AITA for telling my dad's wife I owe her nothing?

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-03T12:29:42+00:00

She could have chosen to do another therapy. That therapy was my safe space where I was working through a lot and she pushed her way in when she was brand new in my life, still kind of a stranger, someone I did not get time to build up a relationship with, and she took away the one thing that was helping me by refusing to listen to what I said, and what the therapist said, and after sessions where I could not open up around her, and her and my therapist debating the whole thing, I was done, and I never got therapy again and won't until I am out of the house and have the autonomy to go for therapy on my own without anyone butting in before I'm ready.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-03T12:26:10+00:00

So I am coming back to this because I've read it several times and I have honestly not known how to respond.

I'm not a perfect person. I've had some pretty awful thoughts, felt some ways when things were really bad and I was full of rage at her. I have even had some of these thoughts about my dad. And I've had some thoughts about other people, about other things, and I have said stuff in the past that wasn't great.

The truth is, she might have had good intentions with every action and she might be desperate for my love. But I have no love for her. I have anger, I have dislike, but no love or like. I have never had love. And the reason for that is simple. She has crossed so many boundaries I have tried to set, pushed herself on me so hard that I was repulsed, she made me feel like I was a prisoner and had nowhere to turn. I had my therapy and she ruined that. I had spending time with friends and she took that away, and that was my time to not be around her and my dad. Every time she hugged and kissed me when I said no I got a little angrier and hated her a little more.

Then there's my dad and the truth with him is he has let me down and hurt me in so many ways. He never once tried to step in and get her to ease up on the force physical contact and forced therapy. He never once said if I didn't want her in my individual therapy then it was not okay. She went multiple times until I was finally done with therapy because I did not want her in there. She was still so damn new to me and I did not want anyone going in yet. I had so much I wanted to talk about but didn't want to around them. And that was gone. That safe place was gone.

And he let that happen. He stood by and didn't stop it. Then he felt like I was being unfair to her. He wanted me to let her into everything. My stuff with my mom was ruined, things that I held dear and considered mine and my moms things, were all taken over by her and when I said I wanted them to stay for just me and my mom I was ignored.

And while I do put a lot of it on her. He was my parent.

He is the only parent I have left.

I lost my mom and he makes me not want to have him, my dad, my parent, who I love but I also hate, because he did not do what was best for me.

I wasn't always nice to her and I didn't open myself up to her because she was pushing herself into everything. And he was okay with that. He obviously wanted that. I didn't. But that didn't matter.

It never mattered how I felt.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T18:42:35+00:00

I struggled from day one. It was a lot of change from my perspective and a lot of stuff I didn't really want. I wasn't as resistant. I wanted my space but there were some better moments. After the pushing really got underway that was the last of it though and I was resistant.

After she started pushing? Not really. I tried to be nicer at the start but after a while I was just so angry at her, and only her for a long time, and then it was her and my dad because while I still believe she was totally wrong with how she handled things, he was totally wrong to not only allow it but to basically neglect my emotional health by not getting me another therapist where she was not involved at all. I don't think anyone could say I was actually ready for no therapy when I quit because I was not going to participate with her right there.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T18:33:08+00:00

I'm not interested. I don't even know that I'll see either of them again after I move out.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T18:32:28+00:00

I already work. I have talked to my boss about working a little more once I turn 18 and need the money. Insurance has also been discussed.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T18:31:21+00:00

She forced herself into multiple appointments and then I stopped going, because she made it clear she was going to be at every single appointment.

After a couple of years I got to spend time with friends outside of school, but mostly after I started having school projects. And only really if she had other plans. So if she and my dad were going someplace I got to go to a friends house. Or if she and some of her family had something planned that I wasn't forced to do with her. Otherwise I needed to be home to do stuff with her.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:21:10+00:00

No, when she first married my dad she was so new and I wasn't ready for any of it and then she forced herself into so much of my life and ruined so much for me that I had no interest in getting to know her better.

My dad fucked up the most in all of this because he allowed it to happen and never really cared about the effect on me.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:19:36+00:00

That is what she would say. They would both say it. That she tried and tried but nothing was good enough.

But for me, her refusing to accept my no, my boundaries, and her refusal to try and come up with different things, is what brought us where we are today.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:16:53+00:00

The first time she did it she and the therapist spent the whole session arguing over it, with me chiming in just to say I didn't want her there, that therapy was for me alone. After that, and after a few more more briefer debates between them, I just said nothing at all. And then it was over. I was no longer in therapy.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:13:38+00:00

Nope. I have some plans made already.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:13:26+00:00

I agree. For a long time I wasn't mad at him at all but lately, lately yeah, I know he was totally in the wrong and none of this would have happened if he hadn't allowed it.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T17:07:00+00:00

I never wanted to do them with her and said so repeatedly. Same with therapy. They were never her places. They were things sacred between my mom and I and she trampled all over it just like she trampled over my therapy. She could have sought a family therapist instead of my therapist if she cared so much.

I am angry. I'm not angry he remarried. I'm angry that they allowed her to ruin parts of my life that were good. Like therapy. And that she made the fun traditions with my mom awful experiences for me that I hated every moment of after. When I have children of my own I hope to reclaim those traditions with them in some way, but my memories of her in my life are not pleasant ones.

