If you had a stepmom who desperately attempted to manipulate you into accepting them as your new mom, would you ever be able to find it in your heart to forgive her and have a relationship with her? Or would that pretty much push you away forever?
This 18-year-old guy’s 50-year-old stepmom does not have any biological kids, and she met his 53-year-old dad following the passing of his mom.
He was six at the time, and his stepmom threw herself into the role of his new mom, since she was unable to have her own kids. Every single day, his stepmom badgered him about referring to her as his mom.
“She started introducing herself to other people as my mom and instructed me to do the same, which I resisted. When she found a photo of my mom in my bedroom, she asked my dad to toss all the photos and reminders of my mom so she wasn’t left to compete against,” he explained.
“My mom’s parents and sisters stepped in, before they could be tossed, to take them. It caused a lot of conflict, and my stepmother raged at them for saving them because she knew deep down they would end up with me when I got older.”
“My stepmother really hated that I never stopped loving my mom. She was upset that I never loved her back and that I never saw her as my mom for real. I didn’t always argue with her about it, but she could probably tell.”
He grew to hate his stepmom and kept her out of his life as much as possible by sharing virtually no information with her. She was so obsessed with knowing things about him that it made him uneasy.
His stepmom’s stepsister overdosed, and then his stepmom and his dad took those kids in and officially adopted them. The kids failed to bond with his stepmom and his dad.
Three years ago, this all took a toll on his stepmom, and she started to get pretty messed up over all of the kids in her life disliking her.
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She sobbed every day about how none of them referred to her as their mom. She also cried about how they didn’t like her, and she never got the full experience of being a parent, but his dad did.
“My dad and I fought a lot, and we were really in a bad place for the last two years, but apparently every time I called him dad it broke her,” he continued.
“I moved out of their house seven months ago, and two months later, she had a breakdown. She was hospitalized for four months and only recently got to go home with my dad.”
In the meantime, her stepsister’s kids went to live with their biological grandparents because they no longer wanted to live in the home; however, they’re still officially their stepmom and dad’s adopted children.
He has not once gone to see his stepmom, which infuriates his dad. His dad actually said he needs to finally embrace her as his mom, so she can heal.
His dad expects him to be the one to do something about this broken piece of his stepmom, and his dad tried to make him feel guilty by saying he owes her that for trying so hard to be his mom.
“I had to block him because of it, but he’s even giving members of his extended family a hard time over it, and he says I can’t just throw away my parents like that,” he said.
“I always thought he and I could maintain a casual amount of contact, but now I’m not so sure. What does everyone think? Because no contact is looking like the best choice.”
What’s tragic to me is that I bet he could have had a somewhat decent relationship with his stepmom if she hadn’t tried to force him to accept her as his replacement mom.
But she’s pretty nutty to have thought that making him welcome her with open arms wouldn’t backfire. Also, shame on his dad for allowing all of this to happen.
I do think he’s better off without the two of them, because they both failed him as parents. Time to cut contact with them for good, and no, it’s not his job to help his stepmom heal after how she treated him.
What advice do you have for him?
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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
