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The original was posted on /r/AmItheAsshole by /u/fsinlaw on 2023-08-09 12:18:33.

My (F25) (step)brother Nico (29) has recently got engaged to a woman called Jenny after dating for two years. We all tried to welcome Jenny, especially knowing that she grew up in the foster care system and didn’t have family. We tried to get to know her, but she seemed to want an instant intimate connection rather than building one. Me and my younger (step) sister Chelsea (22) bore the brunt of her neediness but our parents have also expressed concerns.

Since she met us she has been trying to insert herself into pictures, family disputes, and social events. She has no boundaries. We’ve all talked to Nico about it so many times, even sitting him down as a family and he keeps saying he will talk to her but nothing changes, and it’s got worse since the engagement. She tried to make me her Maid of Honour, demanded my mother throw her a bridal shower, started calling my parents Mom and Dad even though they asked her not to, and reached out to distant family members that we don’t even talk to to tell them about the engagement.

Last week we were all (Chelsea, Nico, me, and our partners) staying at our parents’ place. Jenny, Nico, and my bf were the only ones not up yet and the rest of us were in the kitchen. Chelsea, my mum, and I were talking about taking a weekend trip. Jenny came in, having overheard us, saying it sounded like fun and proceeded to invite herself along. I was pretty annoyed by this and said she couldn’t just invite herself. Jenny said why wouldn’t she be invited, and I said because marrying Nico doesn’t give you a blanket invite to every single thing all his family does. Jenny got upset and said she would really like to be included in our family, since it was the only one she knows and she doesn’t have a proper family. I said I know that and we all sympathise but that doesn’t mean we owe you a new one.

The whole room was silent and Jenny got up and went back upstairs. She didn’t come out the rest of the day but Nico came down to chew me out over what I said. Our parents defended me saying he had an opportunity to talk to Jenny and he didn’t. He and Jenny left the same day and he’s now only keeping low level contact with everyone.

When I’ve spoken to him since he’s just said I went way too low with what I said to Jenny and that I’ve set her back mentally and that she’s really down. I do feel bad, but I also feel like Jenny has been overstepping. We are all open to a relationship with her (we all have good relationships with partners in the family) but she never really made a genuine effort to build relationships with us, she just decided she was entitled to them, which I think isn’t fair.

I don’t know if I should reach out to Nico or Jenny with a more fervent apology, which I will if I have really screwed up here. I don’t want to be the reason Nico stops talking to us. I just feel like he dropped the ball by letting it get to this point.

Edit - okay I’m adding this because I thought it was implied but maybe not. We do push back when Jenny is being intrusive. I can’t count how many times I have said “Jenny I’m not comfortable talking about my sex life/therapy/medication etc., it’s really personal, can we just change the subject”. We move on from the conversation but the next time I talk to her it’s back to square one. Same with my parents, they politely ask her not to call them mom and dad, and she stops for the duration of that conversation, and then starts again next time. We’ve never had a more in depth conversation with her, we offered, and Nico said no, he would talk to her.