My sister has been married to her husband Nigel for 21 years and they have been together for about 23 years. Nigel was a widower of three years when he met my sister. His kids at the time of them meeting were 6f and 8m. Nigel's late wife's family was around a lot. My sister hated it. From the very early days it was clear she was toxically jealous of Nigel's late wife and the kids mom. She talked about how strange it was the kids, who didn't remember her, had her photo in their bedrooms, how her stepdaughter had a locket with a photo of her mom, dad and brother in it. I remember back then asking how it was strange. Her mom was loved and Nigel and his late wife's family likely didn't want the kids to not know they were loved by their mom. She said that was her job now. I told her it wasn't healthy to feel that jealous and put out over a mom being remembered. Think of how she would feel if our mom died.
Honestly, I had a lot of respect for Nigel for the first two or three years because his kids seemed to be his priority and he seemed to still love and care about his late wife and not want to erase her but was also ready to be married to someone else. I had seen a lot of far more awful scenarios. But then he started letting my sister push herself onto the kids and try to force out their maternal relatives. It was very clear my sister blamed the maternal relatives for neither of her stepkids coming to think of her as their mom. She didn't want to hear any other reason it could be.
Now both of her stepkids are adults and her stepson became a father for the first time in January. His daughter is named after both her grandmother's. But his mom's name is her first name. My sister was so unhappy about that. She told him it was disrespectful to her and all that crap. He told her to go fuck herself and told her she still hadn't figured out that she wasn't his mom, she wasn't his parent, she wasn't even his real family, because he would happily dump her out of his life for good and would never feel bad about that.
My sister bitched for weeks about it and then I told her if I was her stepkid, I'd do the same. That she had no respect for his mom and had no respect for his maternal family. She freaked out and told me that was a shitty thing to say and I should be on HER side, because she's my SISTER.
AITA?