AIBU for not giving my half siblings the same financial help?

[EveryoneIsAsleep]

I have 2 siblings and 2 half siblings who are my dads.

I’m in a good financial situation, so 5 years ago, I gave one of my full siblings some money to help her buy a house and also for fertility treatment. I told my other full sibling that I would help her with money if and when she needed it. A few months ago she found a house she wanted to buy so I gave her the money.

My dad knows I’ve done this as my siblings told him, and since giving the latest gift, he and my half siblings are asking if I’m going to gift my half siblings the same, as they both rent and one is also wanting fertility treatment.

I get on ok with my half siblings but I don’t have the same relationship as I do with my other siblings. One of them has now stopped speaking to me and the other is piling on the pressure for me to gift them the same. They’re also trying to make me feel extra guilty for not at least paying for fertility treatment one of them who is struggling to conceive.

My dad has said it’ll ‘change the family’ if I don’t treat my half siblings the same. He ignored my text asking him what he meant by that. He has now ignored my birthday.

AIBU for not giving my half siblings the same as my full siblings?

What would you do? I feel like I should be able to spend my money however I want to. I’m mostly annoyed at my dad as my relationship with him shouldn’t depend on what I give to his other children.

Have you read their posts ? This was explained

It is completely natural that you would feel a sense of protective responsibility for your siblings because you grew up together in a single-parent family and relied on a single-income mother.

Your half-siblings presumably grew up with 2 parents to care and provide for them and still have that.

I would explain to your Dad that it doesn't mean you value or love his younger children less, but you do not have unlimited money and he can't really expect you to take equal responsibility for children he had in a new family.

Where would it end? He could go off and have several more kids all over the place - does he expect you to provide where you had no say in what offspring he has?

His behaviour is outrageous. Thinking that he can bust up a marriage, abandon you all for 3 years, live with a new partner and have kids with her and as far as he is concerned everyone has to fit in whatever he does next.

Your half siblings are also behaving badly. I would also tell them that you love and value them but growing up in a single parent family you and your Mum took responsibility for helping each other out. And you have limited funds.

Of course you can choose what you do with your own money. But those choices send very clear messages and people may respond negatively to those messages. Like you say, you have a very different relationship with your siblings. But the money is sort of tangible proof of that difference, maybe that you value them more, like them more etc. So your half siblings will probably respond negatively to that message which I think is fair really. You can do what you want with your money but you will need to be prepared to deal with how those decisions make others feel.

It’s not the siblings fault that the father decided to admonish op for not bankrolling all his children. Indeed, he was happy when op initially helped out the sibling from his first family. Maybe happy that someone else was giving a helping hand in loco parentis. Meant he didn’t have to put his hand in his pocket for his children, as he showed himself reluctant to do in the past. Op’s mother had to take on extra work in order to make up for his support shyness. Not just financial capital either, but human capital with support by visiting regularly and spending time together.

I suspect he kicked off as now the other siblings (op’s half siblings) may expect/ turn to him to help them out, and he doesn’t want to. He’s annoyed that op isn’t assuming that role and responsibility for his entire offspring. It highlights how he hasn’t ever really stepped up to the plate, even when in a position to do so.

It's your money not your dad's.
And now he's missed your birthday id be even less inclined to give money to the half siblings.
As your DH says let dad sell his house if he wants to give them money.

Err why cant your dad give them some money if he that concerned? They are his kids not yours. None of their bloody business how you spend your money and no is a completr sentence! Cheeky sods.

They just want your money. Why should you give it to them?

Your dad sounds more appalling with every post. I’m not sure I’d be giving him the time of day now he’s reshown his true colours

Your dad said something right it will change the family as it was changed when he has to kids with a woman and two kids with another. And some other times because families change.
Gifts are given no demanded.

You are entitled to spend your money whatever way you want . Personally I’d try and make sure it wasn’t common knowledge in the family that you are helping your siblings though . I mean it’s pretty tactless if your full siblings are going around telling people you gave them money in my opinion. No need to involve anyone else . It’s none of their business . Me and my sibling don’t discuss financial matters . I wouldn’t dream of asking her how she afforded this and that and neither would she to me

You are definitely not unreasonable!
Your dad is totally unreasonable, if anything he should be the one gifting his children money for fertility treatment or house deposits, especially having not contributed fairly following the divorce.
I just can't imagine, as a parent, expecting one of my children to help the others out when I could do so myself by freeing up some investments, especially when I abandoned 3 of them in the first place!
I would not be discussing this further with any of them. Sorry they are treating you so badly!

