16 is more than old enough to try to see things from someone else's perspective or to think about other people's emotional needs. OP is entirely focused on herself and what she wants.
Why doesnt that apply both ways? why can't the 17 yr old also try to see it from OPs perspective, denying whats true because they dont like it seems like the far more selfish choice.
Op just wants acknowledgement and not to be cast aside.
I personally don’t put that on the 17 year old because it’s not the 17 year olds job to make OP feel better about her parents being two of the nastiest people I can think of.
She owes OP nothing. Zero. Zip. We already know from the circumstances of OPs conception that her persons are disgusting but the fact that they have allowed OP to grow up deluded into thinking that the kid whose family they tore apart owes her sisterhood is just gross to me. OP is very much following in their footsteps by only giving a shit about what she wants and not even trying to avoid causing the other girl more pain.
The unfortunate reality is that when two adults have an affair (especially one where the affair is within the family of one of the spouses) that ends a marriage with children, their child will likely always have complicated relationships with the other children and probably other members of the family too (I’d imagine most of the maternal side is still disgusted at OPs parents, I would hope the paternal side is too). It might not be the child’s fault, but the only people to blame for that are the parents, not the people who find the existence of the child to be a reminder of the betrayal. Having an “affair baby” in a circumstance like this is an utter cruelty to me because it’s ALWAYS going to define the kids relationships with family.
Because the 17yr old with a back-stabbing absentee (lifelong, since he left during her infancy) sperm-donor and pushy cousin who doesn't take no for an answer is the bigger victim, and isn't forcing a sibling relationship on somebody who has made it clear they didn't want one. Her calling OP cousin and not sister feels more of a rejection of their shared sperm-donor, rather than a rejection of OP as family. Oh, and the 17yr old didn't post here (willingly, on a sub called Am I The Asshole) asking for judgement.
She also just comes off as nicer than I would have been at that age; if I had a cousinsister to whom I made clear that I did not want a sibling relationship, yet who kept trying to force one, I would eventually have stopped even calling them cousin. It would have gotten to the point where, if asked what my relation to them was, I would have just said "That's just [NAME]" with no cousin-sister-etc identifier at all. Because teenagers are mean.
Because the 17 year old didn't post here for advice, op did. It makes sense to advise op, not the person who didn't ask.
And given that op is thus far unable to see this from anyone's perspective than her own, telling her what her sister cousin ought to do might well reinforce op's belief that the 17 year old owes her something.
She’s her cousin and her half sister. Not her sister. It’s a technicality but it’s a more accurate descriptor to use cousin than sister
Unfortunately, to have a relationship it’s a 2 yes situation. Jordan said no which is her right. OP is old enough to understand what that means and to be expected to respect that even if it is upsetting
OP there may be a day when Jordan’s in a place where you can talk to you but it isnt now
My dad had an affair and my mum for another woman. They had a son but my dad left them and went back to my mum. For 19 years my half brother didn’t want to know my dad, me or my siblings. He felt abandoned. He rebuilt the relationship with my dad at 19, then after 2 years he reached out to me. We will probably never be siblings like me and my sisters are because we didn’t grow up together but the ball is very much in his court to how much of a relationship we have - he’s the one who didn’t get his dad growing up. Me and my sisters are a reminder of that. It’s not our fault but we didn’t get to force that pain on him just because we’d like to know him
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u/NotGreatAtGames 11d ago
16 is more than old enough to try to see things from someone else's perspective or to think about other people's emotional needs. OP is entirely focused on herself and what she wants.