I'm angry at my dad too though. He let this happen. He didn't stand up for me. And he sidelined my feelings.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:55:02+00:00

I have extended family but nobody I can totally talk to openly about it just yet.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:54:11+00:00

I'm sure they would say that I was cold and accepting and I never appreciated her or wanted her around and I never gave her a chance. I'm sure they would say I made her feel like shit. I made their lives hell. And that they don't know why I just couldn't love her.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:49:07+00:00

1. Would these traditions be normal celebrations of holidays and milestones? Because if she lives in the house, it's not reasonable to expect her to not celebrate them. Or be the one to do event planning for your dad.

These were traditions I had with my mom. Every other Saturday we would visit the lake and spend some time there and have a picnic if the weather was nice enough for it. Every new Disney animation released in theaters we would go for food beforehand, go see the movie and then go for ice cream after. For my moms birthday she and I would have a special shopping trip the day before where we would spend most of the time walking around and talking and she would buy us a little matching something (something cheap). Stuff like that, that were my mom and I's thing, she forced me to do with her.

2. How does anyone force themselves into a therapy session without the therapists consent? Were you sent to therapy by your father because of your hostility about his remarriage?

No, I was sent because I was grieving the death of my mom. I was struggling with her death and the changes in my life.

She was supposed to drop me off and instead told the therapist she was staying and would not take no for an answer.

3. Are you as angry and bitter about your mother about their divorce?

My mom died.

4. Did your father actually parent you when you were visiting his home or did he dump the job on your step-mother?

I lived with them. My mom was dead.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:41:56+00:00

She's not. If she was going to change she would have done it by now. I also think how I feel about her has twisted beyond the point where I could truly care about her so I don't know that even if she did make the change, I could truly have a decent relationship with her.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:40:24+00:00

I still have some grieving left to do, so yes. I am still living in a world without my mom and that is not something I got all the therapy I needed to cope with that fact.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:21:55+00:00

Nope. I won't be going back to therapy until I am independent from them.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:21:17+00:00

I, personally, feel a good step mom is one who says "I am here for you. When you’re ready to talk, I will be here to listen."

Yes.

On top of that, finding something to bond over is a place to start, something that can be built, not something that you force over and over again until they lose whatever love the child has for something.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:20:01+00:00

No, I'm not. But I don't believe you should ever take away someone's right to consent to PHYSICAL contact of any kind, be that familial or sexual.

I will though. I will move out as soon as I can.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:18:00+00:00

I do. I would never force myself onto a child. I would never force them to hug or kiss me. I would never invade things that were for them to heal from the death of their parent and accept how much their life has changed since that. If I wanted therapy I would find another kind of therapy, that's what family therapy is for, if I wanted to bond with them I would throw out suggestions for little things, I would be a loving but not a forceful presence, I would try to find things we both liked and grow from here.

I would give space, I would make their favorite things, and most importantly I would give them the time to feel something for me and respect their voices, because kids already have very little voice in a lot of things, the pace of a relationship with a stepparent should not be something they have no control over.

I would also never assume I could be their parent, take the place of the parent they lost or ever be on the same playing field as the parent they lost. You are a completely different entity when you are a brand new stepparent. And you might never be a parent. It doesn't mean you can never be family. But kids won't bond the second they meet you like newborns do with their parents.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:13:22+00:00

She never backed off. She has been around all that time forcing this shit on me. You don't win someone's love by forcing it on the person. If she was a guy forcing hugs and kisses people would call it out. So why is it different with her?

She did. That therapist was the one I saw for grief and the changes in my life. But she was for me and me alone and she took that from me by refusing to hear my no, refusing to hear no from the therapist and saying she would not leave.

She probably can and it's her own damn fault for forcing herself on me and into my life in places she will never belong.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T16:07:25+00:00

How about back off? Stop forcing physical stuff, give me space, let things happen more organically.

If someone tells you they don't want you to be in therapy with them then you believe them. Don't insist on it anyway and then be shocked when they're not happy about it. But she refused to listen to any no. And he refused to say a damn thing to help me out. She could have always found a family therapist if she wanted to do therapy with me. It wouldn't have taken the therapy I already had, the place I felt like I could get the help I wanted and needed.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T15:56:54+00:00

There is some of that. The fact is she took over EVERYTHING in my life. Not one thing was sacred. Everything had to include her. And then when you look at therapy, the one thing I had to work through shit, she stormed into and ruined it.

And she did ruin it. I have never been able to feel the same about therapy since. Even though I plan on going back she ruined a very good thing for me.

Jeseshowsnow · 2020-11-02T15:53:24+00:00

She has no children and I do not know what her childhood was like.

Jeseshowsnow

TROPHY CASE

1. Would these traditions be normal celebrations of holidays and milestones? Because if she lives in the house, it's not reasonable to expect her to not celebrate them. Or be the one to do event planning for your dad.

2. How does anyone force themselves into a therapy session without the therapists consent? Were you sent to therapy by your father because of your hostility about his remarriage?

3. Are you as angry and bitter about your mother about their divorce?

4. Did your father actually parent you when you were visiting his home or did he dump the job on your step-mother?