AIBU to refuse care for my late dad’s wife?

OP I would think you have enough going on without needing to be a carer I would tell your step relatives this so they can deal with a care company. There is no advantage to helping in any way. Her family need to handle the situation.

Hell no, nobody has the right to tell you that you should be caring for anyone. And after watching my DH care for his DF with cancer (passed recently) and now his mum who is still at home with Alzheimer's I would encourage anyone to say no.

The relevance is that the sister has said the stepmother brought OP up is if she did her a favour which should be returned. In reality the stepmother didn't do much and wouldn't have needed to do anything if she hadn't had an affair with OPs father. Not really something that OP should be grateful for.

And that's fair enough. So it has zero relevance to the affir that posters keep bringing up.

And nowhere did I say the OP should be grateful to her SM

I think OP has stated that she didn't have a good relationship regardless of the affair. It does mean that she has absolutely no reason to be grateful to the stepmother even if she did make her meals etc as a child though.

And is the stepmother expecting this? Or is it her sister that's suggesting it.Not seen anything about the SMs actual thoughts on it

Yes precisely. She had a strong relationship with him She may not have had a good relationship with his wife but no lt necessarily to do with the affair as many on here keep referring to

. But people here are blaming her( sm) for the marriage breakup and nothing about the dads part.

He happens to be dead. Plus, she was obviously able to forgive him and developed a strong relationship with him over the years. This didn’t happen with the step-mum.

Her dad isn't the one who is expecting OP to change her life by becoming a carer.

Her dad has a choice not to have an affair also but she's not slagging him off

"No you haven't"

"Yes I have"

"Oh no you haven't"

Make your point properly instead of this childish pantomime style shit. I strongly disagree with you as well and you haven't added anything substantive to counter any arguments, this is just foot stamping.

OP said that her dad did all the care for her and her siblings when they were at his house. She doesn't like her step-mother and she knows that her dad cheated on her mum and then left her for this woman. She doesn't have any warm feelings for her so won't be helping. She has a choice not to provide any care just like her step-mum had a choice not to have an affair with OP's dad.

Not in the slightest

ETA because I misunderstood.

I rather think I have.

I don't think you've understood the point at all.

So if I was single, and my best friend's husband made a pass at me and I fancied him, I could just drop my knickers and expect that if she found out she'd just be mad at him not me, and if her husband toddled off to live a life of bliss with me I should expect her children to look after me in my old age? Hell to the fuck no.

I am a carer also and I agree with that point completely. I also have seen what happens when family members are looking after those that they dont like, have no feeling for or have some grievances regarding historical relationship dynamics.

Everyone has this rosy ideal picture of children supporting their parents (or in this case step mother), and wonderful if it happens like that. But in the real world things dont always happen like that and not all families are the same.

I gave up work to move my Mum in with my family into a purpose built annexe in our garden when her dementia became too advanced for her to live at home with carers. I had the support of my WfH DH, my 2 school age DC, a local village befriending group and daily carers. And it was despite the help, on going relentless 24/7 pressure. But my situation was unusual and I was lucky to be able to do it and I wanted to do it.

But how many people on this post would be in the situation at home, emotionally or financially to do that? Just because the OP & her full siblings have already helped out with her dad (cant nb re her mum), she & her family may not be in a position to do so currently with her SM. We dont know circumstances and life moves on, things change.

Also sometimes things happen in families which mean that that relationship has been killed off or damaged beyond repair. What goes around, comes around. And in those cases its much better to have carers in to help out. The carers arent weighed down by historical issues and develop a very different type of relationship. Most of my patients will talk to me about things they would never dream of mentioning to family or even close friends.

I have a relatively good relationship with one of my half brothers from my dad's second marriage, but I never expected him to help with my Mum. She was my responsibility.

The OP's half sister is the one responsible for her own mother. She is probably panicking abit because shes just realising its on her shoulders & it is a heavy weight to bear. But she definitely shouldnt be going round the family complaining about the OP to guilt her. If she & her mother were never close with the OP why does she expect OP to help look after her mother?

Yes the cheating and divorce and the step family happened a long time ago, but emotional damage from a divorce doesnt just disappear. It stays with the children into adulthood. I think its unfair for people to assume the OP should help her SM if she doesnt want to.

No you are not doing it. Before you know it there will be a rota, then you end up doing it all.

She will have to do it herself or pay for care.

I've had really hard lessons the last couple of years and one of them was you can step up and still be treated like shit. Don't step up.

She owed fidelity to the man she was married to when she had an affair with OP's father, but that's beside the point.

We are all capable of not shagging people who we know to be married with children behind the backs of their spouses, in the knowledge that we are playing a significant role in breaking up their childrens' families. If we do it, it is a moral failing on our part and one that we deserve to be held accountable for. Pointing that out is not the same as absolving OP's father or blaming the Step Mother for his actions. He is responsible for his own actions and the Step Mother is responsible for hers. You are not passive or blameless when you have an affair with a married man.

That is blaming women for men's actions. A woman does not break up a mans marriage, he does. She made no promises, she owes no fidelity.
He and only he cheated on his wife. He had an affair. He left his wife for another woman.
Women do not steal men, they are not possessions.

Nah I wouldn’t do anything
I would take great pleasure in saying no not a chance

not my mother , not my problem darling
she’s your mum you can wipe her ass

Crikey.

Yes of course OP can do what she likes and I absolutely don't blame her given the circumstances. I'm not criticising her choice at all.
I commented because a pp said she wouldn't wipe her own mum's "arse" (as she beautifully put it!) and I said I would help out my own mum. That's why I commented.

You said "we don't blame women for the actions of men", as if the Step Mother is passive in all of this and bears no responsibility. Lets not pretend that there is no moral failing in having an affair with a married man or that there should be no accountability.

OP's father is responsible for breaking up the family. So is the Step Mother. This didn't happen solely because of his actions, it happened because of hers too so she takes her share of the blame.