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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/Bright_Assumption624 on 2023-09-05 19:38:17.
My (30m) brother (40m) has four kids. His oldest son is Sam (15m). Sam’s from my brother’s first marriage. When Sam was 6 his mom was diagnosed with terminal cancer and she died a year later. My brother met his second wife when Sam was 8 and married her when Sam was 9. They have three children together now ages 5, 3 and 18 months.
Sam has always called his younger siblings his half siblings and this has always bothered my brother and SIL. They have corrected him repeatedly, taken him to therapy, individual and family, and have continued therapy for almost 6 years. It started while SIL was pregnant and Sam was saying baby was a half sibling not just a sibling. They have changed therapists every few months when they don’t like the progress being made. While doing all this they continue to correct Sam every time and my brother has told Sam’s friends that Sam is wrong and he has siblings, not half siblings.
For the last year my brother has our parents and our sisters correcting Sam every time they hear him say half siblings or half sister/half brother. I was told I should correct him too. But I have not. It has been a discussion and I have said it does not feel right to gang up on him and try to harass him into submission on this topic. They tell me Sam clearly isn’t willing to work with a therapist to get to a point where the half doesn’t matter so there’s nothing wrong with nudging him along with correcting him when he “slips up”.
My brother has been on my ass for the last couple of months about my lack of effort to correct Sam. He has told me that my 5 year old niece has started to question why her brother (Sam) is cold and why he always says they’re half siblings. He said she has already asked him if Sam loves her or if she did something wrong. So why would I not try to save her the heartache and get Sam on board with loving his siblings and dropping the half. I told him I don’t agree with the lengths he’s going to. I said after nearly 6 years if nothing has changed does he really want to break his son to get what he wants? I also asked him why it bothers him so much when his own best friend refers to his half siblings as half, and he has never batted an eye at that. I told him he might wish things were perfect and that Sam adapted to everything perfectly but he lives in this reality and not in that dream.
My brother ignored the rest of what I said and called me out for not agreeing with the lengths. He said that as a parent he has to go to whatever lengths it takes to protect his kids and to make sure they turn out to be good people. He said right now Sam is turning into someone he doesn’t like and is turning into a real asshole and fuck me for judging him on his parenting. I have no right to say this to him and I do not understand the difficulty of moving on and trying to bring your kid with you after loss and he’s doing his best.
My brother told our mom he’s disgusted with me and thinks I should reflect on my actions.
AITA?