'AITA for telling my sister there's no hope for her understanding why I'm no contact with our dad?'

"AITA for telling my sister if the show she kept sending me clips of didn't help her understand why I'm no contact with our dad then there's no hope for her?"

I (31F) have three siblings. I have an older brother who's 32 and two younger sisters who are 27 and 26. When we were kids our mom passed from c-ncer. 18 months later our dad met and married his second wife, who had also lost her husband and had three children with him.

They knew each other for less than two months when they decided we were all going to be one big blended family. Then it took less than a year for the word adoption to come up. They wanted to adopt each other's kids.

Three of us were not okay with this. Me and my brother and then wife #2's oldest son. We were the three who remembered our late parents really well and didn't want to have a new mom or dad. This did not matter to the adults. My dad told me and my brother that our younger sisters were on board and our younger two stepsiblings were on board and majority rules.

I was 10-years-old at the time and it had been 3 years since my mom had passed. The house became a battle field after this decision because they could not get us older three on board and when they went through the process to adopt each other's kids, they were denied the ability to adopt the three of us who didn't want it.

So the younger four kids were adopted by their stepparent. The older three were not. The anger could be felt by all the kids and the younger ones blamed us and didn't understand why we weren't on board. Wife #2 and I argued a lot in my teens.

She tried to reach out to me as a mother and I rejected her as a mother. I could be civil and respectful if she was just an adult. But I told her I didn't want another mother and she didn't like that. She would also tell me how much it hurt that me and my brother didn't want to be her kids. She'd say she loved us and all she wanted was to call all 7 of us her kids.

She said she could not understand the need for us to hold onto the dead and she said it's not like we didn't still see our late parents families so we should grow the f-k up and let them be happy. I told her she should grow the f-k up and accept she can't force people to be her kids. There were several attempts to push the adoption through without us wanting it and legally it was rejected every time.

We were even dragged to a (church) therapist who tried to talk us into submission about the topic. The relationships were all very strained. My relationship with my brother is the only strong one today and we're both no contact with our dad and wife #2. To the best of my knowledge wife #2's oldest son has no contact with anyone, including his siblings.

My brother and I still have a relationship, albeit a strained one, with our sisters. They were invited to our weddings and have met our kids. But they don't approve of the no contact and they are on a lower contact now because they have said our kids should know dad and wife #2. I disagree and have said it would not be healthy but my sister's don't overly care.

There was a show on TLC a few years ago called the Blended Bunch. I never watched it but saw some clips and it hit close to home. One of my sisters saw it and sent me TikTok clips that centered around some of the kids not wanting to be adopted and one of the relatives of the family being the voice of reason.

Only my sister kept saying I was a s--thead like the relative who said they wouldn't want it either and it was wrong to force on the kids. I told her after several comments that if the clips didn't help her see why I went no contact and how awful it is to see crying kids and to still try and push them then there's no hope for her at all.

I told her she didn't live through the experience in the same way our brother and I did. Her reply back was that I was ungrateful and should see those kids being brats and trying to ruin a good thing just like we did.

She also told me to say there's no hope for her shows how repulsive I am as a person. After all this I'm pretty sure no contact will need to extend to both sisters (because both act the same only one has TikTok for this interaction). But I could still be an AH in this so I'm asking if I am (or not).

The internet had a lot to say in response.

Pagelo69 wrote:

I think it’s weird that the obsession over their fantasy of adopting each others’ kids has persisted throughout your childhood and well into your adulthood and that your younger sisters are now acting her obsession out at you. That’s one powerful narcissistic injury.

OP responded:

It's very weird. But they were determined for things to play out a certain way and didn't want to give in and accept they would never be that particular way. Three of us had memories of the parents we lost and we loved those parents we lost. There was no new mom or dad for us three and that drove the surviving parents crazy.

