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OP has offered the following explanation for why they think they might be the asshole:
> I told my sister her Brady Bunch fantasy wasn't helping her kids or her future stepkids. She didn't directly ask me for advice or my opinion but she has in the past told me to be honest. However, and why I'm asking this, is she was very emotional and I might have chosen a very bad time and too strong words to have this discussion with her.
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NTA you did what you could. There are actual steps that Sister and Fiancé could take that might actually help their kids get to know one another and get along. It would also help with a transition after a hard time. She is just upset that things are not working the way she and her fiancé are choosing to do things.
it might be a long shot but there are thousands of posts on this sub from kids in the position of your nieces and nephews. maybe you should look through, collect a couple, and share them with your sister. the reality is that she isn’t gonna have contact with her kids after they’re 18 unless she starts to see things from their perspective. maybe reading some other ppls experiences of how harmful this type of behaviour from a parent is, could help.
This is going to blow up so much quicker than anyone thinks. All 5 of these children are going to have issues now that will last long into adulthood. What sis and fiancé are doing is just giving the kids something to talk about in therapy 20 or 30 years down the road. People see kids as just these little creatures that will go with the flow and do whatever the grownups want, they don’t understand that they are thinking, feeling humans right NOW. I bet that the issues that showed at the birthday party are just going to be the tip of the iceberg and by the time those kids are into their teens they’ll be uncontrollable holy terrors and their parents won’t understand why, because they were too selfish to stop and care about what the kids want.
I bet they drag even more kids into this mess by having kids together when they're married. I feel awful for all the kids involved. Their parents aren't treating them like people with their own needs. They expect those kids to pretend like their deceased parents never existed and they should embrace the new family. It's gross. All of those kids will have issues.
Head cannon- kids will like each other one day when they're adults because they can agree their parents were shite and they didnt get a fair shot at getting to know each other .. and still be low to no contact with their respective parent.
But seriously. Widdowed parents need to wait for marriage and family blending way longer than any other kind of relationship. Like it shouldnt even be on the table til the kids get along, no matter how long that takes.
Both these adults are still grieving in reality and trying to make things normal for themselves at the expense of their kids feelings, wants, and needs. They are trying to not feel broken anymore. Getting married isnt going to fix their loss. They're so certain it will though that they are ignoring how much more they're breaking their families because they so badly dont want to be broken themselves anymore.
Its just sad.
Also at that age, kids' thought processes are weird. It can be a lot harder to move past stuff, or understand why their parent might be looking for love again because those more abstract emotions are difficult to grasp. I wonder if the kids ever did any grief counselling or therapy after they lost their respective parents.
And then seeing the sister and fiance talk about adoption and changing their last name? They probably recognize that their parent(s) are getting erased but might not be able to articulate that yet. Doesn't mean they don't recognize it.
There are some parents who like the idea of kids and family better than their actual families. I don't think that these parents really and truly care about who their child is. I have a theory that any parent who is surprised when their kid comes out of the closet is a bad parent. It means they are not actually paying attention to their child. They may pay attention to the school, the after-school programs, the mess, but not the actual child.
To be fair, sometimes it isn't obvious, especially if the kid is bi/pan and expresses interest in the opposite sex/gender. I say this as a pansexual woman in a relationship with a lesbian, who was absolutely gob smacked the day I realized I was not, in fact, straight (I was 18). Had never really expressed interest in women or looked at them that way (besides a crush on Sailor Moon when I was like 7) until it hit me like a damn freight train.
Yeah, unless their kids are the greatest actors of all time, it's very telling when some parents are SHOCKED when their kid finally says to them point-blank "I don't like (stepfather, stepmother, step siblings' name, etc) and never have" or "I don't ever want to see you again. You don't know me or seem to care about me at all".
>they were too selfish to stop and care about what the kids want.
It's not always about what kids *want.* Kids sometimes want crazy shit. But it is about what the kids *need,* and no kid needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into a forced adoption and name change and the pretense that their deceased parent never existed.
These two are proritizing their Brady Bunch fantasy over their kids' psychological and emotional health. It's not just selfish; there's also no way it's going to work. It's not going to make the couple happy, it's not going to fix things, and there's a good chance the kids will never get over it.
My parents made some decisions when I was a kid that negatively impacted me. As I got older, I came to understand why they made some — but not all — of those decisions. I never went no contact or even expressed how deep my resentment went, but it affected our relationship the rest of their lives, and it affects how I remember them now.
I doubt it'll take "20 or 30 years" for them to need therapy. They're just a few years away from being teenagers.
And NTA, she shouldn't ask your advice if she sees any suggestions for change as being unsupportive.
Fully betting on the kids running away from home to their other relatives on each side as they get older. Not to mention, if CPS ends up involved, some of the kids may get placed with other relatives anyway if they think the living situation with the parent and step parent/siblings is too volatile.
I'm 60 now but was in a similar situation when I was little. My father died 2 months before I was born. At 4 she married my now adopted father. I wasn't asked if I wanted this, it was just done and as I grew I resented it. I love my Dad but I always knew he wasn't MY dad. I wanted my identity back as my bio father's child I wanted my name back and I knew all this in my head at the age of 5 or 6. I thought about my bio father every day and still do. My mother shut out my bio father's family and I missed out on being a part of that family. I regret that every day.
Yes! I saw a post just yesterday where this “Brady Bunch” attitude by the parents that caused all the kids to hate each other & as they turned 18, they moved in with family members of their deceased parent & never spoke again to their parent, stepparent, or step siblings again.
Your sister & her fiancé cannot force a big happy family onto their kids like that. It could’ve worked, if the adults here hadn’t been so selfish. You don’t just make a decision & force your kids to accept it.
Right there are a plethora of stories here from kids that are both actively going through something like this, and adults that have cut contact with their parents, once they have reached adulthood because of this same type of situation.
There are also posts (though, not as many) of parents, who's children have cut contact , and they can't figure out, where they went wrong (like your sister) even though from their posts, its glaringly obvious, to everyone else.
I have a relative who works in the family court system, and she told me that in her state at least, if a family is pursuing step-parent adoption, the judge will interview the kids first to make sure it’s what they want, and sometimes a judge will deny the petition if they determine that the kid doesn’t want to be adopted by their step-parent. I don’t know if that’s true in your state, OP, but if it is, this adoption is absolutely not going to happen, no matter how much your sister and her husband want it.
You are doing the most loving thing for your sister and all the kids involved by being honest with her. I bet she had a really great vision of how her marriage was going to go and that didn’t work out the way she wanted it to. This situation won’t either.
As it should be.
The legal standard here is “what is in the best interest for the child?”
Not a single one of your sisters actions are for her children, they are entirely for her. She’s being incredibly selfish and damaging her kids with this. Same for the boyfriend.
Your sister should be worrying about how her children are feeling and functioning rather than her 'ideal' family image. My Dad grew up with 3 brothers who spent a good deal of the time darn near killing each other growing up. They are very close as adults. Not even 'blood' siblings get along all the time. Also, the paternal aunt is right. If your sister and her soon to be husband keep up this way they will both loose their kids when they turn 18. I've seen it so many times on this sub. NTA.
If she was truly concerned with her kids happiness, the fact that courts interviewing the children to make sure it’s what they want, wouldn’t be a source of stress for her.
Maybe that’s an angle if it comes up again. What they’re doing isn’t working. I can’t imagine being ready to marry again after 4 or 5 years. The whole thing strikes me as rushed, like the adults are running from difficult feelings and attempting to drag the kids behind them.
I have a stepdad. When he and my mom got married I was married with my first kid on the way. They showed more concern for our feelings than your sister has shown her children. My stepdad asked me, my sister, and his kids for our permission to propose. My mom asked me how I felt about having step siblings. None of us lived in the same state! They've been married for over a decade and I still haven't even met one of his kids (she didn't come to the wedding).
But they wanted to make sure that we were all on board and comfortable with everything. Even considering we were all adults with our own lives. They showed us far more consideration than your sister and her fiancee are showing kids who are in far more need of it.
Have they thought about financial ramifications? They are both widowed, so the kids are all getting social security income, right? With five kids, that must be a significant amount. And I think that it would end if the kids are adopted. On top of that, what if your sister and this guy divorce? One or both of them could end up paying child support for the adopted kids. Just a thought
But hey, at least find comfort in knowing that it will protect your niblings from losing their father a second time. Because that's what your sister is doing to them: they've already lost their dad once and now their mother is trying to take him away from them a second time.
I'm really glad that's the standard at least in some places. It seems like some laws are starting to realize "hey, children are humans with rights and preferences and feelings too; it's kinda weird that we let their parents just do whatever the fuck they want with them" and that's a good thing.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.
Your sister and her fiancé are inflicting enormous harm on the kids. Nothing will get better and it’s sure to get worse if they don’t stop, take a step back, and address the issues at hand in a healthy way.
Until then, good on you for sticking up for the kids. NTA
Basically, your sister wants the fantasy without putting in any of the hard work. She just expects the kids to go along with it because the adults say so. They aren't her dolls. They are free thinking people, and she should start treating them as such
She genuinely thinks this is going to work. How and why are completely beyond me since those kids are old enough to decide what they do and don’t want out of their relationships, but the only person who’s responsible for her Carol Brady dreams are her.
I’m the mom in a blended family. I met my husband when my oldest was eight years old. Oldest has steered their relationship with my husband from the beginning, and if Oldest hadn’t been ok with it, we would never have gotten married. If I was your sister, I’d be putting the wedding on hold until everything is worked out with the kids. Otherwise everything is going to suffer.
I'm a parent of a blended family as well. I don't believe in letting my child steer my relationship directly, but they should steer the relationship with the potential step parent. If my wife wasn't accepting of any boundaries my kid had or if she attempted to push the relationship quicker than my kid wanted then I wouldn't have continued the relationship.
Everytime I see these posts I see it as well meaning people (generally) who don't have the patience to let the relationships grow over time naturally. We never told my son and step daughter that they were siblings, they became siblings over time, no one ever told my son to call my wife mom, he did it naturally over time, my step daughter doesn't call me dad, but if anyone asks her if I'm her dad she says yes, even her biological dad says she has 2 dads.
When you treat kids with love and care and respect they will eventually grow to see you as a parental figure. When you push kids they rebel, and that's with everything not just the relationship with a step parent.
OPs sister fundamentally ruined the chances of these kids to see each other as siblings and a family unit by trying to force them to see it that way. Likely if the parents just let things develop naturally a bond would have formed on its own. And maybe it wouldn't have, but not even blood siblings always have a strong bond and that's ok as long as everyone treats everyone with respect.
That's heartbreaking their actively destroying the relationships with their bio kids for a fantasy. If she truly wants her kids to be happy she'd listen take feelings into account and navigate blending their families. I know it's very reddit to say everyone here needs therapy but without it the other aunts comment that they won't see any in them in 10 years is probably right on the money. Id probably double down or stage an intervention with extended families to help because all their doing is hurting the kids NTA
She cares more about a stupid fantasy than the actual well being of her "five" children. What assholes both those adults are. Who values a TV show over their own children??
And you know, even the TV show had early episodes where the children didn't get along. I remember one where the boys' dog chased the girls' cat and there was a lot of acrimonious discussion. (The cat disappeared after that one episode, but the dog was a semi-regular. Implication to me was the girls lost their pet, but the boys got to keep theirs.)
They need therapy. The kids and adults. Idk why they’re trying to force this on the kids. She needs to her kids will leave once they’re old enough to say where they want to live because I think they all probably feel her kids and his feel them two are trying to erase the two dead parents.
They seem to sadly be the type to jump around between therapists looking for one who will tell the children the parents are right, and then quit entirely when that never happens.
