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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Does anyone else have a situation where their step siblings are treated differently by your parent and step parent vs how you are treated?

My parents divorced when I was 5 and my dad remarried when I was 10. My step mom has two kids who are 3 and 5 years younger than me. I never really got along with my step mother, but have a good relationship with my step siblings. They lived with my dad and step mom full time and but still saw their bio dad once a week (although he was a total deadbeat). I saw my mom on weekends because she moved to another town and it was too inconvenient with school.

Anyway, my issue is that my step siblings are treated very differently from me in terms of money, which is extremely frustrating since my dad is the one who works hard and makes money, and their mom has never worked. It has been this way since we were kids and only the inequality seems to be getting worse as we have gotten older. Some examples - when I turned 16 my parents made me buy a used car and get a job to pay them back for half of it, while both step siblings received brand new cars and didn't have to pay for any of it. I was fortunate that my father paid for my college, but again I had a part time job to pay for all living expenses/spending money, while both step siblings received full tuition and housing/spending money (they never had any jobs before the end of college). My dad paid for half of my wedding and made me and DH pay the other half, but paid for step sister's full wedding. And he has been footing the bill for my youngest step brother who has never had a real job (which includes buying him a house yet he wouldn't help me out with a down payment for my house when DH and I really could have used some help).

The last straw is that my dad recently re-did his will and is leaving 1/3 of his estate to each of us. This seems absurd to me since I am his biological child and the other two are not. I know all of them stems from my evil step mother, whom I have never gotten along with.

I have tried talking to my father about this but he doesn't want to hear it. Does anyone else think this is extremely unfair? Do you have a similar situation and how do you cope?[/quote]

This comes up every now and again.  I always give the same answer, and that answer is to remind adult children of the power they have over their parents.

OP, from what you write, you are now an adult who is 25+.  Know that as time goes on and your father gets older, the time will come when he will need you more than you need him.  Aging parents very much want to be around their children, and especially grandchildren.  As they face the inevitable physical decline and death, they want more than anything to be surrounded by and share in the energy of young people.  This takes their mind off death and old age.

When that time comes for your dad, feel free to reward him with your coldness and your distance.  Actually, feel free to tell him that because of what he did throughout your lifetime, you love him less, and he will see less of you, and definitely less of your future children.  You are his only chance for biological grandchildren.  Do feel free to remind him of that.  It sounds like stepchildren don't really see your father as their biodad, and my guess is that when they marry and procreate, the grandchild/grandparent relationship will be mostly between your stepmother and their children.  Your dad will be an old man without grandchildren and without anyone young who cares about his existence.  Tell him.  But don't tell him in anger, tell him coldly. And then live it.  You cannot undo what has been done to you, but your dad's punishment will be to watch his only biological child put more and more distance between them, and to stumble toward death without the comfort of his child and grandchildren.  You have the power, you just don't know it yet. [/quote]

This is an old thread but this post is with commenting on. It might seem like this is an obvious choice but it would be better to be gracious when he is older. In a somewhat similar situation, my dad ended up with nothing, but social security, as helping his wife’s family drained their retirement. We helped him as much as we could without taking too much away from our own family.

It is interesting that, in a thread, about him, there were trolls who said this was not enough, and that we should have helped more for no reason other than because one should be a dutiful daughter no matter what. There has to be a balance. This father did help OP, but less then he helped the steps, so he should receive some help, in his old age, just not to the extant of taking too much away from OPs own family and retirement. If OP does not set a good example by providing some help to her father, then, someday, her own children may follow her example and not be there for her in her old age.[/quote]

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