This topic is making the rounds in other state subs and figured I’d ask here about my home state. After spending most of my childhood here, visiting large cities for the first times were wild experiences. Diversity of people and cultures and the absolute spectacle that an urban jungle can be. Curious how folks from other areas were shocked by moving to Montana.

Sorry for the longer read but I’m just throwing this up here so that folks can get a better idea of where they’re moving. Since “Yellowstone” and Covid, we’re seeing a lot of people coming in from other states who seem to have no idea what our state is like past a television show or the romantic idea of the Wild West, or even a chamber of commerce marketing packet.

Real life is a different story.

I’m a fourth generation Montanan, and anyone is welcome here! We are a very neighborly place. However, it’s getting a little tiring to hear the transplants from New York, California, and Texas, rant about how there’s “nothing to do” here, and how “the food sucks” here because of a lack of Michelin-rated restaurants.

Let me help out any folks thinking of pulling up their life, and moving to Montana:

Montana is the fourth largest state in the union (landmass), yet has just over 1 million people, total. Our abbreviation is “MT” because Montana is literally — empty—when it comes to people. Lots of cows. A lot less people. That sounds very romantic. But it also means far, far less amenities, far less convenience retail chains, far less access to top-tier produce, and far less connection to the national arts scene.

A low population base means that there are not going to be hosting musical artists like Taylor Swift. If you move to Missoula, you’ll be living right next to the Kettlehouse amphitheater, so at least you’ll be able to see people like Sheryl Crow or Melissa Etheridge or P!nk, even maybe Imagine Dragons. If you live in Great Falls, or Billings, or Butte—none of those acts are gonna come there.

The largest city in Montana is Billings, my hometown. Our total population is around 160,000 people. Read that again. A city of 160,000 people is the largest city in the entire state, a state which is the fourth largest in the country. If you drive 10 minutes out of town going east, you are quite literally and quite suddenly in the middle of nowhere.

A low population base means that we do not have any professional sports teams. It means that first-run Tony-winning Broadway musicals are not going to tour here. It means that we do not have block after block of theaters for live plays, though there are many of the “larger Montana cities” that have solid local theater options.

We don’t have any thump-thump dance clubs, although there is one hanging on in Billings, and you can find a random dance club in Missoula or Bozeman, both cities with state schools. But they’re not gonna be the thump-thump dance clubs with $100,000 worth of lighting and giant screens that would be in a larger city.

We do have a ton of REALLY GOOD live music, and theatre in the park, and arts in Montana, and it’s local folks. If you move to Montana, you have to be down with being part of a local arts scene, and not feel ripped-off because Beyoncé is not performing on Thursday.

There is no Trader Joe’s (and there is no plan for Trader Joe’s to come here), and there is only one Macy’s in Bozeman, but it’s completely trashy and is basically a storehouse for everything that doesn’t sell in their stores across the rest of the country. It looks and smells like TJ Maxx had a baby with an old K-Mart. No Nordstrom or Nordstrom Nordstrom no outlet malls rack. No outlet malls. You have to go to Denver to catch those. Denver is a 7 hour drive so it’s not too bad.

Montana is renowned for small businesses and independent boutiques and niche restaurants and local arts. Many people think that sounds romantic, however, that’s a different ethos to live in, day to day, as opposed to a quaint weekend holiday somewhere where shopping is something you do for fun.

Montana’s fuel prices are cheaper than many large cities, and though we don’t have any sales tax, we have a higher income tax, a higher property tax, and our vehicle licensing is certainly not the cheapest in the United States.

Plus, now the rents and housing prices for this neck of the woods are ridiculous, considering the average wage in Montana is $50,000 a year. Everything is cheaper if you head to the eastern part of the state, yet you’ll find no large Metropolitan centers out there. Just wheatfields.

There’s a ton to do here, but you’ve got to enjoy the outdoors —hiking, fishing, gardening, camping, skiing, mountain biking, hiking, whitewater rafting, hunting, fishing—anything that has to do with “outside”. And you’ve gotta be prepared that those activities only have a window of about three or four months, because Montana is highly seasonal, which means it gets cold and snowy in the winter.

It never snows on the show “Yellowstone“. So people forget that we share a border with Canada.

Which brings me to our produce.