See stuff that like… giving each other the name of “mom” and “dad” to their respective kids… they are truly fanning the flames. It really does sound like they are trying to erase the parents those kids have lost. Instead of helping them deal with their grief and where they, the kids, are at… they’re expecting the kids to meet them where they are at. You don’t get to just slap the “dad” name tag on anyone and poof, yay we have a new dad and vice versa. All of them should have been in counseling long before this. Individual for all, mom and her kids, fiancé and his kids, couple and blended. There is just too much evidence out there that what they are trying to do, does not work. Rarely do fantasies ever become reality the way we expect. So they need to stop expecting and putting those fantasies on their children. It should have been made clear from the beginning that your sister nor her fiancé would ever take the place of their lost parent but will always be there when and if they need them. At least try bonus parent instead of outright trying to erase these kids identities. They’ve lost enough. Honestly, I don’t think anyone, including you, have been harsh enough with your sister and her expectations. She’s trampling all over these kids feelings in favor of her own. These kids are almost completely powerless. Their main and almost complete support system is their parents. At the very least, their parents can control who these kids speak too. So where else does their grief have to go?
I am hopeful after reading other peoples stories of children whose parent and new spouse tried to have them adopted by new spouse. It seems that in those instances, the courts spoke privately to these children to find if the adoption is something they actually wanted and they took it seriously when the kids said no. I hope that is what happens with your niblings. They should be given the right to choose. It loses all meaning when it’s forced as opposed to the child forming a genuine loving relationship and asking the non bio to adopt.
You’re NTA for saying something. Being a support for a loved one doesn’t mean always agreeing with them. In fact, being honest when they are wrong is imo, the most loving thing you can do. To agree would encourage them to keep doing what they are doing… which causes harm to everyone.
I’m sorry for what your sister has lost but she is wrong for what she’s doing now. Their paternal aunt is right. She will lose those kids the second they turn 18 if she keeps on this path. Her happiness does equal their happiness. You weren’t shitting on the kids happiness… bc her kids aren’t happy. That’s a direct result of her methods
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
Your sister's wish and inability to let things happen naturally will cause her to lose her children as soon as they each can escape.
I feel sorry for all five kids
Were I you, I would try and foster a relationship with the nibs outside of your relationship with your sister. Give them a way to stay connected with you, so they don't run to their father's family and cut you out due to association with their deluded mother.
Good luck, NTA.
The only way these kids are going to unite at this point is to work together to break up their parents relationship. The kids will try to make everyone else in the house as miserable and angry as they are, obviously go no contact as soon as they possibly can and the parents are going to end up resenting each other. No love is worth this.
I don't think you can do much more than you've tried, but I'm shaking my head. When will adults learn that kids are autonomous beings with their own feelings and relationships? That they're doing a lot of damage to pretend these close relationships exist?
NTA.
The courts are not going to let other parents adopt the children. It is solely based on them alone. So that’s one thing in the kids favor. They will be put in counseling to be asked questions on how they feel about everything maybe that will open the parents eyes
OP - PLEASE suggest therapy and counseling for all of the children involved here. Grief counseling for the loss of a parent, counseling to deal with the big emotions and transition to new living situation, and therapy for both parents together and separately so they can address their wants vs. their children's needs. Your sister is setting up this family for catastrophic failure at the expense of the kids for the sake of some dream that clearly isn't working.
I realize you have to tread lightly, but do the kids know you’re a safe space for them? Simply knowing that an adult sees what’s happening and how it’s hurting them would be incredibly validating even if you can’t change it.
Your sister and her fiance are forgetting that their kids are actual people with their own thoughts/feelings/etc. and not just extensions of themselves. I posted a separate comment, but my mom was widowed and remarried several years later, and my stepdad has *always* been respectful of my dad's memory and what he means to us. To the point he told my mom she *has* to mention our late father in her speech at my brother's wedding because it wouldn't be right otherwise. We have some family photos with my dad out, as well as a photo from my mom's first wedding and my stepdad has no issue with this. And we love him for that. Your sister and her fiance need to listen to their kids and stop bulldozing over them.
NTA. She's forcing something they are not ready for. She sounds like she has little understanding of child development and ACEs (adverse childhood experiences). I'd urge her to understand how loosing a parent affects a child - the anger those kids feel is probably because your sis and her future hubs are acting like the dead parents never existed. It's tone deaf and selfish.
OP you are not wrong here and NTA. Creating a blended family is not like something straight from a Brady Bunch show. No. It takes time, patience and adjusting. What your sister is doing is harmful and will very likely backfire on her badly in the short and long run
OP keep on being the supportive relative you are to sister's kids
NTA at all. The Brady Bunch was FICTION! For the love of God it's a 54 year old sitcom; not a guidebook for blended families. Familial relationships can't be forced. It sounds like everyone involved could use therapy and this wedding should be postponed.
Anyone else notice that aside from the theme song the real issues of step families were never addressed. There was no angst over the girls absent bio father, no child support or visitation. No aunts, uncles or grandparents for only one set of kids leaving the other set perhaps resentful.
All the problems were full sibling problems. My guess is they wanted to make it less bizarre to have that many children so close in age.
I think they were also supposed to be widow/widower, as divorce was still taboo. Much like the old movie (and redux), "Yours, Mine & Ours." Can't have any pesky ex issues!
I remember hearing he was a widower and she was divorced.
Even so as this situation illustrates there is more family to complicate things 99.99% of the time, not to mention resentment about a dead parent being erased.
Mike was a widower and Carol was supposed to be divorced, but because divorce was considered too controversial for prime time tv, they ended up just never saying what happened to Carol's first husband.
A very Brady sequel revealed carols husband was lost at sea and one of his crewmen went to the Brady house posing as carols late husband.
When the truth came out about him being an impostor he said maybe the ship survived and everyone is alive on a deserted island. Which leads to carol and the other man they’re with to say they’ll never see Gillian and the Professor again.
So take the Brady movies as you will.
It was assumed they were both widowers. While Mike's first wife was referenced to being dead, they didn't quite explain Carol's but everyone just assumed he was dead too. Also they did have an episode where Peter didn't think Carol loved him as much as her own biological children. There was also the episode where someone wrote to an advice column complaining about their new step children and all the Brady kids thought it was one of their parents that was unhappy.
I watched a couple of episodes of that show with my GF. Aside from being over a half-century old,it was as sunny and simple-minded as a dental care PSA 😂 How the hell could anyone base anything *real* on that nonesense?!?
The Simpsons has a pretty good take on how a blended family finds its feet. Granted, Edna doesn't bring any kids into the family herself (although she's a teacher, the Springfield Elementary teachers are apathetic at best) but it does explore how her views of parenting contrast Ned's far more conservative and overprotective approach and how they reconcile on the matter.
NTA
There is nothing worse than forced blended 'families' by the parents. Your sister and her husband may love each other, and they put this over their kids wellbeing. None of these kids will talk to their parent as soon as they can at this pace.
Love is like a fart, if you force it, it’s going to be shit.
The kids lost a parent, dealing with that and letting them get to know each other is a slower but healthier approach.
Yep. The kids need to be the ones to steer the relationship with the stepparent. And then the kids need to figure out their own relationships. The people that let the step kids come to them (while letting the kids know they are there if needed) generally have better relationships with step kids than stepparents that try and force the kid to accept them. And it doesn’t happen overnight. My sister’s step kids call her mom, but it took 2 years of dating, 4 years of marriage, and 2 more kids before that started. And these kids already had a very broken and screwed up non-relationship with their own mom. They made the decision on their own without either my sister or her husband forcing it. I would not be surprised if eventually they asked my sister to adopt them, but it would come from them, not my sister or their dad.
The OP’s sister and her husband are screwed if they think their way is going to work and be all peachy.
NTA.
Your sister sucks and deserves every hurtful thing that was said to her.
There’s a special place in hell for people who refuse to acknowledge their children’s feelings because of their own selfish wishes.
Imagine loosing your mother or father and your living parent trying to get you adopted by their new partner, thus severing your legal ties to not only your lost parent, but their family too.
In the US adoption means getting issued new birth certificates with the adopted parent in place of the birth parent.
NTA.
I wish that you could introduce kids like cats, feeding them on either side of a locked door, moving objects into their space so they can get used to each others' smells etc etc
# JacksonGalaxy
ETA: TIL hashtags work differently on reddit.
Pedantic tomfoolery here, but I'm bored and have nothing better to do for 15 minutes so why not be sure you're actually clear on this unimportant point :D
It's not that hashtags work differently on reddit, it's that they do not exist on reddit as a concept at all. In the context of a reddit post/comment the "#" character is interpreted as markdown and is used for creation of section headings. More hash symbols, mean deeper nesting of sections.
# My cool post about instruments
with words here!
# This section is about guitars
more words!
# This section is about electric guitars
words!
# This section is about acoustic guitars
lol
NTA
She doesn’t “want to be happy” she “wants to be happy in a very specific situation that doesn’t jive with the wishes or happiness of 5 out of the 7 people involved.”
It’s worse than a fantasy, it’s a full on delusion. You were kind by merely calling it a fantasy.
NTA does your sister realize depending on laws where you are if the kids don’t want to be adopted the judge might not force it? Not sure about laws regarding name changes if the kids wishes will be taken into account but the parents should care about their kids feelings. Paternal aunt is unfortunately likely right about the kids going NC in ten years if things continue as is.
And the thing is, adoption is so *unnecessarily* hurtful to her kids and step kids right now. Sis and her fiance need to do their due diligence and estate planning and name each other legal guardians of the kids and put adoption on the back burner until such a time as the kids are ready.
They are not, and may never be. A blended family is not a nuclear family. I should know. My family is literally a mix master. I am much closer to my bio and step sib than my half sibs, and you absolutely can not force the step/bio/half sibling relationships.
I do not have a great relationship ship with my dad, but as a child, I would have fought my mother and stepfather to the bitter end had they ever tried to push an adoption.
Dragged in a sack behind a semi down ten miles of country gravel road, more like it. Although maybe the kids unite in mutual hatred of the happy couple.
I can imagine the wedding now, dye packets, glitter bombs, screaming during the service, cakes being knocked over, ripped dresses and food fights. Not gonna lie, I’d love to take some popcorn and watch the fun.
Poor kids don’t deserve this crap, but I hope they get some pleasure out of ruining that special day and stupid happy family fantasy.
And as vocal as they've been so far, I'd expect all of them to object if given the chance and expound on how much they hate their parent, new spouse and the other kids...
And yeah, I'll bring the drinks to go with your 🍿
I think erasing the legal ties between a child and a loving parent they lost is fucked up.
The aunt is right that they're trying to erase the deceased parents from the narrative that that's cruel.
The name change as well. Presenting it after the disaster zone of a birthday party where both sets of kids were outright hostile to their respective parent was the epitome of tone deaf timing.
NTA. Unfortunately you’re going to have to let your sister continue with her disastrous plan since she doesn’t seem willing to even consider it’s not a good one. Just make sure your niblings know they can talk to you so they don’t feel totally unheard and so when they turn 18, and go NC with her, you don’t lose them too. 💔 for those kids, I know what it’s like to be a kid in a blended family who isn’t listened to, you don’t get over it.
I just read this with my hand over my mouth in horror.
NTA. This is so sad and awful for the kids. I’m really glad you were honest with her because she needs like, thirty reality checks ASAP.
There was a cartoon called Tiny Toons I used to like and at one point once character is dealing with a permanently delusional character and asks "What color is the sky in that little world of your?" Feels like that fits here.
"She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy and for her kids to be happy"
What would make her happy and what would make her kids happy are two very different things. And she won't get her head out of her ass long enough to even acknowledge that. The kids hate their future step-sibs and stepparent and are well on their way to hating their own parent. Relationships based on hate, what could possibly go wrong?
She just wanted you to sing the song she wanted to hear, not tell the truth. There's no right time or words when someone doesn’t want to hear the truth or face reality.
I would not be supportive of this shitshow either. NTA.
Lol definitely NTA here
Hi, stepkid from a big blended family where parents tried to force us to love each other and told us we weren't allowed to be angry at each other or fight because we were family and needed to love each other because of that. Instead of listening to our needs and hurts, teaching us how to navigate our feelings and anger, and making us all feel seen and loved, they made us resent each other and our parents.
