Widowed Dad Slammed for Punishing Son for Revealing True Feelings in Therapy

The story, posted to an anonymous forum, featured a blended family struggling to bond -- a dynamic that seemed resonant with many Redditors.

However, where the story ultimately went proved to be controversial.

Read on to see for yourself.

"My wife and I have our family going to some family therapy right now," the man began. "Which is us, my son (15) and my stepson (10) and my stepdaughters (8 and 7). My first wife died 9 years ago and I married my wife 6 years ago. We tried to make a very happy and healthy blended family. Not a Brady Bunch situation but with the hope for love to flourish between us all and at the least the appropriate respect to be shown to every member of the household."

"My son has been resistant to being part of the family," he explained, cautiously at first. "He had grief therapy after his mom died and he was still in therapy when I met my wife. I communicated with him and gave him the chance to speak to me about any reservations he was having but he did not say anything. So we got married and blended our families."

"Only, he goes out of his way to not spend time as a family and is resistant to time where it's not just him and me," the man wrote. "He always says no to spending time with his stepsiblings, he calls himself an only child and claims he has only one parent since his mom died. He's rude at times. Sometimes he will ignore a question from his stepsiblings or he will tell my wife she's not his mom and she doesn't get to ask to see his homework (she does this sometimes if she's the only adult home and making sure the kids have their homework done)."

After giving all that background, OP [original poster] explained the solution he devised to their ongoing problem at home.

"We decided family therapy could be beneficial and for the first few weeks it was going okay. He admitted he does not love my wife or my stepchildren and that was fine," the man continued. "He was open that he did not like me getting remarried which I did suspect but hearing him say it was a sign of communication which I did want us to have in therapy."

However, then came some bitter pills he did not want to swallow.

"Yesterday things got out of hand. We all got the chance to speak over the weeks and be honest about our feelings and what we wanted to work on," OP said. "Yesterday the therapist suggested some things to help us come together a bit more as a family, some homework that could give us a chance to spend together just having fun. My son said he wasn't going to take part. The therapist told him it wouldn't be some lame time where it only focused on the younger kids because he was aware that activities being aimed at the younger siblings only could be a drag. But he should try to be open to having fun in the presence of us all at least. My son said we can't do it because we're not a real family, that his stepsiblings are not his real siblings and my wife is not his real mom or his stepmom or his family. He was very angry."

What ensued proved to be controversial for readers on the forum.

"My stepkids left the session upset and my son was still angry. I spoke to him and asked him why he had to be so harsh and he said it's true, that he doesn't give a crap about them," OP wrote. "I told him he should find better ways to communicate his feelings and for his outburst he could say goodbye to video games for a week."

"My son told his maternal grandparents and they told me I had no right to punish him for that," he concluded his post. "They said I shouldn't be forcing him to attend therapy either. They told me it's time to accept he wants nothing to do with my wife or stepkids."

The man then asked his readers if he was the a--hole in the situation.

As you might expect, the Reddit response was pretty much unanimous.

To sum it up, we've provided the top (lengthy) comment on the post.

"Your son has to be polite/cordial/respectful to his step siblings and step parent. He does NOT have to love them. Ever, if he doesn't want to. He doesn't have to like them. He doesn't have to consider them family. Those are all choices he, EXCLUSIVELY, gets to make. You don't have a say in them," the comment began.

"Therapy is a safe place. He should be allowed and encouraged to share all of his real and full feelings - punishing him for feelings he expressed (no matter how 'explosively') during therapy is going to set him back for years. You've made therapy unsafe. He's unlikely to participate at all now."

"You need to stop pushing this. You need to stop trying to force relationships and feelings he doesn't have and doesn't want."

"You need to apologize and build back trust that therapy is a safe place. You need to tell him you were WRONG to try to punish him for being honest about his feelings and that you won't do it again."

"Then, you need to be clear about the behaviour you expect in regards to how he talks [to] your wife and her kids, he doesn't have to consider them family but she's still an adult with authority in his life and he has to treat her as respectfully as he would a teacher or similar even if he didn't like them. He doesn't have to consider the other kids his siblings, but he has to treat them as respectfully as he would children at school even if he doesn't like them. Those are expectations on his behaviour."

"You don't get a say in how he feels," they concluded.

Even those who didn't resort to calling him the a--hole, still noted how dire the situation really was.

"I'm on grandparents side," another Redditor noted. "Leave him alone and YOU spend more time with HIM. I'm guessing you spend more time with the steps than him. If you keep pushing, he's going to move as soon as he turn 18 and go no contact with you."

What do you think?