AITA for threatening to kick out stepdaughter for stealing from daughter?

4 years ago my wife passed away due to breast cancer, leaving me (42M) and my daughters 19F and 17F behind.

1,5 years ago I met Vicky (47F) and we quickly fell in love. Vicky has a daughter, Heather (24F), and together they came to live with us. Vicky and I did not get married however, so Heather isn’t technically my stepdaughter.

Almost from the beginning Heather wasn’t very nice towards me, to say the least. I tried to get to know her and atleast establish a cordial relationship, but nothing worked. She was very disrespectful and hateful to me but also to her mother.

Heather also picked verbal fights with my daughters, but I squashed that soon after it happened. Heather was the instigator and I told her that if she had a problem, she should direct it at me instead of at my daughters. It seemed to work.

Last week was Casey’s (my eldest daughter) 19th birthday. I gave her a spa package treatment for two persons (total 500 dollars) in the form of a gift card. And told her she could pick another person to go with. She chose her younger sister, who was happy to go. They would pick a date and make the reservation.

Casey wanted to make the reservation two days ago, but couldn’t find the gift card. After hours of searching we couldn’t find it. When Heather came home we asked if she had seen it, she told us she didn’t.

After another hour, Vicky found the gift card in Heather’s room (against Heather’s protests) after awhile Heather admitted she took the card from Casey’s room and went to the spa two days ago with her girlfriend. I was pissed and told her that if she didn’t pay Casey 500 dollars, I would kick her out. Since Heather doesn’t have a job and has dropped out of college, she says she can’t pay it. (She has been living at my house rent free with everything paid for).

I told her if she can’t pay for it, she should go live with her deadbeat father instead. She called me every name in the book and locked herself in her room. Vicky says it was an asshole move, since she has nowhere to go and her father won’t pay for her to live with him.

So, AITA?

Edit (06/23/2023):

Quite some people have been asking for an update. Considering it’s been a rough week and only now, are things calming down, I thought I’d write an update.

I sat down with my daughters and had a long conversation about Heather, my relationship with Vicky and how I’d let it go up to this point. In short, my daughters have for a long time hated Heather. They didn’t have many problems with Vicky, only regarding how Vicky always lets Heather easy off the hook.

I read many comments and I started doubting my relationship with Vicky. I knew it wasn’t perfect but thought we loved each other. My daughters are of the opinion that Vicky never loved me but that I also never really loved Vicky. Especially, Casey thought it was more companionship that we shared, and that I was lonely. Damn, my daughter hid the nail on the head. She was right.

I didn’t want to spoil my daughters day to the spa and paid for it, so that they could still go. They went a few days ago and had a blast.

Regarding Heather, I essentially kicked her out. Vicky threatened to leave if I kicked Heather out, and I told Vicky she was free to also go. After that she quickly back-pedalled and told me she didn’t want to go. Heather made a fuss, but I let her take her stuff and she moved out within 2 days. She is (temporarily) staying at a girlfriend of hers.

I told Vicky that if Heather didn’t pay the $500 back, we were going to call the police and report her. Vicky was horrified, and called her parents. I was surprised by this, because Vicky told me she had a bad relationship with her parents. As far as I know, her parents gave her the 500 and she gave the 500 to me.

After this I was about to have a difficult conversation with Vicky and wanted to tell her we are over, but she beat me to it. She told me that I treated Heather like shit (because I was threatening to call the police) and she couldn’t live with that. I was relieved and it probably showed, prompting Vicky to call me out asking if I was going to try to make it up to her and convince her to stay. I told her no.

After this, and a lot of screaming on Vicky’s part, she also left. She is staying with a married couple that are close friends with her. It took a bit more time and energy to move her stuff to her friends house. While I was there helping to move her stuff I was essentially ignored, so I have no idea what Vicky told them.

Today is the first day of peace and quiet in my house, and I already notice that my daughters are a lot happier. That’s all that matters to me.

I want to thank everyone for their posts and weighing in.