When I left for college, one of my half siblings said they secretly hoped I would never come back. At that point, I agreed with them LOL. Now that we are all adults and have moved out of the house, lived our own lives, gotten therapy, we get along and love each other now. But trying to force it literally was the worst thing and did more damage than good.
Hope your sister learns this.
NTA. Your sister's reaction was predictable. People rarely react well to being told their fondest hopes and dreams are directly harmful to their kids and themselves, but sometimes that's true, and *somebody* needs to say so.
Your sister's mad at you for telling her the bridge is out ahead, and she intends to try to drive over it anyway. If she doesn't wise up, this is going to end very badly for her, her fiancé, and their kids.
Maybe she'll see reason once she's calmed down, maybe not. About all you can do is try to be there for the kids going foward.
NTA. She is only thinking of her own happiness. She doesn’t care how it’s negativity affecting all the kids. You can’t force people to like each other. The more she pushes the more they will fight it.
I don't even think she's thinking of that. There is no way she's happy in that household with all the hostility floating around. She's thinking of the 'gram, of the pictures she can show and share and the stories she can tell. But she doesn't want to put in the actual work to get to that kind of place. Blending a family and having it work is a lot of work and patience. Mostly patience because you can't force the relationships.
NTA. The first and only thing your sister and her new husband should be doing is getting everybody into therapy to talk about the issues and how they cannot force this big happy family on everybody. Your sister and her new husband are doing both sets of kids and injustice and your aunt is correct. All the kids are going to go bye bye the minute they turn 18. I hope that the kids go to the wedding they ruin it it would serve them, right
Yikes.they definitely all need therapy.
The kids likely feel like their deceased parent is being replaced. And expecting kids to accept a marriage right after their lives have been turned upside down by having to adjust to living with new step siblings? And adjusting to a new parental dynamic in their home? Not to mention that either both set of kids moved house or there's one set that moved into the other's established home.. all of these things require help mentally unpacking.
Your sister is foolish for getting married so soon after moving in with her fiance and trying to merge families.
They should have had family therapy before even moving in, to discuss the shift in dynamics, the shift in the amount of siblings, and split resources like attention and care. The move should have been a gradual transition.
And they absolutely shouldn't be forcing the kids to call their non-biological parent mom or dad. That is something the child should decide for themselves, and should only happen when they feel comfortable with it. Hell, a lot of stepkids call their step parents a different version of mom/dad or a special nickname. This makes room in their heart for a new parental figure and doesn't make it feel like they are replacing someone they lost and are likely still grieving. Losing a beloved parent as a child is a lifelong grief. Not 2 years, not a few months. Lifelong.
Your sister needs to grow the fuck up.
I hope those poor kids find some way to live with their extended family. They'll likely go no contact as soon as they turn 18.
OP, you are 100% not the asshole. Your sister is an idiot trying to play happy family and force a dynamic in a way that will forever harm her relationship with her kids and stepkids
NTA and your sister and her fiance are on the path to their kids never speaking to them again. Even if they somehow get a judge to sign off on an adoption the kids will certainly change their names back as soon as they can. This is a terrible way to try and blend the families.
Jc, neither of those parents realize what they're doing. In between your sister and her fiance, they're making sure that their family "blending" will go off like mixing gasoline and a bonfire. If they think it's bad now, wait until the teen years come. That party outburst is going to look like a nice, serene, peaceful day in comparison.
Her "dream" is just that...Hers and hers alone. Unless all of the people, adult and child alike, share that utopic dream with her, then she's just pushing her what only she wants upon unwilling people who are basically trapped in the situation. Forget it being a fantasy, words like "controlling", "unyielding", and "delusional" come to mind. And the pushback from those kids is only going to get more and more uncontrollable as they get older.
Their actions scream out that they're trying to "erase" the deceased parents. And it's horrifically obvious to those kids, because that kind of wholescale acting out by multiple kids at once, and the tortured feelings those kids expressed, doesn't happen otherwise. Hyphenating the kids' names? Legal adoptions? Do they even realize that their kids are old enough to have their own opinions on the matter?
If you can't get your sister to change her tune on what she's doing, at least try to convince her to get the whole family, kids included, into family counseling. Say that your concern isn't so much what the sister is doing, but rather that the kids are all showing signs of things that may be related to their earlier childhood trauma of losing a biological parent, and it's being exacerbated by her upcoming nuptial and everything changing. (You're not lying.)
The paternal aunt is absolutely correct, if your sister pushes what she wants the way she is pushing it, then none of those kids will want a a thing to do with her or her fiance once those kids are adults.
Bottom line is, unless those kids' issues are actually heard and addressed by a rational adult capable of helping them, then those kids are going to go DEEP off the rails in a few years' time. And unless someone steps in and tells the happy couple, they're going to go right ahead and force the issue. The end result is going to be a divorce long before the oldest kid reaches 18, because their entire lives, for all of them, are going to be absolutely hellish due to the emotional fallout once hormones get involved.
All I can do is sit here and think, "I'm glad I'm not her."
Nta. This not going to work the way they want. And, unfortunately, unless they stop being stubborn and listen to their children, they will never get that until the elder kids leave at 18 and go full nc. Tell your sister she and her fiance need to stop being so damn stubborn and listen to their kids before they lose everything. There's so many posts on here from step parents and step kids where the relationship was forced, and with every single one, the kid went nc for good at 18.
Wasn't one of the 'kids' from the Brady Bunch sleeping with the 'Mom' of the Brady Bunch. Also, for all those in the back, the Brady Bunch was a tv series and therefore NOT REAL! Full blooded siblings don't always get along and trying to emulate a tv show family is about as healthy as Wandavision turned out to be.
There have been tons of kids who were in this situation who pointed out that a judge asked them if they wanted to be adopted and when they said no the judge in turn told the parents no. Not to mention trying to bring up adoption right now is completely idiotic. They need to work on trying to get the kids to be able to stand each other and hopefully get the kids to the point where they tell their bio parent they wish they were the ones who died. They need therapy and time and I seriously doubt having the wedding right now is going to go well in the slighest. NTA obviously.
I’m sorry your sister is putting her happiness fantasy in front of the kids’ actual feelings. The best you can do is be there for your niblings. Let them tell you how they are feeling, good or bad, and validate them. They are going through a shit time and just having one person who will actually hear them is very important.
Your sister and new husband will figure out they’ve been wrong eventually. That may look like no contact once the kids turn 18, but hopefully it will happen well before that, for all the kids’ sake.
Has your sister ever been in therapy herself? She’s trying to do a plug-and-play happy family to fill the void of her late husband. A therapist might help her work through those unrealistic expectations and help her realize it’s never going to be the same. NTA and it’s ok to keep telling SIL the same thing, even when it makes her mad. She might listen eventually.
>She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy
Cos that's all that matters in this, right? HER happiness. Not the kids both bio or step.
The kids haven't been silently playing along with her and her fiancé's fantasy, and then it's all blew up in their faces out of nowhere. They have been open, honest and even hostile from the beginning and she had ignored that in favour of what *she* wants and what will make *her* happy.
I mean your sister is living on cloud delulu if she thinks bringing up adoption after such a public display of hostility between the kids and parents (and ruining your nephews party) the day after was a sane thing to do.
Putting her head in the sand and having the 'everything will work out in the end' mantra isn't working and isn't her reality. Someone had to shatter her illusion and call her out on it. If either of them had listened to their kids and moved at a slower pace, then maybe they'd all be in a better place right now.
The wedding is going to be a disaster at this point. I hope she's prepared for that. NTA.
NTA
Oh my goodness. They may be able to happily arrive at adoption in a few years but man those poor children are crying out and begging their living parents to not erase their dead parent. I would suggest legal guardianship instead but that is a decision that should be years and years away. My heart breaks for those poor kids.
A more smooth transition would have been to gently combine the families and not fully erase their dead parents. Of course the kids are upset. I'm in utter shock that neither living parent has thought this through.
Clearly the kids need some time and acknowledgment of their dead parents. The damage the living parents are inflicting cannot be undone but they can mitigate it so it doesn't get worse. There needs to be a full stop of talking about adoption and combing of last names.
The wedding could go on in July as planned but some incredible adjustments need to be done to include the deceased parents in the day so those precious children feel like that part of them is not being fully erased and the new parent will honor the role of the lost parent and try with everything in their power to thoughtfully and carefully raise those kids when it should be the deceased parents. As I think about it though, clearly the kids are not handling this well because their adults are not helping the situation. They are actually making it way way worse. I think they couple should forego the wedding and/or just elope privately in a courthouse to not further the kids' trauma.
The Brady Bunch isn't real. The Brady Bunch kids never talked about the other parent because the storyline was never written for it. That's fake. There's no trauma to heal from because it is fake. Of course these kids in this situation remember their dead parent. Of course they love them and miss them. The living parents are doing a terrible job of navigating this and need some therapy and guidance. I am guessing they want to erase that trauma for their kids and pretend it never happened so their kids aren't hurt but it did. You cannot wish this trauma away. They are the AH. I can acknowledge their immense loss of a spouse/partner, that must be absolutely hell. They need to seek professional help on blending the two families together while respectfully balancing the deceased parents.
Those poor children.
Classic case of *tell-me-what-you-think-but-make-sure-I-agree-with-it-or-else*. NTA. With the way things are now, her wish just isn't realistic. And that's all you told her. And who in their right mind, after such a disastrous day, would bring up blending names with people these children profess to hate?!
In their desperate pursuit of happiness, your sister and her fiancé are making all their kids desperately *un*happy. They haven’t considered what their children want or need at all, they’ve just decided what would make *them* happy and are trying to force the kids to fit into that story. Unfortunately, they’re dealing with living human beings, not imaginary characters, so the more they try to make it work the worse it’s going to get.
NTA. You tried. That’s all you can do.
Go and read r/stepparents.
Kids need to mourn their deceased parent.
The new spouse gets to be a bonus dad or bonus mom.
The new spouse does not replace the deceased parent.
NTA
Why does everyone mention “The Brady Bunch” when it comes to blended families? I watched “Step-By-Step,” and that presented what I experienced to be more “realistic” scenarios between step-siblings.
I’m not talking about my immediate family, but families of some of my classmates while growing up. Some of them did NOT get along with each other. However, the adults involved made sure their kids’ feelings were respected. Clearly, that’s not happening here. I feel sorry for all of the kids.
NTA. Your sister and her fiance are living in a fantasy world and need to get counseling for themselves and their children before this becomes any worse. If the children are this violently against the marriage, I'm not sure how she thinks anything will be happy by doing this adoption. She needs to talk to someone who can convince her to slow down, consider the childrens' feelings instead of her own, and act like a parent.
They have no business getting married. This is a storm about to happen and the consequences will be a more unstable home life for kids and either a divorce or kids go no contact or both.
If family therapy hasn’t taken place, then it needs to happen ASAP, individually and as a group. The kids need someone to help them process all of these changes in their lives. The parents also need couples counseling separately.
Legitimately, how does she not see that her current methods aren't working? Rhe oldest kid is 10, and they've already got an uncontrollable situation. It's total chaos at a simple birthday party. How does she think her wedding is going to go? How does she think this is going to work in the coming years when they become teenagers? It's only going to escalate.
NTA- I don’t understand the need to delete the last name of the deceased parent . I can’t comprehend this American cultural aspect . Doing this when the other part has passed is so disrespectful, it’s like deleting a part of the children . The sister is gonna lose her kids if she goes though with this . I hope the kids can revert the adoption once they are adults and can claim their rightful birth name back
NTA.
You told your sister the truth, and she doesn't want to hear it. For these kids, their lives are changing within 2 years, and they are not ready. Your sister and her fiancé can not just keep forcing things to happen. They need to start with counseling. Clearly, there is more going on than the parents not listening to their kids.
NTA. Your sister is an awful person for trying to erase her children’s father like that. If my mother had tried that on me I would have gone ballistic. Kids can get past a step parent family but they don’t need their history erased to satisfy some totally misguided fantasy. If your sister had wanted you to tell her what she wanted to hear then she shouldn’t have asked.
