Dear Prudence,
“Katie” is my only girl cousin on my maternal side. I was really excited when she was born because I was tired of being the odd one out from my massive amount of boy cousins. So we are really close and I babysat her until I went off to college. Since then, my uncle divorced her mom and her mom moved in with a guy with four girls of his own. Katie has to share a room and seemingly everything with these new girls. She is pretty unhappy. I arranged to take Katie out for a weekend with permission from her mom. We went to the lake and hung out. Then we did some shopping before coming home. I thought it went really —until her mom called to complain that Katie was picking fights with the other girls and bragging about all the stuff she got from me. So she took it all away until Katie learned her lesson.
She accused me of trying to stir up trouble like my uncle. My uncle is pissed off, and this has become an entire incident now. My uncle says I can take Katie on his days, screw his ex. My mom has told me to back off and just leave Katie alone. I was just trying to be the big cool cousin here. I remember my parents getting divorced and how miserable my brothers and I were all the changes forced on us. What do I do here? Katie and I talk on social media but that is really not like seeing each other in person.
—Cool Cousin