'AITA for telling my brother's GF she can't expect me to treat her kids like I treat mine?' MAJOR UPDATE

"AITA for telling my brother's GF she can't expect me to treat her kids like I treat mine and that she is not entitled to anything from us?"

I (32F) have two sons with my husband, a ten months and a 3 years old. I obviously love my kids but I don't really like other kids, especially kids I don't know well. I am just not the maternal type that will want to interact with other kids or find them cute or whatever.

My brother has been dating his girlfriend Natalie (31F) and she has 2 kids as well: 7M and 5F. When we first met Natalie she seemed excited that I have kids and started planning how our kids will bond and play together.

This did not happen and the main reason is the age difference. Again, my kids are 3 years old and 10 months. I don't know how she imagined that her 7-year-old will bond so well with a baby or someone 4 years younger than him. Her 5-year-old daughter is a different situation. She is very rowdy so my oldest avoids her at all cost when we meet during family functions or whatever.

Despite our kids clearly not blending well, I would say we were nice towards Natalie and her kids. Last Christmas for example (the first Christmas since they got together) we gave gifts to her kids when we met at my parents' place for dinner and I thought that was enough. However Natalie decided to confront me on things I apparently did wrong and hurt her feelings. She mentioned:

I do not show a special interest in her kids that will potentially become my niece and nephew in the future.

I refuse to have her kids over at my place for playdates without her being present. To be clear, I am ok with hosting her, my brother and her kids for a dinner or something.

I refuse to make my son like her daughter.

I am cold towards her kids.

I explained to her that I can't and will not force my kid to play or be friends with anyone. I also said that I am not comfortable having her kids in my house without her present. I do not know her kids that well, I have no idea how they behave outside of the few family settings that we have all attended and I don't want to be responsible for two stranger kids in my house.

On the coldness side, I explained to her that I am not cold on purpose but this is how I am as a person. I am not a kids fan, I am not overly maternal and I simply don't feel like being overly excited over kids. She said that this is not true because she saw that I am everything I claim not to be with my kids.

Well, yes, because they are my own children? She also claims that everyone has been excluding her children. When I asked her how, she gave the same examples from above and claimed that my parents are more affectionate towards my kids. Yes, again, because they are their grandkids?

In the end we were not getting anywhere so I told her "Look Natalie. You started dating my brother 1 year ago, my parents and I had a couple of meetings with you and your kids and everyone was nice to all of you. I don't know what your problem is but you need to speak to my brother. No one is excluding your kids but you can't expect us to treat your kids the same as mine.

This is never going to happen. My kids are my kids, they don't owe anything to yours and you are not entitled to anything from us. Please solve this issues with my brother". My brother apologized for her and mentioned to me she sound like a mad woman, focused on the absurd "differences" she sees when it comes to our kids.

He agrees our parents are not doing anything wrong and that I am not doing anything wrong. He knows me and he is aware I am not doing anything on purpose. He said that Natalie has been crying after our discussion and while he agrees with me he asked me if I can try being more empathetic towards her feelings.

I told him that I am polite to her but she seems manipulative and if she doesn't want to hear the truth, she should not start this kind of discussions with me. My brother is lost, he does not know how to manage this madness and I am honestly confused if I did anything wrong when speaking to her.

The internet had a lot of thoughts about the dynamic.

ParticularPath7791 wrote:

NTA. I only like my kids and my besties kids. All other kids get on my nerves. I will be nice to them but I'm not a let me hold the baby or host a playdate type of person. I will also not fawn over any goblins.

OP responded:

Haha 🤣 same here sis. My little goblins are enough for me.

TheRoadkillRapunzel wrote:

NTA. She was hoping to leave them with you for date nights and weekends away.

You just slaughtered that dream and she’s not happy.

OP responded:

Yeah, no. That's just never going to happen.

I_wanna_be_anemone wrote:

Sounds like this woman is dating your brother specifically to have an ‘instant’ family as opposed to actually loving him to build a life with him. That's not stable. All your brother can commit to in a relationship is himself, he can’t promise anything on behalf of other people, blood related or not. Relationships take time and effort to build.

