The grandparents probably WOULD have warmed up to and included the dad's new stepkids if dad hadn't been a pushy jerk about blending the family 100% instantly. The dad married less than two years after his wife, their daugther, died and left behind two kiddos. Not a great time to go "HEY you wanna see your grandkids ever again you better accept my replacement wife and her offspring "

The grandparents were the dead mother’s parents and had nothing to do with the father’s new wife or the wife’s children. Certainly they owed them naught but courtesy and owed them no inheritance.

I think it had to do with it being the ex son in laws stepkids. And no if my Ex S-I-L remaires I will not see any step kids or bio kids of his and hers as being my family.

Trying to strong arm people into accepting something they find unacceptable always backfires. If they hadn’t been forced to include the other kids in order to see they own grandchildren they may eventually have warmed up to them eventually. Being manipulated tends to leave a bitter taste in the mouth of the one who is left powerless and forced into a position they didn’t want to be in. If you love every kid that crosses your path there’s something wrong with you. I don’t wish harm on any child ever but I will always go out of my way for the ones I’m related to that I wasn’t forced to accept.

Ir was the blackmail aspect. The family had to take on the other kids as condition of being allowed to see their late daughter/sister's children. I can see why they resented the father and stepmum for forcing that. It was a horrid thing to do to everyone, to put those steps into a family where they weren't wanted and to force the family to pretend to love them. I do wish they could have found a way to stick it to Dad and Stepmum without hurting the kids, though.

Good that you do that, but but you can't force a relationship on another person. It's cruel to the person who the relationship is being forced on and the people being forced on people. Kid's brains are very elastic if you explain things to them, especially when they're young. Now, the kids are hurt and feeling unwanted when all of these could have been avoided from the get go. As someone from a blended family, I appreciated how things were defined very clearly from the beginning, so no expectations from and disappointments.

Easy. When people are forced on you for a decade, you get resentful. Not their circus, not their monkeys.

Yes, it’s unfair on the stepchildren but it is 100% the parent’s fault and not the grandparents. The children are their daughter’s, husband’s, new wife’s, children. If they were their daughter’s step children then the grandparents might have loved and accepted them but the two children are nothing to do with their family - their daughter never met them. The grandparents were forced to see them in order to see their dead daughter’s children who they didn’t want to lose touch with. They aren’t their step grandchildren or any relation at all.

I do see both sides, but…a two-year old and a four-year old, that they’ve known and treated ’fine’ for ten years? And then going ‘they were never loved or wanted’? Jesus. If they’d been unbearable bratty teenagers I could sort of get it, but none of this is their fault. On the other hand I can see how the grandparents might have resented them for getting in the way of quality time with their ‘actual grandkids’ (that’s a bit age difference at that point in life), but still, you’d hope they’d be wise enough to realise that and, worst case, take it out on their parents, not the kids themselves.

Everyone talking about responsibility, obligation, a group of kids growing up together should be treated the same by the grownups in their life. Particularly when they are young. They should all be loved and cared for equally. Other wise resentment and a while slew of therapy bulls are inthe offing when they are adults as they try to work through what was wrong with themselves that they elwere treated so differently. Kids do not care about or understand your interpersonal politics. They just know when theyre being treated differently and will blame themselvea until decaeds into adulthood. Youve etched in their very blueprint that they are wrong or not enough.

Not really. The father and stepmom forced it, plus it was only a year and a half since their daughter's death. I can see how they'd not be able to include these stepkids. The grief is still raw and then the dad pulls this c**p.

Helena, you said that so beautifully & I 100% agree!!! The entire attitude of the OP & the grandparents is grotesque. What shabby little hearts & lives they led. And what an absolutely terrible lesson to teach their grandkids. Kindness & compassion cost us nothing, but their absence can end up costing us everything. I think it's the deliberate exclusion that feels especially nasty to me because the stepsibling were barely out of infanthood when they became part of the family. I can't really blame OP too much since she's only 17 but I hope she realizes that her father & stepmother are trying to teach her a lesson about not being a shallow, heartless human being...

That was my thought, too.My SIL came into the family with her (then 1YO) son "attached". He always knew my brother wasn't his biological father, but when talking about their grandchildren my parents mean all five of them, not just his siblings. I'm not sure I'd cut the whole family out as OP is supposed to do (per dad and stepmom), but it was definitely an ar$ehole thing of the extended family to exclude the steps like that - and apparently keep OP and her brother closely involved in that game.

These weren't even their actual stepkids, they were the stepkids of their son-in-law. Would you have expected the grandparents to include them if their daughter had divorced the kids' dad, instead of died?

I agree 100%. When I visit my niece and nephews and they come to hug me, if their friends are there playing with them their friends come and hug me too and I hug them back. Every child is precious and deserving of kindness and love.

No one is entitled to be loved. I learn that in a hard way. I am also a step kid, but I don't see my step family have a small heart just because they don't love me. The relationship is build and earned, not expected. Also, in this case, they are stranger to them. They are their son in law's step children. It's not their responsibilty to include them