'AITA for not wanting my step-sister live with me even though it would make her life easier?' UPDATED 3X

"AITA for not wanting my step-sister live with me even though it would make her life easier?"

When I (now 29F) was 14, it came out that my dad had been living a whole another life behind his wife's (and my mom's) back, one where he had a one-year-old daughter (now 16F) with his employee. Back then, it was a huge deal, my brother (now 31) refused to speak to our dad for a whole year, and I couldn't look him in the eye ever since.

Now, I don't know if our mom knew or if she just didn't care, but I remember her being very desperate to keep her husband, perhaps it was because he was the breadwinner and made quite a lot, who knows, but eventually, after many therapy sessions and counseling, they stayed together.

That didn't mean his other family was brickwalled as you'd think would be appropriate, in fact, my dad stopped going out with the other woman, but they remained friends, and my mom and her had some sort of sister-wives vibes going on. It was just weird.

On every holiday, there'd be this woman who knowingly and willingly almost destroyed another family (yes, she was aware our dad was married, and didn't care) and this baby who we (me and my brother) were meant to treat like a sibling. We haven't felt like a family since.

My brother refused to participate in holidays like Christmas or Easter for a few years, then came around when 'Ally' (I'll call my step-sister this for clarity's sake) was four years old, and decided he'd be a brother to her.

It was a very sudden switch, though he still doesn't speak to our father or Ally's mom. Maybe I'm jaded, but I never saw Ally's mom as anything but a homewrecker and a terrible person, and Ally as a result of that.

I know my dad is to blame as well, but back then, it was easier to be angry at them than at my dad. I never saw Ally as a sister, and made it clear. That resulted in some familial tension that continues to this day. It would be really hard to list everything that happened here, so I won't, and I'll get to the main issue at hand.

So, Ally recently decided to change schools because of some issues I'm not interested in. For clarification, my country's high schools can have specific specializations, like art, confectionery, hairdressing, and so on, these are just the first ones I could think of, but I'm just not sure how common it is.

Ally used to study in grammar school (high school that has no specific field, but is usually a stepping stone between high school and college), but it was apparently too demanding and she decided to drop out and pursue an art school.

She's not an extraordinary artist for her age, but good enough to get accepted into a pretty good art school that happens to be near me. Ally and her mom live close to my parents, and my parents live solid three hours away from me, so getting to and from school would be difficult for her, but not impossible.

Two days ago, we had a family dinner (yes, Ally and her mom were invited, much to my dismay) where the issue was brought up. They talked around the topic, maybe expecting me to pipe up and open my doors for her, but I didn't, so they eventually asked flat-out if I could let Ally live with me for the school year.

She'd be there from Monday to Friday, and be at home for any holidays and such. I also work in art and am an illustrator, so they think it would be beneficial for Ally to spend time around real artists (which is hilarious because they called my profession useless). Here are my reasons for declining:

There is an option of dorms just outside of campus. The living conditions are good, not a five star hotel but good nonetheless.

I don't like Ally and have made that clear. We have absolutely no relationship. Aside from her being blood-related, there's nothing about her that would convince me to take her in.

My brother lives closer to the art school, like an hour away. It's not ''right around the corner'', but doable, plus he actually likes Ally.

When I needed help and came to Ally's mom as a hail mary, she laughed me out of the door and said that we're not family, so for her to insist we are, in fact, a family now is both irritating and funny.

I have a pretty modest apartment. Yes, I have two rooms, but I'm renting out the other for my best friend.

They didn't ask me nicely, they demanded, and when I showed hesitation, they immediately descended upon me like a pack of vultures.

Apparently, Ally doesn't want to live with a stranger in a dorm (something about anxiety, which, while I can sympathize, I also lived in dorms with two strangers that didn't even like me), she's my sister despite it all and God wanted us to be a family (I'm atheist).

My brother's girlfriend is currently pregnant with a baby soon due and he doesn't want to bring Ally into all of that, plus his girlfriend is nervous around strangers, which is the last thing she needs, I should kick out my roommate in favor of family, and it should be a no-brainer to let my sister live with me.

Again, she's not my sister, I don't know her, and I never put in the effort to get to know her, nor do I want to. I don't want to know if I'm TA for that, I guess I am because it's not her fault she came to the world like this.

Anyway, I wanted to ''think about it'' for a bit and then turn them down to at least pretend to seriously consider it, but with how the evening devolved from calm and peaceful to yelling and demanding in a matter of seconds, I said no immediately and remained firm on my stance. Everything calmed down when Ally ran out of the house, back to her house, I assume.

