"AITA for laughing at my step-sister?"

So a little back story my mom 55 and dad 57 got a divorce when me (30m) and my twin brother 30 were 13 due to our dad having an affair with our stepmom 47 and got her pregnant with our half sister.

After the divorce my dad married his wife (who was horrible to our mom and it got worse when she realized that we were never going see her as a mom in our lives) and they had 3 more children and my stepmom had 3 daughters already. Their father had died 2 years before the affair so they were excited to have a new dad.

During the divorce my paternal grandparents were not happy about the affair and did everything to make sure my father and his new family knew they were not welcome. They were not openly hostile but it was obvious when it was noticeable when we would get things that they wouldn’t of get invited to things they weren’t.

So on to the reason for this post. My grandparents (dad’s parents) are wealthy, think old money. In their family there is a tradition that when you get married you and your spouse are gifted a set of jewelry to pass down to your children. When I married my husband we were both gifted 2 sets of diamond cuff links and a part of diamond studs all together worth about $200k.

They also payed to have built our house built when they found out we were expecting our own set of twins via surrogate. I know spoiled. Now my twin is getting married to his long time girlfriend. My grandparents are paying for their wedding (they offered to pay for mine too but my husband’s parents paid for it so that’s why they built the house).

My oldest stepsister 28 is also engaged and her wedding is scheduled after my twin's. She and her fiancé aren’t as well off but my dad is paying but not as much because he’s still got to take care of our younger siblings and my stepmom is a stay at home mom.

Here’s where I might be the AH. We were having dinner with my dad’s family and you could tell my stepsister and stepmom was upset about something. My youngest brother asked her what was wrong and that’s when she got upset. Apparently she had asked my grandparents the color of the jewelry she was getting for her wedding.

Now they don’t have a relationship with her and our other 2 stepsisters and do not think kindly of their mother. They’re only around them when it’s a big family event or something for my half siblings. So they told her she wasn’t getting anything like that especially how she behaved when the affair came out and she made it seem like me and my brother should’ve chose her mother over ours which was not happening.

So she also asked about money for a house because again my father can’t afford it. Again they said no so her feelings were hurt. Plus they’re not even going to her wedding. I couldn’t hold it in so I laughed and so did my brother. Later after dinner my dad text us saying we were AHs which I can see it. So AITA?

What do you think? AITA? This is what top commenters had to say:

Top-Put2038 said:

NTA. She's your step sister and not even related to them. They've made clear their dis-association with your step siblings. How do they get the impression that this is suddenly going to change? It was a little unkind to openly laugh, but if this was sprung in front of you with no warning I can understand it and to a degree, excuse it.

OP responded:

I think she feels like because they did give her other things like paying for her college education and gifting her a graduation trip after high school she was entitled to other things. But the thing is they never gave her these things in person they always sent it through my dad.

My grandparents have certain boundaries but they’re not cruel. They just like to keep familial traditions to what they call their core family and they’ve always been upfront about that even when my dad tried to make them be involved with them more than they wanted to be.

Njbelle-1029 said:

NTA who do these women think they are? I mean even if they were better people she still shouldn’t have expected anything not being true family members. No offense to your family but that’s how “old money” works, you keep it with your natural family members. So nope that was funny I laughed too.

OP responded:

Honestly yeah some of my friends don’t understand when I tried to explain it to them which I completely understand. My husband understands because his family comes from old Italian money.

My dad actually tried to explain it to her when I got married because that’s when my grandparents decided to build my house since we announced we were expecting the twins plus I had already had 2 children already that my husband adopted because their mom had died giving birth.

She couldn’t understand why they didn’t just buy me a house and and kept complaining how much of a waste it was for them to spend that much money. So that also turned them off to her more.

shadowdragon1978 said:

NTA. Sounds like step-mom and her daughters are gold diggers, and when they saw the old money of your grandparents, they thought their ship had come in. Personally, I would tell grandparents this so they can take precautions in their wills to ensure that those women never get their hands on a single red cent.

OP responded:

Oh they already have. They were and never will be in the will. My dad has 4 younger brothers plus my grandparents have a stipulation in their wills that dictate only children and grandchildren that are blood related can receive anything from their estate.

The only person who’s getting anything that’s not related to them is my mom but that’s because she been helping taking care of them since my grandfather had a stroke 5 years ago.

He later shared this update:

So a lot has happened since my last post. I’m thankful for my judgment of NTA. Yesterday my dad came over with my twin and my stepsister’s fiancé to talk to us. He decided he to ask me if I could gift my set of jewelry I got for my wedding to my soon to be step BIL.

I looked at him and asked him if he was crazy when he knew I was going to be giving $6000 to them for their honeymoon. My brother asked him if he seriously asked such a stupid question. Now again I’ll remind everyone that the $6000 in my half of the present me and my brother are giving together.

So they’re already getting $12k from us. My brother reminded my dad about his set of cuff links he got from his wedding to our mom and he could give it to him if it’s that important. He has he’s already paying for their wedding so he shouldn’t have to give it to him and this will show how much I care on top of the honeymoon gift.

I said that’s not happening as I planned to let my all my sons wear them when they go to their respective proms and gift them to my oldest son when he gets married. I told him he was out of line trying to take from his grandchildren as he knew my plans for them.

One thing about my dad is that he loves his grandchildren especially my oldest son who is in his sophomore year of high school. He instantly starts to apologize and the whole time my soon to be step BIL is sitting there looking embarrassed because he clearly had no idea what my dad wanted him there for until he started talking.

So now I’m starting to feel that this situation is going to get worse before it gets better especially with my twins wedding being before my stepsister’s. I just told my dad I’ll talk to him on Sunday when they come over for family dinner since it’s my time to host.

Now he’s asking me not to bring it up in front of my mom grandpa and grandma since they’ll both be there. I told I wasn’t planning on it because it’s none of their business and after that I just want them this conversation to end.