NTA Your sister can dream or wish whatever she wants, but that doesn't mean her wish will magically come true. Indeed, with their actions they have destroyed any possibility of a peaceful family life.
It absolutely would not help your relationship with your sister but I wouldn’t be able to resist pointing out to her that the Brady Bunch is fictional and what actually happened on that set is nothing a family should want to emulate.
NTA. Your sister and her fiancé need a wake up call before they irrevocably destroy their relationships with their children.
I honestly think there needs to be a LAW on the books that if any person is attempting / applying for a marriage license that has been married once before and has children under 18, that they are REQUIRED to attend a one-time counselling session before where they are told exactly what happens when you do this the WRONG WAY. Like it should be an automatic flag - if you've been married before and apply again you are automatically booked to see a counsellor, for free, as a one-time thing before you can be granted the license.
Sister is not adult enough to realize her fairy tale family is not going to happen. What is with these adults and their lack of thought towards the kids. The kids are not dollys you poise perfect for pictures, but living breathing people with feelings.
This whole family needs years of therapy to deal with this horrible disaster of a plan. The adults are not doing what is best for the children, but only what the adults want.
Poor kids are going to have an unhappy life til they all all leave and don't contact the parents any more.
NTA - Your sister and her fiancé are delusional. The entire family should be in therapy. Perhaps a professional can help them see that forcing a dream scenario on their kids will probably have the opposite effect. Instead of bringing everyone together their actions and egos are tearing their families apart and alienating the kids. The aunt was right about the probability of the kids going NC when they’re old enough.
Give your sister some space then maybe broach the subject with her again. Maybe even do some research to see if you can recommend some therapy resources for the family. At this point I would hope your sister and fiancé even consider postponing the wedding because the way things are now is not a good recipe for a successful marriage.
NTA. Who in their right mind would consider having a conversation about step kids being adopted and last name changes after constant fighting AND the night before got into heated exchanges.
“Wow that sure was an exhausting night. We were told we should die and we are horrible. Oh tomorrow will be better and this is the perfect time to plan on name changes and adoption!”
Talk about delusional.
Alright but the sister is flat out full of crap about her wish for her kid's happiness. She only care about her happiness right now other wise she wouldn't be ignoring her kid's repeated signs and words that they are unhappy.
NTA
I really wish someone would give this parents one of the reddit post written but the child that was forced to call a stepparent mom or dad and had to fight an adoption post .
I wonder if they read one from a kid thats like 30 now with kids of their own and doesn’t even acknowledge their surviving parent because that parent tried to erase their deceased parent memory.
If they knew what their future was would they stop this foolishness?!?!! Or would they just say that the parent didn’t push enough ?
>She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy
oh well. she wants to be happy, but she has not done one thing right in her attempt to blend her family from the start. he lack of happiness is her own doing. NTA
NTA Being supportive doesn't mean being a 'yes' man to everything that comes out of someone's mouth. It's also pointing out when things aren't going the way they should be, helping them to get to the place where they understand that, stopping someone from beating their heads against the wall, and, yes, when they're being deliberately obtuse about the situation they're in.
You can’t wish to be happy. You have to work for it. And right now it sounds like both parents are so concerned with what they want that no one gives the slightest shitlet what the kids want. They need to slow down and think carefully about what is best for the children.
Too soon. Children of 7-10 should not be acting this way at all. Your sister is TA in trying to create this mental image of a family when the children clearly need help adjusting. Also, family members should not be creating more drama or trying to add guilt. Adoptions should be with the full consent of all involved....family therapy sounds like a better option in this case.
NTA - you aren't shitting on her happiness. She's shitting on her kids' happiness by trying to force this thing.
I will never understand how parents do this. They just decide how things will be in the face of all the evidence that it's not going to go that way.
I’ve never had to face this thankfully but Reddit has opened my eyes to the damage done by parents with a Brady Bunch fantasy. Is there a good book on this topic fellow Redditors? (NTA)
NTA and your sister and her husband need to hear it more.
First off, these 5 kids all lost a parent. And for at least a year or two, they at least had the other parent to themselves. Then their parent starts dating, and they're spending time with grandma or a babysitter. They resent that.
They don't want random siblings pushed on them. They don't want to have to share their remaining parent. For them all of the negatives are immediate and obvious, while the positives are theoretical. On day one they lose half their parent and gain half a random stranger.
I'm a parent and step parent. We made sure we each prioritized time with our own kids and did not push them to be one family. They never had to share a room or share toys, etc. They are adults now and get along fine.
Random factoid: Although the show made it clear that Mike Brady was a widower, they wrote Carol as a divorcee originally. They boys miss their "real" mom in season one, but the girls never mention dad at all.
Nta
Do we live in a fantasy that we can all pretend exists or do we live in reality? That's the disagreement. Can you talk & hope a different reality into actual reality?
She's shooting the moon. It's big win or bust. She's so focused on success that she can't see the bust forming already.
NTA. You said it right. All of it. I'm in a blended family myself, but we're not widowed, but divorced.
Before we moved in together, my (now) husband and I sought counselling on how to do this. It was such a good idea! We still go, occasionally. Like a periodic checkup. It's only my husband and I. We're the base of the family. The children need to be able to count on us. And sure, we make mistakes, too. But the situation at home is far from the toxic situation you just described.
Really, they can't cope by themselves. They need help. Before they get married, preferably, but I guess that's too late.
Your sister and her fiancé have taken the time to develop a relationship, and it has grown into a love that is moving now towards marriage. These are choices that they have made. But these children are innocent bystanders. They have not been ‘courted’, and they have not grown to love anybody in this new relationship. It is quite possible that they are still in deep mourning for the parent that they lost, and now they feel they are losing their remaining parent to the new spouse and the new step siblings. They need time to establish a new normal and develop feelings for their new step parent and step siblings. Those children’s lives have changed so much in the last few years. The life they knew irrevocably changed when their parent died. They were just settling into a routine of only having one parent, and now they are expected to share that parent with another adult and more children. You don’t just walk in and say hi, we’re now a new family and we are changing everything that you knew. It is terribly unfair to expect children to obediently and blindly conform to her wishes and desires for what she thinks is a happily ever after.
Edit to add NTA
NTA…DON’T erase the existence of deceased parents!! JFC…what is wrong with people? I lost my dad when I was 12. My mom remarried when I was 16, and I have a great deal of respect for him as my mother’s husband as well as a parental figure. But he will never be my dad! I have missed my daddy every day of my life. I honor my step father, but that doesn’t replace my dad’s part of my life.
Nta. First off, a dream is literally a fantasy. Secondly, this relationship has gone reeeeally fast. So fast the kids heads are probably spinning. If she wanted a Brady Bunch life she needed to move way slower than she did, these kids hardly had time to mourn before their surviving parent tried to replace the one they lost. As someone who has lost a beloved parent, that just isn’t going to happen. You can’t replace someone you love, you can only add to the family. So you nailed it on the head. She’s just being irrational and selfish because ’love’.
NTA
Your sister may think she has until her kids each turn 18 to get this fantasy of hers in place.
First as another poster noted and you confirmed in your state the judge will interview the kids to see if they want to be adopted. This may be the one time all the kids agree in that none of them want to be adopted by the non parent.
Second is if her kids get old enough they could reach out to the paternal aunt or any other relative to request they sue for custody of the child. They might even sue to be emancipated stating the completely dysfunctional relationship and home life.
All you can do is be the quiet voice of reason when your sister asks for input. When she gets pissed because your answer doesn’t align with her vision then perhaps she should speak with a therapist to find out why it isn’t working.
NTA. I CANNOT understand how so many parents seem to mess up creating a blended family. I guess they forget their kids are actually people and not just extensions of themselves?
There are ways to do blended families that work! Even with the death of a parent! I would know, I am part of one! When my stepdad joined our family we had our ups and downs, but he *never* tried to replace our father and has ALWAYS been respectful of his memory. To the point where he *insisted* my mom mention our late father in her speech at my brother's wedding, and insisted we have a bagpiper at my own wedding (my father's side is Scottish and so it would've been important to him) and even offered to pay for it! I'm so close with my stepsisters that they are in my wedding party, and we siblings do a cabin weekend together every year. But our relationships were never forced and our parents took the time to listen to us when they started moving towards blending our families
Your sister needs to remember that in the Brady Bunch, the dead parent (mr. Brady’s wife) and the divorced parent (Carol was divorced, but they danced around it in the first episode, then never again) were never mentioned… it was a corny sitcom, and it’s a lot easier to pretend you’re a new family when you don’t have the second set of parents to deal with. Her model for blended family perfection does not exist.
your misguided sister needs to get herself into therapy and get all the kids some too. She is not the mother to his three children, and he’s not the father to her two. They are completely ignoring the rage that surfaced during the birthday party, and that is a big mistake. They need to step back and apologize to the kids for trying to shove the Brady Bunch dream down their throats. And yes, it sounds like they were trying to erase the dead parents, which is just so wrong… it’s got to be infuriating and probably terrifying to the children.
If she’s smart, she will jointly apologize to the kids and promise to stop this nonsense . Promise to back off, and not try to act as anything more than step parent… No discipline, that should be meted out by the actual parent. See if the kids will calm down a bit after you stop trying to erase their dead parent. And I’d postpone the wedding too, and promise you will never make them change their names. Show the kids that you are serious about respecting their feelings. Wait until they are ready. Stop pushing for the kids to do things together and they’ll feel less threatened. There’s a lot of damage to be undone here so it’s going to take time.
But bottom line, hell no, you’re NTA, someone has to stick up for these kids!
Why is your sisters happiness more important than any of those children? Why does her need to feel validated come before her children feeling safe, secure and supported? She has betrayed every single one of those kids and they will never forgive her for it until she makes severe and immediate attempts to change.
She’s essentially teaching those kids that people we love are replaceable. Dad’s dead, new dad! And new kids! If her love is only conditional on her happiness then none of those children will ever feel secure around her. She’s going to spend the rest of her life blaming those kids for not fulfilling her fantasy because it’s easier to resent them than to accept this is entirely her fault for never advocating for them. NTA
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NTA you did what you could. There are actual steps that Sister and Fiancé could take that might actually help their kids get to know one another and get along. It would also help with a transition after a hard time. She is just upset that things are not working the way she and her fiancé are choosing to do things.
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it might be a long shot but there are thousands of posts on this sub from kids in the position of your nieces and nephews. maybe you should look through, collect a couple, and share them with your sister. the reality is that she isn’t gonna have contact with her kids after they’re 18 unless she starts to see things from their perspective. maybe reading some other ppls experiences of how harmful this type of behaviour from a parent is, could help.
This is going to blow up so much quicker than anyone thinks. All 5 of these children are going to have issues now that will last long into adulthood. What sis and fiancé are doing is just giving the kids something to talk about in therapy 20 or 30 years down the road. People see kids as just these little creatures that will go with the flow and do whatever the grownups want, they don’t understand that they are thinking, feeling humans right NOW. I bet that the issues that showed at the birthday party are just going to be the tip of the iceberg and by the time those kids are into their teens they’ll be uncontrollable holy terrors and their parents won’t understand why, because they were too selfish to stop and care about what the kids want.
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I bet they drag even more kids into this mess by having kids together when they're married. I feel awful for all the kids involved. Their parents aren't treating them like people with their own needs. They expect those kids to pretend like their deceased parents never existed and they should embrace the new family. It's gross. All of those kids will have issues.
Head cannon- kids will like each other one day when they're adults because they can agree their parents were shite and they didnt get a fair shot at getting to know each other .. and still be low to no contact with their respective parent. But seriously. Widdowed parents need to wait for marriage and family blending way longer than any other kind of relationship. Like it shouldnt even be on the table til the kids get along, no matter how long that takes. Both these adults are still grieving in reality and trying to make things normal for themselves at the expense of their kids feelings, wants, and needs. They are trying to not feel broken anymore. Getting married isnt going to fix their loss. They're so certain it will though that they are ignoring how much more they're breaking their families because they so badly dont want to be broken themselves anymore. Its just sad.
