Imagine living in a blended family where you have a new autistic stepsister.

In an effort to help the families blend, would you help your stepsister anytime she needed help, or would you refuse?

The teenage girl in this story has trouble saying “no” to her stepsister, and even her mother thinks she needs to say “no” more often.

Let’s see what’s going on.

AITAH for asking for stuff in return after helping/cleaning up after my ‘step-sister’?

I (16F) am currently living with my mum, her boyfriend, his two kids (14F,17M) and my older brother (19M). I

usually call his daughter my step-sister because it’s a lot easier for me.

His daughter( who I will call Clara) has autism and tends to not clean up after herself.

Her stepsister needed help.

Last night I went to go get in the bath and the door was closed so naturally I knocked and asked what’s wrong.

Clara says she clogged the toilet.

I told her to use the toilet scrubber to get it down and she said she made it worse.

I told her to let me in so I could help and not surprisingly it was a mess.

Fixing the problem was gross, but then Clara created another problem.

I spent about 10-15 minutes unclogging it to the best of my ability which also lead to me getting backsplash of poop water onto my face while she went downstairs and did nothing.

I also did not get a thank you which is why I’m a little more mad than I should be.

Later that night Clara knocks on my door telling me she’s messed her hair up.

So I tell her to let me look and see that she has used my curly hair products as well as my diffuser without my knowledge.

She helped again.

I told her what to do and even showed her.

But she asked me to do it for her which I did since I have trouble saying no but I ended up helping her with it and with the products and diffuser.

I then this morning told my mum and told her I want stuff because I did that (mainly the clogged toilet thing).

And she said that I just need to learn to say no.

She knows she has a problem saying no.

I agree that I don’t like saying no but this isn’t the first time I’ve had to clean up after her.

She leaves bowls on the table, mugs, wrappers, her art supplies which she leaves me to clean up if we are doing it together.

I know she’s probably doing it unintentionally but I don’t want to speak up because our families just moved in together and I don’t want to cause anything.

So AITAH?

She really does need to learn to say no to her stepsister. Perhaps she should go to her mom more often when she’s not sure if she should say no or not, or she should set clear boundaries.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person offers some good advice.

She needs to stop enabling her stepsister.

This person thinks her mom should’ve backed her up.

Saying “no” is a life skill.

Her stepsister’s messes her not her responsibility.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.