Can’t stand adult step siblings
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Anonymous
| My wife acquired step siblings when she was in her early 20s and they were in their teens. Fast forward 15 or so years and she can’t stand them, and the feeling appears to be mutual. The problem is that the respective parents think it’s all one big happy family are are constantly pushing family vacations (which we decline now that we have our own child), and family gatherings, even small informal ones, typically involve the whole crew. My wife recently tried to address it with her mother, suggesting she’d like more family time without the step siblings but that did not go over well as her mother was apparently very insulted by the suggestion. Anyone successfully navigate this type of situation. It makes my wife (and by extension me) not want to spend time with the family, which ultimately just leads to more guilt tripping and bad feelings from her mother. |
Anonymous
| Do you mean she can’t go out to lunch with her dad or mom one on one? Or that she can’t just invite her dad over for Thanksgiving? Your wife needs to grow up. |
Anonymous
Both. Time is limited. I don’t think it’s childish to want to avoid spending it with people you find miserable. |
Anonymous
| I have 3 step siblings that are mostly OK. The one who is very annoying seems to spent every holiday with my Mom & stepdad. My sister & I told Mom that we wanted the next Christmas to be "just us" and she agreed. I'm not sure how her husband took the news, but that's her issue to deal with. They keep thinking the second home they're building is going to be some gathering spot for blended family holidays, but it will never happen. Not to mention their place is WAY too small. |
Anonymous
| I don’t think it’s fair to expect separate holidays on Christmas Day and thanksgiving itself. But it should be fine to have dinners together on non holidays without the steps, trips without the steps of you visit them from out of town etc |
Anonymous
This. Everyone can suck it up for holidays and large family events. |
Anonymous
OP here: It’s not just holidays though. It’s practically every time we see my in laws (which is at least once a month, usually more). If we see them less than that, we get the guilt trip. |
Anonymous
New poster here. Emotionally distance yourself from the emotional entanglement so the guilt trips don't work and don't distress you. It may take some time. Maybe show up 1-3x/yr with the extended fam. Otherwise just set up a second holiday/get-together with them with just you and them. It is completely unreasonable to have every time you see your parents be with multiple other families. My spouse's family is like this and I think it is odd, coming from a nuclear and extended family with a balance of 1:1, small group and extended family gatherings. I don't need to be with him and his mom-they need/deserve alone time with just each other. |
Anonymous
| I feel for you. My stepdad had to go everywhere with my mom and always be the center of attention. I never got to spend time with my mom alone and it was SOOO annoying. How do people have so little self-awareness? Stepfamilies---for the love of god, let the bio kids have time alone with their parent! |
Anonymous
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1. Holidays are for ALL the family. 2. If your wife's parents can't get it through their thick heads that your wife will refuse to see them outside of Holidays unless she sees them alone, that's on them. Every time they whine about it, keep telling them very directly. If they get upset, it's their problem. |
Anonymous
That is so mean. You want your FIL to choose between seeing his kids or his wife on Christmas, but your DW doesn’t need to choose. She gets to see sibs and mom. And you think that’s right? Sounds like the steps aren’t the problem, it’s your entitled and cruel wife. |
Anonymous
| Yes - being forced into a “blended family” sucks. People don’t want to hear this from ACODs but it’s true. I love my dad, but his later-in-life new wife’s 40-something son will never be my family or who i want to spend my free time with. |
Anonymous
The thing is though the same thing can be said of an inlaw. Many people have siblings who marry people their siblings don't like. What's the difference? As people grow up, their immediate family expands to include non blood relatives as people get married. That's life. I can't stand my brother in law but I still have to spend holidays with him if I want to see my sister. I do think it should be fine for op to spend time with her blood relatives only on non holidays. I am married to someone with teenage kids and I try to back off and give them the chance to have tons of time together - bike rides, camping trips, some dinners, walks. I don't feel like I need to be included in everything. It's normal for the kids to want alone time with their dad. If when they grow up they want to get dinner with him and not me, that's fine. He and I don't need to be attached at the hip 24-7. |
Anonymous
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The problem isn’t the in-laws. The problem is your wife’s discomfort with saying no and meaning it.
They want her to participate in the happy-family charade. She gets to choose: 1) Go along with the charade and spend her free time with the steps and get minimum guilt trips 2) Set clear boundaries about what she wants and deal with the fallout. 3) Do a slow fade from that whole half of the family, which lessens but does not extinguish the fallout. In my case, I have done the slow fade from both of my divorced parents. They both seem to prefer their replacement families with kids who they never had to actually parent and who therefore don’t have any baggage and are happy to just keep it all light and breezy and never ask for or expect any support from my parents. I see my mom a few times a year when she visits from the west coast to see my brother’s kids. I see my dad 1-2 times a year even though he is local. |
Anonymous
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Your wife is acting like a petulant teenager. Do either of you realize the position you're putting her mother in? Asking her to choose between her kids and her step kids? That is horrific.
You don't have to like or respect the step siblings. You do have to be polite and kind. Remember, your children are learning how to treat their relatives NY watching your actions. |