Then, I was asked to leave, which I was already doing, and was told we'll discuss the matter when I'm ready to act like an adult, in which case I better sign up for kindergarten before they're all full. I made it clear, and when Ally's mom messaged me to discuss the topic, I left her on read, and when my dad called me, I didn't pick up. I won't put up with them yelling and demanding as if that would change my mind.

TL;DR: My step-sister from my dad's affair wants to move in with me for an easier commute, but I didn't agree, now everyone's on my back about this.

AITA?

The commenters did not hold back.

Waltz_Working wrote:

NTA but be prepared for them to just show up with a moving truck full of her stuff. Warn tour roommate and don’t let them in.

OP responded:

I'd laugh but I know they may actually decide to drop off Ally on my doorstep, they're the sort of ''my way or the high way'' people.

Consistent-Ad3191 wrote:

Block them it's not your responsibility if it's so important to them maybe her mother should move closer to the school and not force a 16 year-old into a place that she isn't wanted.

I wouldn't go over there. It seems like there's a lot of drama and not a good place to be around very toxic. Why would you want to continuously put yourself through a very toxic unhealthy dynamic? I think therapy would help you never hate but you're going through, but I wouldn't associate with them you can love them from a distance

OP responded:

They touched on that - Ally's mom considered moving, but it would be a hassle for her to get a job there. Also, I put up with it because, for the most part, we have a good relationship, not counting the two that I don't consider my family. We meet two times in a month, sometimes more sometimes less, and keep in touch via WhatsApp, but these Sunday outings are common.

Mika_beets wrote:

NTA. Disregarding everything else for a second, Ally is only 16. She's going to be three hours away from home, and will potentially want to experiment with that freedom, because, teenager.

But, also 'because teenager', you will automatically be expected to act as a default parent substitute: ensuring she eats properly, keeps up with her studies, monitoring who her friends are, waiting up at night when she's out doing who knows what.

Meanwhile, because you are not her parent, she will laugh in your face if you try to assert any authority over her. And you'll get the blame if she messes up. Hell no. It's far too big of a responsibility even if you wouldn't have to make big changes to your own life to accommodate the request.

OP responded:

Once Ally left, dad and his ex side chick told me they've already told her she'll have to act super nice and respectful for me to agree to take her in, so I guess me going ''no'' was a bit of a blow.

She was apparently even saving up money so she can help with the bills, although I must say my dad likes to fluff up his statements so they sound better, so maybe he was lying, I don't know. Still, pretty f#$ked up of them to act like I'll agree to this kid.

Not long after posting, OP shared two updates.

Super quick update: The thing I feared the most happened. Currently, Ally is in my room after appearing out of nowhere in front of my apartment, with my friend letting her in after she started having a mental breakdown in the hall.

I really, really didn't think this would happen, I mean I thought about it, but moreso in the humorous ''what if'' way. I think my father and Ally's mom divorced themselves from reality if they thought I'd let this shit slide. I'll update later.

UPDATE 2: So sorry for the late update, I wanted to update as soon as possible, but things just sort of kept happening. Anyways, on the day of my super quick update, as I said, Ally materialized in front of my apartment. My best friend called me after letting her in, and I started calling Molly (I'll call that the ex-AP) first. Molly didn't pick up.

Then I called my dad, left him a dozen of missed calls before I finally got in front of my apartment complex, and he finally picked up. He responded to my polite request of getting Ally the fuck out of my apartment with a counterargument of just letting it be, and then de-escalated to a ''I'll pick her up tomorrow."

I explained he'll pick her up from a p*lice station tomorrow, and he has until midnight to get his or Molly's ass here if they don't want me to file a report. I know, I should've done that ASAP, but just like everything, it's more complex than that. Besides Molly has a charge already (petty theft, nothing serious or crazy), so I guess she'd rather not pile on another.

When I got home, Ally was crying on the sofa. My roommate quickly filled me in - Ally came, was shocked to see my roommate instead of me and asked if she (my roomie) was visiting or leaving. My roomie said she was neither visiting nor leaving.

That started a one-sided argument with Ally becoming more and more louder with my roommate shushing her, before she started to have some sort of breakdown. I wasn't there and my roommate kept referring to it as a panic attack, and I have no reason to doubt her.

Ally then switched up and started screaming at me, about how I'm a horrible sister, a liar, a leech, and more names. I can understand horrible sister, but a leech and a liar? I eventually managed to get her to calm down and speak to me without alerting the whole floor about our little family drama and got the following results.