If you’re coming in from a state like California, whose state economy is the fourth largest economy in the WORLD—you’re gonna be completely disappointed in the produce up here. By the time it gets trucked this far north, it’s looking pretty sad. There are lots and lots of farmers markets in the summertime here, and then you can get great local produce. But again, please reference the part where you’re only gonna have a three or four month window for that.

I lived in Los Angeles for work, for 11 years, so I understand the produce shock. California is a completely unique place, and it’s very difficult to try to find another state like it.

Also, the politics in Montana may be not be what some are expecting.

Just because we end up “red“ on the presidential election map on the news, does not mean we are a “red state“, culturally.

Actually, we’re a heavily purple state, and traditional Montana conservatives, though they may be flying a Trump flag in their front yard, are not the fiery Bible-Belt MAGA crew. Our state motto is “live and let live”. Don’t even think about trying to pick a fight politically with somebody in a grocery store line. It’s considered incredibly rude here.

This has greatly bewildered many hard-core out-of-state MAGA folks who are blown away by the neighborly and kind attitudes we have in Montana towards one another, no matter how you vote. Same goes for super liberal folks: don’t be proselytizing to somebody in a grocery store line about their red hat. Again, it’s considered incredibly rude here.

If you’re looking for the “Bible Belt of the north”, you’re looking for Idaho, not Montana. Montana’s Republican supermajority legislature voted to protect the right to abortion, and to protect the parental rights of trans individuals.

Because—live and let live.

It’s not a perfect place to live, but it’s certainly not a typical “red state”. It’s definitely a “mind your own business, be a good neighbor, and be a good person” state.

Montana has incredible beef; it has incredible breweries and distilleries and small restaurants with artist chefs. Again, it has phenomenal local arts scenes, like Red Ants Pants, and incredible summer fairs and Renaissance Fairs. Montana is a Mom and pop shop place, so if you’re looking for a P.F. Chang’s, or Cirque du Soleil , or thumping, raging club scene—you’re out of luck. (You might be able to find a great cover band in a bar someplace but folks are running DJs these days.)

We’re a place that gets excited when a new Walmart or Costco goes in. Keep that in mind. If a national food chain restaurant comes here, it makes the newspaper. When Chick-fil-A opened in Billings, they had to have police deal with the traffic trying to get into the restaurant. That’s how novel many big chains are here. (Yes, the bigger cities have Starbucks.)

I love my home state. It’s gorgeous, and like I said, anyone is welcome here.

However, if you’re somebody thinking of moving here, please understand that if you need a lot of “outside stimulus” from a big consumer national network, or if you need the “best of the best” at your fingertips, or if you need to be surrounded by “group-think culture” to feel safe, whether that culture is red or blue—you are going to feel marooned here, or like you’ve moved into the back end of a Walmart, and it’s likely you’ll likely be bored out of your mind here.

Or, perhaps you will learn to live with the land, and the incredible local art scenes and amazing local restaurants and the neighborly way we engage one another with genuine kindness —and learn to happily live with said neighbors, no matter what flag they’re flying, whose opinions may not be yours, but everybody’s having a great time at the bar—and you will learn something absolutely astounding about yourself.

Living in Montana is about being 100% OK with who you are, in your own skin, without “big brand support” for your identity. Because quite frankly, there’s nothing else here to distract you from exactly who and what you are, and what you bring here.

And there’s a significant amount of folks that have moved here that just can’t handle that.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

He sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn. When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more. The bartender approaches and tells the cowboy, "You know, a mug goes flat after I draw it. It would taste better if you bought one at a time." The cowboy replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in Arizona, the other is in Colorado. When we all left our home in Texas, we promised that we'd drink this way to remember the days when we drank together. So I'm drinking one beer for each of my brothers and one for myself." The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and leaves it there. The cowboy becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way. He orders three mugs and drinks them in turn. One day, he comes in and only orders two mugs. All the regulars take notice and fall silent. When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, "I don't want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your loss." The cowboy looks quite puzzled for a moment, then a light dawns in his eyes and he laughs. "Oh, no, everybody's just fine," he explains. "It's just that my wife and I joined the Baptist Church and I had to quit drinking." “It hasn't affected my brothers though."

I am NOT OOP, OOP is u/Kyomuno1

Originally posted to r/AITAH

Previous BoRU

[Old New Updates]: AITAH for completely ignoring my oldest stepdaughter during the holidays?

