Part of the reason it's been so helpful for me to find this site is that the concept of "steps" and "halves" is considered "unacceptable" in my family. People in my family EXPECT me to love my SCs like my own & will even call my SD my "daughter" which makes me extremely uncomfortable. My own mom is the biggest culprit of this!

You see, my parents divorced when I was 2, & my mom remarried when I was 4. My step father had 3 children & my mom 2, then together they had 3 if their own, but we were always discouraged from using the terms "step" or "half" so all of the kids were just brothers and sisters.

My step father was NOT a good man to my mother nor me & my sister so to this day our relationship is quite strained, but even though he & my mother divorced several years ago, I guess he will always be a part of my life because he is the father of my younger siblings. However, I have stayed in touch with only one of my ex-step siblings.