Relationships between stepsiblings are complicated. You can be best friends, rival enemies, or apathetic, and no matter where you land - you're going to have to navigate the labyrinth of feelings. And if you're the parent who remarried, it's partially on you to mediate these dynamics.
In a popular post on the AITA subreddit, a woman asked if she's wrong for telling her mom she doesn't want to come over if her stepbrother is included. She wrote:
My mother had me (22f) at 15 which isn’t the point of this post but when she started dating when I was in middle school, it wasn’t a surprise that the men in her dating pool that had kids had much younger children and that was something we talked about before she got serious with Steve.
Mom started dating Steve when I was 16 and married him when I left for college. He has a now 12-year-old son, Joey. I didn’t live in the house with them for very long and obviously, the age difference is big so Joey and I get along but we’re not close at all. He’s a nice kid but I don’t know him super well. He’s very attached to my mom though which I totally get, my mom is awesome.
After I graduated this spring, I moved back closer to home (about 30 minutes from my mom). I was really excited to be nearby, we’ve always been really close and I missed her a lot when I was at school. I wanted to have a dedicated girls day with my mom at least once or maybe twice a month now that I’m home and we got to do that for a couple months but the last two times, my mom has shown up with Joey.
Again, I like the kid but we were doing stuff like getting our nails done, having lunch at new places, seeing plays…Joey changes that entirely. Last time we went to the zoo because he wanted to visit the reptile house and then got cheeseburgers. It was fine but that’s not the day I planned with my mom.
We got into an argument on the phone that night and it came out that Steve has demanded that Joey be included on our days together because he felt that my time alone with my mother was her showing me favoritism.
I didn’t even know what to say, I’ve never known my mom to be so spineless especially when it came to me. It really hurt me to say it but I told her I wasn’t interested in that and if that was my only choice, I guess I would just have to see her on holidays and family gatherings.
She’s been calling me and begging me to change my mind but she won’t stand up to her husband about it so I’ve just kept apologizing and saying I’m not interested in having a kids' day every month. I miss my mom though and I feel really guilty and idk if it was an AH thing for me to say or not.
oaksandpines1776 wrote:
NtA. Just bring him to the spa and get his fingernails done also.
CleanGeologist3480 OP responded:
Oh no lol poor Joey! I mean, he probably wouldn’t want to come anymore but idk if that fixes the Steve issue..
Music_withRocks_In says:
NTA. Joey gets time alone with your mom almost every day. If I had to guess I would say husband doesn't want to deal with his kid alone for a day - or possibly is trying to distance his step daughter.
I would hold firm but keep texting/talking to mom. If she doesn't want to push back it is possible she has learned to be afraid of defying her husband.
And it doesn't have to be physical abuse, he has probably trained her to not push back by throwing tantrums or being massively passive agree or just making them both so miserable whenever she has a spine she has subconsciously taught herself not to create waves.
Just keep saying "I am deeply hurt that you won't spend time with me alone, and I'm concerned about you since this isn't like you at all. How do you feel about never getting to be alone with me?". Don't tell her about the red flags, ask her how she feels about the red flags and see if you can get here there on her own.