or power struggles.
Shift the Spotlight Back to the Stepdaughter Agreement.
Brightside........you really think him moving her plants to her mom's is the problem here?!?!? How about the fact that she basically told her stepdaughter that her plants were more important and couldn't go on a FAMILY trip to Spain because her plants needed to be watered. Sorry Brightside, but you're wrong here!!
You had already arranged a fair deal: $30 a day for her care. That wasn’t exploitation; it was responsibility with reward.
Action: Make this clear: “I didn’t exclude her; I trusted her with responsibility and paid her for it.” By reframing, you show that his daughter wasn’t wronged — she was given independence.
Question the Deeper Ultimatum He Made.
The 15 year old was not given A choice. She was a baby with your oldest daughter. Lady( and I use this term loosely) you are a crappy excuse for a human being, much less a mother. If I was that 15 year old, all of those plants would have been beyond saving when you got back. And Dad? Why the he** did you go in the first place knowing she was treating one of your daughters like a paid servant? As for the " responsibility with reward" was she even given a choice? As for the dad's "threat", who the neck sees that as a threat? I've been noticing that these days, sympathy seems to go to the person who makes the biggest scene even if they are in the wrong and you are most certainly in the wrong.
His comment — “maybe you should move to your mother’s place too” — wasn’t about plants at all. It was about pushing you out of your own home.
Action: Treat this as a red flag. Decide whether you want to confront it in counseling, or if you need to plan for your own security and independence should he repeat that threat.
We also heard from Laura D., who found herself in trouble at work after she refused to eat meat during an important business lunch and openly shared that she is vegan.
Comments
This has to be fake.. Surely no one is this stupid or entitled thinking plants mean more then a child
Yep. Because he would never have gotten on the plane. Get better writers.
Because of course you KNOW how each individual person will react, or you were there? Stop being a jerk and gatekeepimg someone else's experience. Yes, it did happen and does ALL THE TIME YOU NITWIT!
Well the writer does. They definitely shouldn't b giving out advice
The person commenting, the "expert" is obviously a useless, evil step parent! To EXCLUDE YOUR HUSBANDS DAUGHTER, WHO LIVES WITH YOU from a family vacation?? You are lucky he is giving you a choice! I wouldn't have gone with you and I wouldn't have let you take my kids out of the country. When you got home, ALL of your belongings, including the plants that mean more to you than a living, breathing child...after I salted them, would be out on the front lawn. I would have also gotten a lawyer and filed for emergency custody, using your exclusion of one child and the attempt to take my children out of the country, without me and without my permission. I truly hope your husband divorces and sure for custody! What an awful piece of crap human you are!!! You DESERVED the public humiliation and it would have been public, because that video and WHAT YOU DID, would be blasted on every single social media platform you are a part of. You don't want to be embarrassed or disrespected? STOP BEING A DISRESPECTFUL EMBARRASSMENT!!
They hav glass globes u fill with water to water them or u can go as simple as putting buckets or bowls next to pots with strips of cloth in water & in pots. It can b done easy. I have plants in direct sunlight all day. I went out of town for almost a week & my son came over to water once & everything was fine. She knew wut she was doing
And yet her husband actually flew to Spain with them? They deserve each other. If this was a real story. Get better writers.
Awesome job, Dad! I'd ship wife off with the plants, too!
So did Reena, or a friend of hers, write this response? Who the hell reads a story where a 15 year old is excluded from a family vacation because plants are more important and takes the side of the excluder? It doesn't matter if she was being "paid" or not, she was excluded from a FAMILY vacation by her stepmom over plants! Also how long has the stepmom been in the picture? Because she said "our kids are 12 & 14" while his daughter is 15. Has she been in her stepdaughter's life for most of her life and still treats her like an outsider?
I agree, just because she was paid doesn't make it right. was she given a choice between going and being paid to stay home. I doubt it. not only that she was told last minute while packing, but so no prior discussion either. I would also debate the legality of leaving a 15 year old at home alone whilst parents left the country
From the way this reads stepasshole waited till the last minute to tell the girl she wasn't going! That SCREAMS that she knew what she was doing was wrong.
Your brightside expert is a dud. Step-daughter comes before plants. Marriage comes before plants. Relationships come before plants. This isn't about control. This is about priorities.
My advice to the husband would be to now start packing the rest of the wipes belongings and drop them off so they can be with the plants.
Honestly I can't believe this letter is real. First off, what kind of mother, step or otherwise, would arbitrarily decide to leave a child at home and pass it off is being something good because they're paying. Secondly what father would allow his wife to leave his daughter while the rest of them went on vacation? And lastly what kind of expert response would take the side of this horrible uncaring stepmother? Yes there are red flags, but they are all being flown by this stepmother.
It's not. You can tell by the words l froze. They're in all these Al stories in some form or another. Who leaves a minor home alone while they're out of the country? This trope screams Cinderella, except instead of going to the prince's ball the steps go to Spain while Cinderella stays home & waters the plants
I never comment on any of these posts but this is the worst advice I've ever seen from a so called "expert". This stepmother is the wicked witch and the expert must be one as well! I hope this is fake/troll because who would be that daft as to exclude a child from the family vacation,and think she had the right to anything? I hope the husband grows a spine and divorces her,so he can salvage his relationship with his daughter. As long as he's still married to this rotten woman,he can say goodbye to any relationship with his daughter.
This story is so fake!!!
They're both immature idiots. The dad should have spoken up IN THE MOMENT and told her no, the daughter's coming too. He still allowed his daughter to miss out on the holiday just so he could get one over on his wife later. They're both pathetic excuses for parents.
That stepmother is a ass and a b***h you can water those plants by putting strings in them and putting the other end in bucket of water or buying those bulb things that you put water I know then stick in the plant and it waters it and it would of been alot cheaper than $30 a day. That was just plain cruel to that girl.
Everyone forgets the 15yr old feelings. Why wasn’t she asked instead of told she was staying behind. She was obviously exited to go she was packing. I would have hired someone else. Family trip is for family. The writer was wrong. Very wrong!
I don't believe this woman If and when the stepdaughter gets MARRIED exclude her that's how she can get her revenge
What! Cinderella..comes to mind😶
I would of written a better end to this story: hubby tells Cinderella, l mean his daughter, to go ahead & pack while he sneaks into stepmonster's purse & takes the tix & passport's, hiding hers. He adds her suitcase to the rest & insists Cindy come with the fam to the airport to see them off. Once @ the airport, when stepmonster opens her purse & can't find the tix or passports, hubby waves them in her face & sez, " then you can go back home water your precious plants. We're going to Spain." Then he takes the kids & goes thru the TSA checkpoint & they board the plane
I call bs. If hubby was so upset about his daughter being left behind, she would have gone with them regardless of the plant situation. He's hound have told wife to stay with her plants.
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