Money can sometimes create unexpected family tensions.

This woman has always enjoyed sharing her financial success with her niece, whom she’s been especially close to for years. But after her niece’s mother remarried, she found herself facing an unexpected request involving her niece’s new stepfamily.

Blended families can become even more complicated when there’s a major difference in financial circumstances. Read the full story below. This is one of those stories where helping one family member led to pressure to help everyone else.

AITA For giving my niece a much better life than her step siblings?

I (40F) have been very lucky and joined a tech start up very early that turned out to be a unicorn (>1B valuation).

It was sold several years ago, and while I’m no billionaire, it’s allowed me to live a very comfortable life.

I have a small close knit family and am happy to share my good fortune with them.

I have an older brother, Isaac (50M), who has a daughter, Grace (14F), with an ex-partner.

This woman grew close to her neice Grace.

Grace lives most of the time with her mom, Rebekah, but spends the weekends and half of the summer with her dad.

I’m especially close with Grace since I only have sons, and they love their cousin and vice versa.

Grace would frequently babysit and be a mother’s helper.

She make bottles, burp the baby, help in the kitchen, etc., when she was younger.

She and her husband treated Grace well and spent money on her.

Even before my start up’s acquisition, my husband and I made enough that we paid for her private school (60k a year).

We would take her on trips to Disneyland and vacations with us (usually skiing in the spring and then a couple of weeks in Mexico/Hawaii in the summer).

But when our lifestyle upgraded, so did hers.

We set up a trust fund for her, enough for college/masters/PhD and a downpayment on a house in the bay.

We bought vacation homes and took several international vacations a year on business class.

Her parents have been nothing but supportive and very grateful.

Her sister-in-law’s husband started to feel jealous of Grace.

Now, the problem is around 5 years ago, Rebekah met George who had two kids who he has 50/50 custody of, Caroline (16F) and Christian (13M).

Both Rebekah and George work as servers and have a hard time making ends meet.

They recently got married and moved in together, and Caroline and George are starting to get upset and jealous that their stepsister lives such a “better” life.

They go to public school, go to Disney once a year, if they are lucky, and maybe a trip to Vegas or to visit their grandma in Florida in the summer.

He started accusing her of being unfair and a jerk.

This upset George and has led to fights with Rebekah. The kids are fighting, too.

Rebekah brought this up to me hesitantly, but she said that she promised George she’d at least ask me to at least pay for private school to keep things even.

And try to make things even between the kids with gifts and trips.

Rebekah is “on my side” and said she knows it’s not my responsibility at all.

But she promised George she’d at least talk to me and he said I’d be pretty cold/jerk (though I think he used stronger language knowing him) to treat siblings so differently.

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But my husband and I disagree. I barely know those kids! AITA?

Feeling jealous is understandable, especially for children comparing their lives to someone else’s. However, expecting OP to financially support kids she barely knows is a completely different story. Her generosity toward her niece was a personal choice built on years of love and connection. And it doesn’t mean she had to do the same thing for everyone else.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a mom who is irate after she gave a group leader money for her daughter’s lunch, only to have him pocket the cash and ask all of the kids to pay their own way.

Let’s look at the comments of other Redditors.

This user shares a valid thought.

Here’s a similar remark.

Another honest opinion.

This person chimes in.

And lastly, people are saying the same thing.

Helping family doesn’t mean funding every branch of the family tree.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a stepmom who says stepson isn’t doing enough, despite the fact that he’s working 12-hour shifts to pay for his own college.