Blended families can create painful expectations when every relationship is supposed to become equally close.

This teenager gets only three court-ordered days each month with her late father’s side of the family.

Her mother now wants those limited visits to include a stepsister she has never felt close to.

See why refusing that request created another family conflict.

AITAH for never inviting my stepsister to my grandparents house when I know they make the most of their time with me and my brother?

My family is blended.

My mom has me (16f) and my brother (19m).

My stepdad has my three stepbrothers (17, 12, 11) and my stepsister (15).

This is unfortunate.

My mom and stepdad were both widowed when they met. I was 3 when my dad died and my brother was 6. We were 6 and 9 when mom remarried.

My mom and dad’s family never got along and when she started dating my stepdad she tried to cut us off from our dad’s whole family which forced my grandparents to fight for grandparents rights and they won three days a month of visitation.

Family who loves the kids should be a good thing.

The visitation has always been a touchy subject with my mom and stepdad.

They don’t like that we have access to a whole bunch of family who only included me and my brother.

It was worse when my grandma and aunts would take me and my girl cousins out for girly days.

Honestly, I don’t blame her for being a bit jealous, but hopefully she understands.

My stepsister started getting jealous because we’re not close anyway and then I was doing girly stuff she always wanted to do with me with others.

I just never wanted to do girly stuff with her.

She had no real sisters either so she got tired of it being mostly boys and I always loved having a brother so didn’t miss the sister stuff like she did.

Grandparents love spoiling kids when they can.

Our grandparents (and dad’s side in general) did other stuff with us. Trips to the beach, taking us to nice restaurants, amusement parks and other fun stuff.

They bought us stuff too but mostly they focused on taking us places or experiences.

This makes sense since they aren’t related to those grandparents.

We never invited our stepsiblings and my stepsister wanted to be invited a lot. Mostly to the girly stuff times but in general she wanted to be included and I never wanted to include her.

My mom would bring it up to me when my stepsister wasn’t around and she would show her frustration when I didn’t change my mind or invite her next time.

Why would mom want more kids to go with the grandparents when she didn’t want to let them go in the first place?

Last week my mom got so mad over it for the first time.

My stepsister asked me why I never invite her to my grandparents so we can do girly stuff with my grandma, aunts and cousins.

And I told her because I don’t want to.

I think mom is the source of all this drama.

My mom was furious and she told me never inviting her is a huge problem when I know how much she wants to do that stuff. She told me I don’t do it any other time so I should invite her for that reason alone.

That I should want to make my “sister” (instead of stepsister which is what I always say she is) happy and I shouldn’t make this a bigger source of rejection for her but I could never manage that.

She said it’s cruel to know someone wants to be included and to never include them.

AITAH?

It really isn’t up to her to invite her stepsister or not. It would be up to the grandparents.

Let’s see what the people in the comments on Reddit have to say about this.

100% agree with this commenter.

Yeah, it is really weird for mom to want the step sister to go.

Right. Mom should step in to do this stuff.

Mom can’t force the family to be perfect, and she is making it worse.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about two kids trying to earn money by mowing grass, and decide to solve their gas issue by stealing some of dad’s.

This is exactly what I was thinking.

This teenager refused to include her stepsister in the limited court-ordered time she shares with her late father’s relatives.

Her stepsister’s disappointment was real, but their mother could create separate bonding opportunities instead of pressuring her daughter to share those protected visits.

Her mother treated visitation like it came with a bring-your-stepsister coupon.