28-year-old tech employee vows to help pay for younger siblings' college, her father now pressures her to split the funds with new step-siblings she hasn't met: 'I don’t even know them!'

When money comes in between family members, all decorum often goes out the door. While it's easy to claim that no force in the world is stronger than that of a familial bond, the truth of the matter is that the tensions formed as a result of money can be an even stronger force. We tend to see this conflict play out after a family member is gone, and everyone fights over inheritance drama. However, in this instance, not only was everyone very much alive, but the age dynamics were more surprising compared to what we're used to seeing play out when we come across these stories. 

For this author, she was a successful tech employee who managed to make more money than her father by the age of 28. Of course, this is not to disparage the efforts that her father made, but his daughter's success most certainly upended the typical dynamics you see within a family. The author made it known to her younger siblings, who were teenagers just beginning the college application process, that she would be paying for their higher education. She had been saving for years and was proud to be able to make the lives of her younger sister and brother considerably easier. 

Here's where things start to get messy. Within the past year, the author's father remarried to a woman who has two kids of her own. Now, the father wants his daughter to split the amount of money she saved four ways so that his stepkids can benefit from that college money as well. The problem is that the author barely knows her step-siblings and has no desire to take money away from her actual siblings, especially since she already promised those funds to them personally. We do not predict this ending well for anyone involved!