A Reddit user shared on r/AITH an issue that has been affecting her family. She recently got married to a man with two daughters, Tara and Ava, and she also has a daughter of her own. Before getting married, she liked to travel everywhere with her daughter, and now she keeps the tradition, but includes her new family in her plans. She invites her husband and stepdaughter everywhere she goes. One of the girls, Tara, goes with them all the time, but her husband doesn't like traveling, and the other girl, Ava, is afraid of flying. The stepmom keeps inviting them everywhere they go, but the two of them always stay home. Lately, Ava started mentioning that she doesn't want them going on trips without her, because she feels left out and that her sister is closer to their stepsister than to her. She asked that they take more road trips and camping trips so she could go. The thing is, no one else in the family enjoys those kinds of trips. Ava has tried going to therapy to get over her fear of flying, but it hasn't seemed to have worked.
The matter here is delicate. On the one hand, we understand that Ava feels left out and not close to her family, and she doesn't seem to be coming from a place of malice, just some teenage jealousy. On the other hand, it doesn't seem fair to make the entire family go through something they don't enjoy, or to renounce an activity they love just to accommodate her.
Teenagers need to learn that they are not the center of the universe. People have the right to do things for themselves, and that doesn't mean they love us any less. It is understandable that maybe she feels unloved, but everybody else's decisions can't revolve around her. They said she "tried" therapy, and maybe that's part of the issue. Fear of flying is perfectly treatable, but you have to put in the work and acknowledge that those things take time and effort. Her stepmom would love to take her on trips with her sisters, and that can totally happen if they all agree on working alongside the correct therapist to help her get over her fear. The solution is not for them to stop traveling altoghether; it's to work as a family to find a middle ground that makes everyone happy.