It can absolutely be upsetting to realize that your parent has made some questionable decisions as you grow older and can see things for what they are, but at the end of the day, we’re all only human and make mistakes.
This young woman’s parents are in their 50s. Her dad is exactly 50, and her mom is 54. They separated when she was two, and she got to see her dad on the weekends.
When she was four, her stepmom Mindy entered the picture and has been in her life ever since. Now, Mindy totally lives up to the evil stepmom trope.
Mindy has been so mean to her and even called her a liar for the trauma and hardships she endured. Her dad didn’t treat her with much kindness either, as he picked Mindy’s kids over her and her brother.
When Mindy’s kids would do something wrong, she and her brother would get punished instead. To this day, her dad spoils those kids while only paying for child support for her and her brother, so they get scraps in comparison.
She’s spent years wondering why on earth her dad fell in love with a woman so heinous. Yesterday, she celebrated Father’s Day with her stepsister, who informed her that Mindy just turned 35.
She has dyscalculia, which is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is basically like math dyslexia, so she had to wait until she got home to Google the age gap.
“…That meant she was 19 when they met, and he was 34. I guess I never really knew Mindy’s age, but in that moment, I realized that she was immature and didn’t know how to deal with my brother and me (for context, both my brother and I have serious mental health issues and both have been hospitalized on multiple occasions), and our problems,” explained.
“Her lashing out [might not have] been intentionally malicious; she just didn’t realize that we weren’t ‘normal’ kids. What really struck me wasn’t her age, but his. I don’t want to sound crazy, but that’s almost predatory.”
Sign up for Chip Chick’s newsletter and get stories like this delivered to your inbox.
“He brought home a 19-year-old young mother (she had my stepbrother at 18) and got married only a few months after. I have a nagging feeling that he left my mother for somebody incredibly younger, and clearly, he wanted someone younger if he went for a 19-year-old. It was the 2000s, so maybe it was more normalized at the time?”
She loves her dad despite everything and doesn’t want to think less of him or view him as a creep, but at 19, Mindy was super young and impressionable, while her dad already was a grown adult with a house, money, a career, and two kids.
She thinks her mom was devastated when she found out about Mindy. Her mom was diagnosed with PCOS and had her when she was older, and it was extremely difficult for her mom to get pregnant.
Her brother is technically her half-brother, so she’s the only child with a biological tie to her mom.
“…It must’ve hurt her so bad that my dad went for somebody nearly 20 years younger than her. I don’t know what to think or how to process this. It’s all I can think about, and it just makes me want to cry,” she continued.
She isn’t losing her mind, and recognizing the reality of this situation isn’t an attack on her dad. A 15-year age gap between a grown man and a teenager who barely know each other involves a massive disparity in maturity.
Seeing it for what it is just means she has grown up enough to understand it. She does need to avoid conflating her dad’s relationship dynamics with how she was raised.
Sure, Mindy was too young to handle her role as a stepmom, but the favoritism and neglect she experienced shouldn’t be dismissed because of that. Mindy was in over her head, and she was still deeply wronged.
Navigating this dual reality is heavy, so I think she should find a therapist to talk to, as bringing it up to her mom would probably just reopen old wounds.
What advice do you have for her?
You can read the original post below.
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
