Updates: “I’m With Him” Responds

It’s time again for “Dear Wendy Updates,” a feature where people I’ve given advice to in the past let us know whether they followed the advice and how they’re doing now. Today we hear from “I’m With Him,” whose stepsister accused the LW’s husband of “grinding” on a younger cousin in the family. Both the cousin and the husband denied such a thing, but the stepsister was adamant that her daughter saw it and accused everyone of calling her daughter a liar. This led to various issues within the family, a slew of additional accusations, and the LW deciding she’d have to cut her stepsister out of her life. Below, an update on the situation.

Since I wrote in, I had a talk with my sister and let her know that I couldn’t have her in my life if she was going to continue to behave the way that she was behaving. She got angry and tried to get other members of my family angry with me (which didn’t work, because by then everyone had found out that nothing had actually happened…my cousin, brother, and step-dad had all confirmed that nothing had actually happened).

She did reach out to me about a month later via text and it seemed like maybe she was going to stop acting ridiculous. She had a health scare and I did reach out as well to make sure that she was okay…again, it seemed like maybe I would be able to have her in my life. Then, my niece stayed with my parents for a week and told my sister that my step-dad talks to me more than other people. My sister freaked out and cussed out my step-dad, saying that I’m not even his real daughter and that he shouldn’t talk to me especially when she and I aren’t on the best of terms. My step-dad let her know that he wasn’t going to stop talking to either of us just because we weren’t talking to each other. This made her really angry and she went back to trying to stir up drama with the rest of my family.

It does make me really sad…especially, because after all of my sister’s behavior, I can’t help but wonder if my niece even actually accused my husband of anything or if my sister made it all up. I hope some day I will be able to have a relationship with my niece and nephew, so I have decided to not stoop to my sister’s level. Although I’m not talking to her, I’m also not talking to the rest of my family about it and trying to get them to take sides. My hope is that if I continue to be the bigger person, the kids will understand when they get older. I just definitely can’t have that type of toxicity around my family, and I don’t want my two sons to think that it would be okay if they treated each other or others that way.

Thank you for the advice!

Yeah, your stepsister sounds toxic, and you are taking what sounds like the best path in dealing (or not dealing) with her toxicity. I do hope that eventually you can at least enjoy a relationship with her children, your niece and nephew. Thank you for the update!

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If you’re someone I’ve given advice to in the past, I’d love to hear from you, too. Email me at [email protected] with a link to the original post, and let me know whether you followed the advice and how you’re doing now.

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