CounterAmbitious3869 writes:
I’m a 16-year-old guy, and my sister is 15. We lost our mom seven years ago, and three years ago our dad got remarried. He married Kerry, who has three kids: a 10-year-old boy, an 8-year-old girl, and a 4-year-old boy. The older two kids’ dad is in prison, and the youngest’s dad didn’t want to be involved. The youngest sees my dad as his dad since he’s basically known him his whole life.
My sister and I weren’t happy when our dad told us he wanted to marry Kerry. We didn’t act out, but we were sad, and I withdrew a bit. So our dad decided we needed family therapy with him, Kerry, and her older two kids before they got married. We talked about a lot of things, and the therapist asked each of us to come up with three to five rules or boundaries that we felt were important in order to make things work.
These were mine: I didn’t want to share a bedroom with the boys. I wanted to be able to talk about my mom, spend Mother’s Day with her side of the family, and have photos of her at home. My dad should still make time just for me, and I should be able to have time with just my sister too.
I would treat Kerry like an aunt or something similar, but she wouldn’t be my mom or a parent to me. Her kids would be my stepsiblings, but I would refer to them as step, not just siblings. Rule 4 was talked about the most.
They asked me what that should look like, and I said my dad should still do things for me like he did after my mom died, and Kerry didn’t need to take over those roles. Kerry said she agreed, and that if she wasn’t going to be seen as a parent, she would prefer to be more like an aunt figure. My dad said he was fine with that.
After five months of therapy, my dad and Kerry got married, and things were going okay. We had a few issues with boundaries and rules. Kerry’s oldest wanted to share a room with me a few times instead of his younger brother.
My dad and Kerry pushed that a bit, but it eventually got worked out. My sister had a similar rule about not sharing a room with Kerry’s daughter, and again, they tried to push it but backed down.
There was also a Mother’s Day issue last year. Kerry’s family was having a big party, and my dad and Kerry wanted us to go, but we wanted to spend the day with our mom’s side of the family. It wasn’t a huge fight, but it did come up.
About a month ago, our dad told us we were going back to therapy for a while, without saying why. Our first appointment back was two weeks ago. During the session, my dad and Kerry said they wanted to revisit some of the rules and boundaries. Kerry said she doesn’t like not being a parent to me and my sister.
She said she’s really come to love us and thinks that we get along well enough that we should be able to call her and our dad our parents. She asked for a chance to prove herself as a good third parent to us. My dad said he wanted that too, and that it doesn’t feel like a real family the way things are now.
The therapist asked them about their feelings, and they explained everything. Then she asked how I felt. I told her and them that I didn’t want to change the rule. I said I don’t want Kerry to be my third parent, and I like things the way they are.
My sister agreed. She also said she wanted to add a rule that she not be assigned to help the younger kids with schoolwork just because she has good grades and finds school easy. We talked about it again last week and again yesterday. My dad and Kerry are mad that I won’t change the rule and are upset that I’m refusing to see their side or compromise. AITA?
Training-Plate-588 says:
You are NTA your feelings are valid your stepmom and dad should respect them if they don't they should not have agreed to therapy if they did not want to work on the issues keep your boundaries.
OP responded:
I think they wanted therapy thinking we would be made to change that rule. Or maybe do a different rule or something. But I think they expected the therapist to be on their side.
NoReality08 says:
If boundaries only count until someone’s feelings hurt, then they were never boundaries to begin with.
OP responded:
That's true. I don't know whether they intended to keep them or if feelings really just changed so they wanted to try and change the rules and boundaries. But I wish they could let it go now that they have my answer and my sister's answer.