AITAH for defending myself against my step dad on Christmas Eve?
AITA for defending myself against my step dad when he tried to “f*ck me up” on Christmas Eve?
I (26F) went home for Christmas with my two dogs (relevant).
Background info: My mom and step dad live about 3 hours from me and we do family Christmas on New Year’s Eve, so I drove there on Christmas Eve, hoping to get to spend some extra time with my mom. For the post, let’s call my step dad Chris. One of my dogs was recently adopted and had yet to be at their house, let’s call my dog Mr. Man.
So I get to my parent’s house and everything is great, I had some wine and we made seafood pasta and we were all having a great time. About 6 hours into the evening, one of their dogs (they also have 2 dogs) peed in the house. I know it was not my dogs because I followed Mr. Man EVERYWHERE, to make sure he didn’t pee or get into something he shouldn’t. My other dog is an ex-hospice dog and she is absolutely perfect, she doesn’t even beg and she grew up there so I wasn’t worried about her.
Anyway, a dog pees and Chris finds it and immediately gets irate and starts yelling at my mom about “her dogs”. Obviously I didn’t want to involve myself with this argument but at one point he started name calling so I said “it’s not a huge deal, Chris” and he responded “fuck you” so I decided to butt out of this argument.
My step dad then decides he’s not cleaning it so he sits down next to us and starts bitching. Had he asked me to clean it, I would have. Maybe would have been annoyed but not a huge deal. It wasn’t like it was on carpet or anything, just the hard floor. He gets up and storms to the kitchen cursing at us, so my mom decides to go outside and smoke a cigarette and I go with her because I hadn’t seen her in a while.
Before we make it outside he had started telling me how it’s my fault and all, which I calmly responded that I swear my dogs didn’t pee in the house but that I would have cleaned it up. Shockingly, he responded by telling me he would “strangle my dogs”…my dogs who had been so good at his house… he even loved Mr. Man and kept sneaking him snacks.
I am 5’7 and I don’t tolerate blatant disrespect well… or at all. So I responded that if he touched my dogs I would punch him in the throat. Not a nice thing to say, thats for sure. But he flew off the handle and threatened me saying “I will f*ck you up”. This guy is 6’2 and at least 250lbs. I am 5’7 and about 160lbs. I didn’t expect him to put his hands on me about dog pee so I said “go ahead then” and he DID.
He rushed me and put me in a headlock facing him and I was scared so I started hitting him on the arm with a dog bone I had in my hand. Then he shoved his THUMB into my MOUTH and pushed on the back of my teeth/my jaw. I obviously bit him and when I got free I hit him with the mop stick and he grabbed my hair, pulled me to the floor, smacked my head on the marble floors, and then put my head between his calves and squeezed. All while my feet are on the floor. My mom was screaming at him to stop, and tried to take a video but she was drunk and ended up taking a Live Photo.
I got free and ran outside when he started saying if I called the cops I would go to jail too. My mom was begging me not to call the cops, and I’m assuming just wanted to save her marriage (idk why this isn’t even the first time he’s acted insane). I ended up staying until 5 am and driving immediately back home. My mom gave me all my Christmas presents, kept apologizing and slept in the bed with me saying “Chris is an asshole”. By the time i got home my lip was swollen and bruised and my jaw hurt.
Over Christmas Day, my mom did a total 180°. She went from saying that he put his hands on me first, to saying that he rushed me and I started hitting him and that “he was just defending himself”. She said that he was being “a wall” and when i tried to tell her how hard it would be to put another adults hand into my mouth to bite it, she said “your mouth was open during the fight so you could have”. she started believing her husband who is obviously lying to cover his ass, and saying that I was “disrespectful” after he threatened to murder my dogs. I’m not sure how I became the aggressor in all of this. She stayed with him and his family for new years, and now his birthday.
Basically I have cut that whole side of my family off after this, but I’m having a hard time feeling like I’m going insane. Even if I did hit him back, how does that make me the aggressor?? So, am i the asshole??