So, my names Andrew. After Mum passed, Dad remarried this woman, Judith, who already had two daughtersEmily and Grace.
Years ticked by, we all grew up, and then my father had a terrible car accident and died.
I have to say, Judith turned out to be really decent about everything. She gave up the family flat for me.
“That place belonged to your mum,” she told me. “Now it should be yours!”
The only thing she asked was that I let her daughters stay in the flat until they finished university. She was moving back to her little village in the countryside. I thought, fair enough, and agreed.
Emily and Grace were chalk and cheese, honestly. But both of them had this one goal: to bag a husband with his own property.
Life wasnt so bad, to be honest. Emily would get up early and make me breakfast; Grace went out of her way to iron my shirts and keep me looking sharp. Both of them were always trying to impress me.
But, as these things go, two months apart, Emily and Grace each ended up giving birthboth to my daughters. As you can imagine, when Judith found out her girls were pregnant, she hit the roof. But Emily and Grace absolutely refused to get an abortionthey wanted to have the babies.
I mulled it all over, realised paying a third of my paycheque in child support for 18 years would absolutely ruin me, so I came up with a plan to sort a mortgage for myself.
I swapped the family flat for two studio flats. The extra money I got was enough for a deposit on my own place. I gave each of the girls one of the studios, on the condition theyd sign away any claim for child support. For a while, things were pretty peaceful.
Then, out of nowhere, four years on, a court order lands at my workturns out I supposedly owe a fortune in child maintenance.
I marched round to see Emily and Grace about it, and they just laughed in my face. Said Id basically gifted them those apartments, and, get thistheyd deliberately muddled up the paperwork.
So, here I am: no family flat, stuck paying both a mortgage and child support, completely skint.
Judith, my stepmum, just smirked and said, “Well, you deserve it!”
To top it off, Emily and Grace banned me from seeing my own daughters. I had to borrow money to pay off the arrears and then fought them in court to get visitation rights. Luckily, I won.
After that, I had a very blunt word with my boss and sorted it so that most of my salary was slipped to me off the books. Now, officially, Im paying the bare minimum in child support.
Every Friday Id pick up my daughters and spend weekends with them, spoiling them rotten, taking them to the zoo, funfair, you name it. Emily and Grace would have a go at me, saying Im spoiling their kids.
And, little side note, I also slipped a bit of extra cash to a couple of mates to flirt with Emily and Graceand let them know that having someone elses kids would make it a nightmare for them to find a boyfriend.
One time, with a social worker watching, I even picked my daughters up from Judithsclaimed their mums had all but abandoned them. After that, I filed for full custody and got it. My girls moved in with me. Im telling you, Im actually a pretty good dad. The girls love coming home with me, and when they do see Emily or Grace, they cling to me, terrified their mums are going to take them away. (Not that I help with the anxietyI do read them fairy tales about wicked mothers.)
By the time Emily and Grace cottoned on to what was happening, I was already marriedand very happily this time.
I made them an offer: give me my flats back, Ill let you have your daughters back. Needless to say, they agreed.
Now lifes peachy. I let out those two studio flats, and my mortgage is all paid off on my place. Honestly, I managed to outsmart my greedy stepsistersand Im finally living easy.