Salt-Lavishness-7560 wrote:

I can’t help but wonder what different lives everyone would have led if this wasn’t the hill the two adults decided to pass away on. If both OP’s dad and his wife had taken it easier and slower on merging the families. Had gotten the kids counseling that met their emotional needs and not tried to force them towards adoption. If the adults had been willing to be trusted adults to each others kids.

You can play a crucial role in the life of a child without them being your adopted child and without attempting to force a relationship that they don’t want. In an attempt to build a family, they managed to break two apart. The attempt to force compliance on the older children is just so gross. It feels like such a violation. Almost a form of abuse? This barrage to force them to allow adoption all those years.

OP responded:

My dad definitely crossed over into ab-sive with the way he'd speak to me and my brother. He called us names, got loud, would get very close to our faces. He was literally red faced at times because he'd be so angry at us and he saw nothing wrong with behaving that way.

SolaceRests wrote:

How long was your mom battling c-ncer? Not that this makes a difference from your perspective, I’m just trying to get an idea of your Dad’s journey. Ultimately NTA. Your experience is your own. It’s bad enough losing one parent, I’m just sorry in this case you lost both and most of your family from the situation.

OP responded:

Less than three months. They caught it late and she passed very fast after diagnosis.

Redditlurker1981 wrote:

NTA. Parents need to stop forcing “blended” families down everyone’s throat. You were still kids when you lost your mom and grieving when your dad just upped and got a new wife and expected you’d just forget about your mom like he did.

People need to know the more a relationship is forced, the more push back there will be. Your sister were too young to know all this do they were easily manipulated into acceptance. Your dad and redo wife clearly went about this all wrong and that’s their failing, not yours. The evidence of half the kids cutting all contact is the proof.

OP responded:

They went about it entirely wrong. I know they were trying to force us all to do what they wanted so they could be happy but it came at the expense of three of us. And while the majority might have been in favor it doesn't change the fact that dad lost two kids and wife #2 lost one kid in the whole process. And there is zero hope for reconciliation.

Ok_Cherry4585 wrote:

NTA. I remember when you actually learned things about the world on that channel. The only thing anyone has learned from it in the last 15-20 years is that the human race is full of really ignorant people 😔

OP responded:

I know. The shows on there are just mind boggling to me. That one isn't something I have seen entirely. But what I saw of it felt so gross and my heart breaks for those children.

Chance_Culture_441 wrote:

I will never understand these situations, no matter how many times I read about them. I absolutely don’t fault widowed spouses for finding new loves- good on them. And being single parents often gravitate toward other single parents, I get the concept of “blended families” (I have step-siblings too).

But when the parents Force the blending into a “big happy family," without taking the time for it to happen naturally (if at all), it never works out well in the end. OP is NTA for her feelings here, or the words to her sister. Her father messed up trying to force grieving children with very real memories of their lost parents into excepting “new” parents.

If they had taken the time to build bonds with these children over time, starting as an adult “friend” or trusted confidant, and then to become more if that happened, rather trying to repeatedly force unwanted adoption, maybe they would have gotten the big happy family they wanted!

But like any new relationship, when these adults push something on these kids they have said they don’t want, of course the kids are going to dig and fight against it. It just seems so counterproductive. And now they have kids that may never speak to them again…sad really.

OP responded:

Oh, there is zero chance of me and my brother speaking to dad again. That's something we both feel 100% certain of. Nothing could come up that would make us feel differently either. We have talked about what happens when he dies, or if he gets very sick and wants to see us. The fact is we don't need anything else from him. Not closure, not an apology, not even a chance to see him one last time.

I think a big mistake some widows make when they find love again or look for love again is that looking for romantic love and having romantic love is different than the love for a parent. And when you make the choice to look it's not typically a choice your kids get to make. We're along for the ride and how we see that ride will vary.

Some will be like my younger sisters, others will be more like me and my brother and then there are those somewhere in the middle. And you don't really get to say which road your kids take. You can help them on that road and it could change without pressure or expectation. But expectations ruin so many families and not just the blended ones.