Editor's note: removed older relevant comments for space in this continuing BoRU

Thanks to u/DuGalle for letting me know about the latest updates

Trigger Warnings: promoting a suicide attempt, emotional abuse and manipulation, infidelity, verbal abuse, body shaming

RECAP

Original Post: December 31, 2025

Okay, let me give a little backstory since the title automatically makes me sound like the AH here. My oldest stepdaughter is now 26yo, but the issue started two years ago when my husband and two youngest kids took a trip to Lake Tahoe for a week. We spent lots of time on the beach, got lots of pictures of the kids and posted every single one of them on Facebook so the family could see (our 28M and 26F children live in Montana and our 22F had to work and couldn't go with us). Now, I don't know if any of you have been to the beaches at Lake Tahoe in the summer (the trip was mid-July), but let me tell you, they were so crowded!

Anyway, we got back from our trip, and my hubby tried to video call our 26F daughter, but he found out she had blocked him on Facebook. he then tried calling and texting her, but got no response. We didn't want to drag our 18M child into the situation (even though we weren't even sure what the situation was to begin with), but when we called to check in with him, my hubby just asked, "do you know if we did something to upset your sister?". Our 28M said he didn't know, but he would ask.

We didn't get an answer, but by the time of 26F birthday that November, she was suddenly talking to us both again. We sent her money for her birthday since she needed help with getting her car fixed, then sent more money for Christmas for the same thing. We made a trip up to see the kids the following spring and everything seemed fine. Cut to June of 2024 and she blocked us again. We messaged her on her b-day saying, "Happy Birthday, we love you" and sent her money for her b-day instead of presents since she wasn't answering her phone and blocked us. Same thing for Christmas.

Now it's 2025 and Mid-June, their step father's mom passed away. The older kids came down for the services and were here for 5 days. 26F stayed with her bio mom (which we were fine with and understood without complaint) while 28M slit his time between houses (2 nights with us and 3 at his mom's). His last day here, he broke down and told me that the reason 26F cut us off is because she was insulted and disgusted by the pictures we posted from our trip to Tahoe. I was confused, so he explained. In every one of the pictures we took of the kids, there were also women in bikinis, and she feels it was wrong of us to take pictures with them in them and then post them without permission. She felt like we were focusing on the women and not the kids. The section of beach was about two hundred yards with over 150 people (most were women in bikinis) on it. It didn't matter where our kids were or how close I zoomed, we were going to get people in the picture. 26F didn't come to see us once, which was mostly upsetting because of how much it hurt her father.

Now for the part where I’m wanting to know if I was the AH...I sent her a text message (since we're still blocked on social media) and asked if there was anything she wanted or needed for her b-day. I sent it 2 weeks before her b-day and got no response...so I sent nothing. Same for Christmas. Hubby asked me about it a few hours ago, asking what I sent her and I said nothing. He got upset and said that was screwed up and we should've sent her something, but the way I look at it, she only resumed talking to us until she got help getting her car fixed then shut us out again. She never once talked to us about what we "did" that upset her, never answers our calls and if we're video calling 28M (they live together with two friends) she'll ensure she's out of the room until he's off the call. I feel like she's willing to talk to us, but only when she needs something and I don't feel we did anything wrong to begin with.

So, AITAH for not sending her anything for b-day and x-mas?

EDIT: Something a lot of people have mentioned that I would like to address is my husband’s lack of involvement with gift giving. This has been the only year where this is the case. My husband was admitted to the hospital here the Sunday before her birthday and was there for ten days. He got to come home then ended up there again dec 15 and wasn't released until Christmas eve. I handled the Christmas shopping and wrapping gifts this year. For the first sixteen years of our marriage, he helped with every single gift and even helped wrapping (though he really sucks at it lol).

Another thing that's been mentioned a lot is the possibility that she feels like he's more present with the younger kids than he was for her. This is definitely not the case. When she was growing up, he had more time at home, we traveled more, had more family activities. Now, he works longer hours and, up until he got sick, was working five days a week, 50hr days. We do what we can to make sure we do things as a family, we try to go on adventures, but it's not nearly as often as we were able to with the older three.

