Blended families are complicated to say the least. Because when parents divorce with kids in tow, the repercussions on the psychology of the children can be really messy if you don’t take care. All the kids need to know that even though things are changing, they are loved unconditionally by both parents – and that fact will not change. Ideally the breakup needs to be amicable, with friction dealt with well out of earshot, and the parents never playing the blame game or expecting their kids to take sides. And let’s be real, therapy can be a very worthwhile investment for their long-term mental health too.

Then you’re introducing new families and fresh brothers and sisters into the mix and expecting things to go smoothly? Yeah, it’s not going to happen that way. The kids are going to take time to settle, new homes are weird and adding a new parental figure and some brand new siblings to your life is a weird thing to have to adjust to, especially if the adults aren’t accommodating to your emotions, no matter how wild. And if the adults expect you to just settle in and love each other from day one? Well, they’re about to get a rude awakening.

The boy in this story is doing his best to settle into his new family, but some relationships are easier to build than others. But he’s trying to figure it out, and has even made up a new game to help try to bond with his younger stepsister. Unfortunately though, she’s not playing by the rules.

Read on to find out what’s going on here.

AITA for snapping and saying “this is why you don’t have friends” to my stepsister?

My (14, male) two favourite things are trains and superheroes. I have a small model train layout and I sometimes read superhero comics.

My parents divorced both got remarried. I live with my mom and stepdad.

My stepmom has two kids from a previous marriage, Kelly (18, female) and Ann (9, female).

I have a good relationship with Kelly but not with Ann. My stepmom spoils Ann to no end, an example is on my birthday she let Ann break my present before I got it.

Let’s see how this boy tried to grow a friendship with his younger stepsister.

Ann likes to collect Pokemon cards, and my dad wants Ann and I to get along, so I made up a game that’s my take on the Pokemon card game, but it uses comic book characters instead of Pokemon.

We’ve played this before and she knows the rules. She tends to choose different characters every time, whereas my go to character is prime earth Kyle Rayner.

My favourite hero is Kyle Rayner ,and I like this version because he wielded all seven lantern corps rings. That means he can use the powers of all seven corps and is a white lantern.

But this time, Ann wanted things to be different.

Ann wanted to be Kyle Rayner this time and I was kind of bummed but she has a right to be Kyle too.

So I picked new earth Hal Jordan, because he’s used lots of rings (a red, an orange, a yellow, a green, a blue, and a white) but that wouldn’t fly with Ann because Hal had a white ring and she had to be the only one with a white ring.

Then I chose Futures End Guy Gardner because he also used a lot of rings (a red, a yellow, a green, a blue, an indigo and a violet) but again that wouldn’t fly because Kyle’s main ring is a green and so is Guy’s (Futures eEnd Guy’s main ring is a blue but she wouldn’t listen).

So I then chose New Earth Black Hand because his main ring is a black ring and he’s used an indigo ring. But that wouldn’t fly again because he uses a lantern ring.

Still he tried his best with Ann’s demands.

I was getting mad because she was being so picky, but stepmom just told me to let her have her way. I reluctantly chose prime earth C.C. Batson (he has the same powers as the rest of the Shazam family, just a yellow suit).

We started the battle and she rolled a 4. I didn’t roll a 1 or 2 so I got hit. Then I went and rolled a 6, which is the most powerful attack you can do.

She didn’t roll a 1-2 and got hit, and since it was so powerful she immediately demanded she be C.C. Batson and I be someone else.

I was already mad because she had already made a big stink about characters, and now that she was losing she wanted to swap.

Read on to find out how he reacted.

I said we couldn’t switch and she threw a tantrum. I couldn’t take it and snapped “this is why no one wants to be friends with you, because every time you don’t get your way, you scream and cry.”

That just made the situation worse. Stepmom yelled at me then took Ann to calm her down, and I packed up the game and played on my phone until it was time for me to go back to my mom’s house.

So was I wrong for telling her why she doesn’t have friends?

AITA?

Honestly, he was doing his best here to stay patient – and for the most part, he behaved very maturely.

But let’s be real, he’s a teenage boy – that patience is going to run out sooner or later.

Sure what he said wasn’t very nice, but he is a kid just trying to do his best in a fractured home.

Let’s see what folks on Reddit had to say about this.

This person agreed that he’d worked very hard to be patient.

And others thought this was on the stepmom for how she was raising her daughter.

Meanwhile, this professional Pokemon tournament organiser was familiar with behaviour like Ann’s.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a sister who held up her end of a college savings bargain only to be ripped off by her scheming older sibling.

And while this person thought that his words weren’t helpful, they understood why he’d said it.

Honestly, it shouldn’t be left to a fourteen year old stepbrother to teach a little girl how to play fairly and nicely. He is well aware that he doesn’t have the best relationship with Ann, and he is doing his best to deal with it. He has made this whole game to try to bond with her, knowing that it will please his dad, and yet he’s still getting blamed for getting frustrated when she wants to bend all the rules. Sure she is younger, but he still shouldn’t be expected to exercise levels of patience that many adults couldn’t muster at the age of fourteen.

Genuinely, this kid shouldn’t be expected to build all the bridges in this blended family – that’s the job of his dad and stepmom. It’s great that he has a smoother relationship with the older stepsister, but that’s really to be expected. After all, she’s an adult now. It’s the younger one that probably sees him as a threat for attention, and isn’t happy about that. But the fact that his stepmom yelled at him and took her daughter’s side immediately? Yeah, that needs addressing, because stepparent or not, she shouldn’t be playing favourites.