Grief can make blended family situations incredibly painful for everyone involved.

This widower lost his wife unexpectedly last year and suddenly found himself raising their two young children alone. After her death, his stepchildren moved in full time with their biological father’s family, and months passed without them ever returning to stay at the house.

Eventually, the father decided it was time to reorganize the home for the children still living there.

So, he packed up the stepkids’ belongings, and then repainted the bedrooms and moved his own children upstairs closer to him.

That decision immediately caused backlash from the stepchildren’s paternal family, who accused him of trying to erase the kids from the house completely.

Read on to see what happened next.

AITAH for remodeling my step kids rooms after their mom passed away since they weren’t going to be living with me anyways.

I have never been a legal guardian of my step children. They have a father and had a mom. I was just their mom’s husband. I never had a problem with this.

Their biological father is a bit flaky, but his parents and him always made sure his child support was up to date and that all of his custody time was spent with his family.

The kids were always polite to me, and I tried my best to be an adult they could come to with their problems.

Sadly, his wife passed away.

My wife died last year. It was an illness that came out of nowhere, and she was gone before we knew it.

We had two young children of our own, and now I was a single dad. My in-laws stepped up to help me with our children and hers. They established grandparents rights and got visitation. Their dad got full custody.

My two step kids moved in with their paternal grandparents since their dad lives in a bachelor loft. My house has six bedrooms since we finished the basement so I could move my office down there.

At first, he left their rooms alone, but they never visited.

So the breakdown used to be us in the master suite. Our kids in one room and the step kids each had a room. Then I had an office in the basement and a playroom that we converted to a guest room when needed.

Once the step kids moved out, I started thinking about the future. I left everything alone for three months. I didn’t want to rush into anything and I wanted them to be able to come home of they needed.

They never did.

When he told them, the family got upset.

I called their dad and asked him to please pick up all their stuff so I could clean up and paint the rooms.

That whole side of the family went nuts. They accused me of trying to get rid of them and erase them from their home.

I do not have any sort of legal rights over those kids. God forbid they get hurt or something I cannot legally make any decisions for them.

All I want is to have a room for each of my kids on the same floor as me and move my office back upstairs.

Everyone wanted him to leave their rooms alone.

I offered to turn both basement rooms into guest rooms they could stay in if they wanted to stay over when they were visiting their half siblings.

That wasn’t accepted. I need to leave their rooms alone.

I boxed up their stuff and put it in boxes downstairs. I painted the rooms and each of my kids got their own room upstairs. Their dad still hasn’t picked up their stuff but has called me names for the things I did.

I don’t even know how he knows since the step kids have not been here since the funeral.

AITA?

Eek! Most people would’ve done the same thing.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman’s family who is trying to stop her from moving away for her husband’s job.

Let’s check out what the people over at Reddit would’ve done in this situation.

Good explanation for those who didn’t read the whole story.

So true! He did leave one time before.

This person thinks that was the right thing to do.

Exactly! They don’t have rooms at his house.

The kids’ father and his family really need to look at their own situation before attacking this man for changing rooms in his own house.

As their dad, he doesn’t even have bedrooms for the kids himself, so expecting their former stepfather to leave untouched rooms sitting there forever is just not realistic.

The fact is that grief changes families.

But, at the same time, it does sound like this man still wants the kids to have a relationship with their half siblings since he offered guest rooms and a place for them to stay during visits.