Not exactly the same but my DS is my ex first child we had him when we were both quiet young
his parents adored my son and they were very close and when they died they left pretty much everything to my son , money , a house and apartment abroad in a trust for my son when he was 25 ( I was one of the trustees ) his dad wasn’t a trustee 😂

they left a much smaller amount of money to his dad but still a decent amount of around 100k

my ex had more kids after they died and was extremely upset and annoyed that I as one of the trustee wouldn’t let my DS share anything or break the trust so that his half siblings who’s he had nothing to do with

he & his wife were absolutely furious but there was nothing they could do and my son didn’t have much to do with his bio dad and half siblings as they lived abroad

my son also inherited again from my late parents a few years ago and this has meant he’s pretty much mortgage free and has a really lovely lifestyle for someone who is still young

There’s 3 of us, 2 to one dad and 1 to another, one dad completely absent with no financial contribution ever and one dad dead. We were all raised together by mum. We obviously know that we are half siblings to 1 child but we were raised all together and are incredibly close. We never use the half sibling title, it’s just my brother and my sister.
In my situation I would provide for both of them without a thought if I was able. I mean, I do in ways but not to the scale of house deposits as we’re not in that financial position but say if one of them needed something I can help with, I will help, either one of them, in the same manner. I am auntie to both their children as they are auntie and uncle to mine, we see/talk to eachother almost daily.

In your situation there is an age gap so you weren’t raised together, you aren’t close in that sense and the sibling relationship and love is different, that’s just the way it’s happened, it’s been two different families/sets of children for your dad. We were all together from birth and in the same home 24/7, it’s different.

I think you’ve done nothing wrong and completely understand and agree with your thinking. I think it’s really cruel that your dad has spitefully missed your birthday.
The other siblings obviously view the relationship the same way as you do as they socialise and holiday without thinking of inviting you guys along and you only meet up for bigger family events. You were the one to maintain the relationship previously.

Money does weird things to people.

Do your half siblings know this history? If not, I think I’d tell them.

I’m not sure it will make much difference. They only meet at broader family gatherings. Op gives them nice gifts, and pet sits for them when they go away.

I think op wrote that the siblings from the two families otherwise socialise separately, and go on holiday separately.

The father should have managed expectations about the op not having any responsibility for handouts to his children. As Op’s full siblings first told only their father, he obviously did the opposite and used it to create tensions. The elephant in the room he is trying to distract from (as dad ignores op’s birthday) is that if anyone is responsible for be giving his kids a leg up, then it should be a parent.

Are you absolutely 100% sure that your younger siblings expect/think they should also have the money, and it's not just your dad stirring things up?

Could there also be more to it, as in, they feel they try to have a relationship with you but you don't make the same effort back, and they are hurt you don't make the effort with them that you do your full siblings?

For example, I had a similar issue on a smaller scale with my younger brother. I have tried and tried with him but he just doesn't make the effort back. When I was pregnant with my first, another family member also got pregnant and our babies were due in the same month. DB ignored my baby completely but bought the other family member an expensive gift, went to see the baby, and wrote a gushing congratulations message on Facebook.
I didn't get an acknowledgement, not a congratulations, not a card, nothing.
It went round the family that I was angry he didn't get me an expensive gift. This isn't true at all. I was hurt that I didn't even get a congratulations after having a baby and that over the years I'd made so much effort but got nothing back.
He tried to say he didn't know I was pregnant which was 100% not true as we had spent Christmas together just a couple of months before and I was visibly pregnant and we talked about it.

So I'm just saying, is there any more to it, or any misunderstandings?

If not, then as others have said, of course you can give you money to who you like and it's perfectly natural to help the people you are closer to.

Your dad shouldn’t of told them, it was nothing to do with him.

I don't think it's their place to ask at all, regardless of how the OP came by their money.

I would never dream of demanding a right to someone else's funds.

I think as soon as I was pressured to give anything at all, I would be immediately unwilling to gift.

I do think this was entirely predictable though and you should have anticipated the impact and made your siblings stay quiet.

This. Your half siblings benefitted from all the extra time, attention (and money) whilst you and yours were ignored. You owe them nothing. It’s their fathers’s job to fund them, not you.

This is a pickle because you didn't all keep quiet, unfortunately. And now the horse has bolted.

The 'fair' thing to do would be to treat all siblings equally.

I suspect your dad will counter-balance this by leaving the half-siblings more in his will.

Greedy half siblings.

Wouldn't now ever get a penny from me.

OP is not the parent to these half siblings. Fair doesn’t come into it. Fair is for the parent - their father - to treat his children. Not OP.

Well, a parent should treat all their offspring fairly. That doesn’t gel with any action of the father if he doesn’t treat them all fairly in his will.

I’m not sure we are required to treat all our brothers and sisters the same. You don’t have any responsibility for them, and will be closer to one over another.