Twin siblings refuse to apologize to stepmother in therapy after they stayed at their grandparent’s while bio dad was in the hospital, causing family feud about fairness: “It felt like everything we talked about was for nothing”

Author image for Briana Viser
Briana Viser • Writer and Editor
Mar 21, 2025 7:00 PM EDT

We all have our own family situations that we deal with. It can be that your rich parents neglect you and don't give you enough attention, it could be that our siblings all ganged up on us growing up. Maybe it's that your brother was the golden child and you were barely noticed. Maybe your parents are divorced and everything in your life stems from this emptiness about love and family. Regardless of what your story is, we all have one. It's important as we get older to recognize our patterns and how it resembles our upbringing. Everything stems back to our childhood whether we want to recognize it or not. One can repress something for so long, but eventually that thing will appear, but in ways that are out of control to the individual themselves. 

In the story below, the protagonist is a 17-year-old twin whose father is a windower and has remarried. Prior to remarrying, they all made an agreement about certain things that they didn't want changed. Despite this agreement verbally, in practice the tacit contract went out the window, feelings got hurt, and therapy was sought. Ready the full story below for all the juicy details. 

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  • 01

    AITA for not apologizing to my stepmom and bringing up that I think her and my dad's expectations were unfair to me and my sister?

    "It was a wake up call"
    via dragana991 from Getty Images / Canva

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 02
    I (17m) have a twin sister Robyn (17f). Our mom did when we were 6. Our dad started dating again when we were 7 and we met our stepmom when we were 8. When my dad and stepmom were talking about moving in together and getting married they asked me and Robyn how we felt about it and what worries we had.
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  • 03
    We both said we didn't want things to change a lot. That we liked going to our grandparents after school until dad picked us up after work and we didn't want that to stop. That we didn't want it to mean we'd have a new mom. We were worried dad would stop talking about mom and we'd have to stop talking about her too.
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  • 04
    They told us we didn't have to see our stepmom as our new mom and we didn't need to stop going to our grandparents and that it worked out good since our stepmom worked too. They asked if we'd be okay with her picking us up some days and we said we were okay with that. We talked about what we'd call our
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  • 05
    stepmom and we both wanted to use her name. She told us there was no pressure but if we ever wanted to call her some kind of mom name she'd love that. Dad assured us we'd still spend time with him.
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  • 06
    After they got married dad talked to us again and asked where we'd want to be if something happened and he couldn't take care of us. We said our grandparents. Dad told us he figured and that was always the plan but it was good to know it didn't need to change.
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  • 07
    We had a pretty good relationship with our stepmom. It wasn't like TV usually shows where we eventually started to see her as our new or second mom and started calling her some mom name. It wasn't a thing where we told dad we'd want to be with her if something
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  • 08
    happened to him. Or where our half siblings being born changed how we saw her or felt about her. But we were never reality show levels of bad either where we hated her and wanted nothing to do with her. There weren't epic tantrums or anything.
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  • 09
    Two years ago dad got into a really bad accident and he was in hospital for four months and in a rehab place for three more months. When that happened we went to live with our grandparents. At the time we weren't even sure dad would get better or survive. And we wanted
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  • 10
    to be with our grandparents. Our stepmom didn't say anything at the time but we did have to call our half siblings pretty frequently and stop by the house to show them we weren't just gone forever. But it was tough because we felt more at home with our grandparents and needed them but our half siblings really begged for us.
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  • 11
    Dad got better and came home and we moved back home too. But after a few months of us all being home things were weird. My dad told us one day that my stepmom wanted the four of us to go to therapy together and talk things through.
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  • 12
    Cheezburger Image 10481806080
    via Prostock-Studio from Getty Images / Canva

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  • What would you do if you were the twins in this situation? Would you just concede and apologize to your stepmother? Or would you put up a fight and make them respect you? I would definitely not apologize in this situation. It's weird that a grown woman is even expecting it from teenagers. 

  • 13
    This stuff took a while. It was super hard to find a decent therapist and the wait lists were crazy. But we started therapy in January.
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  • 14
    I won't go into every single detail but my stepmom is hurt that we moved out when dad had the accident and she wants us to apologize for not staying. But my dad and her also said that they had expected we'd actually stay when faced with something like that. They didn't think after all this time we'd actually move in with
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  • 15
    our grandparents. She said we destroyed the family unit when we did it because our half siblings were hurt and so was she and that it made everything worse. Dad said he just assumed after some time that if anything happened we'd stay where we were and he said it was hard to see our stepmom so broken up about the fact we didn't.
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    Cheezburger Image 10481806592
    via EzumeImages from Getty Images / Canva

    This image is for illustration only, and the subjects are models; the image does not depict the actual subjects of the story.

  • 17
    They said they had expected us to gradually feel way different and my stepmom said it was a wake up call that we don't consider her our actual parent and she had expected that we secretly did and expected that it would grow over the years. She said an apology would be a good start to fixing things.
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  • 18
    I didn't apologize and neither did Robyn but when asked by the therapist I said I thought my dad and stepmom's expectations were unfair to me and Robyn because it meant all the stuff we talked about was really for nothing. I said it put us in a bad place because they never asked if we'd changed how we felt or would do it different than we said before.
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  • 19
    The therapist asked my dad and stepmom to address it and she asked them some questions.
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  • 20
    My dad said after therapy that it felt like I had wanted to shame them for being honest and he said an apology wasn't a lot to ask for and me and Robyn not rushing to do it said we didn't care about the hurt our choice caused. AITA?
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  • 21
    Turmeric_Ping • 18h ago NTA. And your Dad is TA big-time for saying that to you outside of therapy. Next session, bring it up immediately the session starts, and say that you can't be honest in therapy if what you say is used against you
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  • 22
    outside. Insist that your father apologises to you and commits to never doing that again, or you won't be able to participate further. And if he won't, then stop participating. This is a big deal, and you should insist it's treated as such.
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  • 23
    amf1159 · 17h ago NTA, you may need to ask your grandparent if you can move back In with them.
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  • 24
    I would tell the therapist what happened after the first session. It was an assumption on your Stepmom part, why didn't she bring this at at the time. I get that she had a lot of her plate but she should have found the time to talk to both of you.
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  • 25
    Sorry, you're going through this.
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  • 26
    PermissionAny1549 17h ago "My dad said after therapy that it felt like I had wanted to shame them for being honest and he said an apology wasn't a lot to ask for..."
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  • 27
    He is actively shaming both you and your sister for not giving them the apology that they so desperately need to validate their feelings of them being right and you both being wrong. Don't allow them to strong- arm you and your sister into apologising.
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  • 28
    Definitely mention this occurrence in your next therapy session. And good job for standing up to the adults! It's not an easy thing to do
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