As adults, the old dynamics still linger, with Penny occasionally slipping back into her role as the favored child, much to the quiet frustration of her half-brothers. What once seemed like harmless family banter now reveals deeper undercurrents of rivalry and unresolved feelings, showing how family bonds can be both a source of love and lingering pain.
Before my brothers and I were born, my mom had a child with an old boyfriend, “Penny”. Her boyfriend/Penny’s bio dad didn’t stick around. My mom then met my dad when Penny was 3 and they got married.
My dad adopted Penny. My mom then went on to have me and my brothers with our dad. Growing up, Penny was always the apple of my dad’s eye. He gave us all attention, but he always went out of his way to make it equal.
Around the time she entered her teens, Penny would make the joke “Dad was stuck with you guys, but he chose me”, or refer to herself as “the chosen one”. My brothers and parents always thought it was hilarious.
I thought it was obnoxious. If our brothers and I were ever discussing what traits we got/didn’t get from dad, Penny would break in with “I didn’t get anything from him except his last name, because I’m the chosen one”.
Now, we’re all adults, and Penny still trots that out from time to time. Recently, it came up when my siblings and I were out with our partners for drinks. One of my brothers has a newish girlfriend so she wasn’t aware of Penny’s store.
Penny was telling it, shoving in that she’s the “chosen one”. I admit I was a little drunk and I said “Chosen by our dad, but you weren’t chosen by your first dad, huh?” Penny got a hurt look on her face.
My brothers told me that was uncalled for. Even the new girlfriend was looking at me like I was a douche. I said this story is just getting old. We’ve all heard it. And it’s a little ridiculous.
My boyfriend ended up calling us an Uber and getting me out of there.
Well, of course word’s gotten back to our parents and they’re pissed at me, saying I was rude. I said Penny was just being obnoxious. AITA?
Conclusion
The original poster (OP) felt immense frustration over a long-running, privileged narrative maintained by their stepsister, culminating in a sharp retort made while under the influence of alcohol. The central conflict is the OP’s need to stop the perceived favoritism and obnoxious behavior versus the family’s long-term tolerance and even amusement of the stepsister’s ‘chosen one’ dynamic.
When family tolerance enables a long-term, divisive narrative, is it appropriate to use a hurtful, public comment to force an end to the behavior, or does such an outburst only serve to damage family relationships without solving the underlying issue of boundary-setting?
Here’s how people reacted:
YTA. Yes, I absolutely can see how her schtick would get annoying. Even though it’s almost assuredly something she built to cover up her insecurity at being your collective dad’s only non-bio child.
But a reasonable approach would have been to have a chat with her on the side and say something like, “You’re our family, you will always be a part of my family, but honestly it hurts me when you say that. I know the others don’t mind, but it hurts *me*, so I would appreciate it if you could quit saying that in front of me.”
She’s your sister. Hopefully she loves you and doesn’t *want* to hurt you, so she’d accept that and back off. Or maybe she wouldn’t, and you two are both shitty sisters. But at least if you’d tried a grown-up conversation first, you wouldn’t be TA and could take some moral high ground. Yeesh.
All of that said, if you’ve never actually discussed this and had a heart-to-heart with your sister over how this behavior makes you feel, then you’re a MAJOR asshole and I hope the family group chat roasts you like the weenie you are and posts the results publicly so everyone can see what an ass you’ve made of yourself.
Your sister’s “joke” (it’s not funny) is clearly playing on your insecurites because you even describe her as “the apple of his eye”. Her insecurities do not give her the right to continue to ignore other people’s feelings and rub these things in, and I suspect she does know there is an element of truth to it.
You also do not have the right to publically lash out and humiliate her because your sister’s coping strategy about being abandoned hurt your feelings when it’s not really about hurting you (that’s just a side effect). It’s mostly about her coping.
Both of you grow up and have a conversation like adults.
You should have brought up that it hurt you long before, while you were still kids. You should have made it clear you weren’t okay being put down to make her feel better.
But *yeah no, this was an asshole thing to say*.
Your parents should have been more on the ball and nipped this in the bud, especially because unless you and your bio siblings were all oops babies, your dad did choose *all of you*.
You need to reflect on why something so minor is making you bitter, and deal with it.