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Can you guys help me understand something? (Bit of a vent thread)
DirtyDirtyVagrant
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I don't understand my stepmom. She's like...the most oddball human being I've ever known.
We've never been close, but it just occcured to me that she brings little to the family besides conflict. I'm just here visiting, but I was sitting here with my dad and my brother/sister talking, laughing about shit, and just basically hanging out.
Stepmom walks in, immediately starts busting people's chops.
For some reason a while back I informed her that I might be gay (I was afraid to talk to my dad about it)
And she tried forcing me to tell him, like "if you dont tell him within 30 days, I will"
She never did, but still.
I'm not sure how to describe her. She constantly belittles everything everyone else holds sacred, and she does it in the most hypocritical ways.
For example, she ridicules my sister and me for liking video games/anime/etc because they have no artistic merit apparently and then turns around and watches things like 'the rock of love' and 'the flavor of love,' and then proceeds to act like she shouldn't be suicidally ashamed of herself.
My dad seems to like her most of the time, so I shut up about it. Although he occasionally has things to say too, like about how she never does anything around the house because her job is enough. My dad works harder, has infinitely more responsibility, actually bothers to interact with us (stepmom usually just asks/tells us to go away so she can be alone), does the majority of the housework, and so on and so on.
Please tell me I'm not the crazy one here. Is this woman evil? Or am I just being a bitch?
We've never been close, but it just occcured to me that she brings little to the family besides conflict. I'm just here visiting, but I was sitting here with my dad and my brother/sister talking, laughing about shit, and just basically hanging out.
Stepmom walks in, immediately starts busting people's chops.
For some reason a while back I informed her that I might be gay (I was afraid to talk to my dad about it)
And she tried forcing me to tell him, like "if you dont tell him within 30 days, I will"
She never did, but still.
I'm not sure how to describe her. She constantly belittles everything everyone else holds sacred, and she does it in the most hypocritical ways.
For example, she ridicules my sister and me for liking video games/anime/etc because they have no artistic merit apparently and then turns around and watches things like 'the rock of love' and 'the flavor of love,' and then proceeds to act like she shouldn't be suicidally ashamed of herself.
My dad seems to like her most of the time, so I shut up about it. Although he occasionally has things to say too, like about how she never does anything around the house because her job is enough. My dad works harder, has infinitely more responsibility, actually bothers to interact with us (stepmom usually just asks/tells us to go away so she can be alone), does the majority of the housework, and so on and so on.
Please tell me I'm not the crazy one here. Is this woman evil? Or am I just being a bitch?
DirtyDirtyVagrant on
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I doubt that. She's not a kid anymore; without some massive psychological event it's more than likely she'll continue to behave the exact same way for a long time. If anything, the more people she ostracizes with her behavior, the deeper into it she'll sink. People are very resistant to change.
There are a lot of books out there on how to deal with difficult people, I suggest picking one or two of them up and seeing if you can develop some strategies for dealing with her.
the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
Just try to ignore her or say as little as possible. I know its tough (i have a family member whos exactly like this) but you can learn to co-exist. Infinitely easier if you dont live together.
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If it helps, I have a stepmum who wavered spectacularly in her reception to us, from being incredibly distant, sometimes fixing it so that we couldn't see our dad, to trying too hard to 'bond' with my sister and I.
After 12 years, I can finally understand that she was incredibly jealous of us and wanted our dad all to herself. Over time, though, she has mellowed out and I know her now as a pleasant lady, albeit not without her problems.
My stepdad, on the other hand, has this thing where he sulks like a little kid if he feels he isn't consulted about anything that's going on in the house (even if it's really trivial) and we're not allowed to speak of anything that happened before he arrived, and everything that was ours before he came has had to go in the bin (even if it was perfectly fine, and he went and replaced it with something near-identical), we're also not allowed to go on holiday to anywhere we might have been before he came along. He's also a massive germophobe and has to have "his" things all separate from us - cups, towels etc, whereas before we would all share.
I have come to accept that he lived the bachelor life for about 20 years and that he refuses to change himself enough to appear "normal" in our home.
She sounds like she's not willing to change herself either to fit in to your family life. She could also be jealous of the attention you and your siblings receive off your dad, which might be why she feels the need to pick on you for various things.
She sounds really frustrating, but you have to remember that life's too short to waste time getting upset about her behaviour. Try being disarmingly polite to her, and if she gets too much, just don't give her any bait and walk away. You don't say how long she's been around, maybe she'll calm down with time? You also seemed to imply that you didn't live there - since I moved out I get on much better with both my parents and my step-parents. Hopefully this will end up being the case for you too.
Just come over and do some laundry and eat some real food and chill with my dad/siblings for the weekend.
I don't live here. I haven't lived here for a good while.
what a horrible human.
I'd imagine that trying to keep that bottled up would be pretty horrible. Having the decision to come out be forced upon you is reprehensible, though I'm not sure that it's widely recognized as such.
Or something.
I would have my own special douche way of saying that, but that would be my censored version.
Made me laugh, and was exactly what I was thinking.
Her response to this would likely be "It's my house and I'll belittle whatever the fuck I want to, and if you don't like it you can fucking leave."
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Well, look, obsessive belittling is usually a result of the person having pretty major personal insecurities themselves. So, I don't know but I figure you probably actually have the psychological upper-hand here. I mean, bear in mind as difficult as it is for you to have this step-mother come into your life, I'd imagine it's also a huge change in her life and she's probably outside of her comfort zone, plus I'm guessing she feels outnumbered as you already have a bond with your dad and there's obviously a gap between you.
So this is how she responds - by putting you down, she feels like she is strengthening her position in the family dynamic, asserting her superiority as an adult and so forth. admanb thinks that this sort of response is the sole preserve of children, but as an adult I can assure you it isn't. Really, the way to tackle it is to rise above it. So long as she isn't actually physically interfering but is just mocking from the side-lines, you just smile and shrug it off. Establish your own self-confidence and then the belittling becomes irrelevant.
Agreed.
I hesitate to label her as a "bitch" or as a "terrible human being" as it seems as if the kind of crap she gives you isn't based on hatred or displeasure but on concern and interest. I think that she still sees you as a "kid" and attempts to treat you as such, attempting to make decisions for you and to pass along her wisdom. Additionally, she seems to feel insecure with the current family dynamic, which only makes her efforts to "be mom" cross over into the land of uncomfortable and belittling.
Honestly, the next time you and your siblings are having a nice conversation or hanging out and she pulls this, a simple "Excuse me, we were in the middle of a conversation/doing an activity" should get your point across in an adult way. Taking her aside later and in private may allow for you to avoid the blow-up and just work it out. Prove to her that you are an adult and that you interact with the world in an adult way and she should have more respect for you. In all, this comes down to a lack of respect for you, your decisions and your lifestyle.