'AITA for refusing to participate in family vacations because of my step-siblings?' UPDATED.
"AITA for refusing to participate in family vacations because of my step-siblings?"
My dad got married to Liz 4 years ago. I (15M) was spending equal amounts of time with both my mom and dad and the custody schedule was me swapping houses each week. Liz has three kids from her first marriage and those kids are 10, 8 and 7 now.
The kids were clingy from the day they moved in but then in June and July 2020 I was living there exclusively because my mom ended up in the hospital. I couldn't do anything without the kids being in my face then and every time I asked dad and Liz to help me stop them they refused and the kids didn't listen to me saying no.
My dad told me I would never get another chance to have siblings and to embrace and nurture the relationship with them. I told him this was making them feel more like burdens than siblings and he told me I was too young to see them that way and dismissed my need for space. It was a huge relief when mom got better and I could go to her house for breaks.
By the time I was 12 I had asked my mom if she could go to court to change the custody deal so I could spend more time with her. I was 13 when it was successful. My dad was upset and Liz was kinda mad that her kids would miss me more than they did while I was at dad's.
My uncles (dad's brother and his husband) even said how strangely clingy the kids were and they found it weird that every time I was with my mom the kids would be asking when I would come home and why they couldn't see me. I wouldn't even be gone a day and they would ask that. They started that before we even knew each other a year!!
I spend way less time with my dad now and I went on vacation with him, Liz and the kids last June and it was miserable. My vacation was basically spending all that week with the kids and following them around and doing stuff they liked.
On Christmas Eve I spent a few hours at dad's because the court still asks for that. So I was there and my stepsiblings were being super clingy and telling me not to go and I should be with them at Christmas and then they demanded they get invited to my mom's house and Liz asked me how I could leave and miss out on a family Christmas and hurt "my siblings" so much.
Dad told me on drive back to mom's he told me that I should be taking my responsibility more seriously.
I took a 3 week break from them but the 10 year old called me daily during those 3 weeks. Then dad announced we were going on vacation again in May and he was saying it was a place I wanted to go.
I decided right there that I was not going to ruin a place I had always wanted to go by being smothered by my stepsiblings and I told dad they can go but I won't and that I won't be going on vacation with them again.
He was surprised and he told me I had to go and I said I don't and I won't and he asked me for one good reason why and I told him my stepsiblings would ruin it by suffocating me and that he and Liz would do nothing about it. Dad called my attitude nasty and said I should be ashamed of myself talking about them like that. AITA?
Let's see what readers thought.
comfortablesea54 writes:
NTA - your dad and Liz are failing you AND your step siblings. There needs to be boundaries for the kids. If they had done this from the first you might have been able to develop feelings for your Step-sibs. They way they treated you/them guaranteed you will NEVER want to be around them at all.
worthseason65 writes:
NTA….i get the feeling with the kids bothering you, Dad and Liz do not have to take care of them. This behavior is so wrong. Three young children should not be this dependent on another child and shame on dad and Liz for allowing this to happen and for it to continue.
unlikelyshape6 writes:
NTA. When do you get one on one time with your dad? It’s seems he’s playing happy families and not considering his previous family, expecting you to just fit in. Your dad doesn’t realise that he’s losing you. He has this rosey view of a blended family and it doesn’t work if pushed.
Maybe you and your dad should go on this trip alone. You two need time alone. My step son is all grown up now. I knew him from the age of 7. I didn’t go on every day trip he did with my partner.
I made sure they had one on one time, especially after our daughter was born. My step son got time with his dad and family time too, which wasn’t forced, and wasn’t suited just to his baby sister.
Then, OP offers this lengthy update.
Yeah, I had turned 12 when my mom was hospitalized and I was basically living with three stage 4 clingers day in and day out. I have read about some courts not forcing it once kids are like 13+ and by 16 kids can choose to stop going entirely and I envy that because here we had that case with the dad getting penalized and I don't want that to happen to my mom.
I also don't want her thrown in jail because that would mean I would be forced to go to dad's and it's less time I want and not more. They take it out on my mom can happen. It happened to a dad when his 17 year old refused to see their mom. He got fined and they were told if it went before the courts again, he could be fined more or thrown in jail. I don't want that to happen to my mom because of me either.
I do feel like they are choosing to ignore what I ask. They don't ignore me as a whole. But when it comes to listening to what I want and need and help me, yes, I feel ignored and I feel like I am screaming at a wall.
I feel like my only way out is to not see any of them. That is literally the only way I see a better outcome for me because I won't have to deal with any of this anymore. That's not how my dad sees it.
He acts like the moment I met them, which was not long before they moved in, I should have been super excited to have siblings and bonded with them right there and then and like the excitement should have built over the last four years. He refuses to see that it's not how that works. Liz is the same way.