Reminds me of the thread on BORU where brothers wife insisted on calling FIL ‘dad’ despite him and the rest of brothers family saying they weren’t comfortable with the woman acting like she’d been adopted into the family as a daughter/sister.

It escalated for months before the brother finally called off their wedding because his ex was pulling mind games trying to get FIL’s ex-wife invited to family events because ex-MIL fed into the whole ‘you’re instantly family now’ delusion. NTA.

Winternin wrote:

"My brother is lost, he does not know how to manage this madness."

I know how to handle it. You drop the madness, like any reasonable person would. This woman is bad news and your brother is a fool to stay with her. You are definitely NTA and I commend you for the way you handled this!

Existing_Try_2857 wrote:

The really sad part is, the gf is not doing her children any favors. I wonder if she has a habit of trying to integrate her kids into any previous boyfriend’s lives and family far too soon. The constant upheaval and new sets of “family” will wreck a kid. Introducing slowly and with intent is the only way not to hurt the child.

She sounds like she needs to some therapy, especially where her kids are concerned. You are NTA. I will be curious for an update about how long this relationship lasts.

OP responded:

The kids are somehow acting more mature in this situation if that makes any sense? In the way that they act like normal kids their age who don't seem to give a s**t about all these new adults their mother introduced them to. They say hello and bye, will reply to questions or engage a little when asked something but that's it. We are strangers to them.

Select_Hovercraft839 wrote:

NTA. Reasonable boundaries were stated and need to respected. I was the same way with my kids, loved them to the moon and back, but have a low tolerance for being around other people's kids. Besides, why get all entangled with a girlfriend and her kids? Her and your brother could end up breaking up next week or next month, who knows.

The next day, OP shared an update.

I have received a lot of feedback on my original post and for that I am very grateful. I tried replying to as many of you as I can but it is overwhelming and my DM is full. But I have read your comments and I really appreciate you spend some of your time to talk to me.

I will clarify some points that keep being mentioned and then I will get into the update. Many of you pointed out that Natalie is looking for an instant family. I was not used to this term but yeah, after reading your comments and looking for more information I agree that this seems to be the case.

-Many of you asked about her family and her kids' father/grandparents. I don't know much about them. My brother told us something along the lines "she has a complicated relationship with her family" and we did not insist for more details. We considered this to be her privacy and assumed that we will get more info when she is ready.

-There was a lot of confusion on why the children don't like each other. Natalie's 7 years old son has no interest in the kids, not even for his sister who is 5. My baby is 10 months old so except of his food, laughing and being entertained he has no interests at the moment.

My 3-year-old son doesn't like Natalie's daughter because as I mentioned she is rowdy and too much for him. She is not used to play with little kids and so she broke one of his favourite toys and pushed him on two different occasions, making him land on his butt. This led to my son clinging to me, my husband or my parents each time he is around her.

-The most overwhelming part of this post for me was receiving a lot of messages from people who told me how they were forced to play with kids they didn't like and how this affected them. I am really sorry for all of your experiences but I guarantee you I will not do the same to my kids.

I would rather have people calling me names than force my kids to do something they are not comfortable with only to feed my ego and make myself seem as a nice person. In case I was not clear, I am a mother first and my main priority is to be an ally to my kids, not be a saint or seen as the most amazing woman alive.

-Many of you accused me of not making time to bond with Natalie and her kids even after her dating my brother for a year. To be clear up until this point I only met her kids 4 times. I think people missed some details in regards to timing.

Natalie started dating my brother last year around February. Last year I was pregnant, I gave birth and after that I had to raise a new born baby and a toddler. So yeah, sorry to disappoint some of you for not abandoning my kids at home to go meet my brother's latest girlfriend. I am a very nasty person for raising my kids...

-Some of you seem to be very social people who are able to form bonds with new people in a matter of hours upon meeting them. I am not like this. For me it takes time to grow a relationship, get used to someone and be able to be comfortable. So in my books the people who I have seen only 4 times in my entire life are still strangers.

-Lastly I was accused of being a cruel person for not being willing to be Natalie's village. I am sorry if she is in the position of needing a village instead of already having people willing to help her, but I have no obligation to be anyone's village.

