Imagine growing up in a family with your mom, stepdad, siblings and half-siblings. If there was a large age gap between your siblings and your half siblings, do you think you’d think of them as siblings anyway, or would you never be very close?

In this story, one young woman grew up in a home like that, and she never really felt very close to her stepdad or half siblings. The problem is how her mom feels about that reality.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITAH for upsetting my mom because I told her she does have two families?

My mom has been married twice and has two sets of kids. She has my sisters and me (22f, 20f and 18f) with our dad. He died when we were younger. I’m also the middle child so her 20 year old.

A few years after dad died mom remarried and had more kids (10m, 7f and 5m).

When she remarried she hoped we would be one big family and that we would love him like a dad and love our half siblings like we loved each other as sisters.

That’s not the way it worked out.

But we didn’t love her husband like a dad, we didn’t accept him as a father figure either and we don’t have a loving relationship with our half siblings.

We’re not huge jerks about it.

We’re nice to her husband and our half siblings. We don’t treat them like garbage or go out of our way to be cruel about the fact we don’t love him like a dad or see the kids like we see each other.

But to mom it’s still very disappointing because she doesn’t like feeling like she has two families. Her family with our dad and her family with her current husband.

The older kids are growing up.

What brought this to our current issue is my younger sister moved out and mom was disappointed because she had hoped we’d want to stay home longer.

My older sister moved out at 18. Then I did. Now my younger sister.

I know she said before that when we spent more time with her husband as adults our opinions or feelings would change.

But then we didn’t live there to do that.

Her mother shared her feelings about the situation.

She brought it up to me in a phone call last week and she was saying how awful it is to feel like she has two families.

Then she went on a tangent about she has a blended family not two but the three of us moving out at 18 and not even living part time at home as adults felt very much like we were drawing that line and she said she didn’t want that.

She said we’re all one family and dad being dead doesn’t mean she had a separate family before.

She corrected her mom but also tried to reassure her.

I told her she might not want that but it is what she has. She has a family with dad and a family with her husband.

I told her it doesn’t mean she was wrong or that we hate her or him. But she does have two families and that’s okay. It happens. I told her it’s not like we were ever rude about it.

And she said we didn’t have to be rude for it to be wrong.

Her mom had unrealistic expectations.

It upset her a lot and she was crying on the phone to me.

She told me her best friend growing up lost her dad and when her mom remarried she loved him like a dad and still calls him dad today. She asked why we couldn’t be that.

And I told her because we just weren’t and that everyone is different when they lose a parent.

Our call ended after that but mom is still upset.

Her mom is still upset.

She spoke to my sisters and they were telling me how depressed she sounded.

They asked what we talked about and I told them.

They said mom will surely get over it after a couple of days.

But she hasn’t and I know she is deeply upset because she knows her oldest kids all consider themselves to be her first family and not her family with her husband.

AITAH?

Sometimes life doesn’t work out the way we hope and expect. I don’t think OP was wrong for telling her mom the truth that she does have two families, but her mom’s feelings are valid too.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

You can’t force people to bond.

This person reassures her that she didn’t do anything wrong.

Dreams don’t always become reality.

Another person shares what happened when her mom remarried.

Her mom’s expectations were unrealistic.

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.