Sometimes the past has a way of catching up with you not through your own actions, but through the stories others tell themselves. That is exactly what happened when I reconnected with my half-siblings after years of barely knowing each other.
I’m 24F and my half-siblings are 30M and 27F. We recently started reconnecting after I moved to the same city and ended up working at the same company as my half-sister. Things were going well until a recent conversation threw everything off.
We’d been reminiscing about random childhood memories things like school stories and harmless sibling teasing, avoiding anything related to our home lives. Then, out of nowhere, they casually mentioned feeling bad for me because my mom is a “homewrecker” and I grew up with “two awful parents.”
I was stunned. Trying to stay calm, I brushed it off at first, but my brother went on to joke about how “karma hit hard” when my mom supposedly cheated on their dad with my stepdad. That’s when I couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
Confused, I asked what they were talking about. They explained that their mom had told them that when she found out about my dad’s infidelity, she gave him an ultimatum cut off all contact with me and my mom (except what was legally required) and she’d forgive him. They claimed my dad chose me and my mom over them.
Apparently, they believed I had some fairytale upbringing where both of my parents lived happily ever after, raising me together in a perfect home while they were left dealing with the fallout.
The reality couldn’t be further from the truth.
When my mom found out my dad had another family, she kicked him out and threw his stuff on the lawn. She raised me alone for ten years, working multiple jobs to keep us afloat, until she eventually met my stepdad, Mike, when I was nearly a teenager. My dad was never a real presence in my life.
Even after I explained this, they doubled down. They insisted my mom had to have known she was with a married man, even though she threw my dad out the moment she discovered the truth. They claimed she “ruined” their family and said she owed them an apology.
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Apologize for what? For being lied to? For raising me on her own while their father vanished from our lives? How could I possibly acknowledge blame for something she didn’t even know she was part of?
When I refused to agree, they accused me of being defensive and “lacking empathy” for their pain. But I can’t sympathize with a version of events that blames my mom for their father’s choices.
Since sharing my story, people have pointed out that my siblings seem stuck in a narrative likely shaped by their mother’s bitterness. They cannot blame their father fully, so they’ve shifted that anger onto my mom and by extension, me.
Am I really wrong for refusing to take responsibility for something neither my mom nor I had any control over? Or is it time to let go of this forced connection and protect my own peace?