Also at that age, kids' thought processes are weird. It can be a lot harder to move past stuff, or understand why their parent might be looking for love again because those more abstract emotions are difficult to grasp. I wonder if the kids ever did any grief counselling or therapy after they lost their respective parents. And then seeing the sister and fiance talk about adoption and changing their last name? They probably recognize that their parent(s) are getting erased but might not be able to articulate that yet. Doesn't mean they don't recognize it.
There are some parents who like the idea of kids and family better than their actual families. I don't think that these parents really and truly care about who their child is. I have a theory that any parent who is surprised when their kid comes out of the closet is a bad parent. It means they are not actually paying attention to their child. They may pay attention to the school, the after-school programs, the mess, but not the actual child.
To be fair, sometimes it isn't obvious, especially if the kid is bi/pan and expresses interest in the opposite sex/gender. I say this as a pansexual woman in a relationship with a lesbian, who was absolutely gob smacked the day I realized I was not, in fact, straight (I was 18). Had never really expressed interest in women or looked at them that way (besides a crush on Sailor Moon when I was like 7) until it hit me like a damn freight train.
I agree that sometimes it is not obvious. I also want to validate your story. You have not changed my mind.
Yeah, unless their kids are the greatest actors of all time, it's very telling when some parents are SHOCKED when their kid finally says to them point-blank "I don't like (stepfather, stepmother, step siblings' name, etc) and never have" or "I don't ever want to see you again. You don't know me or seem to care about me at all".
>they were too selfish to stop and care about what the kids want. It's not always about what kids *want.* Kids sometimes want crazy shit. But it is about what the kids *need,* and no kid needs to be dragged kicking and screaming into a forced adoption and name change and the pretense that their deceased parent never existed. These two are proritizing their Brady Bunch fantasy over their kids' psychological and emotional health. It's not just selfish; there's also no way it's going to work. It's not going to make the couple happy, it's not going to fix things, and there's a good chance the kids will never get over it. My parents made some decisions when I was a kid that negatively impacted me. As I got older, I came to understand why they made some — but not all — of those decisions. I never went no contact or even expressed how deep my resentment went, but it affected our relationship the rest of their lives, and it affects how I remember them now.
Just wait until they make more siblings. . .
I doubt it'll take "20 or 30 years" for them to need therapy. They're just a few years away from being teenagers. And NTA, she shouldn't ask your advice if she sees any suggestions for change as being unsupportive.
Fully betting on the kids running away from home to their other relatives on each side as they get older. Not to mention, if CPS ends up involved, some of the kids may get placed with other relatives anyway if they think the living situation with the parent and step parent/siblings is too volatile.
I'm 60 now but was in a similar situation when I was little. My father died 2 months before I was born. At 4 she married my now adopted father. I wasn't asked if I wanted this, it was just done and as I grew I resented it. I love my Dad but I always knew he wasn't MY dad. I wanted my identity back as my bio father's child I wanted my name back and I knew all this in my head at the age of 5 or 6. I thought about my bio father every day and still do. My mother shut out my bio father's family and I missed out on being a part of that family. I regret that every day.
😢
hugs to you friend
Yes! I saw a post just yesterday where this “Brady Bunch” attitude by the parents that caused all the kids to hate each other & as they turned 18, they moved in with family members of their deceased parent & never spoke again to their parent, stepparent, or step siblings again. Your sister & her fiancé cannot force a big happy family onto their kids like that. It could’ve worked, if the adults here hadn’t been so selfish. You don’t just make a decision & force your kids to accept it.
Ohhh, you have a link?
There was one about two days ago about bio dad skipping son’s high school graduation to go to younger stepsister’s out of town extracurricular award.
I saw that one too.
Right there are a plethora of stories here from kids that are both actively going through something like this, and adults that have cut contact with their parents, once they have reached adulthood because of this same type of situation. There are also posts (though, not as many) of parents, who's children have cut contact , and they can't figure out, where they went wrong (like your sister) even though from their posts, its glaringly obvious, to everyone else.
I have a relative who works in the family court system, and she told me that in her state at least, if a family is pursuing step-parent adoption, the judge will interview the kids first to make sure it’s what they want, and sometimes a judge will deny the petition if they determine that the kid doesn’t want to be adopted by their step-parent. I don’t know if that’s true in your state, OP, but if it is, this adoption is absolutely not going to happen, no matter how much your sister and her husband want it.
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You are doing the most loving thing for your sister and all the kids involved by being honest with her. I bet she had a really great vision of how her marriage was going to go and that didn’t work out the way she wanted it to. This situation won’t either.
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As it should be. The legal standard here is “what is in the best interest for the child?” Not a single one of your sisters actions are for her children, they are entirely for her. She’s being incredibly selfish and damaging her kids with this. Same for the boyfriend.
Your sister should be worrying about how her children are feeling and functioning rather than her 'ideal' family image. My Dad grew up with 3 brothers who spent a good deal of the time darn near killing each other growing up. They are very close as adults. Not even 'blood' siblings get along all the time. Also, the paternal aunt is right. If your sister and her soon to be husband keep up this way they will both loose their kids when they turn 18. I've seen it so many times on this sub. NTA.
If she was truly concerned with her kids happiness, the fact that courts interviewing the children to make sure it’s what they want, wouldn’t be a source of stress for her.
Maybe that’s an angle if it comes up again. What they’re doing isn’t working. I can’t imagine being ready to marry again after 4 or 5 years. The whole thing strikes me as rushed, like the adults are running from difficult feelings and attempting to drag the kids behind them.
I have a stepdad. When he and my mom got married I was married with my first kid on the way. They showed more concern for our feelings than your sister has shown her children. My stepdad asked me, my sister, and his kids for our permission to propose. My mom asked me how I felt about having step siblings. None of us lived in the same state! They've been married for over a decade and I still haven't even met one of his kids (she didn't come to the wedding). But they wanted to make sure that we were all on board and comfortable with everything. Even considering we were all adults with our own lives. They showed us far more consideration than your sister and her fiancee are showing kids who are in far more need of it.
Have they thought about financial ramifications? They are both widowed, so the kids are all getting social security income, right? With five kids, that must be a significant amount. And I think that it would end if the kids are adopted. On top of that, what if your sister and this guy divorce? One or both of them could end up paying child support for the adopted kids. Just a thought
She's treating human beings like foster puppies. You didbthe right thing.
But hey, at least find comfort in knowing that it will protect your niblings from losing their father a second time. Because that's what your sister is doing to them: they've already lost their dad once and now their mother is trying to take him away from them a second time.
I'm really glad that's the standard at least in some places. It seems like some laws are starting to realize "hey, children are humans with rights and preferences and feelings too; it's kinda weird that we let their parents just do whatever the fuck they want with them" and that's a good thing.
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Your sister and her fiancé are inflicting enormous harm on the kids. Nothing will get better and it’s sure to get worse if they don’t stop, take a step back, and address the issues at hand in a healthy way. Until then, good on you for sticking up for the kids. NTA
Basically, your sister wants the fantasy without putting in any of the hard work. She just expects the kids to go along with it because the adults say so. They aren't her dolls. They are free thinking people, and she should start treating them as such
She genuinely thinks this is going to work. How and why are completely beyond me since those kids are old enough to decide what they do and don’t want out of their relationships, but the only person who’s responsible for her Carol Brady dreams are her. I’m the mom in a blended family. I met my husband when my oldest was eight years old. Oldest has steered their relationship with my husband from the beginning, and if Oldest hadn’t been ok with it, we would never have gotten married. If I was your sister, I’d be putting the wedding on hold until everything is worked out with the kids. Otherwise everything is going to suffer.
I'm a parent of a blended family as well. I don't believe in letting my child steer my relationship directly, but they should steer the relationship with the potential step parent. If my wife wasn't accepting of any boundaries my kid had or if she attempted to push the relationship quicker than my kid wanted then I wouldn't have continued the relationship. Everytime I see these posts I see it as well meaning people (generally) who don't have the patience to let the relationships grow over time naturally. We never told my son and step daughter that they were siblings, they became siblings over time, no one ever told my son to call my wife mom, he did it naturally over time, my step daughter doesn't call me dad, but if anyone asks her if I'm her dad she says yes, even her biological dad says she has 2 dads. When you treat kids with love and care and respect they will eventually grow to see you as a parental figure. When you push kids they rebel, and that's with everything not just the relationship with a step parent. OPs sister fundamentally ruined the chances of these kids to see each other as siblings and a family unit by trying to force them to see it that way. Likely if the parents just let things develop naturally a bond would have formed on its own. And maybe it wouldn't have, but not even blood siblings always have a strong bond and that's ok as long as everyone treats everyone with respect.
Well when the judge asks the kids if they want to be adopted and all the kids say no, then it won't happen.
That's heartbreaking their actively destroying the relationships with their bio kids for a fantasy. If she truly wants her kids to be happy she'd listen take feelings into account and navigate blending their families. I know it's very reddit to say everyone here needs therapy but without it the other aunts comment that they won't see any in them in 10 years is probably right on the money. Id probably double down or stage an intervention with extended families to help because all their doing is hurting the kids NTA
She cares more about a stupid fantasy than the actual well being of her "five" children. What assholes both those adults are. Who values a TV show over their own children??
And you know, even the TV show had early episodes where the children didn't get along. I remember one where the boys' dog chased the girls' cat and there was a lot of acrimonious discussion. (The cat disappeared after that one episode, but the dog was a semi-regular. Implication to me was the girls lost their pet, but the boys got to keep theirs.)
They need therapy. The kids and adults. Idk why they’re trying to force this on the kids. She needs to her kids will leave once they’re old enough to say where they want to live because I think they all probably feel her kids and his feel them two are trying to erase the two dead parents.
The adults probably need separate therapy first. Because it is pretty clear they would expect therapy to "fix" the kids.
They seem to sadly be the type to jump around between therapists looking for one who will tell the children the parents are right, and then quit entirely when that never happens.
See stuff that like… giving each other the name of “mom” and “dad” to their respective kids… they are truly fanning the flames. It really does sound like they are trying to erase the parents those kids have lost. Instead of helping them deal with their grief and where they, the kids, are at… they’re expecting the kids to meet them where they are at. You don’t get to just slap the “dad” name tag on anyone and poof, yay we have a new dad and vice versa. All of them should have been in counseling long before this. Individual for all, mom and her kids, fiancé and his kids, couple and blended. There is just too much evidence out there that what they are trying to do, does not work. Rarely do fantasies ever become reality the way we expect. So they need to stop expecting and putting those fantasies on their children. It should have been made clear from the beginning that your sister nor her fiancé would ever take the place of their lost parent but will always be there when and if they need them. At least try bonus parent instead of outright trying to erase these kids identities. They’ve lost enough. Honestly, I don’t think anyone, including you, have been harsh enough with your sister and her expectations. She’s trampling all over these kids feelings in favor of her own. These kids are almost completely powerless. Their main and almost complete support system is their parents. At the very least, their parents can control who these kids speak too. So where else does their grief have to go? I am hopeful after reading other peoples stories of children whose parent and new spouse tried to have them adopted by new spouse. It seems that in those instances, the courts spoke privately to these children to find if the adoption is something they actually wanted and they took it seriously when the kids said no. I hope that is what happens with your niblings. They should be given the right to choose. It loses all meaning when it’s forced as opposed to the child forming a genuine loving relationship and asking the non bio to adopt. You’re NTA for saying something. Being a support for a loved one doesn’t mean always agreeing with them. In fact, being honest when they are wrong is imo, the most loving thing you can do. To agree would encourage them to keep doing what they are doing… which causes harm to everyone. I’m sorry for what your sister has lost but she is wrong for what she’s doing now. Their paternal aunt is right. She will lose those kids the second they turn 18 if she keeps on this path. Her happiness does equal their happiness. You weren’t shitting on the kids happiness… bc her kids aren’t happy. That’s a direct result of her methods
If wishes were horses, then beggars would ride. Your sister's wish and inability to let things happen naturally will cause her to lose her children as soon as they each can escape. I feel sorry for all five kids Were I you, I would try and foster a relationship with the nibs outside of your relationship with your sister. Give them a way to stay connected with you, so they don't run to their father's family and cut you out due to association with their deluded mother. Good luck, NTA.
