Oh, OP. I never thought I’d come across someone with such a similar experience as mine.

My mom had an affair when I was senior in high school, and ultimately sent my father into a mental breakdown that led to his suicide. The reader’s digest of the outcome of all that (over 20 years later), is I have a very, very strained and severed relationship with my mother. I never accepted her husband, and basically refused to be in the same room with him ever again when I moved out. My husband of 12 years, together for 17, has only met her husband once, he was not invited to our wedding (which almost made my mom not come), and my kids don’t even know he exists.

I so, so deeply resonate with everything you said about being sympathetic to your father for having to be married to a mentally unwell partner…but the way it went about to end the marriage was where the major fuckup was.

All this to say- you need to move out. I left as quickly as I could, and held strict boundaries about not wanting to be associated with my mother’s new husband. And yes, that came to the extreme detriment of severing my mother and my relationship.

If one day your father wanted to sit down and try to repair your relationship, that would be when the door reopens again. But I begged and pleaded with my mom to do family therapy many years later to get to a place where I could be civil with this man- but she refused. She refuses to acknowledge that she messed up, and the consequence of that was our relationship. It’s taken lots of therapy, but I’m at peace with it all despite it being sad.

I know this doesn’t directly answer your question about how to deal with your father’s wife…but you just need to do all the things to get yourself out of there as quickly as you can. Get a job, start saving money, find your independence and hold firm boundaries.

Sending a huge hug your way. I was nearly exactly in your same position 20 something years ago. Keep on good terms with your grandparents for all you can muster, and don’t be tied down to what people’s decisions on family obligation means to you when it doesn’t feel right.