Blended families don’t always blend, and forcing the blending often doesn’t help.

For example, many kids will always see their stepparent as a stepparent and not as a parent whether the stepparents likes it or not.

In today’s story, one boy prefers to talk to his dad about issues in the family, but that bothers his stepmom.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

AITA for addressing issues I have with our stepfamily with my dad only and not my dad and his wife?

My dad has been married to his wife for 3 years.

In the house are me (15m) and my sister (13f) and dad’s wife’s kids (14m, 12f and 10f).

It’s fine. There are some issues we’ve had come up since dad and his wife moved us all in together.

The step siblings keep creating problems.

Some of the repeat stuff is:

My stepbrother coming into my room and taking my video games without permission

My youngest youngest stepsister barging into bedrooms without permission

My stepsisters fighting and trying to make me figure it out between them

There are other one-off problems that have come up.

Other stuff that has happened once are things like;

Jealousy from my stepsisters when I did something with my sister and not them

Issue over who is walking home from school together or alone

My stepsisters wanting us (sister and me) to go someplace with them but I didn’t want to go (it was aimed for girls not guys)

Stepbrother eating my snacks that are specifically for me because I have food allergies

Stepbrother calling me a r-word for heating a frozen pizza when I was alone and not giving him some

He prefers to talk to his dad.

When stuff like this happens I go to my dad. I don’t go to him and his wife.

My dad is my parent. I love and trust him.

I don’t feel that way about his wife though she’s fine.

My dad never minded but after three years his wife is bothered and upset that I will go to dad and not to her or them together.

His dad understands how he feels.

She had dad talk to me and he said she feels like it keeps the step in our family and she wants us to become more of a family.

I told him for me the step will always be there.

He said he understood. He said he doesn’t think I’m alone.

The stepmom doesn’t think he is trying hard enough.

My dad and his wife talked about it, and she approached me and said she would like me to try come to her sometimes at least.

Because she’s now my parent too and she’d like to be treated like one.

She said right now me and my sister treat her like she’s just another adult and not a family member worthy of going to.

I told her I just felt better going to dad.

She didn’t like that and said I should try harder.

AITA?

The stepmom may not like that she’s the stepmom and not the mom, but it is what it is.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

There’s no reason for him to feel forced to talk to his stepmom.

The stepmom will always be his stepmom not his parent.

It makes sense for him to go to his dad.

The stepmom shouldn’t try to force him to blend.

The stepmom needs to try to understand his perspective.

I’m glad his dad is on his side.

None of this is easy stuff for kids.

If you liked that post, check out this story about a guy who was forced to sleep on the couch at his wife’s family’s house, so he went to a hotel instead.