Blending families is much harder than people want to believe it is when they’re excited about a new spouse.

It takes time and hard work, and honestly, personalities play a big role in whether or not it works out.

This girl is the youngest child and the only one belonging to both her parents.

I’m (18f) my parents only child together.

They were married to other people before each other and divorced. My dad’s two kids are Kim (27f) and Nick (26m) and my mom’s two kids are Emma (26f) and Joe (24m).

My parents each shared custody with their ex’s of my half siblings. Their custody time fell on the same week so we’d always have them together.

But we never felt like a real family.

Her older siblings barely acknowledged her when she was young.

I never felt like I had siblings. My half siblings were very close to their bio sibling, never acknowledged their stepsibling and me?

Well, I don’t think any of them hate me but I know they don’t care for me either.

They were older so of course we weren’t going to be BFFs but they never wanted to spend time with me, they’d get annoyed by my presence.

They never made the same effort for me that they did for their full sibling and when they stopped coming for custody time because they were 18 and adults, they didn’t stay in touch with me.

She’s tried, and it improved somewhat as she got older.

Mom sees her kids. Dad sees his.

They will sometimes come for Christmas but they would catch up with their bio parent and sibling and never cared about what was going on with me and were never eager to share their lives with me.

They never reply to DMs, never answer the phone or respond to my texts.

They never say Happy Birthday to me or come to celebrate my birthday. They do for each other and their bio parent and they even bring a gift for mom/dad.

I’ve accepted it. They’re not as annoyed at me when I speak these days.

But they don’t reply or keep in touch either and I have made the effort and I have asked them why they’re so disinterested in me and I never got a reply so…

In the end, she was forced to accept things the way they were.

My parents notice.

I know there have been talks with their bio kids about it. I know my mom and her kids were arguing for a while because she was pissed they claimed only one sibling and she let them know I was their sibling too.

I don’t get involved. I’m now at a point where I feel like an only child and not the youngest.

Now, her mom wants to arrange a sibling photoshoot and got upset when her daughter told her how she feels.

But I said this to my parents recently because they wanted to make a big deal of me graduating and have the whole family together and my mom suggested we get a professional sibling photo shoot done with all their adult babies.

I told her I didn’t think it would be something any of us would like and mom told me she knew I’d love having a few photos with all my siblings.

I told her not really and I don’t see myself as the youngest anymore I see myself as an only child because my relationship with my half siblings basically doesn’t exist.

My parents said it was inaccurate and wrong for me to say that because I have four siblings.

AITA?

Is she wrong to have given up? Let’s find out what Reddit says!

The top comment says you can’t make people want a relationship with you.

This person does think her siblings are extremely rude, however.

They wonder if there isn’t more going on behind the scenes.

And they remind this girl that her feelings matter too.

No photoshoot is going to change the last 18 years.

You can only try so many times, right?

She’s decided to feel this way to protect herself.

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.