I cannot deal with my rude step siblings anymore. What do I do?

[KLD it.]

My step siblings and I are all grown 20 something adults. We've known each other since our parents married in my late teens.

I've always tried to be like a thoughtful real sister to them, I invite them to dinners out with my father, birthday dinners, attended and brought gifts for all their birthdays, showers, and other events. The problem is this kindness I show them is never returned. Example, every year I mail all of them a christmas card and make sure my real brother and I get them gifts for them and their children to open on christmas. They never send us a card or give us any gifts. Now I don't give gifts because I expect one in return. The problem is my step sister, step brother and their spouses all proclaimed that this year they would not be sending christmas cards or gifts to anyone who didn't send them some last year.

Low and behold they posted their christmas cards all over Facebook, and as per usual my bother and I received nothing.

[Brian F]

Now that you are an adult you can leave all the niceties behind. Stop sending gifts, stop sending cards, stop ackowledging them at all. if they start sending anything then you can ad dthem back in easily enough since you have done it for years anyways.

There are plenty of people in the world who would be happy to get a card or a gift (military, orphans, poor etc...). Spend your time and money someplace were it is appreciated.

You coudl post it on facebook as saying you have stopped sending cards to people who don;lt send to you and instead are sending them to those who appreciate the sentiment.

[Truth Hurts]

I completely agree with Brian. My husband's family is the same way. We used to go out of our way to help them and the one time we asked for a very small favour, we got the door slammed in our faces. His mother is the worste. She will go out of her way to accept his ex as her own daughter (they were never married) but refuses to accept that I'm her actual daughter in law. He has two children with his ex and we have 2 together. They have joint custody so we have them half the time. She refuses to see her grandkids when they are in our care. She will go out of her way to see them when they are with the ex but refuses to come see her OTHER grandkids. It's absurd.