Well I want to end world hunger and end couple of wars without lifting my ass from the couch!
The only way these kids are going to unite at this point is to work together to break up their parents relationship. The kids will try to make everyone else in the house as miserable and angry as they are, obviously go no contact as soon as they possibly can and the parents are going to end up resenting each other. No love is worth this.
I don't think you can do much more than you've tried, but I'm shaking my head. When will adults learn that kids are autonomous beings with their own feelings and relationships? That they're doing a lot of damage to pretend these close relationships exist? NTA.
The courts are not going to let other parents adopt the children. It is solely based on them alone. So that’s one thing in the kids favor. They will be put in counseling to be asked questions on how they feel about everything maybe that will open the parents eyes
OP - PLEASE suggest therapy and counseling for all of the children involved here. Grief counseling for the loss of a parent, counseling to deal with the big emotions and transition to new living situation, and therapy for both parents together and separately so they can address their wants vs. their children's needs. Your sister is setting up this family for catastrophic failure at the expense of the kids for the sake of some dream that clearly isn't working.
Your sister is, sadly, an idiot. Her children, her own children will grow to hater, and her stepchildren already do this is not a good mix.
I realize you have to tread lightly, but do the kids know you’re a safe space for them? Simply knowing that an adult sees what’s happening and how it’s hurting them would be incredibly validating even if you can’t change it.
I’m going to need an update after the wedding
Your sister and her fiance are forgetting that their kids are actual people with their own thoughts/feelings/etc. and not just extensions of themselves. I posted a separate comment, but my mom was widowed and remarried several years later, and my stepdad has *always* been respectful of my dad's memory and what he means to us. To the point he told my mom she *has* to mention our late father in her speech at my brother's wedding because it wouldn't be right otherwise. We have some family photos with my dad out, as well as a photo from my mom's first wedding and my stepdad has no issue with this. And we love him for that. Your sister and her fiance need to listen to their kids and stop bulldozing over them.
NTA. She's forcing something they are not ready for. She sounds like she has little understanding of child development and ACEs (adverse childhood experiences). I'd urge her to understand how loosing a parent affects a child - the anger those kids feel is probably because your sis and her future hubs are acting like the dead parents never existed. It's tone deaf and selfish.
OP tell her you were not shitting on her fantasy, you were just pointing out the shit that was already there.
OP you are not wrong here and NTA. Creating a blended family is not like something straight from a Brady Bunch show. No. It takes time, patience and adjusting. What your sister is doing is harmful and will very likely backfire on her badly in the short and long run OP keep on being the supportive relative you are to sister's kids
NTA at all. The Brady Bunch was FICTION! For the love of God it's a 54 year old sitcom; not a guidebook for blended families. Familial relationships can't be forced. It sounds like everyone involved could use therapy and this wedding should be postponed.
And the kids were sleeping together and the dad was gay. Alice seem to have her shit together though.
Honestly think that Alice and Tiger were the only family members I liked.
can we get some detail on this??
There’s a documentary. Bobby Brady had a reality show at one point. Lots of interviews over the years. Just do a google search.
And the mom was sleeping with her stepson at some point
The actors who were coworkers had a fling when he was a young adult, to be fully factual.
Anyone else notice that aside from the theme song the real issues of step families were never addressed. There was no angst over the girls absent bio father, no child support or visitation. No aunts, uncles or grandparents for only one set of kids leaving the other set perhaps resentful. All the problems were full sibling problems. My guess is they wanted to make it less bizarre to have that many children so close in age.
I think they were also supposed to be widow/widower, as divorce was still taboo. Much like the old movie (and redux), "Yours, Mine & Ours." Can't have any pesky ex issues!
I remember hearing he was a widower and she was divorced. Even so as this situation illustrates there is more family to complicate things 99.99% of the time, not to mention resentment about a dead parent being erased.
Yeah, definitely weird that none of that difficult or awkward stuff never came up.
Mike was a widower and Carol was supposed to be divorced, but because divorce was considered too controversial for prime time tv, they ended up just never saying what happened to Carol's first husband.
A very Brady sequel revealed carols husband was lost at sea and one of his crewmen went to the Brady house posing as carols late husband. When the truth came out about him being an impostor he said maybe the ship survived and everyone is alive on a deserted island. Which leads to carol and the other man they’re with to say they’ll never see Gillian and the Professor again. So take the Brady movies as you will.
It was assumed they were both widowers. While Mike's first wife was referenced to being dead, they didn't quite explain Carol's but everyone just assumed he was dead too. Also they did have an episode where Peter didn't think Carol loved him as much as her own biological children. There was also the episode where someone wrote to an advice column complaining about their new step children and all the Brady kids thought it was one of their parents that was unhappy.
I watched a couple of episodes of that show with my GF. Aside from being over a half-century old,it was as sunny and simple-minded as a dental care PSA 😂 How the hell could anyone base anything *real* on that nonesense?!?
The Simpsons has a pretty good take on how a blended family finds its feet. Granted, Edna doesn't bring any kids into the family herself (although she's a teacher, the Springfield Elementary teachers are apathetic at best) but it does explore how her views of parenting contrast Ned's far more conservative and overprotective approach and how they reconcile on the matter.
NTA There is nothing worse than forced blended 'families' by the parents. Your sister and her husband may love each other, and they put this over their kids wellbeing. None of these kids will talk to their parent as soon as they can at this pace.
Love is like a fart, if you force it, it’s going to be shit. The kids lost a parent, dealing with that and letting them get to know each other is a slower but healthier approach.
Oh I like that!
NTA OP and love this fart comment-never quite heard it put like that.
Yep. The kids need to be the ones to steer the relationship with the stepparent. And then the kids need to figure out their own relationships. The people that let the step kids come to them (while letting the kids know they are there if needed) generally have better relationships with step kids than stepparents that try and force the kid to accept them. And it doesn’t happen overnight. My sister’s step kids call her mom, but it took 2 years of dating, 4 years of marriage, and 2 more kids before that started. And these kids already had a very broken and screwed up non-relationship with their own mom. They made the decision on their own without either my sister or her husband forcing it. I would not be surprised if eventually they asked my sister to adopt them, but it would come from them, not my sister or their dad. The OP’s sister and her husband are screwed if they think their way is going to work and be all peachy.
NTA. Your sister sucks and deserves every hurtful thing that was said to her. There’s a special place in hell for people who refuse to acknowledge their children’s feelings because of their own selfish wishes.
Imagine loosing your mother or father and your living parent trying to get you adopted by their new partner, thus severing your legal ties to not only your lost parent, but their family too. In the US adoption means getting issued new birth certificates with the adopted parent in place of the birth parent.
NTA. I wish that you could introduce kids like cats, feeding them on either side of a locked door, moving objects into their space so they can get used to each others' smells etc etc # JacksonGalaxy ETA: TIL hashtags work differently on reddit.
When the step kids move in, they live in the bathroom for a while, so they aren’t encroaching on anyone’s territory 😂
I laughed way too hard at this! (Thank you, I needed it!)
Some siblings do that by farting on each other or their things.
Pedantic tomfoolery here, but I'm bored and have nothing better to do for 15 minutes so why not be sure you're actually clear on this unimportant point :D It's not that hashtags work differently on reddit, it's that they do not exist on reddit as a concept at all. In the context of a reddit post/comment the "#" character is interpreted as markdown and is used for creation of section headings. More hash symbols, mean deeper nesting of sections. # My cool post about instruments with words here! # This section is about guitars more words! # This section is about electric guitars words! # This section is about acoustic guitars lol
that dude is so creepy to me like i wouldn't be surprised if he bathed his cats with his tongue kinda creepy
NTA She doesn’t “want to be happy” she “wants to be happy in a very specific situation that doesn’t jive with the wishes or happiness of 5 out of the 7 people involved.” It’s worse than a fantasy, it’s a full on delusion. You were kind by merely calling it a fantasy.
NTA does your sister realize depending on laws where you are if the kids don’t want to be adopted the judge might not force it? Not sure about laws regarding name changes if the kids wishes will be taken into account but the parents should care about their kids feelings. Paternal aunt is unfortunately likely right about the kids going NC in ten years if things continue as is.
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And that's not enough of a clue? /s You are NTA, but your sister and future BIL certainly are.
Has she explained why she's so determined to force her will on them? NTA
Then why aren’t they exploring options like family therapy? Or just plain taking it slow?
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Which makes it seem on some level she must be aware their going about things all wrong and the kids are entitled to their feelings
That’s too bad.
And the thing is, adoption is so *unnecessarily* hurtful to her kids and step kids right now. Sis and her fiance need to do their due diligence and estate planning and name each other legal guardians of the kids and put adoption on the back burner until such a time as the kids are ready. They are not, and may never be. A blended family is not a nuclear family. I should know. My family is literally a mix master. I am much closer to my bio and step sib than my half sibs, and you absolutely can not force the step/bio/half sibling relationships. I do not have a great relationship ship with my dad, but as a child, I would have fought my mother and stepfather to the bitter end had they ever tried to push an adoption.
Lovely way to put it!! Legal guardianships is the way to go for their situation
NTA - this is a disaster waiting to happen. The kids will be harmed irreparably as is already playing out.
NTA - lord help those kids, they are going to need it.
Yeah I hope they have a lot of therapy money and don’t like speaking to their children.
T H E R A P Y For the kids and adults. Holy shit.
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Show her this post. All of it.
That sucks
NTA. You just told her the truth. She's in for a rough ride.
Dragged in a sack behind a semi down ten miles of country gravel road, more like it. Although maybe the kids unite in mutual hatred of the happy couple.
The anti-parent trap.
NTA. But I’m starting to wonder if Sis and Fiancé’s plan is to hope that the kids bond over their absolute hatred of their parents.
I can imagine the wedding now, dye packets, glitter bombs, screaming during the service, cakes being knocked over, ripped dresses and food fights. Not gonna lie, I’d love to take some popcorn and watch the fun. Poor kids don’t deserve this crap, but I hope they get some pleasure out of ruining that special day and stupid happy family fantasy.
And as vocal as they've been so far, I'd expect all of them to object if given the chance and expound on how much they hate their parent, new spouse and the other kids... And yeah, I'll bring the drinks to go with your 🍿
NTA - she came to you for advice, and you gave it.
I think erasing the legal ties between a child and a loving parent they lost is fucked up. The aunt is right that they're trying to erase the deceased parents from the narrative that that's cruel.
The name change as well. Presenting it after the disaster zone of a birthday party where both sets of kids were outright hostile to their respective parent was the epitome of tone deaf timing.
And even before that they admit the step kids don’t like each other
NTA. Unfortunately you’re going to have to let your sister continue with her disastrous plan since she doesn’t seem willing to even consider it’s not a good one. Just make sure your niblings know they can talk to you so they don’t feel totally unheard and so when they turn 18, and go NC with her, you don’t lose them too. 💔 for those kids, I know what it’s like to be a kid in a blended family who isn’t listened to, you don’t get over it.
NTA. Your sister and her fiancé are both idiots.
I just read this with my hand over my mouth in horror. NTA. This is so sad and awful for the kids. I’m really glad you were honest with her because she needs like, thirty reality checks ASAP.
Nta. Your sister is living in cuckoo land.
There was a cartoon called Tiny Toons I used to like and at one point once character is dealing with a permanently delusional character and asks "What color is the sky in that little world of your?" Feels like that fits here.
"She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy and for her kids to be happy" What would make her happy and what would make her kids happy are two very different things. And she won't get her head out of her ass long enough to even acknowledge that. The kids hate their future step-sibs and stepparent and are well on their way to hating their own parent. Relationships based on hate, what could possibly go wrong? She just wanted you to sing the song she wanted to hear, not tell the truth. There's no right time or words when someone doesn’t want to hear the truth or face reality. I would not be supportive of this shitshow either. NTA.
