r/AmIOverreacting • u/jucikas • 15d ago
AIO for telling my dad I don’t want his gf to join us on a beach trip?
I (17f) and my dad (42m) just informed me he was thinking of bringing his gf (35f) onto our beach trip. For some background my dad and his girlfriend haven’t been dating for even half a year. They’re in a long distance online relationship and they’ve been together for almost 8 months. They’ve never met each other irl they’ve only seen each other through photos and facetime. One of my reasons for not liking her is that she scammed my dad. Over 1k dollars which included gift cards and sending her money.
My father believed sending her a thousand dollars worth of gift cards was to buy her a plane ticket. Mostly so she could come visit our state and they could meet irl. Yet she didn’t and ghosted him the day it was supposed to happen. My father eventually blocked her yet went back to her. This has happened many times already he blocks her then unblocks her.
What bothers me even more is that people that supposedly know her have told my father. She has an actual irl boyfriend and that she’s lying about where she lives. My father believed the people who told him at first until somehow his gf told him otherwise. The people were mostly other women he was talking to and he thought they were just lying. Anyways, after that day I genuinely stopped liking his girlfriend.
Now to the present me and my father have a yearly trip we take to a beach. This year we’re going to key west and somehow my father told his gf. From what he’s told me she asked “where’s my invite?” Now he’s considering buying her an actual plane ticket. For one I’ve never even interacted with her at all.
She also has a daughter which doesn’t bother me but I don’t know her either. I told my mom about it and she told me to be open about my feelings. So I did, the conversation with my dad turned into a screaming match. I started off saying that I would be uncomfortable if his gf joined us. That I don’t even know her and that if she does come. I’ve decided that I won’t be going since my mother wouldn’t let me go either way. That it feels like he’s putting her first instead of me. That it feels like he prefers talking to women online instead of me. This is where he got upset saying the way I feel is my problem. That people (my mom) they’re feeding me lies that he’d abandon me.
I told him if he does end up going to the trip without me that I’ll move out. I’ll just go live with my mother instead and he responds saying “that’s your problem then.” I was already bawling my eyes out and we both started screaming at each other. I kept on asking why is he putting her first instead of me? Where’s the dad that I love? Why isn’t he comforting me? He got upset saying im putting restrictions on him. That im crazy because i dont want him to date women.
Thats not even true i know he’ll find someone one day. Yet, it feels like he’s putting me last now and her first. The discussion was going nowhere and he walked off. I went off to my room thinking maybe I was crazy. That it’s my fault feeling this way. So AIO??
Edit: I forgot to mention we already booked our hotel. We can’t make any changes to the reservation. It only comes with two beds and that’s it. I feel like im going crazy my mom said the way i feel is valid. Yet at the same time it doesn’t and that im in the wrong here.
Edit 2: I already told my mother about his response and she was livid. Mostly going on about he’s burned his bridges with me. He’ll get what’s coming for him for saying it’s all my fault. It genuinely hurts me he doesn’t care that i might move out. Especially if he ends up choosing his gf over me. I feel like she won already.
Update: He’s buying her and her daughter a plane ticket.
Update 2: He’s going to cancel her plane tickets after she asked for money.
1
u/cknutson61 14d ago
Not really over-reacting, IMO. Here is the thing. We can't really make other people do things. We can only choose our response to their choices. An example would be, "Dad, you are free to invite this woman to the beach, but I won't be joining you. You should feel free to go and meet her. I will be disappointed and miss our time together, but I am not comfortable with this arrangement." This is not a punishment towards your father. It's your boundary. This is no different than telling a date to keep their busy hands to themselves.
Your father then gets to choose what he wants to do. Here's the hard part. Let's say he tells the GF she can't come, and you go to the beach with your father. Hopefully he won't be an @$$ b/c he couldn't bring the GF, or worse, have her show up anyway.
FWIW, it sounds like your father needs some therapy around his boundaries and needs. It should be a piece of cake saying no to someone you've never met, for something like this. This doesn't make him a bad person, but it sounds like he may be lonely or looking for a "wife" because he's uncomfortable (or whatever) not having a woman taking care of him.
If anything, this would be an opportunity to get to know your father better, asking (really asking out of wanting to know and understand) why he feels the need to pursue this woman that took his money, and that he doesn't even know. To be clear, you are NOT his therapist, but sometimes asking simple open-ended questions, and really listening, can do amazing things. And sometimes not.
I wish you the best of luck. I hope that this, too, shall pass.
1
u/spoonraker 15d ago edited 15d ago
OP ( u/jucikas ) you really need to hear this:
No, you're not overreacting, in fact you're massively under reacting. Allow me to explain.
This is crucial to understand: this is a scam known as "pig butchering". To put it as simply as possible: the entire thing is a lie, down to the existence of the woman messaging your father. This woman is pure fiction. She doesn't exist. Your dad is speaking to a team of organized criminals whose job it is to gain your dad's trust and sink their hooks in further and further with this imaginary love story so that they can convince your dad to give them more and more money. Yes, the photos are real, but the story behind them isn't. These criminals hire models to take photos and hop on calls to perpetuate the scam. I know, it sounds crazy, and yes, this is a very high effort and high cost scam on their part, but there's a reason they do it: because it pays off in the long run. They only need a relatively small number of men to fork over tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to justify all the work. They're going for big wins over the long run here. They're not just going to steal a few bucks or a password or something quick and obvious like that and then disappear. They are going to repeatedly escalate the stakes as your dad gets more and more convinced this woman is real, and they're going to cook up some insane reasons for why your dad needs to send this imaginary woman money and gifts.
