Her Dad’s Wife Is Trying To Blame Her And Her Brother For The Death Of Their Marriage
Grief changes the way you let people in. Especially when you lose a parent young, you get fiercely protective over the space they leave behind. That’s not something you grow out of.
So when someone comes into your life expecting to be handed a title like “mom,” no questions asked, it doesn’t just feel awkward, it feels intrusive. She and her brother didn’t set out to push anyone away. They were just trying to protect what was left of something they never asked to lose in the first place.
This 21-year-old girl and her 19-year-old brother sadly lost their mom fourteen years ago. Two years after that, their dad went on to meet his new wife.
When their dad introduced them to his wife, she and her brother made it clear they did not want this woman to be another mom to them.
“He reassured us that she would not be our new mom but maybe our stepmom. We met her, got along okay with her but not super fond or close,” she explained.
“Dad kept talking to us and we’d all spend time together. But we still didn’t want her as our new mom and when they got married when I was 12 and my brother was 10 it remained our stance but we were okay with dad being with her.”
“The not our new mom thing came largely from school where kids said that’s what she’d be because we didn’t have a mom anymore and other adults framed it that way. It was real annoying.”
Her dad and his new wife respected their wishes, though it later came out that her dad’s new wife fully anticipated that she and her brother would come to view her as another mom in time.
Then when she and her brother were teenagers, her dad and his new wife had two children together, and everything was still fine, even though she and her brother failed to build a bond with this woman.
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Their dad’s new wife never stepped into a motherly role with them like she wished for. After her brother graduated, it became even more painfully obvious that their dad’s new wife wasn’t anything of a parent to them.
“Because both of us had mentioned losing our mom as being a defining thing for us when we graduated. And we both thanked dad for being an amazing dad and showing that one parent can do an awesome job and can still support their kids’ education,” she added.
“We also thanked her but not as a parent. We said she joined the family. My brother worded it differently to me a little but that was the sentiment.”
“This was not what she liked hearing and it caused fights between her and dad. She told him we were selfish and ungrateful and spat in her face. Dad defended us and he told her that we still shouted her out and that this was where our relationships with her naturally went and that was okay.”
Their dad’s new wife confessed she thought they would change their minds about her and would treat he like a mom instead of someone in their family.
She also felt that since she gave them two other siblings, that should have counted for something. Finally, their dad’s new wife told their dad she was done if they couldn’t see her as a mom.
Well, their dad made it clear he would pick them over her, so she filed for divorce in the end. The divorce has been dragging on for nearly a year, and when she and her brother ran into their dad’s soon-to-be ex-wife at his place not too long ago, this woman blamed them for the death of the marriage!
“She said we must be happy and proud of ourselves that we ruined a marriage and family unit because we didn’t wanna replace our “poor little dead mommy” and how all we really did was put her in the position to be the bad guy anyway,” she continued.
“She told us she hoped our dead mom was worth her and my dad’s happiness. I told her she could never make us feel responsible for the divorce. She said it shows just how uncaring we are about others. My dad made her leave and told her to never speak to us like that again. She started yelling that we clearly don’t care about him.”
Her dad insisted they were not at fault, and she and her brother certainly don’t feel that they are. However, she is curious if what she said to this woman was out of line.
I don’t think she said anything out of line at all. Her dad’s wife lashed out because things didn’t unfold the way she hoped, and instead of owning her disappointment, she turned it into blame. That’s not fair.
These siblings were honest from day one; they weren’t looking for a replacement mom, and they never promised to become something they weren’t. That woman may have joined the family, but she was never a parent to them, and she knew that.
Just because she stayed in the marriage hoping they’d change doesn’t mean they owe her anything now. I think her reaction says a lot more about her need for control than it does about their behavior.
You can’t demand closeness that was never there and then punish people for not pretending. And dragging their dead mother into it? That was way out of bounds.
What do you think?
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By Bre Avery Zacharski
Hi, I'm Bre, Chip Chick's CEO! I have a degree in Textile/Surface Design from The Fashion Institute of Technology, and... More about Bre Avery Zacharski
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