Blended families—when each partner enters the marriage with children like The Brady Bunch—can run the gamut from a smooth transition to utter disaster.
It can be both easier and harder if the children know each other before their parents’ relationship begins.
Easier if the children get along. Harder if there’s existing animosity.
A woman whose sister’s impending marriage is causing issues turned to the “Am I The A**hole” (AITA) subReddit for feedback.
Parking_Ocelot_902 asked:
“AITA for my refusal to attend my sister’s wedding?”
The original poster (OP) explained:
“Older sister (41, female) is getting married to her partner of 3-ish years in a month. Older sister and her partner both have children.”
“My sister has a 14-year-old boy and 10-year-old girl. Her partner has a 14-year-old girl, 13-year-old boy and 11-year-old girl. The relationship is controversial.”
“My nephew (14) has been having trouble with the 14-year-old girl since the third grade and this actually escalated when they were doing virtual classrooms. She would write a lot of insults about my nephew and used the voice feature to target my nephew.”
“But still my sister and her partner started a romantic relationship and even moved in together. My nephew expressed a lot of unhappiness about this.”
“So did his grandparents—bio father’s parents, he’s not involved, but they were always very generous in helping my sister with my nephew. My sister stopped all contact with the paternal grandparents as a result of them speaking up.”
“When my sister and her partner got engaged, my nephew didn’t take it well. There was a public scene where he told everyone present that she was marrying his bully’s dad and didn’t give a sh*t about him.”
“My sister was furious. Nephew was devastated that his mom was marrying her partner even knowing how he’d feel.”
“My sister didn’t want to hear from anyone, including me, that it was a bad idea and she risked losing her son. She told me he didn’t get to dictate her life and they’d deal with the bullying, but he was being unreasonable about everything.”
“I told her my nephew deserved space away from the girl and she told me he can’t pick his family and siblings fight sometimes.”
“Two months ago, my nephew ran away. He was gone for 2.5 weeks and we were searching everywhere.”
“He’d wanted to go to his grandparents, but worried they’d get into trouble. CPS intervened when he was found and my nephew was removed from my sister’s home and was given a placement with his grandparents, which was his first choice.”
“I talked to him since then, and he said he was glad he was removed. He said he had been prepared to keep running away and he told the social worker that and more.”
“We’re in touch frequently and I get to visit him. My sister could visit, but my nephew doesn’t want to see her.”
“But she’s proceeding with everything like normal. We fought over her picking the relationship over nephew. She told me I’ll never understand.”
“My wedding invite came in the middle of all this, and I RSVP’d no. I made it clear I would not attend this wedding after everything that’s happened.”
“My sister and parents told me I should put aside the family troubles and attend or risk the relationship forever. I told them I stand by my nephew over my sister.”
“AITA?”
The OP summed up their situation.
“I refuse to attend my sister’s wedding. Despite all the bad going on and the fact she has lost custody of her oldest and only son, she is my sister, and things could end up working out in the future.”
“My refusal has the potential to cause more trouble. It’s also something that clearly bothers my sister and parents, and I didn’t give in even after finding this out.”
Redditors weighed in by declaring:
- NTA – Not The A**hole
- YTA – You’re The A**hole
- NAH – No A**holes Here
- ESH – Everyone Sucks Here
Redditors decided the OP was not the a**hole (NTA).
“NTA: Good on you for standing your ground. I’m not sure why she’d want you there either with how easily she cuts off people for disagreeing with her decisions.”
“Your sister will probably just live however she wants, unfortunately. Just continue to be a good support system for your nephew—the relationship between him and your sister will be a consequence of her own actions and it’s on her to own up to it.” ~ TonightDouble7539
“She wants them there for appearances. After all, what would people say if they didn’t look like one big happy family? Not really sure how she sees that working if her son isn’t there, but… NTA.” ~ WipeGuitarBranded
“Her son missing from the event can be chalked up by her as a**hole teenager being an a**hole. Her son and OP missing? People are going to talk and connect the dots.”