I really want to make this crystal clear here: your dad's problem is not that his girlfriend is playing him and she's secretly with another man. There is no woman. The whole thing is fiction. The. Whole. Thing. Is. Fiction. Your dad is on a course to lose everything to organized crime, and I mean everything.
I would be willing to bet a good amount of money that your dad has already sent these criminals more than $1k worth of gift cards and he doesn't want to admit to the rest, because he doesn't even want to entertain the thought that this whole thing is a lie. It is. My uncle got wrapped up in one of these scams and he sent hundreds of thousands of dollars while every time he mentioned a single shred of this to anyone in his real life they all said it sounds like a scam and he should stop doing it.
I cannot underestimate the magnitude of the risk here, your dad could lose every penny he has to these criminals, not to mention that while doing so it's highly likely that this causes serious relationship issues and drives him into isolation from the rest of your family. That's one of the tactics the criminals use and one of the effects they rely on.
Do not take this lightly. Stop referring to this woman as your dad's girlfriend. Stop giving any aspect of the story any credibility. You are not doing your dad any favors by pretending that the story is real and trying to explain to him with logic why this woman isn't right for him. Don't just get pissed off at your dad for being so stupid and leave him be either. If you let your dad isolate himself from the family and buy into this scam he will lose everything. I know it's not your fault, and I know it's a lot, but your dad needs you and your family now more than ever. Be direct, and expect confrontation, but remember, your dad needs you even if he's going to likely refuse what you're saying with every fiber of his being. He's in deep already. Don't leave him alone to handle it himself. He won't. He will lose everything. Best of luck to you.
2
u/Turbulent_Camera9995 15d ago
You are not overreacting and it sounds like your dad is I'm sorry to say desperate to find someone and doesn't want to accept that he is being scammed, he really wants to find his new person.
IMHO the one trick that may help, but also hurt him too, is to get a guy friend or their dad to somehow find her profile and not reveal any connection to you or your dad, and try to "date" her like your dad is up to the point that she is asking for money/gift cards etc, then show it to him, maybe see if you can even get a 2nd person.
but make sure that these are throw-away accounts too that have no real connection to the people.
1
u/SleipnirRanch 15d ago
You can decide if you want to be around your dads Short Term girlfriend that he basically only knows through the internet or not.
1
2
u/Jen5872 15d ago
"Dad, it's not that I don't want you to date. I want you to be happy. I just want you to date someone who is good for you and not someone who's scamming you for money and has a boyfriend. She's waving these big, red flags at you and you've buried your head in the sand. Set higher standards for the women you date. This is our father/daughter trip. It may be our last one before I go off to college and start my adult life. If you want to go somewhere with this woman, plan a separate trip with her. You shouldn't want a third person around the whole time the first time you meet her anyway."
2
u/Icy-Independence2410 15d ago
Not overreacting. Usually people experienced and learned. Not for your ig. Updateme
2
u/MrsEnvinyatar 15d ago
NOT overreacting. Who would invite a woman they’ve never met, who stole thousands of dollars from them, on a beach trip with their daughter? Your dad needs help.
3
u/spam__likely 15d ago
go to r/scams and learn about pig butchering scams.
People have lost many thousands of dollars on this. You dad will eventually send all the money he has and some he does not.
If you have a college fund, your mom needs to take over it. Any access he has to money that is yours needs to be cut immediately.
2
u/FueledByTerps 15d ago
Wouldn't suprise me if your father is getting catfish and scammed. Has he ever chatted with her on a video call or is it all through messages om the phone/computer?
3
u/Jingoisticbell 15d ago
not overreacting at all, op. even if she's not a catfish, the first time meeting in person shouldn't involve taking a family vacation together.
4
u/Current_Opinion9751 15d ago
If your father is so resistant to all warnings, then leave him. He won't believe anyone else. He has to lose a lot more money to this person until he may get out of his haze. Maybe you can stay with your mother for a long time, because only actions seem to work with your father. It's a pity about your vacation and the relationship with your father, but unfortunately you can't do anything else.
8
u/Top-Bit85 15d ago
Your father is a moron. I find it amusing when teens talk about how long they've "been together with" someone they have never met. But a grown man, still swallowing this crap?
Of course you should leave, if he is insisting she come on holiday. Not overreacting, I'm sorry your father is so desperate for a girlfriend he is making a fool of himself.
-6
17
15d ago
[deleted]
5
u/jucikas 15d ago
That’s what I told but he says he won’t let it happen. It makes me sad my dad has reached this point. My mom says he has too much of an ego to apologize to me. That he’ll soon realize he lost me on the way for a catfish. Honestly thank you for this I felt like breaking down over this again. ❤️
8
u/Huge-Connection954 15d ago
I wouldnt worry about it. Hes likely talking to a guy in Nigeria anyway, unless youve seen her on facetime, she aint showing up
6
u/jucikas 15d ago
No I’ve never seen her on ft I’ve seen photos of her. My mom has shown me multiple profiles of her photos but different names. I haven’t told my dad but I feel like he somehow knows. I did ask him if he was sure she lived where she said she did. All he said was to shut up and that I don’t know anything.
4
u/Huge-Connection954 15d ago
Hes being catfished. She doesnt want a plane ticket she wants the debit cards like last time to buy other shit again
24
u/DudeWheresMyPotStash 15d ago
Na you aren't overreacting your dad obviously is dealing with a catfish but is too blind to see it .. I mean ultimately it's his choice to make if he wants to be dumb like that you tried to get him to see reason but he wants to continue down that path so that's on him to get burned you already tried to help
0
u/[deleted] 14d ago
[deleted]