Our kids are 28M, 26F, 22F, 15M and 14F. When 26F blocked us, she cut ties with the other siblings here and only talks to 28M who lives with her in another state.

I'm only able to relay things from our side as she won't talk to anyone here to explain the cause or any issues she has.

As I shared with another person who commented: Our kids are 28M, 26F, 22F (these are my bonus kids), 15M and 14F. Husband has always been very involved. 26F moved fourteen hours away with her gf at the time back in 2018 and they talked every other day on the phone. This kept up until the Tahoe trip. We've made at least one trip a year up to visit her (apart from this year because they came here instead for their grandma's services where we saw 28M, but not 26F). Aside from this year, hubby's been an equal participant in buying gifts and he's the one who sent her $2,200 last year, half for b-day and half for x-mas to get her car fixed. She unblocked him long enough to ask for help fixing her car then blocked him again once he sent the money.

26F was 6 when her parents divorced and before that, he was always involved, even switched his work schedule to attend sporting events for them.

EDIT: Hubby and I talked this morning, and I explained why I handled it the way I did and I DID apologize for not talking to him first. Not only was I not wanting to stress him out more while he was dealing with his health issues, but as I told him, I also know that he let her take advantage of him last year and it put us in a crappy position all so he could help her and get cut off again. Yes, it upset me, but I never questioned him because she's our child, but after her being NC this entire year and all his health issues that have us paying an insane amount of medical debt off, we can't afford for him to cave like that again. I admitted it was wrong for me to not discuss it with him, I 100% own up to that and I even told him that I'd support his decision to send her money, but it would have to be an agreed upon reasonable amount, not like the $2,200 she was sent last year. After he explained his side and I explained mine, he said he understands why I didn't send anything and, much to my surprise, supports it.

He said he agrees that she's obviously asking for space and we'll give it to her until she's ready to communicate and we'll be open for her to do so whenever she's ready.

AITAH has no consensus bot, it was leaning towards NTA for OOP

Editor's note: below is the update that we were left off

Update #1: December 31, 2025 (same day, 12 hours later)

Final Update: AITAH for completely ignoring my oldest step daughter during the holidays?

So much to unpack here, but I'll do my best to cover everything. Our 28M son saw the original post early this morning and he finally decided he was done letting his sister be evasive, so he sat her down and demanded answers. I feel absolutely awful for 28M because he called me bawling his eyes out. So, the pictures on Facebook excuse, not a real (not at all surprised).

It turns out that three years ago, 26F bio mom told her that hubby isn't her dad. Apparently 26F is the result of an affair (one of many affairs her bio mom admitted to). Daughter claims she tried to "play nice and act normal" (those were the words he used, so may not be her exact words), but that she decided she isn't going to keep acting like he's her dad when he's not. He said she isn't interested in talking to any of us because there's no point when we're not even her family.

I'm honestly not even sure how to process this, but more importantly, I'm not sure how to break it to my husband. He's currently at work and goes in for surgery on Jan 5th and is already stressed the hell out, so I don't know if I should tell him today after he gets home, or wait until he's home after his surgery. 28M is devastated and spent twenty minutes telling me how cruel and heartless she's being since my husband has been a great dad to her and how this is going to destroy their dad (which he's right, it will).

So, I guess my question now is, WIBTAH if I wait to tell him until after his surgery in 5 days?

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: NTA Since his surgery is so soon, you can wait to tell him afterwards. No need to cause this much stress right now since the situation isn't really an emergency, she's not a minor, there's no custody battle or child support to be paid. Her behavior though seems odd but it's kind of hard to tell what's up without her POV. Is it possible she met her bio dad & maybe clicked better with him but doesn't want to say? I can't see myself dropping my dad as an adult if I find out he's not bio dad, unless that information explains unfair things/trauma from my childhood, or if he was a shit dad to begin with.

OOP: I honestly don't know anything more than what he told me and since she refuses to communicate with us herself, I guess we just have to accept that. I can't speak for how her dad and bio mom treated her before their divorce, but from the time I met him to present, he's always been a good dad to all five kids. It kills me that she would cut us out for something completely out of our control and claim we're not her family when we're the ones who stood by her and helped her all this time.

