Dad Slammed For Trying To Force Daughter To Move Her Rabbit Outdoors For His Stepson’s Sake

Sep 30, 2022 by apost team

Blended families are no longer the exception they once were. The American family today no longer looks like what it used to, particularly with divorce, remarriages and cohabitation on the rise. Where in the 1960s, divorce rates were lower, and a majority of children were born to wedded parents, today, four in 10 births are to single women or those living with an unwed partner. The most prevalent family structure has now changed, with 46% of children today living with their married biological parents compared with 61% in 1980. With blended families becoming more so the norm, so too are the challenges of integration and acceptance – as well as even health issues.

One man took to Reddit to recount his struggles with integrating his blended family after remarrying a woman who had a son, while he also had a young teenage daughter. He said six years after his first wife passed, he reconnected with an old flame. They hit it off and traded "I do's" in January 2022. However, trouble only began to surface once they moved in together the next month.

"I am a widower. My first wife passed away 6 years ago from cancer. A few years after she passed, I reconnected with a former girlfriend of mine (We ended the relationship amicably, but lost touch over the years). We started dating again, albeit long-distance, and we married this past January and moved in together this February," he wrote.

"There has been a major hiccup in all of this though. My daughter has a pet rabbit, she has had him for almost 5 years now. His name is Basil."

As it turned out, Basil would be far more problematic than any of them had anticipated.

Basil has been in his daughter's life since her mother's passing, and the pet has grown to become family, the man recounted.

"Basil lives in my daughter's room and currently enjoys a lot of space: we converted her walk-in closet into a bunny pad, he is litter trained and she often lets him run around the house supervised. He honestly is more like a cat than what you would think a pet rabbit would be like. She has a little ramp for him to get on and off her bed and he will follow her around the house and everything," he explained.

"Unfortunately, it seems my stepson is highly allergic to rabbits. It seems to be a pretty severe allergy. We've gone to doctors to try medicine, we tried banning Basil from the common areas of the house and had everything professionally cleaned. No dice on any of it. Just walking down the hallway past my daughter's room causes my stepson's eyes to swell and his throat start to close," he wrote, adding his stepson and wife are living in a hotel until he comes up with a solution.

For now, he has tabled one option: to have Basil live outside. However, that alternative has not gone down well with his daughter.

"I told my daughter we will have to move Basil outside because him living indoors just isn't safe for her stepbrother. She is, understandably, very upset about this. I've tried to involve her in picking out and building an appropriate setup for Basil but she absolutely refuses to do so. She is mostly not talking to me, and when she is it is screaming, crying, and saying every hurtful thing she can think up towards me," he wrote.

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But in asking the Reddit community for its take on the situation, the man may have gotten more than he bargained for. Instead of sympathizing with his dilemma, many said the problems were of his own making.

"She's already lost her mother and now you want to move her pet away from her just because you have decided to get with someone else, she will end up resenting you and stepson, if his allergies are that severe him and his mother should stay at their own house and except the world doesn't revolve around their illnesses and if they want a sterile environment they will have go make one themselves," one user commented.

"This is a child who will count the days until she turns eighteen to move and cut contact. How sad and angry she must feel that already her life is being ruined to favor your step family," another comment read.

"So your child lost her mother 6 years ago and, then, a year later, she got Basil and now, you're asking her to give the bunny up? How much more does your child have to lose so that YOU get to be happy with your new wife?" a third user wrote.

However, the man did manage to elicit some pity.

"This is definitely tough, but the world doesn't revolve around a pet rabbit either. The best compromise would be to build a place outside where the rabbit can be that is big enough for the daughter to spend time with the rabbit too. You can't just up-end an entire family because of a pet," one user commented.

For now, the man said he is in the midst of creating a climate-controlled "bunny barn" outdoors and hopefully, this solution will satisfy all parties.

What do you think of the situation the man has found himself in? Do you think his solution to the problem will work out? Let us know, and pass this along to friends and family.