Typically, a baby born into a family is a joyous occasion. It’s a new life, a new addition to your family! Yet, sometimes, not everyone feels this way. Like in today’s story, where a teen’s mom had children with her new husband, but the teen felt pretty indifferent to her new siblings, or better said, half-siblings. And, well, that caused quite a commotion in their family when the mom learned about it.
More info: Reddit
Sometimes, a new baby isn’t such a joyous thing in someone else’s life as some would like to believe
Image credits: Karolina Grabowska (not the actual photo)
A teen’s mom got remarried and had two babies with her new husband, who she hopes will become her eldest’s second dad
Image credits: Julia M Cameron (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Pixabay (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Vidal Balielo Jr. (not the actual photo)
Image credits: Quiet_Ad2412
But the teen wasn’t planning on considering her stepdad a second dad, and more importantly, she felt quite indifferent to her new half-siblings
When the OP was 10, she lost her dad. Now that she’s 16, her mom is married to a guy whom she met within a year of her ex-husband’s death. Let’s just say that the OP feels quite indifferent to her stepdad – she isn’t too excited about him but has no feelings of hate, either. He’s just okay, but more importantly, he makes her mom happy, even though the author will never think of him as her second dad.
The OP’s mom and her husband now have two new kids – 17 months old and 3 months old. The thing is that the original poster feels quite indifferent to the babies, just as she does with her stepfather. She sees these babies as not full but rather half-siblings because they are actually her half-siblings. Additionally, the age gap between them is so big that she doubts they will ever have relatable experiences.
Today’s story basically started when the mom decided to throw a celebration for her two new babies. During it, the OP got a bit tired of pretending to be overly enthusiastic about her half-siblings, so she went upstairs to talk to her best friend about it. The conversation was overheard by her mom, who was devastated that her daughter didn’t feel “warm and fuzzy” about her other kids.
Then, the author’s stepfather proceeded to ask her to lie to her mom that she actually doesn’t feel this way so she would go back to being happy, but the teen refused, which got her called selfish. So, she asked Reddit what they think — is she selfish for not lying to her mom about her feelings?
Image credits: Jep Gambardella (not the actual photo)
Most of the people online said that the OP wasn’t wrong to refuse to hide her feelings. After all, she’s a person who’s entitled to feel the way she does, especially regarding the situation she’s in and everything she’s been through.
Yet, some of these netizens pointed out that the whole family would benefit from family therapy. Basically, it would help them all to communicate better because right now, the situation doesn’t seem the brightest in this area.
There are many types of family therapy, such as psychoeducation, family systems therapy, and many others. We aren’t mental health professionals, so our take isn’t qualified — it’s just a guess. And that guess is that the OP, her mom, and her step-father could all benefit from either narrative family therapy (helping to understand each other) or supportive family therapy (creating a safe environment where family members can share their feelings).
For the family to work, all the members need to be willing to do the work. If any of the members aren’t in therapy willingly, it really takes down their chances to work things out. So, since technically, the OP’s family is strangers to us, it would be quite unethical to speculate whether they would be willing to go to therapy or not. We already speculated enough that they would benefit from it. But, hey, who wouldn’t, right?
The mom got upset when she learned about it, while the stepdad called the teen selfish for not lying to her mom about her feelings, but people online reassured her that she wasn’t selfish