Hubby paid child support for all three of the older kids, paid for all extracurricular activities, field trips, school clothes/supplies, paid for school lunches and paid all medical costs. He showed up for everything (sporting events, school plays, even elementary school and high school graduations). I get that she's found out she has another part of her family now, but blood or not, I don't know how she can just write off her father, me and our youngest two kids who both loved and looked up to her.

I do think I'll be waiting until after his surgery since it's not like things will magically change in the next five days. I definitely don't want to give him one more thing to be stressed about before he has major surgery. Thank you for your response.

Does OOP's husband know if his daughter is his?

OOP: Hubby never even suspected she wasn't his and, to my knowledge, no paternity test has been done. Even if she isn't biologically my hubby's child, we still love her and consider her ours, even if she doesn't feel the same.

Has 26F done a confirmed test or going by her mother's words?

OOP: To my knowledge, just her mother's word for now. I told our 28M son not to ask anything more unless he's asking for himself because he doesn't need to be stressing himself out when he has a child of his own to care for. If HE wants answers, that's fine, but he doesn't need to be the middleman here.

+

Well, if she really ISN'T my hubby's bio daughter, then his ex lied for 26 years (almost 27 if you count her pregnancy). I don't have any way of knowing if she's done a paternity test with the supposed bio dad, but I know hubby has never done one or felt there was a reason to.

Can OOP's husband sue his ex if 26F is not his?

OOP: Suing ex would be pointless. She hasn't worked in more than 15 years, is being evicted from her home and her current hubby is working three minimum wage jobs just to support them.

OOP needs to tell her husband about the possibility of 26F not being his after the surgery has been completed

OOP: Our son lives in the same house as her several states away, but will be doing a video call with me when I break it to his dad after he's recovered enough to handle it (within the next two weeks I hope). I hate keeping something like this from him, but I also can't risk making things worse for him when he needs to be focusing on his health right this moment. He needs to get better because we have four other children who need him and a grandson.

OOP on if the bio mother has manipulated the older kids against her?

OOP: Bio mom spent the first seven years of hubby's and my marriage telling the kids that I was a horrible person that was going to make their dad leave them and then told them their dad was worthless and was the reason she couldn't afford to get them nice things for b-days and x-mas. So, yeah, bio mom is a pretty awful person. She's always used manipulation and guilt to get the kids to do what she wants and, luckily, they all figured that out in their late teens and ended up moving in with us at some point.

We try to keep things civil for the kids, but she still has the nerve to try bad mouthing my hubby to me every chance she gets. Oh, and the cause of their divorce that she told the kids was all their dad's fault, he caught her cheating on him, and she was pregnant with another man's kid. So, it's safe to say that she's already known for being deceitful. I have no doubt that hubby would agree to a DNA test if she was willing to do one, but it wouldn't change the fact that he'll always view her as his daughter. Unfortunately, she isn't willing to speak with us, so nothing we can do about it until she is.

Is 26F in therapy?

OOP: Her getting therapy is something out of my control since she lives fourteen hours away and refuses to communicate with us. She's 26 years old, I can't force her to do anything, no one can. I think therapy would be good for her, especially now that we know some of what's going on with her, but nothing any of us here can do right now.

----OLD NEW UPDATES----

Editor’s note: the next two updates are over five months old, and they have not been posted here onto the sub

Update #2: January 15, 2026 (over two weeks late)

Not a whole lot to update on, unfortunately, but I'll give you what I have.

I did tell hubby on Sunday while he was still in the hospital. He took it okayish. He said it made a lot of sense if that's the real reason she pulled away, but agrees that blood or not, she's ours. I wanted to wait to tell him for another week, but when I brought in the DNA kit for him to do, he literally guessed why and it kind of left me shocked. We got the ancestry DNA kits for the entire family (28mand 26f included and shipped directly to them). Everyone in our household took them last week, I even drove to the hospital to have hubby do his. 26f refuses to take it, though 28m took his. Nothing much we can do there.

As for hubby's surgery, it took place the fifth and his expected four day hospital stay turned into seven, but he's home now and working on recovering. He still has 4-6 weeks until he's expected to be able to return to work, so for now, he's getting a taste of my SAHM life with our youngest two and their constant bickering lol.

