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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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. [/quote]

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.[/quote]

It is reasonable and expected that your siblings will partner up and in many cases those partners become the blood relative of your nieces and nephews and become even more closely bonded to the family.  It is an annoying extension of the trauma of divorce that you not only have to accept step parents, but then step-siblings and their spouses and their children, none of whom share your blood, or your life experiences (speaking of steps who join the family as adults).

It’s very very different.  I have a cousin who is like a sister and her husband is annoying but I love my cousin and her kids so I tolerate him.  4 people I love come with one annoying guy I am not close to, so it’s worth it.  My dad on the other hand has a hot mess of a wife with three kids from three different relationships, all of whom have their own kids and assorted partners.  So in order to spend time with my dad during a major holiday, I have to be around 7 annoying adults and 5 kids I barely know.  That’s a 1:12 ratio of loved:annoying, vs. my cousin’s family which is 4:1.

Doing that math doesn’t make me the jerk.  It means that I quite reasonably don’t find as much enjoyment in those visits and so I almost never go.  And I don’t have to feel guilty about it.  If my dad wants to live his own life he can, but there are tradeoffs and this is one of them.[/quote]

+1.  There is a different social expectation that emanates (in many cases) from the parents of the “blended family” to the new siblings.  While late-in-life blending (20s) probably is a lot like the in-law scenario, when the kids are younger, even late teens, it’s a totally different animal.  If you say to someone “my brother in law Larlo is a jerk” , nobody bats an eye.  The jerk brother in law is a trope. If you say “Larlo my stepbrother is a jerk,” you get a lot of “geez, late 40s and someone is still not over the divorce.”  It’s subtle but maddening, and while in theory we should all be mature adults and able to deal with things, in practice it is an irritant that necessarily results in strains on your family in ways commiserating about Larla your bratty sister in law does not.  Even a flatworm turns away from pain.

And yes, one must be civil with the blended siblings and never let a hint of your dislike show.  But the only way to do that is to emotionally detach from how you feel about your family in general.  It’s a great loss that you shouldn’t be too quick to pooh pooh if you haven’t been there. [/quote]

1000x this.  Anything less than a perfect smiling facade gets you shamed for having any non-positive opinions about your parents' divorce.  The remarried parents insist that everyone play-act their roles in the "happy blended family" so that they can pretend to have the outcome they wanted.  But of course nobody is truly happy and nobody is having the family they wanted.  And we all know that if they divorced, these "sibling" relationships would vanish in an instant.  It's all just so fake.  [/quote]

I have a step mother and half siblings who I haven’t spoken to since we laid my father to rest. Fake smiles when he was alive but good riddance to the them. [/quote]

Same. I accidentally called her a few months ago, when trying to use Siri to call someone with a similar name. We talked for 15 minutes, and I just pretended to care. [/quote]

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