It’s a privilege for any mother to pass on her most prized possessions to her daughter, and wedding dresses are one of them. But one particular mother, who doesn’t have a daughter of her own, was torn about whether to pass on her wedding dress to her two daughters. The 42-year-old mother, who goes by u/TemperatureOverall94 on Reddit, posted a post asking if it was wrong to give her 24-year-old wedding dress to her future daughter-in-law Lucy instead of her stepdaughter Molly. The internet supported her decision and pointed out why Molly didn’t deserve the dress.

When her son Mark was young, the mother lost her husband. She decided that Mark’s future wife should inherit her wedding dress and accessories. But she reconsidered this decision when she married her current husband Rob, Molly’s father. Molly, in turn, was not ready to accept her stepmother from the start and she made it clear that she was not her “real mother”. The 42-year-old explained: “My door was always open to her (Molly), but she never changed her mind about me. She called me a model wife to my face. If I ever organized a charity event, she would say, ‘Wow, you are so generous with daddy’s money.'”

Despite being called a model wife and berated for not having a college degree, the mother seriously considered offering her wedding dress to Molly. She showed the stepdaughter her dress and accessories and wanted her to wear them at her wedding. “Molly scoffed and said I had archaic values ​​and the dress was cheap and left. That really hurt because she knew what that dress meant to me and she didn’t care,” the mother said. Eventually, the mother gave up her efforts. When her son Mark was engaged to his college sweetheart Lucy, the mother was happy to have found another daughter to pass down her wedding dress to. “Lucy tried it on and it fit like a glove. She fell in love with it and I told her the dress, shoes and accessories were hers. She was so happy she literally cried,” she added.

The mother got a random inquiry from Molly asking if the wedding dress was still available. “She asked if I could get it back from Lucy since I had offered it to her first, and I told her 1) she said she didn’t want it, 2) it fits Lucy perfectly, and 3) Lucy is the only one getting married anytime soon,” the mother explained. This did not please the stepdaughter, who was suddenly fascinated by the dress. “Now Molly says I prefer Lucy over her because she conforms to traditional standards of femininity (getting married and being slim),” the mother added. Although Molly’s father supports her decision to give Lucy the wedding dress, the mother is concerned if she would have done the same if the roles were reversed and Lucy was the one asking for it.

The internet reassured the mother that her decision was the right one, considering Molly’s disrespectful behavior toward her stepmother. “The stepdaughter didn’t just refuse the dress. She did it in a rude and unkind way on purpose. The offer of the dress was obviously invalid after such behavior,” u/kaorizma said. “Molly only wants it because Lucy has it. Lucy recognized how precious that dress was to you and treated it accordingly. Cherish the memory and rest assured. You did nothing wrong,” u/ohnosandpeople commented. “You prefer whoever you have a better relationship with. That’s just how things go,” u/Chilling_Storm added.