Ok I know the title sounds terrible but hear me out, please.

I (18f) will be blunt here. I’ve always been the “bastard child,” not because of anything I did. I was just born to teenage parents who never got married. Honestly, it’s probably a good thing they didn’t, as I was the product of my dad losing his virginity from a ONS, and they hate each other.

My dad’s family are all from the south and super into appearances, so having a bastard didn’t look good for them.

I’ve spent most of my life either being ignored or pushed off onto someone else by my Dad. Which was ok in my book, because my papa would be the one that took care of me on the weekends. I loved my papa to death. He was the only person who ever treated me like family.

He died a year ago, but the man had the biggest heart and a character that was amazing. My Papa was a former marine, when he came home he became a firefighter EMT. He became the captain of his station. I have a lot of memories of spending time with him at the station.

I know, in spite of my birth circumstances, he loved me and I loved him.

This last weekend, I went for a visit (court-mandated), and they were praising my cousin who had gotten into a local college, not exactly the best, but hey, whatever. And, in a total afterthought, they said, “Oh, and what’s your plans?” I bluntly said I took the ASVAB, scored in the ’90s (I took my SATs my jr year, scored very well, but family makes too much for financial aid), and I’m going into the Army to be an x for 4 years in order to pay for college.

Thing is, my dad’s family has a strong military history. They were ecstatic, saying how proud they were of me and what an adult decision I had made. It was so wonderful I was following in their footsteps. And I just lost it. It felt like, “Oh, NOW I HAVE VALUE to you.”

I told all of them they could take their pride and shove it. I wasn’t worth your attention before. I’m not doing this because of you guys, I couldn’t care less. The only person whose opinion would matter is dead. My nana started crying and calling me cruel; dad said I was an AH for speaking to them like that, it was obvious that mom had poisoned me against them.

I told them my mom’s opinion of them had nothing to do with my opinion. After 18 years of their favoritism and bullshit of acting like I was some stain on their family was enough to form my own. I got up and left because I just couldn’t deal with it. Mom thinks I was in the right; my friends say they were trying to bond with you over this and I was being an AH because I let the past cloud my judgment.

AITA?

Edit: The original custody agreement was written that visitations would continue until I graduated HS, but I’m going to have my mom look into it because I don’t want to just stop going and have her get into trouble. Hence why it’s still court-mandated.

Edit: Info on Papa was he always would tell my dad he needed to man the fuck up and be a parent. But Nana would always intercede, either saying let him parent his way or he’s just a child, or something similar along those lines.