Molly and my dad were, for at least six months (or ever since Ally decided to drop out of her previous high school, the ''stepping stone''), using the idea of living with me and going to a nice art high school as a leverage.

Stuff like ''get good grades or you won't live with (me)'' (which what? she was leaving that school anyway), ''clean your room or'', ''turn in your phone or'', and there were some more damaging requests like dropping certain friends, deleting social media, etc etc, basically Ally was hinging on living with me for a long time now. I can't lie, I felt so bad for her.

I didn't doubt the validity of her claims because that's the stuff my dad used to do to get me and my brother motivated - promise us something big, hold it over our heads, and then it was a coin toss on whether or not he'd deliver. Molly told Ally that I actually agreed to some ''trial run'' for a week, after which she'd come back home to her dad's and spend the rest of the summer preparing for the big move.

I have no idea why they'd promise that when they knew I was against it. Maybe they were banking on me rolling over on my back and taking it since I did take a step back numerous times to keep the peace, unfortunately, and they thought that since Ally would be there, I wouldn't dare crush her dream.

Although it sucked, it was the first time me and Ally had a genuine discussion. It was 40 % shitting on our common parent, 40 % shitting on Molly and the rest was talking about art. I'm not saying I love her now and will adopt her, but there is silver lining to every cloud. She then went to sleep on my bed while I waited for her parents to show up.

My dad did at like 11 PM and he was so mad to find out Ally was asleep and wondered why didn't I just let her sleep here for the night, but not as angry as me. After hearing out Ally's side of the story, I was really curious about his, and while, at the very least, he took it like a man, he couldn't really defend himself.

Granted, I ranted for solid five minutes at the speed of a seasoned rapper, so when he finally got a word in, he probably forgot or didn't understand a good part of it. He just told me he will call me later about this. Well, it's later. I'm really curious about the conclusion to all of this. I'm so emotionally drained that I could barely work and slept in my friend's bed tonight (platonic, we've been doing this since we were kids).

Also, thank you for the comments and the advice. I wound up not really able to use it this time, but I made a list of everything I need to do and will focus on that whenever I manage to find a sliver of life within me.

The comments kept coming.

dismal-remote-3906 wrote:

NTA and hell no should you do this. In addition to what you stated, Ally is not your child and not your responsibility to parent. Ally's parents can move to accommodate their child's wants, they could change their schedules, whatever it takes for THEM her parents. This is bizarre, she is 16 and their plan is to rehome her so they don't have to be parents.

mouse_attack wrote:

Super simple NTA. You are an adult and you’re in charge of your own living situation. Your father has no leverage here and his affair partner means nothing to you. I would stop going to “family” events just because it sounds like a s**tshow, but you definitely don’t owe them anything.

Duker_98 wrote:

This might come across as a dumb question but why didn't you like Ally? Like she didn't do anything wrong. Her being an affair child is not her fault. I get not wanting to accept her as your sister. That part is completely fair, but not wanting her invited to a family dinner despite being your dad's daughter is something else.

A few weeks later, OP shared another update.

I apologize for my silence. I wanted to update sooner, but things just kept happening and I didn't have the time nor the energy to update. Anyways, thanks everyone for the advice and for assuring me I'm not crazy, though I'm not sure this update is necessarily a happy one.

For those who didn't see my small update at the end of my first post and were interested where the story goes, Ally (my half-sister) showed up at my door comically soon after my post, and I threatened my dad to come pick her up or I will call the p#lice.

He did, and told me he'll ''explain everything'', though it took him a while to get to that. I assume he wanted to placate me to not bother him anymore, but I visited him last week to talk face to face, and he couldn't really run backed into a corner. What I learned was kinda crazy. Ally's mom (I think I called her Molly in my last post) is actually doing really bad finance-wise.

You could chalk it up to her brain not being fully cooked before having a child, but I'd like to say it's because Molly is a child herself in many aspects. Something something traumatic childhood something something armchair psychologist. I don't know, and I don't care, because she really f#$ked over her daughter.

Turns out, she took on a lot of loans, yet with her job, it was very unlikely she'd pay it off in a forseeable future. Therefore, she is currenly going through execution (? I'm not sure if that's the right word, but basically she's losing everything to pay off her debts)! This also means the state is taking a cut from her salary, leaving her with a livable wage. That's not really enough to live off of, right?

Molly decided to sell her apartment and move into something smaller. Originally, she wanted to live in my dad's house, but my mom put her foot down a while ago about Molly and Ally being forbidden from staying at their house for more than a week in special occasions (like when the apartment complex where Molly was staying was going through repairs).