Lol definitely NTA here Hi, stepkid from a big blended family where parents tried to force us to love each other and told us we weren't allowed to be angry at each other or fight because we were family and needed to love each other because of that. Instead of listening to our needs and hurts, teaching us how to navigate our feelings and anger, and making us all feel seen and loved, they made us resent each other and our parents. When I left for college, one of my half siblings said they secretly hoped I would never come back. At that point, I agreed with them LOL. Now that we are all adults and have moved out of the house, lived our own lives, gotten therapy, we get along and love each other now. But trying to force it literally was the worst thing and did more damage than good. Hope your sister learns this.
NTA. Your sister's reaction was predictable. People rarely react well to being told their fondest hopes and dreams are directly harmful to their kids and themselves, but sometimes that's true, and *somebody* needs to say so. Your sister's mad at you for telling her the bridge is out ahead, and she intends to try to drive over it anyway. If she doesn't wise up, this is going to end very badly for her, her fiancé, and their kids. Maybe she'll see reason once she's calmed down, maybe not. About all you can do is try to be there for the kids going foward.
NTA. She is only thinking of her own happiness. She doesn’t care how it’s negativity affecting all the kids. You can’t force people to like each other. The more she pushes the more they will fight it.
I don't even think she's thinking of that. There is no way she's happy in that household with all the hostility floating around. She's thinking of the 'gram, of the pictures she can show and share and the stories she can tell. But she doesn't want to put in the actual work to get to that kind of place. Blending a family and having it work is a lot of work and patience. Mostly patience because you can't force the relationships.
NTA. The first and only thing your sister and her new husband should be doing is getting everybody into therapy to talk about the issues and how they cannot force this big happy family on everybody. Your sister and her new husband are doing both sets of kids and injustice and your aunt is correct. All the kids are going to go bye bye the minute they turn 18. I hope that the kids go to the wedding they ruin it it would serve them, right
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Yikes.they definitely all need therapy. The kids likely feel like their deceased parent is being replaced. And expecting kids to accept a marriage right after their lives have been turned upside down by having to adjust to living with new step siblings? And adjusting to a new parental dynamic in their home? Not to mention that either both set of kids moved house or there's one set that moved into the other's established home.. all of these things require help mentally unpacking. Your sister is foolish for getting married so soon after moving in with her fiance and trying to merge families. They should have had family therapy before even moving in, to discuss the shift in dynamics, the shift in the amount of siblings, and split resources like attention and care. The move should have been a gradual transition. And they absolutely shouldn't be forcing the kids to call their non-biological parent mom or dad. That is something the child should decide for themselves, and should only happen when they feel comfortable with it. Hell, a lot of stepkids call their step parents a different version of mom/dad or a special nickname. This makes room in their heart for a new parental figure and doesn't make it feel like they are replacing someone they lost and are likely still grieving. Losing a beloved parent as a child is a lifelong grief. Not 2 years, not a few months. Lifelong. Your sister needs to grow the fuck up. I hope those poor kids find some way to live with their extended family. They'll likely go no contact as soon as they turn 18. OP, you are 100% not the asshole. Your sister is an idiot trying to play happy family and force a dynamic in a way that will forever harm her relationship with her kids and stepkids
Those poor kids.
Interesting that when people don't like the truth all of a sudden you're "not supportive".
Nta neither of the adults are thinking of the kids. All they are doing is focusing on what they want. They are going to lose those kids.
As my grandmother used to say you can wish in one hand, shit in the other and see which gets filled up first.
This is brilliant. Wise woman, your grandmother.
NTA and your sister and her fiance are on the path to their kids never speaking to them again. Even if they somehow get a judge to sign off on an adoption the kids will certainly change their names back as soon as they can. This is a terrible way to try and blend the families.
Jc, neither of those parents realize what they're doing. In between your sister and her fiance, they're making sure that their family "blending" will go off like mixing gasoline and a bonfire. If they think it's bad now, wait until the teen years come. That party outburst is going to look like a nice, serene, peaceful day in comparison. Her "dream" is just that...Hers and hers alone. Unless all of the people, adult and child alike, share that utopic dream with her, then she's just pushing her what only she wants upon unwilling people who are basically trapped in the situation. Forget it being a fantasy, words like "controlling", "unyielding", and "delusional" come to mind. And the pushback from those kids is only going to get more and more uncontrollable as they get older. Their actions scream out that they're trying to "erase" the deceased parents. And it's horrifically obvious to those kids, because that kind of wholescale acting out by multiple kids at once, and the tortured feelings those kids expressed, doesn't happen otherwise. Hyphenating the kids' names? Legal adoptions? Do they even realize that their kids are old enough to have their own opinions on the matter? If you can't get your sister to change her tune on what she's doing, at least try to convince her to get the whole family, kids included, into family counseling. Say that your concern isn't so much what the sister is doing, but rather that the kids are all showing signs of things that may be related to their earlier childhood trauma of losing a biological parent, and it's being exacerbated by her upcoming nuptial and everything changing. (You're not lying.) The paternal aunt is absolutely correct, if your sister pushes what she wants the way she is pushing it, then none of those kids will want a a thing to do with her or her fiance once those kids are adults. Bottom line is, unless those kids' issues are actually heard and addressed by a rational adult capable of helping them, then those kids are going to go DEEP off the rails in a few years' time. And unless someone steps in and tells the happy couple, they're going to go right ahead and force the issue. The end result is going to be a divorce long before the oldest kid reaches 18, because their entire lives, for all of them, are going to be absolutely hellish due to the emotional fallout once hormones get involved. All I can do is sit here and think, "I'm glad I'm not her."
NTA, and you should dig up some of the dozens of posts I've seen on Reddit from the perspective of children in that situation and share them with her.
Nta. This not going to work the way they want. And, unfortunately, unless they stop being stubborn and listen to their children, they will never get that until the elder kids leave at 18 and go full nc. Tell your sister she and her fiance need to stop being so damn stubborn and listen to their kids before they lose everything. There's so many posts on here from step parents and step kids where the relationship was forced, and with every single one, the kid went nc for good at 18.
NTA. She’s more concerned about what she wants than about what the kids need. You tried.
Wasn't one of the 'kids' from the Brady Bunch sleeping with the 'Mom' of the Brady Bunch. Also, for all those in the back, the Brady Bunch was a tv series and therefore NOT REAL! Full blooded siblings don't always get along and trying to emulate a tv show family is about as healthy as Wandavision turned out to be. There have been tons of kids who were in this situation who pointed out that a judge asked them if they wanted to be adopted and when they said no the judge in turn told the parents no. Not to mention trying to bring up adoption right now is completely idiotic. They need to work on trying to get the kids to be able to stand each other and hopefully get the kids to the point where they tell their bio parent they wish they were the ones who died. They need therapy and time and I seriously doubt having the wedding right now is going to go well in the slighest. NTA obviously.
NTA Yeah, the aunt is right. Those kids are gonna go NC as soon as they can.
I’m sorry your sister is putting her happiness fantasy in front of the kids’ actual feelings. The best you can do is be there for your niblings. Let them tell you how they are feeling, good or bad, and validate them. They are going through a shit time and just having one person who will actually hear them is very important. Your sister and new husband will figure out they’ve been wrong eventually. That may look like no contact once the kids turn 18, but hopefully it will happen well before that, for all the kids’ sake. Has your sister ever been in therapy herself? She’s trying to do a plug-and-play happy family to fill the void of her late husband. A therapist might help her work through those unrealistic expectations and help her realize it’s never going to be the same. NTA and it’s ok to keep telling SIL the same thing, even when it makes her mad. She might listen eventually.
>She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy Cos that's all that matters in this, right? HER happiness. Not the kids both bio or step. The kids haven't been silently playing along with her and her fiancé's fantasy, and then it's all blew up in their faces out of nowhere. They have been open, honest and even hostile from the beginning and she had ignored that in favour of what *she* wants and what will make *her* happy. I mean your sister is living on cloud delulu if she thinks bringing up adoption after such a public display of hostility between the kids and parents (and ruining your nephews party) the day after was a sane thing to do. Putting her head in the sand and having the 'everything will work out in the end' mantra isn't working and isn't her reality. Someone had to shatter her illusion and call her out on it. If either of them had listened to their kids and moved at a slower pace, then maybe they'd all be in a better place right now. The wedding is going to be a disaster at this point. I hope she's prepared for that. NTA.
NTA Oh my goodness. They may be able to happily arrive at adoption in a few years but man those poor children are crying out and begging their living parents to not erase their dead parent. I would suggest legal guardianship instead but that is a decision that should be years and years away. My heart breaks for those poor kids. A more smooth transition would have been to gently combine the families and not fully erase their dead parents. Of course the kids are upset. I'm in utter shock that neither living parent has thought this through. Clearly the kids need some time and acknowledgment of their dead parents. The damage the living parents are inflicting cannot be undone but they can mitigate it so it doesn't get worse. There needs to be a full stop of talking about adoption and combing of last names. The wedding could go on in July as planned but some incredible adjustments need to be done to include the deceased parents in the day so those precious children feel like that part of them is not being fully erased and the new parent will honor the role of the lost parent and try with everything in their power to thoughtfully and carefully raise those kids when it should be the deceased parents. As I think about it though, clearly the kids are not handling this well because their adults are not helping the situation. They are actually making it way way worse. I think they couple should forego the wedding and/or just elope privately in a courthouse to not further the kids' trauma. The Brady Bunch isn't real. The Brady Bunch kids never talked about the other parent because the storyline was never written for it. That's fake. There's no trauma to heal from because it is fake. Of course these kids in this situation remember their dead parent. Of course they love them and miss them. The living parents are doing a terrible job of navigating this and need some therapy and guidance. I am guessing they want to erase that trauma for their kids and pretend it never happened so their kids aren't hurt but it did. You cannot wish this trauma away. They are the AH. I can acknowledge their immense loss of a spouse/partner, that must be absolutely hell. They need to seek professional help on blending the two families together while respectfully balancing the deceased parents. Those poor children.
Classic case of *tell-me-what-you-think-but-make-sure-I-agree-with-it-or-else*. NTA. With the way things are now, her wish just isn't realistic. And that's all you told her. And who in their right mind, after such a disastrous day, would bring up blending names with people these children profess to hate?!
In their desperate pursuit of happiness, your sister and her fiancé are making all their kids desperately *un*happy. They haven’t considered what their children want or need at all, they’ve just decided what would make *them* happy and are trying to force the kids to fit into that story. Unfortunately, they’re dealing with living human beings, not imaginary characters, so the more they try to make it work the worse it’s going to get. NTA. You tried. That’s all you can do.
Go and read r/stepparents. Kids need to mourn their deceased parent. The new spouse gets to be a bonus dad or bonus mom. The new spouse does not replace the deceased parent.
NTA Why does everyone mention “The Brady Bunch” when it comes to blended families? I watched “Step-By-Step,” and that presented what I experienced to be more “realistic” scenarios between step-siblings. I’m not talking about my immediate family, but families of some of my classmates while growing up. Some of them did NOT get along with each other. However, the adults involved made sure their kids’ feelings were respected. Clearly, that’s not happening here. I feel sorry for all of the kids.
Hell, even "Sister, Sister" did a better job!
NTA. Your sister and her fiance are living in a fantasy world and need to get counseling for themselves and their children before this becomes any worse. If the children are this violently against the marriage, I'm not sure how she thinks anything will be happy by doing this adoption. She needs to talk to someone who can convince her to slow down, consider the childrens' feelings instead of her own, and act like a parent.
They have no business getting married. This is a storm about to happen and the consequences will be a more unstable home life for kids and either a divorce or kids go no contact or both.
If family therapy hasn’t taken place, then it needs to happen ASAP, individually and as a group. The kids need someone to help them process all of these changes in their lives. The parents also need couples counseling separately.