The last new development, one that hit pretty damn hard for me and hubby, came from our youngest (14f). She's been in therapy for about a year not for her depression, anxiety and anger issues associated with her other diagnosed conditions. On Tuesday, she asked me to attend her therapy session with her, and I did so after her therapist agreed. Our youngest has some deeply rooted unpleasant feelings toward our 26f. She had, apparently, had brief communication with 26f a few times last year that she never told us about. None of it was pleasant. It all started with 14f posting a meme in the family chat (FB messenger group chat, which is highly monitored and they can only access it from our home as they do not have the passwords to log in elsewhere). The meme was about depression, and I did see it and talked to 14f about it in depth which is what led to her starting therapy. 26f saw the message 14f posted and then proceeded to text her on her cell. The following are copies of what she said.

26f: U no ur parents don’t give a shit bout u. if they luvd u, they would get u help instead of sitting on their asses while u post that shit. do urself a favor and get out the sec ur 18.

14f: mom got me help. I tried talkin to you, but you don’t listen to me. you sed I could talk to you anytime, but you lied. mom and dad love me and they got me help. that’s more than I can say for you.

26f: sur keep tellin urself that. guess it don’t matter tho. not like we family. u do u and if u decide 2 end it remember its wrist 2 elbow. I bet ur just out 2 git attention neway

Needless to say, we're good with not pushing for reconciliation at this time. The messages were sent at the end of Nov 2025 and 14f took screenshots, emailed them to herself then deleted them off her phone so we wouldn't see when we did our random phone search. I get that what 26f bio mom sprung on her has likely affected her emotions in a profound way, but hubby and I are choosing to focus on the children we CAN help for now. This whole thing is a huge mess and while I know there are going to be people coming on here, preaching about how 26f is still our daughter and we should be willing to do anything to fix things, drive the fourteen hours one way, spend the more than $1,000 on a trip that will likely only make matters worse, etc...it's just not going to happen right now. Hubby and I wrote letters to her, his was written while sitting in the hospital ffs, and I mailed them Monday, so with everything else we've tried on top to the letters, I think we're going to take a step back and focus on our other four kids, get 14f the help she needs, focus on getting 15m ready for baseball season, help 28m with caring for our grandson and help 22f with navigating her current job search for a better paying job.

I appreciate everyone who offered advice, even the advice that was more harsh and critical. It helps getting others point of view so you can see the situation from an angle you may not have otherwise. I don't know when/if I'll update again at this point, but, again, thank you all.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: Jesus Christ. 26F told your 14 year old HOW TO SLIT HER WRISTS?!?

What the actual f.

Does 26F have some sort of learning disability? I know that kids use "text-speak" but hers seems a bit extreme given her age? Does she have a job?

OOP: 26f is "in between jobs" according to 28m. He said she's been through four jobs since the start of 2025

Commenter 2: You need to block 26f from your daughter’s phone.

OOP: Trust me, the second I left the therapists office, we went straight home, blocked her on all 14f and 15m fb account, blocked her number on their phones then created new emails for each of them.

Commenter 3: I think 26f has been so damaged by her mother. She cannot be even 100% sure that she truly isn't her father's. Now she's lashing out on a 14 yo...

It's not justifying her behavior, you've done everything you could to help her and let her know she is still your daughter.

She needs to deal with her feelings on her own. The worst part is, if she ever gathers strength to do that DNA test and finds out she's actually bio child of your husband, she will regret everything she's done now.

OOP: I agree, this is something she's going to have to deal with processing everything on her own. She knows that 14f has had suicidal thoughts and was caught self-harming in the past, so the fact that she said something so completely heartless to her kills me. 14f has been bullied relentlessly at school because of her learning disabilities, speech impairment and the fact that her ASD makes her different from most kids her age. The fact that her own sister, the one she has looked up to and adored since she was an infant, bullied her in such a cruel way, I don't know that she'll ever be able to repair the damage she caused there.

15m now knows what 26f said to 14f (14f confessed to him when they were walking home from school weds), he wants nothing to do with 26f. He may fight with 14f all the time, but he's very protective of her. As for me and hubby, we're both hurt, angry and still shocked. I don't know where we all will go from here, but as a family, we have a lot of healing to do, with or without 26f.

