My [25F] sister [43F] refuses to have anything to with our half siblings [22M and 22M] and it's causing friction

Basically my parents had my sister very young (around 16) and ended up being pressured into getting married. I also have two other sisters who are 27F and 23F.

They had a pretty unhappy marriage because my dad was an asshole towards my mother and my sister. He's really conservative and traditional so he expected my sister to wait on him hand and foot and didn't really value her education and berated my mum for not giving him a boy (all things that I heard from my sister).

She ended up studying well, getting into a good school, taking out loans and even has a PhD now is now a millionaire basically from setting up a business in a really lucrative but niche STEM field.

Anyway, my dad ended up having an affair and ended up having two boy twins. He divorced my mum immediately and went to live with the other woman apparently as soon as he found out the gender. I was really young at the time so don't remember anything. According to my sister, my step mum also rubbed it in my mum's face that she was able to give my dad two boys. My mum never really recovered from all of this and my sister had to support her emotionally and financially until she passed away 3 years ago.

Since my sister was an adult at the time, she refused to have anything to do with my father after that. My father never was that sexist or anything towards me but my sister showed me letters he'd written to my grandma about how disappointed he was we were girls and he would get disappointed every time we turned out to be girls, which she found when she was helping clear away my grandmother's things after she passed. My dad has acknowledged that he's changed his mind about a lot of that stuff but says it wasn't as bad as my sister makes it out to be- that the housework she had to do was just chores etc.

So I believe my sister when she says that my dad was sexist, he claims he was never that bad but it's hard to say. He wasn't an amazing dad by any means but I did see him on weekends and stuff and he turned up to a few of my school things but isn't great with stuff like birthdays and he missed my high school graduation because he forgot. But he did take us on a few holidays with my half brothers and we kind of talk and meeting up once every couple of months.

My sister however hates him and hasn't had anything to do with him since the divorce. She also refused to have nothing to with with my half brothers. In fact one time, my dad tried to force her to babysit by dropping them off at her house but she was so angry, she called the police and told them my dad had abandoned them which turned into a huge thing with the police looking for my dad and CPS getting involved.

That caused a huge issue with my cousins who had been siding with her up till that point, to start criticising her and she cut them off.

They made up maybe 7 years ago however my sister refuses to come to events where they are present or my dad is present. This has caused issues during family events etc but my sister is quite firm, she doesn't turn up if they will be there. One time my cousins told us and her my dad/half siblings would be there and when she came to the venue and saw them, she turned around and left which caused an argument for days and she ended up cutting them off, and then they reconciled again a couple of years ago.

My dad has also been going around telling people how much he wants to reconcile with her but she's refused to have anything to do with it. My half siblings have also expressed an interest in getting to know her as well and tend to ask after her. My dad also asks after her a lot from everyone but she's got him blocked on everything and I'm not allowed to give my dad her phone number.

My siblings and I refused to carry messages or push my sister into any kind of reconciliation at all and when we catch up we don't talk about my dad's side of the family at all. In addition, my sister has also paid for all our college etc so my gratitude is to her, not my extended family. But she also refused to come any of my sibling's graduation celebrations because my dad would be there which kind of hurt.

As a result my sister has become really alienated from most of my dad's side of the family but she says she didn't care. My mum's side of the family she doesn't particularly like either because she said they never supported her or my mum when my dad was being an asshole just so they could stay married but she doesn't actively dislike them. I feel like I was so young when my parents divorced, I haven't seen the worst of their marriage whereas my sister was a direct witness. It's all a case of she said/he said.

The most recent issue was with my dad's side where a few cousins reached out to her to try and include her again and we ended up planning a Christmas getaway as a family.

Then my dad and step mother raised a fuss as to why my half siblings weren't invited and my half siblings also expressed how hurt they were. My half siblings in particular have been really hurt but how much my sister snubs them when they haven't done anything wrong except being born but I've always been firm about not carrying message or pushing for reconciliation as have my sisters.

A cousin who had kept in contact with my sister all these years, approached my sister about the possibility of my half siblings coming a long as well on the getaway.

My sister did not take it well. She didn't yell or anything but she cut contact, withdrew from the group chats and the holiday and cut off financial support from the cousin who had asked. It turns out she'd be paying for my cousin's kid's school fees so that they could go to a nicer school.

This in turn led my cousin to get desperate because she'd just asked, she wasn't going to push and she can't afford the school anymore for her child. She pleaded with my sister but my sister just told her no and blocked her. My cousin was furious and ended up sending some really nasty messages around how my sister was going to die alone and she needed to get over what happened two decades ago. She regretted it immediately and wanted to apologise but my sister had already blocked her.

My sister has now blocked everyone except me and my siblings and has withdrawn all financial support from every single one of my cousins from both my mum and dad's side. She's been pretty generous with her money even if she doesn't keep contact with my cousins so that the kids can have a better education or go to college.

Now my mum's side cousins are upset that she's withdrawn financial support when they haven't done anything and thought they'd actually had a pretty good relationship with my sister.

Now my full sisters and I have family on both sides asking us to mediate on behalf of them and my sister has made it very clear she's completely and utterly done with any kind of extended family in any way at all and she doesn't care what happens to them.

I feel like she's also really done with me and my siblings too because she thinks we never really stand up for her when people push reconciliation or bad mouth her. But that's not true, we don't let anyone speak ill of her.

How do I go about even navigating this right before holidays?

Do we at least advocate on behalf of my mum's side? I feel sorry for the kids who will now have to change schools because their parents can't afford the fees anymore. I don't feel like they should be punished for issues with their parents.

But on the other hand, it is my sister's money and I completely understand how fed up she is.

TDLR: My sister had completely cut off all extended family and I don't know how to navigate this.

Submitted December 05, 2019 at 07:53PM by tara_alah https://ift.tt/2YoshUB