At this point in time I am my family's village meaning my husband, my kids and my pets. I have enough excitement daily with my gremlins, my oldest although a calm and cute kid is a pain in the ass that needs to be supervised all the time.

If I don't supervise him all the time, he will sneak and eat the cats food or insert his fingers into the wires sockets (By the way, a genuine question for all the parents who have 3 years old kids: are all the kids so kamikazee or only mine is this level of menace?). So yeah, I don't need 2 additional strager kids into my home unsupervised by their parents. Sue me.

Now the update.

After reading all your replies I understood my brother is not being fair. He asks me to be understanding of Natalie's situation but is he understanding of mine? I don't think so. So I sent him the following message:

"Hey brother, I had some time to think about the entire situation and I want to share my thoughts with you. First of all I did something that might make you mad and you might not agree with but please keep an open mind and read what I am about to send you. I made a post online and asked about my situation with Natalie and the replies were mostly pointing to the same direction."

"Maybe you'll want to see some unbiased feedback from hundreds of people who don't know us and are able to have a clear perspective. Now, I feel like you are not fair towards me. I understand you have a relationship with Natalie and she is your life partner but it seems very selfish of you to put the burden on me."

"I understand Natalie may have some issues with her family, she may desperately need to feel accepted and to have a big family for her and her children but her struggles were not caused by me. You asked me to be understanding towards her but were you understanding towards me?"

"Did you defend your nephew when he was pushed twice by Natalie's daughter? Did you even explain to Natalie she is expecting too much from your sister who is dealing with a baby and a toddler? Did you defend your parents when Natalie commented about them? I am sorry it got to this point but I will be honest. My main priority will always be my family, not Natalie, not her kids."

"I am not a therapist, I am not an emotional support animal and I am not her punching bag for times when things don't go her way. I love you, I am happy if you are happy but I need some space from the toxicity she brings. You have known me since I was a baby, you know how I am so please set the records straight with her and explain that I will never be what she wants when she wants."

After around an hour he replied "Oh s#$t! Give me some time to read everything and gather my thoughts. I will come over at your place just give me some days please. Love you." Now the bag is in his court. You were right. Natalie is his girlfriend so his problem. Let's see how things turn out after he comes to talk but I am keeping my expectations low.

Commenters had a lot to say in response.

Away-Elephant-2333 wrote:

You sound like a great Mama, protect your kiddos first will always be your priority not other peoples personal problems and children, I love parents now don’t force their children to interact with kids they feel uncomfortable being around.

I get building relationships but at the same time you have boundaries and if she can’t discipline her own children i don’t blame you for not wanting your kids around them.

OP responded:

Thank you! I am all for my kids being inclusive, not discriminate and being nice to others. But when they start on the wrong foot, I think it takes time to make them warm up to each other and it should be a shared effort. Not expect only me to force my son to like her daughter

_A_Q- wrote:

Call me cynical but is your family well off financially?

Your brother’s gf expecting her kids to be seen as blood after only meeting a whopping four times reads like she wants her kids to have the same benefits as yours. NTA.

OP responded:

We are alright financially speaking. I don't know what well off defines like what's the limit but we are not struggling.

[deleted] wrote:

NTA again - not sure what type of crazy criticised you and thought brothers gf was moving in a healthy way by forcing and rushing a non existent relationship with people she’s only met a few times. You’re being a great mum. Her issues are her own. You definitely don’t owe her your kids to be her kids playthings.

Hope your brother wisens up before he allows this chick ruins his relationship with his family, friends etc by getting caught up in the manipulation that’s he’s her saviour/hero when she needs a psychiatrist.

OP responded:

Thank you! I am not against having a relationship with her or our kids eventually having playdates. But before reaching that phase we need to make sure the kids can actually play together in a nice way because if not, there will be no play in the playdates.

Also maybe I am too much, but before I can confidently host someone else's kids in my house with no supervision from their parents, I need to have a little more information like do they have any health issues that I need to be aware of, allergies, dangerous habits, are they ok with pets etc.