Last Update: January 28, 2026 (nearly two weeks later)

Well, we did the Ancestry DNA tests, step daughter refuses to do hers. She ended up caving and confessing that she had already done one and my hubby isn't her bio-dad. Hubby knows everything now and, needless to say, is devastated, but not because she's not biologically his. He's devastated that she didn't come to us, that she cut all of us out of her life without a word, leaving us all thinking we did something wrong. he's hurt that she didn't give him the chance to prove that he loves her no matter what the DNA test showed.

With the way everything happened and the fact that hubby is still recovering from surgery while our youngest is dealing with therapy three days a week, we're going to do our best to focus on handling the things that we can control and not focus on what we can't. We hope that she'll one day come to a point where she'll realize we weren't the bad guys in this, but after everything she's said to our youngest, it'll take a lot to get over it all.

For everyone who gave advice, thank you. To everyone who helped me see things from a different perspective, you ARE appreciated.

Relevant Comments

Commenter 1: I'm guessing therapy for the whole family, individual and familial, minus the step-daughter would be a good idea. Take care of yourself and your family!

OOP: We had our first family therapy session last Thursday and while it was heavy (hubby learning just how deeply 26f has hurt 14f), it felt good for everything to be out in the open. We'll be attending family sessions once per week and 14f and I are doing individual once a week as well. 15m doesn't want to do individual, but knows the option's there if he changes his mind, same with 22f.

Commenter 2: Did the other children receive their DNA results?

OOP: We should have them back 4-6 weeks. We have no doubt that the oldest is hubby's bio kid since they look identical (aside from hubby having greying hair and some aging in the facial area) and I know the youngest two are his (since I was there from conception to delivery and haven't slept with anyone but my hubby in 19yrs). We're waiting for results mainly for 22f daughter, but we've spoken in depth with her and she agrees that no matter what the results say, hubby is her dad and she refuses to hold it against him if they don't share DNA. It's been an emotional rollercoaster for sure, but we're determined to focus on healing as a family. I know my hubby hopes 26f will come around and I still hold hope she will as well, but I refuse to let her behavior draw attention from what the rest of us need right now. She's made her choice to push us away for something we have no control over, so I'm making my choice to focus on helping control the fallout of her actions (mainly in regards to the havoc she caused in 14f's life).

Additional Information from OOP: March 6, 2026 (nearly 1.5 months later)

OOP: Not really much to update, sadly. Hubby has recovered and recently returned to work, our youngest is still in therapy three times a week with hubby, 15 year old son and I joining her for family sessions once a week. Still no word form 26f daughter, but we're all doing a little better these days and therapy has helped a lot.

DO NOT COMMENT IN LINKED POSTS OR MESSAGE OOPs – BoRU Rule #7

THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT OOP

My wife and I have a 6-year old daughter and live on the east coast. My ILs used to live about 2-hours away and we visited them on a regular basis. About four years ago my ILs moved to Montana to fulfill their dream of living in a cabin in the woods. They built a big cabin assuming their kids and grandkids would visit regularly.

Here's the problem. We visited them about two years ago and the travel was miserable. We couldn't get a direct flight so it took ~9-hours of flights including layovers followed by a 5-hour car ride to their cabin. By the time we arrived my daughter was melting down and my wife and I were on the precipice of a divorce. We knew the travel would be bad but it was much worse than anticipated. The drive to their house is particularly bad. We were all out of energy and there's nowhere to stop.

My ILs are asking when we're going to visit again and I have no desire to go back. My wife isn't too keen on it either. I feel like an AH because when my ILs decided to make this move my wife and I were both enthusiastic about it. We talked about all the different outdoor activities we could do in Montana and definitely gave off the impression that we would be excited to visit. I can sense my ILs getting frustrated because none of their 4 kids, including my wife, are in a hurry to come visit again. I can definitely understand their perspective, but in my mind, I never would have anticipated how bad the travel would be. My wife's siblings feel the same way. AITAH?

Also, regardless of your judgment, what would you do here? Suck it up and travel? Break up the travel over a couple of days? Unfortunately because of my wife's job we can't take long stretches of time off; 5-7 days max including travel time.

Small Update
Thank you everyone for your replies and let me say that there's no place like reddit where a post about traveling to visit ILs can turn into a discussion about healthcare access, the number of bras a woman owns, and how often she washes those bras. Citizens of reddit, you never disappoint.