Molly wanted to move into a very small, studio apartment it's called I think? And that would mean she'd be living in this tiny apartment with Ally, which would be pretty cramped (I've seen the apartment, it's basically glorified chicken coop), which is why they tried to put the responsibility on me. They really hoped I would take it upon myself, lol.

Not many people are going to be happy about this, but I let Ally stay with me for a little while, but it was impossible to live with her, lowkey.

I won't go into details, but Ally is clearly a troubled person and I've never noticed since I was never around her for too long.

She has night terrors and my best friend is a very light sleeper with a physically demanding job, so she was absolutely exhausted the whole time Ally was staying. Ally also wasn't really cleaning up after herself and stole my watch, so I told my dad to figure it out because I won't be putting up with this.

He practically begged for me to take Ally in and that ''she'll get better'', which I can believe the burden would lessen over time, but I'm not willing to go through all of that before it does, and finally offered I will take her in if she goes to therapy, but Molly's mom doesn't believe in therapy, which is weirdly not shocking at all.

I thought my dad would take her in, but my mom was very much against it and they had a fight over it, my mom had a panic attack and was hospitalized later, so Ally was sent back to her mom. Molly was pissed, but she was pissed at me. In her words, I'm the only one who can reserve space for her, but I'm unwilling because I hate her and Ally.

Hate is a strong word, but it's a part of it. My brother also laid into me, even though he has a f-*ing house, but oh no, I'm the one meant to suffer because his girlfriend recently gave birth. Like I don't care. Same guy who said ''blood should be thicker than water'' when I told him that my friend lives at my place and I'm not willing to move her out for Ally, but I guess my blood doesn't count. Things are in a limbo.

My dad is still trying to convince my mom, between that, he's making snide comments at me, Molly is sending me passive-aggressive messages and my brother looks at me sideways. I'm considering going full no contact at this point, it genuinely hurts seeing all my family turn on me.

At least I have my best friend, I'm so mad I let her be exhausted for such a long time and that I caved in to my dad, but I'm so grateful she still sticks with me. I don't know if I'll update again, but I will try to if anything else happens. Again, thank you for the comments assuring me I'm not a heartless wench and all the advice.

The internet did not hold back.

CatButler59 wrote:

You poor thing. NTA, go no contact, get yourself to therapy if you can. Your side comments about the way your father treated your brother and you make me think you would find it helpful. What are you getting out of being in contact with this soap opera?

OP responded:

Entertainment? Perhaps in hindsight, I'll get a good laugh out of it, lol. But now, aside from being bombarded with messages telling me how horrible I am, I literally get nothing out of it. It's hard to go no contact and I'm already low contact, but as much as I don't want to, I worry I'll go actually insane like all these people if I don't.

Cursd818 wrote:

You're a fool for letting them manipulate you into letting her in your home for even a minute, I hope you realise that now after this debacle. They've realised that your no doesn't mean no. It means they just need to apply more pressure, and you'll eventually give in. They all assume you're going to give in again. Block them.

For at least long enough to sure up your self-esteem and confidence in saying no. Or you'll be back here in a month explaining that Ally has once again been staying in your home. You're NTA. You're just not prepared for the emotional abuse and manipulation all of them are unleashing on you. Learn from this and start protecting yourself, because they never will.

I_wanna_be_anemone wrote:

Your dad made this mess. He is Ally’s father, he is the one with finances, it’s his job to provide and raise her. NOT your mother, not your brother, not you. He is the disgusting twisted liar who fed Ally bs about living with you.

It would be the same if he promised her that she could live with Beyoncé if she only did every controlling thing demanded of her, totally inappropriate and not your dads/his affair partners place to promise. You could have lost a sincere supportive friend/roommate as a direct result of those manipulations.

It was never your responsibility, it also wasn’t your place to make a one sided decision when you share your accommodation with someone else. Block Molly completely. You are some fantasy figure painted to be some unattainable goal, you will never live up to the pedestal Molly has put you on because your father enabled all those lies.

Tell brother he’s on thin f#$king ice and to cut the crap or you’ll tell his wife that he’s using her as a scapegoat to avoid ‘blame’ for not taking Molly. Your mom had every right not to want a troubled thieving child of her husbands affair in her house. Your dad needs to suck it up and actually be a parent, to all his kids, even the grown ones.

All of this is your father’s fault. He cheated. He got greedy and wanted a fantasy, and he had no problems lying and hurting his own kids to achieve his end goal. He is not a good person, he’s a pathetic excuse of a father and no amount of ‘shared blood’ will excuse the fact his is tainted by his own repeatedly selfish actions.