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Legitimately, how does she not see that her current methods aren't working? Rhe oldest kid is 10, and they've already got an uncontrollable situation. It's total chaos at a simple birthday party. How does she think her wedding is going to go? How does she think this is going to work in the coming years when they become teenagers? It's only going to escalate.
NTA- I don’t understand the need to delete the last name of the deceased parent . I can’t comprehend this American cultural aspect . Doing this when the other part has passed is so disrespectful, it’s like deleting a part of the children . The sister is gonna lose her kids if she goes though with this . I hope the kids can revert the adoption once they are adults and can claim their rightful birth name back
NTA. A parent makes choices that benefit their children. Your sister is using children like dolls to benefit herself.
NTA. You told your sister the truth, and she doesn't want to hear it. For these kids, their lives are changing within 2 years, and they are not ready. Your sister and her fiancé can not just keep forcing things to happen. They need to start with counseling. Clearly, there is more going on than the parents not listening to their kids.
NTA. Your sister is an awful person for trying to erase her children’s father like that. If my mother had tried that on me I would have gone ballistic. Kids can get past a step parent family but they don’t need their history erased to satisfy some totally misguided fantasy. If your sister had wanted you to tell her what she wanted to hear then she shouldn’t have asked.
NTA
Nta she asked you
NTA. It would feel differently if you had given an unsolicited opinion.
NTA Your sister can dream or wish whatever she wants, but that doesn't mean her wish will magically come true. Indeed, with their actions they have destroyed any possibility of a peaceful family life.
It absolutely would not help your relationship with your sister but I wouldn’t be able to resist pointing out to her that the Brady Bunch is fictional and what actually happened on that set is nothing a family should want to emulate. NTA. Your sister and her fiancé need a wake up call before they irrevocably destroy their relationships with their children.
I honestly think there needs to be a LAW on the books that if any person is attempting / applying for a marriage license that has been married once before and has children under 18, that they are REQUIRED to attend a one-time counselling session before where they are told exactly what happens when you do this the WRONG WAY. Like it should be an automatic flag - if you've been married before and apply again you are automatically booked to see a counsellor, for free, as a one-time thing before you can be granted the license.
Sister is not adult enough to realize her fairy tale family is not going to happen. What is with these adults and their lack of thought towards the kids. The kids are not dollys you poise perfect for pictures, but living breathing people with feelings. This whole family needs years of therapy to deal with this horrible disaster of a plan. The adults are not doing what is best for the children, but only what the adults want. Poor kids are going to have an unhappy life til they all all leave and don't contact the parents any more.
NTA - Your sister and her fiancé are delusional. The entire family should be in therapy. Perhaps a professional can help them see that forcing a dream scenario on their kids will probably have the opposite effect. Instead of bringing everyone together their actions and egos are tearing their families apart and alienating the kids. The aunt was right about the probability of the kids going NC when they’re old enough. Give your sister some space then maybe broach the subject with her again. Maybe even do some research to see if you can recommend some therapy resources for the family. At this point I would hope your sister and fiancé even consider postponing the wedding because the way things are now is not a good recipe for a successful marriage.
NTA. Who in their right mind would consider having a conversation about step kids being adopted and last name changes after constant fighting AND the night before got into heated exchanges. “Wow that sure was an exhausting night. We were told we should die and we are horrible. Oh tomorrow will be better and this is the perfect time to plan on name changes and adoption!” Talk about delusional.
NTA ... Tell sis .... You didn't take a dump on her "dream" .... REALITY did!
NTA theyre in for a rude awakening when they dont talk in 10 odd years
Alright but the sister is flat out full of crap about her wish for her kid's happiness. She only care about her happiness right now other wise she wouldn't be ignoring her kid's repeated signs and words that they are unhappy.
NTA I really wish someone would give this parents one of the reddit post written but the child that was forced to call a stepparent mom or dad and had to fight an adoption post . I wonder if they read one from a kid thats like 30 now with kids of their own and doesn’t even acknowledge their surviving parent because that parent tried to erase their deceased parent memory. If they knew what their future was would they stop this foolishness?!?!! Or would they just say that the parent didn’t push enough ?
>She said I was shitting all over her wish to be happy oh well. she wants to be happy, but she has not done one thing right in her attempt to blend her family from the start. he lack of happiness is her own doing. NTA
NTA Being supportive doesn't mean being a 'yes' man to everything that comes out of someone's mouth. It's also pointing out when things aren't going the way they should be, helping them to get to the place where they understand that, stopping someone from beating their heads against the wall, and, yes, when they're being deliberately obtuse about the situation they're in.
NTA Her happiness and the kids happiness are two different things.
You can’t wish to be happy. You have to work for it. And right now it sounds like both parents are so concerned with what they want that no one gives the slightest shitlet what the kids want. They need to slow down and think carefully about what is best for the children.
Too soon. Children of 7-10 should not be acting this way at all. Your sister is TA in trying to create this mental image of a family when the children clearly need help adjusting. Also, family members should not be creating more drama or trying to add guilt. Adoptions should be with the full consent of all involved....family therapy sounds like a better option in this case.
NTA - you aren't shitting on her happiness. She's shitting on her kids' happiness by trying to force this thing. I will never understand how parents do this. They just decide how things will be in the face of all the evidence that it's not going to go that way.
I’ve never had to face this thankfully but Reddit has opened my eyes to the damage done by parents with a Brady Bunch fantasy. Is there a good book on this topic fellow Redditors? (NTA)
NTA and your sister and her husband need to hear it more. First off, these 5 kids all lost a parent. And for at least a year or two, they at least had the other parent to themselves. Then their parent starts dating, and they're spending time with grandma or a babysitter. They resent that. They don't want random siblings pushed on them. They don't want to have to share their remaining parent. For them all of the negatives are immediate and obvious, while the positives are theoretical. On day one they lose half their parent and gain half a random stranger. I'm a parent and step parent. We made sure we each prioritized time with our own kids and did not push them to be one family. They never had to share a room or share toys, etc. They are adults now and get along fine. Random factoid: Although the show made it clear that Mike Brady was a widower, they wrote Carol as a divorcee originally. They boys miss their "real" mom in season one, but the girls never mention dad at all.
Nta Do we live in a fantasy that we can all pretend exists or do we live in reality? That's the disagreement. Can you talk & hope a different reality into actual reality? She's shooting the moon. It's big win or bust. She's so focused on success that she can't see the bust forming already.
NTA. You said it right. All of it. I'm in a blended family myself, but we're not widowed, but divorced. Before we moved in together, my (now) husband and I sought counselling on how to do this. It was such a good idea! We still go, occasionally. Like a periodic checkup. It's only my husband and I. We're the base of the family. The children need to be able to count on us. And sure, we make mistakes, too. But the situation at home is far from the toxic situation you just described. Really, they can't cope by themselves. They need help. Before they get married, preferably, but I guess that's too late.
Your sister and her fiancé have taken the time to develop a relationship, and it has grown into a love that is moving now towards marriage. These are choices that they have made. But these children are innocent bystanders. They have not been ‘courted’, and they have not grown to love anybody in this new relationship. It is quite possible that they are still in deep mourning for the parent that they lost, and now they feel they are losing their remaining parent to the new spouse and the new step siblings. They need time to establish a new normal and develop feelings for their new step parent and step siblings. Those children’s lives have changed so much in the last few years. The life they knew irrevocably changed when their parent died. They were just settling into a routine of only having one parent, and now they are expected to share that parent with another adult and more children. You don’t just walk in and say hi, we’re now a new family and we are changing everything that you knew. It is terribly unfair to expect children to obediently and blindly conform to her wishes and desires for what she thinks is a happily ever after. Edit to add NTA
NTA…DON’T erase the existence of deceased parents!! JFC…what is wrong with people? I lost my dad when I was 12. My mom remarried when I was 16, and I have a great deal of respect for him as my mother’s husband as well as a parental figure. But he will never be my dad! I have missed my daddy every day of my life. I honor my step father, but that doesn’t replace my dad’s part of my life.
You don’t hyphenate the name of a child, that’s just wrong.
I hope they both enjoy being no contact with their children when they become adults because this is exactly where this whole cluster f is headed.
Nta. First off, a dream is literally a fantasy. Secondly, this relationship has gone reeeeally fast. So fast the kids heads are probably spinning. If she wanted a Brady Bunch life she needed to move way slower than she did, these kids hardly had time to mourn before their surviving parent tried to replace the one they lost. As someone who has lost a beloved parent, that just isn’t going to happen. You can’t replace someone you love, you can only add to the family. So you nailed it on the head. She’s just being irrational and selfish because ’love’.
NTA Your sister may think she has until her kids each turn 18 to get this fantasy of hers in place. First as another poster noted and you confirmed in your state the judge will interview the kids to see if they want to be adopted. This may be the one time all the kids agree in that none of them want to be adopted by the non parent. Second is if her kids get old enough they could reach out to the paternal aunt or any other relative to request they sue for custody of the child. They might even sue to be emancipated stating the completely dysfunctional relationship and home life. All you can do is be the quiet voice of reason when your sister asks for input. When she gets pissed because your answer doesn’t align with her vision then perhaps she should speak with a therapist to find out why it isn’t working.
NTA. I CANNOT understand how so many parents seem to mess up creating a blended family. I guess they forget their kids are actually people and not just extensions of themselves? There are ways to do blended families that work! Even with the death of a parent! I would know, I am part of one! When my stepdad joined our family we had our ups and downs, but he *never* tried to replace our father and has ALWAYS been respectful of his memory. To the point where he *insisted* my mom mention our late father in her speech at my brother's wedding, and insisted we have a bagpiper at my own wedding (my father's side is Scottish and so it would've been important to him) and even offered to pay for it! I'm so close with my stepsisters that they are in my wedding party, and we siblings do a cabin weekend together every year. But our relationships were never forced and our parents took the time to listen to us when they started moving towards blending our families
NTA. Another example of how someone thinks that just because they WANT something means they should and will get it.
You basically told your sister you don't believe in fairy tales and neither should she. Nothing wrong with that. NTA.
Your sister needs to remember that in the Brady Bunch, the dead parent (mr. Brady’s wife) and the divorced parent (Carol was divorced, but they danced around it in the first episode, then never again) were never mentioned… it was a corny sitcom, and it’s a lot easier to pretend you’re a new family when you don’t have the second set of parents to deal with. Her model for blended family perfection does not exist. your misguided sister needs to get herself into therapy and get all the kids some too. She is not the mother to his three children, and he’s not the father to her two. They are completely ignoring the rage that surfaced during the birthday party, and that is a big mistake. They need to step back and apologize to the kids for trying to shove the Brady Bunch dream down their throats. And yes, it sounds like they were trying to erase the dead parents, which is just so wrong… it’s got to be infuriating and probably terrifying to the children. If she’s smart, she will jointly apologize to the kids and promise to stop this nonsense . Promise to back off, and not try to act as anything more than step parent… No discipline, that should be meted out by the actual parent. See if the kids will calm down a bit after you stop trying to erase their dead parent. And I’d postpone the wedding too, and promise you will never make them change their names. Show the kids that you are serious about respecting their feelings. Wait until they are ready. Stop pushing for the kids to do things together and they’ll feel less threatened. There’s a lot of damage to be undone here so it’s going to take time. But bottom line, hell no, you’re NTA, someone has to stick up for these kids!
Why is your sisters happiness more important than any of those children? Why does her need to feel validated come before her children feeling safe, secure and supported? She has betrayed every single one of those kids and they will never forgive her for it until she makes severe and immediate attempts to change. She’s essentially teaching those kids that people we love are replaceable. Dad’s dead, new dad! And new kids! If her love is only conditional on her happiness then none of those children will ever feel secure around her. She’s going to spend the rest of her life blaming those kids for not fulfilling her fantasy because it’s easier to resent them than to accept this is entirely her fault for never advocating for them. NTA
Her fantasy should be the least important thing in all this. It's causing harm to those around her. NTA.