Stepmonster

Dear Tia,

I could use your help. This is an old issue, but it’s acute right now. Here’s the deal: I am on vacation with my family (me, my husband and our two middle-school kids) in Alaska. We are visiting my dad and stepmother. My stepmother is now and always has been mean, vicious and verbally abusive.

While at their house in Alaska, she started insulting my youngest son, and I told her to stop. This turned into a heated argument and she displayed her usual colors by ridiculing my son for being too sensitive. My husband stood up and told our kids, “We’re leaving” and he brought them to a nearby hotel and checked in. 

I stuck around to try to talk it through, and that’s when my stepmother really went off, telling me what a horrible daughter I am. She said “You haven't been there for me or your father” while describing in detail how pathetic I am, and how I don’t bother to deal with anything, but just stick my head in the sand.

It isn't true. Nothing she says is even close to what is reality. But my dad believes her when she tells him I am the problem. I have tried for decades, but now I realize I  can't have a relationship with her. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have been setting boundaries and trying to find ways to be in a good relationship with her ever since I was a little girl. The worst thing is that if I make the move that is overdue, and break off my relationship with my stepmother, it means I will also have broken off my relationship with my dad.

As I left their house, she hollered at me that for the rest of our vacation they aren't talking to us. This is sad but she is crazy and everything that comes out of her mouth is vicious. My little sister lives here, and they barely see her because they disapprove of her husband. I need to be done for real this time.  How do I do that?

Inside, I am all tied up in knots. I know my dad and stepmother hate me and blame me for everything. I need to make the last 4 days of the vacation manageable for my family, and I am distraught and distracted. It’s an old familiar feeling, this being pushed out, wrong, and unwelcome.  

Also, my husband is pissed at me because I engaged in the same old way with my stepmother. My husband didn’t want to come on this trip. He’s seen what can happen and knows the horrible history with my stepmother. He wanted to go somewhere just as a family, and have fun together. I was adamant we needed to be with my family again. I wish I had listened to him. I’m stubborn and longing for a good relationship with my stepmother and my dad.

What is the way forward?

No Northern Lights, Just Blackness

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Dear No Northern Lights,

First of all you are not crazy to feel distraught. What your stepmother is doing is cruel. She has no business telling your son he is too sensitive, and you were right to step in. Mama Bear is needed here. And your loyalty must always be with your kids.

Further, she is out of line telling you that you're a bad daughter. You may not be behaving in the ways she wants, and you may not be accommodating her needs and wants in the way she imagines is 'correct' but that's not your problem. She sounds like a profoundly sad and broken person, and she is casting blame around so that she doesn't have to carry it herself. If you take the blame, if you accept it and try to “mend your ways” to please her, you are perpetuating her cycle of neurotic behavior. You've been conditioned to believe that allowing her to load you up with her pain is a form of love. It isn't, it's a toxic form of control, and it's not even a distant cousin to love.

I can hear in your letter that the real hook for you is how you might lose your relationship with your dad. You love your dad, and it sounds like you are willing to walk through a firestorm to be with him. Your stepmother has jammed a wedge between you two. It's a sad story, this one, it’s a protracted nightmare. You’ve been living this miserable narrative for decades.

Love isn't supposed to hurt, but it seems from your letter that if you want even a crumb of your father's love and attention, you must endure a hefty dose of your stepmom’s venomous spew. It's not a fair contract. You are not being considered, you don't even have proper representation.

It's curious to me that your stepmother treats you all so badly, and then takes offense that you don't love her better. It’s truly crazy making. If you look up borderline personality disorder, you may learn a few things about your stepmother. This might be helpful to feel validated, to read something sensible about how challenging it is to have a relationship with someone with this particular diagnosis.

The cyclical nature of the relationship you have with your dad and stepmother has continued for enough years, and I sympathize with your husband, and feel his frustration. This scenario keeps unfolding in the same twisted way. You show up with good intentions, imagining that it will go differently this time somehow. And then the usual torment ensues, now with your own kids layered in, like buckshot blame- a smattering of sting for everyone. To expect anything to be different this time is a pipe dream. She isn’t likely to change, and so you will have to.

What can you do to protect yourself, your family, your sweet son? I know you said you've been setting up boundaries for years, but it seems to me you might be employing "Boundary Lite". I would go with the "Extra Heavy Duty Boundary". The extreme commercial grade boundary that allows you to call the shots, protect your family, and minimize opportunity for wounding. What exactly does this look like? I have some ideas, and I bet your husband does too. Here are some to get started;

-A meal together at a restaurant rather than their home--people behave better in public, usually.

-Time alone with your father--if this is possible, it would be ideal.

-Forgive the horrors for your own sake, for your own big-heartedness--yet don't be lured into the illusion that you can start fresh with her, she’s used up all her free passes.

-Any way your relationship changes will come from you, setting things up so you always have an an escape, a way to step out of the trap before you are maimed--you know the warning signs, heed them early.

-You sound like a kind person, so set up a way to show kindness to your stepmother. One that feels good to you will be important--you must have no expectation of changed behavior from her.

-Put your own family first, and make it clear to your father and stepmother that you will not sacrifice yourself, your kids, or your husband in the pursuit of a relationship with the two of them--maybe put this in a letter so there is no wiggle room.

I hope these ideas are helpful to you. They are simply suggestions, places to begin. Any true shifts must come from you, from your own clarity and determination to do things differently.

Meanwhile, it sounds like you are in Alaska for a few more days. Please do something spectacular with your husband and kids.. Hike up a mountain, eat amazing food, go fishing, stay up and watch the northern lights…..

Don't let the same old experience with your stepmother take center stage. Make some memories with your family and find a way to connect that isn't through sadness and disappointment and the usual disbelief that someone who professes to love you could be so cruel.

Step out into the beauty of the landscape, and let the hugeness of it remind you that you are surrounded by people who love you. Your family. The one you made yourself.

Believe down to your very molecules that you are loved by people who get you and aren’t asking you to show up differently.

You’ve got this.

Love,

Tia