Whether you’ve envisioned wearing your mother’s wedding dress down the aisle (or transforming it into something more modern for your reception!) or not, you know it’s a huge honor to be offered the family heirloom. It’s your matriarch’s way of connecting your wedding to hers in a meaningful and significant way. But what happens when there’s competition? If a mother has more than one daughter, both of whom express interest in the dress, who gets to wear it on her big day? One mother recently experienced this dilemma in an unusual way: She had to choose between her stepdaughter or her future daughter-in-law, she wrote in the Reddit thread “Am I the A______.”

The mother took to the forum to describe her dilemma – and to ask whether she ultimately made the right decision (spoiler alert: she decided to give her wedding dress to her daughter-in-law). She described her own wedding and family tree. “I got married 24 years ago. I decided that if I had a daughter, I would pass the dress and accessories on to her. I chose a simple, elegant dress rather than what was fashionable at the time because I wanted something timeless that people could wear for generations,” she wrote. “One year later I had my son ‘Mark’ and his father died when he was young. I raised Mark as a single mother for several years. I decided that when Mark got married I would give my dress and accessories to his wife.”

Those plans changed when the woman met her second husband years later. “When I was 33, I met ‘Rob.’ I fell in love with him and we quickly got married. He became a great father figure to Mark and I was so happy to have my stepdaughter ‘Molly,'” she explained. “My relationship with Molly had a rocky start. I was patient and gentle with her. I offered to go shopping with her or do her nails. I asked Rob what her favorite foods were and made sure I cooked them. She made it clear that she didn’t see me as her real mother.”

Unfortunately, the original writer’s relationship with Molly never improved (her stepdaughter regularly calls her a “model woman” and accuses her of being overly generous with her father’s money when running charity events) – but she never stopped trying. “Years went by, and I never changed the way I treated Molly. My door was always open to her, but she never changed her opinion of me. Although she didn’t say anything explicitly, I could tell she looked down on me because I didn’t have a college degree,” the woman explained.

A few years ago, the woman offered Molly one last peace offering – her wedding dress. “I took her into my closet and showed her the dress and accessories and told her I would love for her to wear them to her wedding. It would need a few alterations, but we could make it work,” she wrote. “Molly scoffed and said I had archaic values ​​and the dress was tacky and left. That really hurt because she knew what that dress meant to me and she didn’t care. After that, I stopped trying so hard to build a relationship with her.”

Assuming Molly had made her choice, the woman eventually offered the dress to her son’s fiancée, his high school sweetheart, after they got engaged. “Two months ago, Mark proposed to his college sweetheart ‘Lucy,’ who I have a great relationship with. When Lucy mentioned she was going dress shopping, I showed her my dress,” the woman wrote. “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.”

But days after Lucy officially inherited her future mother-in-law’s wedding dress, Molly changed her mind – even though she is not yet engaged. “Molly asked me out of the blue if the dress was still available. I told her I had given it to Lucy. 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 fit Lucy perfectly and 3) Lucy was the only one getting married anytime soon,” the woman wrote.

After Molly accused her of favoring Lucy, the woman began to question whether she had made the wrong decision – and took to Reddit, where she was quickly told to stand her ground. The overwhelming response? That Molly only wanted the dress because it was gifted to Lucy. “No problem. Molly only wants it because Lucy has it. Lucy recognized how precious that dress was to you and treated it accordingly – Molly turned her nose up at you to hurt you,” one user wrote. “Lucy accepting the dress sounds like a wonderful bonding moment for the both of you – cherish the memory and rest assured, you did nothing wrong.”

The original writer later updated her message to say that the dress had been delivered to Lucy’s apartment and that, unfortunately, Molly had been pressuring the bride-to-be to give it up (there’s “no way” that’s going to happen, according to Lucy). However, the mom asked the internet not to judge her stepdaughter too harshly. “I’m afraid I’ve portrayed Molly in a bad light. I have to say that Molly has had a rough life due to the divorce between Bob and her biological mother. I would say her relationship with her mother is not the best. I believe Molly is projecting aspects of that relationship onto me,” she wrote before clarifying her stance. “Her comments have helped me realize that she is in the wrong in this situation. I have also realized that it’s not just up to me to build a relationship with her – she has to work at it too, and so far she hasn’t. I will never shut her out, but if she wants to build a relationship with me at this point, SHE has to be the one putting in the effort. I really hope the best for her, but she’s certainly not getting that dress.”