Mom pressures 16-year-old son to see his 16-year-old stepsister as his sibling because she's paranoid they'll start dating if they don't feel like siblings: 'They treat us like siblings and want us to feel like siblings, but we don't.'

They should feel grateful for their amicable relationship and leave it at that.

You can't force a sibling relationship between two stepchildren, and you can't force a stepmom or a stepdad to be accepted into a parental role by the child they're step-parenting. While it can be difficult for a parent when their child seemingly stubbornly refuses to accept their new partner and their children, it is so much harder for the kid to be gaslit into treating people who are functionally strangers as close and beloved family members. Emotional closeness between blended family members has to be formed over time, and there's a good chance it won't happen at all, and that's okay. A kid whose age is in double digits isn't going to accept a new parent into their life as quickly as a toddler, and there's nothing wrong with that. If two stepsiblings have a relationship that's closer to that of a roommate than to that of siblings, you shouldn't demand that they become more emotionally attached than they are. That's just going to drive them further apart.

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The stepsiblings in this story are perfectly okay with treating each other as strangers, but it really bothers their parents that they don't see each other as brother and sister. I don't know why they would, considering their parents married when they were 12, and now they're 16, but the mom believes in miracles.
Am I the bad guy? My mom is really freaked out that me and her husband's daughter don't see each other as siblings

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