My beautiful wife Zoe and I have been married for a year.
I have a 10 year old sister, Liv, who is a very shy, quiet, well behaved kid. With her parents or super close family friends she is sassy, funny, outgoing, but around most adults she is super reserved. Zoe and Liv have an ok relationship, but I certainly wouldn’t say they are close.
Liv hates the movie character Krampus. When she was 4 she went downstairs on Christmas Eve and my mom and her friend were watching the movie in the dark living room and it scared the shit. Its not like she is still super scared of it, but she definitely still hates it.
We were recently staying with my family while in between places (just for a month) and Zoe found a Halloween mask that looked similar to Krampus at her friends house and thought it would be hilarious to prank Liv. I really don’t think she had bad intentions. She has a mischievous streak and it was totally something Liv’s dad would do.
So Zoe woke her up with the mask and Liv didn’t think it was funny and basically just wouldn’t talk to her. My mom came into our room and very aggressively told Zoe “if you ever go into my sleeping child’s room again we are going to have a huge problem” Zoe tried to say she was just playing around and she didn’t think they would get mad as Liv’s dad does stuff like that
My mom said “he is her fucking dad. you aren’t family” Zoe was furious and asked if I was really not going to defend her. I said “you are 100% my family, but Liv probably doesn’t think of you as family and that is understandable” My mom even clarified that is what she meant. She said she considers her husband family, but would never ask us to, and she told Zoe to accept that she isn’t Liv’s family.
Zoe is furious with me for not standing up for her. I feel my mom was mostly right. Liv doesn’t view Zoe as family and is more closed off and reserved with her vs her dad who she is 100% comfortable with and would feel she could get back at. Zoe is my family, but it seems weird to push her on my family.
