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When You Don't Get Along With Your Step-Sibling

© Aaron Joseph Goebel

Stress in a family situation can come in all forms, shapes and sizes. Recently I heard of a family whose step-brothers had a disagreement, over the internet, which escalated into an argument, with name calling, accusations and family brought into it on both sides. They then made threats to each other and wanted to meet in order to carry them out. What did this do to the rest of the family?

1) The Father/Step-father believes it is the fault of his step-son because they don't get along anyway, and his step-son has gotten himself into trouble with running his mouth before. He wants to let them settle it between them. He does caution his son, who is the older of the two and more experienced in fighting, that his step-brother is a typical teenager and not to hurt him, because it will cause problems amongst the rest of the family and stress between him and his wife.

2) The mother/Step-mother tends to believe HER son that the situation was started by the step-son because of the circumstances going on between the step-father and son, but she also knows that her son has a smart mouth and is sarcastic, so she is sure there is blame on both sides.

When the step-son comes over the next time The mother/step-mother retreats into the other part of the house because she is afraid he will bring it up and she isn't comfortable with it and doesn't know how she might react if he says negative things about her son. This causes friction between her and the father/step-father, who says she is avoiding his son and it will cause his son to think she doesn't like him. They get into a huge argument, each wanting to believe their child's innocense, and before you know it, accusations and names are being slung between the parents, when probably the step-brothers could solve this amongst themselves without any interference of involvement of the parents.

This is sad -- but it's true to life. What should have been done in this situation? Should the parents have gotten involved at all in the situation? Should they have intervened and brought the step-brothers together (they don't live together) to solve the situation? I think this probably would have been the best situation, but because of stresses between the parents and the children combined with stresses between the siblings, the situation fell apart.

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