My Wife Gave Me an Ultimatum Over Stepdaughter, She's Now Shocked When I Chose Divorce

If you’re a stepparent trying to build a bond with your stepkids, you might eventually want to make things more official—like through adoption. But before jumping into that, it’s super important to think about what’s best for the kid, the stepparent, and the biological parents.

Take this stepmom, for example. She wanted to adopt her stepdaughter, but mainly to cut ties with the girl’s biological mom, who’s constantly in and out of the picture. Her heart might’ve been in the right place, but her partner wasn’t on board with the idea, and it ended up putting a big strain on their marriage.

A man turned to Reddit with a serious life dilemma.

Adoption can strengthen stepfamily’s relationship and make it more formal, as long as everyone is on board. But in one man's case, everything turned out to be really complicated.

A dad made a post on Reddit, where he shared his intricate and very controversial story, and people flooded the comments, because they had so much to say!

The man opened his post, saying, [edited], "I (33m) have an 8-year-old daughter, Ella, with my ex and I have full custody of her. I'm married to Laura (30f) and we have two kids together. Ella's mom is a train wreck. She has not seen Ella for around a year now, but Ella loves her so much.

Recently, my wife has been aggressively pushing me and my daughter to the idea that she wants to adopt Ella. But there's a big problem here, and now we have a huge conflict in the family."

The OP's wife seems to have forgotten about her stepdaughter's feelings toward her bio mom.

The OP wrote, [edited], "My ex did have supervised visits ordered by the court, but she didn't always make those due to hospitalizations, arrests and such. I've been dating Laura since Ella was 2. So she's very familiar with Laura.

But she doesn't call her mom, and she still loves her mom and wishes her mom would get better and be a real mom to her. I have her in therapy to help her process everything.

Laura knew how things were when we started dating, and she knew how it was when we got married. I always made it clear that my priority was Ella's safety, health and happiness and I told her I understood if it got to be too much, and she didn't want to commit. But she said she was on board for it all."

The OP's wife has good intentions, but the man refuses to put her interests on the first plan.

The man shared, "Only now she's tired of my ex reappearing every so often and she wants to adopt Ella, so my ex can't have any access ever again. She does love Ella and sees her as hers just as much as mine. But the main reason she's being so forceful is severing my ex's rights would get her out of the picture until Ella's 18 and chooses to look for her mom on her own.

Laura says this is what's best for her and for all of us. But Ella doesn't want to be adopted by Laura. Even if her mom never gets better, she doesn't want to be adopted.

I respect this and I won't force it. But Laura isn't happy. She said we have the other two kids to think of as well and how Ella might pull away from us if her mom causes more trouble in the future, she might choose her over us. I said that could happen even if she adopts her. And I said it will definitely happen if we force this."

The family is now on the verge of falling apart, and the OP is desperate.

The OP wrote, "Laura and I have discussed this numerous times now, and she told me she doesn't see our marriage surviving if I won't talk Ella around or let her do it, or get a therapist who will. She said she will not keep being just the stepmom when Ella's mom won't put her first, while she has been and doesn't get the benefit of legal stability of adoption.

She said I only had two options and needed to decide which I wanted. I told her to divorce me then because I'm not forcing the adoption on Ella.

Laura didn't expect my answer, and she told me she thought I'd offer to speak to Ella more. That I clearly don't care about our marriage. I said I do, but she gave me two options and one option never happening. And I can't control if she divorces me for it. Am I wrong here and what should I do?"

Redditors were quick to react on the man's emotional story.

One person came to the comments first and wrote, "The danger with giving ultimatums is that sometimes the person chooses the option you didn't want. You're not wrong here."

Another person said, "Laura gave two options (adoption or divorce) but told OP she had actually expected him to pick a third (offer to speak to Ella more). She’s pretty terrible at this ultimatum thing."

One more user added, "She’s also ignoring the fact that it is not a foregone conclusion that bio-mom willingly terminates her parental rights. In trying to force this, she could also be the impetus for bio-mom getting more involved.
The attempted termination could serve as a wake-up call and lead to the exact opposite of legal stability, which would be a contested court case with outside “experts” giving their opinions as to what should happen. She really should have just left well enough alone."

Another person commented, "When my ex-wife would get mad at me, she'd often throw an “I'm going to divorce you and find someone better than you” at me, and was really shocked when I finally hit my limit and took her up on it.
Learn from my mistakes, folks. Dealbreakers aren't inherently bad, but if you're with someone who uses ending the relationship as a way to persuade you, get out. It won't get better. Just get out."

And here's a story from a dad, who witnessed how his wife was trying to kick his 10-year-old son from the family picture. She was saying that he didn't belong there. The dad's reaction was powerful, and this was a good lesson for the woman.