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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Looking back on forced estrangement

4 replies

StarbucksSally · 04/01/2026 11:38

Can I ask some opinions from people who grew up with half-siblings but half-siblings who you actually lived with as siblings.

You lived with both your parents and shared your mum with them but your dad treated them exactly the same. They at the time, rarely saw their own dad.

Your relationship with your actual paternal grandparents and wider family were at times non existent or severely curtailed.

This was because they did not treat your half-sibling as a grandchild.

We are not talking about abuse or anything like that, everyone was polite.

Are you now resentful especially now your half sibling has a good relationship with their own father? Are you accepting of your parents’ decisions? Do you accept the argument that the actual dynamic of the house you lived in and the relationships within were more important?

If you wanted to were you able to rebuild relationships with your extended family.

You can guess that my decisions are now being questioned by one of my children who is still a child.

OP posts:
Nimblethimble · 04/01/2026 15:48

So are they saying it is unfair because they missed out on a relationship with their grandparents because you had a baby with another man, and you chose that those grandparents would not be involved because they wouldn't treat their non blood grandchild as closely as their blood grandchild?

Hopefully I have understood...

And if so, then IMO yes, you were wrong.

JLou08 · 04/01/2026 15:57

I wouldn't want someone in my life who couldn't treat step children the same as biological children. I'm not a stepchild and me and my DH are still together with our biological children so I have no bias but I don't think someone could be a good person and not treat children equally.

InterIgnis · 04/01/2026 16:21

I’ve known people that have been angry at their parents for the same, yes. It doesn’t help when the parent insists they made the right decisions, and refuses to accept that their child/ren have the right to feel differently.

Your children aren’t you, and they aren’t guaranteed to share your perspective even if you think they ‘should’. You can’t make them agree with the decisions you made, and you can’t make them not view those decisions as harmful to them.

BettysRoasties · 04/01/2026 16:28

I lived with a half sibling.

Fortunately this issue didn’t happen because my mum didn’t decide everyone should treat me exactly the same, as long as they were nice and polite and I got token gifts and cards for birthday and Christmas cards. I went to events on both sides never saw my bio dad. My sibling got things I didn’t but they are his family not mine and that’s fine.

But I wasn’t raised with expectations that this new family should be my replacement for my own lacking.

I would totally expect my sibling to be mad and hold resentment if he was stopped from seeing his family purely because I wasn’t treated exactly the same as him.

That wouldn’t be fair to him or his family and would be holding them to a higher account than my own useless family.

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