Siblings reject half-sister from affair despite parents' pleas for reconciliation. AITA?
"AITA for not telling my brothers to spend time with our mother's affair baby?"
BandClassic9193
Long story short: My mother cheated on my father four years ago and got pregnant, my father forgave her and raises my half-silbing as if she were their child. She looks just like my mother so only a few members of the family knows what happened; I didn't know about what had happened either because I live with my boyfriend, it was my brothers who told me everything.
I'm not close to my parents anymore, I'm not interested in being close with their daughter because I'm not going to get into my parents' drama and toxic relationship. It's their lives, period.
But when all that happened I was already 25 years old, while my siblings were still living with them when all the infidelity was discovered it was in the house so they saw everything.
Coming to the present: my siblings never had a good relationship with my mother again (no, some families can't afford family therapy so it was never an option), two of them no longer live with our parents and the only one left (he is 16 years old) has come to live with me and my boyfriend.
None of them have any contact with my parents' daughter or my parents, the 16-year-old ignored the three of them when he was at home (now I've been paying him for the psychologist).
My father and mother have let my brother live with me but they keep insisting that I should talk with my brother's and make them spend time with her, I can't force them to do something they don't want to do.
But my father insists that I am the older sister and I should do something for the good of the family since my brothers listen to me, my mother went so far as to tell me that the little girl asks for us even though we have never seen her.
Even my grandparents are insisting that I should talk to my siblings and convince them to spend time with her but I don't know what to do and all my family who knows about this (my mother's sister and grandparents, the rest of them doesn't know anything, I think, or maybe they know but they don't care.) says I'm an AH for not doing my duty as a older daughter.
Edit: I feel like I have to repeat this but ~no one is hating a little girl~ neither my siblings nor I hate her, we want her to be happy but we prefer to worry about our own mental health. She's four years old, a four-year-old girl doesn't do anything without her parents so letting her into my life is letting my parents back into my life.
When my brother is of legal age I plan to cut off all contact with them again, which is now only online. Meanwhile, all my siblings have their own reasons for not having contact since they lived through our parents' toxic relationship.
My parents are just drama and I'm sick of it. I don't understand the comments saying that I abandoned her¿? She doesn't even know me, she's not my daughter, Why do so many talk as if I have the responsibility to raise her just because I am her half-sister? I mean, a lot of people in the comments thinks and says the same things as my mother so I'm even more confused than before.
Here were the top rated comments from readers in response to the OP's post:
Verm02
NTA not your monkeys, not your circus. Your mom fucked around and was found out. Your siblings do not need to have a relationship with your half-sibling if they do not want to.
Good for your brother to be going to therapy! You paying for it makes you the A++ of big sisters! Be prepared for your parents to keep on guilting you, and preapre to go LC/NC if they keep pestering you and your brother.
BandClassic9193 (OP)
I was already NC with them but now I need to be LC because my brother is still a minor :/
Verm02
NTA not your monkeys, not your circus. Your mom f'ed around and was found out. Your siblings do not need to have a relationship with your half-sibling if they do not want to.
Good for your brother to be going to therapy! You paying for it makes you the A++ of big sisters! Be prepared for your parents to keep on guilting you, and preapre to go LC/NC if they keep pestering you and your brother.
BandClassic9193 (OP)
I was already NC with them but now I need to be LC because my brother is still a minor :/
Mental-Instability09
NTA. It's not your fault your mother made a mistake in her past, and your parents can't force you to mend relationships for her. You are completely in the right by saying, "I can't force them to do something they don't want to do."
If she wants a good relationship with her children again, that is her responsibility. The guilt tripping with the little girl is disgusting, saying she asks for you even though you've never seen her. It sounds like they need to get their shit figured out before they start telling you what to do. No burden like that should be placed on children, despite their age.
charmer143
You said it already: you can't force your brothers to do something they don't want to do. It's tough because your half-sister didn't do anything wrong and is probably just as much of a victim as the rest of you kids are.
But you shouldn't do something that you know in your heart you don't want to do just because of some obligation that others have forced upon you. Your mother cheated, and this is one of the consequences of what she did. None of you owe her anything to make her life easier. NTA.
Expensive-Desk-3059
NTA. Your mom made her (bad) choices, your dad made his choice, your siblings made theirs.
Elegant_Pea_4195
NTA, but your half-sibling sounds like she’s going to need a lot of therapy as she grows up. It’s not going to be pleasant for her for the rest of her life, because either she will be in the dark as to why all her siblings have completely rejected her and pretend she doesn’t exist, or she finds out she’s an affair baby, learns her father is not her father and will subsequently see herself as the black sheep.
Sure, you don’t HAVE to do shizz, and you aren’t an AH if you don’t… but also she’s a child who is innocent in all this. It sucks a lot that she’s going to grow up the family leper through no fault of her own.
And to add to that, your parents may overcompensate because the family has rejected her and end up turning her into an entitled brat. Frankly, giving her up for adoption might’ve been kinder.