17-year-old tells mother that he doesn't like his 17-year-old stepsister or consider her to be family, parents retaliate: 'I accept her presence, but never felt close to her and never bonded with her'

We can't choose our family—or so we're often told. The reality is that we can't choose the family that we're born with, but we can choose the people that we consider to be our family thereafter. Family is who you find along the twisting path of life, and while there are those we might find along the beaten path, there are relationships we form that go on to mean more to us than we could have ever anticipated. The foremost of these people is our spouse, who at some point was a complete stranger to us but whom we have grown closer to than we could have ever realized. 

But, there's no telling where a relationship might lead from the outset, romantic or otherwise. Someone simply being in your life doesn't mean that they'll become close to you; in fact, often quite the opposite. This often becomes a challenge within blended families where the complex dynamics and layers of feelings at work often don't align with the expectations of the two people, the parents, who have chosen to be with one another. Those difficult pressures combined with close proximity to verifiable strangers may just lead you to feel worse rather than better about them. That's certainly the way it was for these stepsiblings, and the 17-year-old's admission to his mother about how he really felt about his sister caused a marked change and significant discomfort in the family.