“NTA, and…wow. My parents would have boycotted the wedding, too, not tried to get OP to play happy family.” ~ FriesWithShakeBooty
“Exactly. Can’t have everybody at the wedding realize what a crap mother the bride is, now can we? Two generations of crap parents present here: sister and OP’s parents.” ~ Revo63
“And it’s going to come out eventually about what’s happening with her and her son. It’ll come out.”
“And when it does, it’ll make her look even worse than her son not attending the ‘bLeSsEd wEdDiNg’. I don’t think we’ve heard the last of this from OP. NTA.” ~ titaniac79
“NTA. ‘My sister and parents told me I should put aside the family troubles and attend or risk the relationship forever. I told them I stand by my nephew over my sister’. Total kudos to you. She lost her own kid over letting him get bullied.” ~ Apart-Ad-6518
“Sounds like a relationship I’d be happy to lose. I can’t believe the sister actively started dating the parent of her son’s bully.”
“She’s delusional if she doesn’t see this is entirely her fault. Good on OP, nephew will have family around him that actually will protect him.
“And I bet the younger daughter will resent her mother for this too. NTA.” ~ Fianna9
“Without the brother around, bully will likely turn her attention to the younger sister. In turn, this will teach the other stepsiblings to pick on her, too.”
“Especially once they realize that OP’s sister won’t do anything to protect her own kids. If they can push stepsiblings out, they get dad and stepmom all to thenselves.” ~ Pandora1685
“Yup. Even if the bully doesn’t go after her, daughter will see how mom drove away her big brother for the ‘new family’ and probably will always be insecure. NTA.” ~ Fianna9
“I’m wondering if that is how they met. Like during a meeting between the parents at the school concerning the bullying. That would be even more messed up.” ~ Longjumping-Pick-706
“NTA. Dating the bully’s parent is a bit concerning, but is not necessarily a red flag on it’s own. The parent themselves might be actively trying to stop their child’s bullying behavior also. A couple could also date for years while still keeping their kids separated.”
“The real concern here is that they’re trying to blend the families without having dealt with the bullying first. OPs sister said ‘we’ll deal with the bullying’. Implying they haven’t made a serious effort to do so yet.”
“Plus, she’s downplaying the bullying by equating it to siblings fighting. Even between bio siblings, there is a difference between sibling squables and bullying.”
“To say nothing of the fact that while siblings do fight, parents shouldn’t just dismiss it as ‘something siblings do’. It should still be addressed to deal with root causes and teach better conflict resolution methods.”
“The sister’s attitude suggests that the bullying was never really going to get addressed. That her son was going to end up catching the blame for not just playing punching bag for his stepsister.”
“Maybe she is delusional, but she also appears to be willfully ignoring how bad the bullying itself was. Easy to delude yourself on whose fault it is that the situation got to where it is when you started by deluding yourself on what the situation itself was in the first place.” ~ hard_tyrant_dinosaur
“Making a blended family unit can be difficult at best under normal circumstances. Any parent who disregarded prior bad history like OP’s sister has is just asking for trouble.”
“And marrying your kid’s bully’s parent? Almost a guaranteed recipe to ensure peace will never come to that household again.”
“OP’s nephew choosing to run away to his grandparents is the best solution because there is absolutely no chance he would ever listen or respect either of the adults at home.” ~ ArmadsDranzer
“NTA. Your sister is right that you’ll never understand, and that’s a good thing. I wouldn’t want to understand your sister’s reasoning either.
“Very smart kid to understand his paternal grandparents would get in trouble if he’d run there, pretty sure he wouldn’t end up in their custody if he went there, but now CPS could send him there as a 3rd party.”
“Good choice of him to do what he did, keep supporting him.” ~ DRTvL
Anytime you have to choose between people you care about is difficult. But choosing the health and welfare of the child with limited options over the adult in control of the situation is usually the right choice.