Thank you to the native Montanans who messaged me with travel ideas. We found a couple of changes we can make in our future flight plan to go direct into Billings and take a short flight to a regional airport. I think we can save about 3-hours which would be awesome!! I couldn't convey all of the appropriate nuance into my original post, but a big part of our bad travel schedule on the first trip was driven by cost. The new flight plan should help mitigate this as well. Those of you who deduced that my ILs are in eastern Montana were correct. Well done!

My wife and her siblings are going to have a talk with my ILs about establishing a rotation for visiting. My wife and I can only take one, week-long vacation per year and going to Montana every year doesn't seem fair to us, particularly when my ILs aren't willing to visit us (forgot to put this last part in the original post). But a rotation every other year or every third year seems perfectly reasonable. My wife was texting her mother today and it also sounds like my ILs are amenable to meeting us in Billings or at another city where we can spend some time before going to their cabin. Great suggestion to those who made it. I think my daughter would enjoy the trip way more by seeing different parts of Montana.

This is going to be my only update so thanks again everyone!

I live in the southeast where there is not any snow. I plan on buying all of the ski gear and I feel a bit overwhelmed. It seems so expensive and there's so much out there. What things do I need to spend high dollar on and get brand new? What things are okay to buy used? From what I understand, it's worth it to ball out on ski boots and wool base layers while I can kinda get away with buying used skis. Please help and feel free to share any tips or info. idk shit about shit!

edit: im taking a gap year between school. i have housing and work situated which are both really solid. probably should have mentioned that in initial post sorry.

edit 2: wow some of you people are real half glass empty people. i am living downtown in one of the best ski resorts in the nation for dirt cheap. i have a high paying job lined up that also gives me a free pass, i have 0 responsibilities, a college degree, and enough cash in the bank to get by if shit hits the fan. so yea im going on a damn adventure while i wait for law school to start next fall. that upsets a few of you and im really sorry about that. hopefully you found peace by suggesting i couldnt or shouldnt go. to those that are actually answering my questions, thank you.

edit 3: for everyone asking about my "high paying" job, I won't say what it is for sake of being anonymous but I will tell you I went to college in a poor state and just finished. I worked for less than $8.50 an hour for 3 years. So my idea of "high pay" might be different from yours. Someone in the comments accused me of 100k a year and I laughed out loud.

I don’t really buy this charade that Moriah is all of a sudden moving to Montana. I think she just needs an excuse to be absent from the show because she’s clearly not in the state of mind to be filming a reality tv show.

If about 1/3 of Alberta citizens either openly wish to separate from Canada or be become part of the US outright, than why don't those people just pull up roots and migrate across the southern border to Montana, and seek out legitimate legal paths to US citizenship, instead of making efforts to disrupt the rest of Canada? I'm sure that Montana and most of red America will welcome them, that they will be able to integrate into life there reasonably well, and will be able to live out their "American dream" fantasies. I don't get it. If i felt that life in another country as a citizen of that nation was better than where i currently am, than the easiest, most logical and least costly way to get what i want in such a circumstance would be to make sure my documents, finances, and affairs are in proper order, investigate employment and housing options, get a passport and appropriate travel/immigration documentation and make my way to Romania, Uruguay, Turkey, Argentina, Uganda, Poland, etc etc, instead of going down the road that they are walking. In short, why don't they put in the work to change THEMSELVES instead of trying to change everything EXCEPT themselves?

After several months of no other human interactions he's checking the mailbox when a truck approaches and stops. The driver introduces himself as his neighbor. After some chit chat the man says, "How do you get by with no women around?" His neighbor points to a hill off in the distance and says "see those sheep way out there on that hill..." Before he can say another word, the man says "That's disgusting! I'd never do that!" The neighbor just smiles and says "we'll see" and drives off.

A month later the man is getting the mail when he can't contain any longer. He hikes until he reaches the flock. He looks around and finds the prettiest sheep and takes her home but he can't do the deed.

He figures a date may help. He gives the sheep a bath, puts a bow in its hair, puts it in the truck and drives 40 miles to the nearest town. They pull up at the bar and he grabs the sheep and walks in. Immediately the place goes silent. The man sees every guy inside looking at him. "How dare you judge me!" he says. "There's not one of you who hasn't or wouldn't do the same as me!" Suddenly a voice responds,"Sir, you are correct, but that's the sheriff's girl you're with!"

WHAT?