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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/SChemistA on 2023-08-11 19:00:54.
I've never typed this out before so give me some slack on if I miss things. When I was very young, I had my son Jason. He was my everything, I worked so hard to give him a good life, I managed to send him to boarding school and a good university. When he was 22 and about to graduate, he proposed to his girlfriend Amber because she got pregnant. Jason died after graduation and it wasn't anybody's fault, just a big car crash. Amber couldn't handle things so she went home to Edinburgh which is across the ocean, she told me not to contact her and though I tried a lot over the years, I've never been able to find her.
About three years after, I realized I was tired of living in routine and put myself back out there. I met Max, who was four years younger than me, and things kicked off and we got married. We had a daughter named Ellie. Now, it is too painful for me to think about Jason anywhere but my memories or when I feel safe at grief counseling. I had all photos and mementos and everything placed in storage. There's no sign around my house that he ever lived there, I have made it clear to Max we are never to talk about him and I never spoke about him to Ellie. I don't care if you think this is healthy or not but this is what has worked for me.
Now Ellie is fifteen and I don't know how but she was rummaging through the attic and found some pictures that my mom had taken of me during my pregnancy with Jason. She realized pretty quickly that wasn't when I was pregnant with her and came barging in for answers. Max ended up telling her because I ended up crying. Then she yelled at me for keeping this a secret and how there's a whole part of her she doesn't know about. I got mad and yelled that he's my son and mine only and he doesn't belong to anybody and nobody has any right to know about him unless I say. Ellie started crying and she's been very sad ever since.
I've never posted here before but it seemed appropriate to do so. Was I the AH?