Anyone else experience a weak dad and wicked step mum growing up

I've experienced this, My dad left my psychopath of a mother when I was 7 and my brother was 5. I can remember as clear as day him sitting me down and promising once he found somewhere new to live he'd come back for us ( he finally admitted and apologised for this last month, nearly 36 years later)
He met and had a baby with an awful woman, we'd stay at there house on a blow up bed a few times a year. She also worked for the DWP And told my mum that all money she was getting from my dad was stopping or she'd cancel her benefits. Meaning the neglect at home got worse and worse.. He went along with this.
I had a baby in my early twenties and moved nearly 200 miles away from all of them.
Things that have helped me..

Therapy, EMDR works well and also acknowledging your inner child and accepting how let down you were. Not everybody deserves forgiveness for what they did to you.

No contact..
I've been no contact with my step mum since I was 16 and also her children (my step sister)
I've been no contact with my bio mum for 5 years now (my only regret there is not doing it sooner)
My dad.. I have minimal contact (only because he does acknowledge what he put us through and is regretful)
Breaking the cycle.. Do you have your own children? I'm not perfect but it so happy doing things for my children (including my step daughter, who has her own bedroom in my house) that were never done for me.

Indeed. Women are held, by other women as well as men, responsible for children, even children that aren’t theirs. A man can let his child down, but the one that gets the blame is the woman that refused to pick up his slack.

also, it’s easier to blame the ‘stranger’ than it is to blame the person you love that’s actually responsible.

I think using language like 'weak' lets these men off. They are selfish. They choose their new wife over their children, which is very painful to accept but is the truth. If they wanted to stand up to their new wife they could... but they choose not to and let the stepmother take the full blame.

I could have written this. Am a chronic people pleaser with rock bottom self esteem. My two half brothers (who I am quite fond of by the way!) are confident, secure adults. I probably would have hated the heat at Disney in Florida anyway.

Imo in too many situations men are dismissed as ‘weak’ victims of manipulative women, rather than held fully responsible for their own actions (or inactions).

Your father was the one responsible for you, and he chose not to treat you in the same he treated the children he had with your stepmother. That’s on him.

YABU

not for what occurred or how you feel about it, but for staying in the zone, why sit in squalor, reliving it, regurging it? Feeling worthless, I know, let's just go over all the reasons I am worthless, look what they did... That's achieving nothing.

What can you do about it? Nothing - you cant cha ge the past. But you are the master of your present. So what are you going to do? They showed you who they are. Are you going NC? Block them and anyone associated with them? Clean break, new start? Therapy? Stay in the pit of despair?

What are you going to do?

Don't just live in the past, how will you let it define your future? What will you change for your future?

Your stepmother sounds like she could give the stepmothers in Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel and Snow White a run for their money in the evilness stakes. What a horrific person she is. How your dad could stand by and watch this treatment of his own daughter and not do/say anything is baffling.

My dad married a horrible woman after the death of my mum but I was in my 20s and I stopped visiting after a while. She (and my dad) prioritised my 2 adult step-sisters which was upsetting, but nothing like it would have been if I had been a child.

Do you still see your dad or have you taken a step back?

OP, of course your step mother sounds like a deeply unkind woman.
No doubt about it.
But she doted on her children.

Your selfish loser father is a total waste of space.
A weak bad man.
There is no excusing him at all.
So don't be confused by it.

Just another loser who put himself first.

This is all on him.
Please seek council and try and realise that you do not have to give him the power to determine how you see yourself.

What a pity you were put through that for years.
A blow up bed is shocking to be expected to be on for so long.

Don't expect him to change or feel bad.
Selfish people only think of themselves.
It also sounds as if he was very mean too if he gave your mother the minimum he could.
Again, not a good man.

There are plenty of threads on here from women who have a partner & he already has children when they meet. Often they are annoyed at the cost, being expected to provide a bed for them, upset that they have to provide childcare for them. I don't know what they expect when they meet someone with children. I think it's important for a Dad to have 1-1 time with his children rather than always having to go along with the 'new family' activities.

My daughters have been treated like this, I do wander how this will affect them in the future.
Their belongings were kept in a plastic box, slept in a cabin in the garden and cut out of alll holidays. They went over two nights a month at and he hasn't bothered with them at Xmas for over ten years. They are young adults now, one sees her dad out of a need to be loved and accepted, the other goes months without bothering with him

Similar situation here around the same era. DH and his ex were only teens when she fell pregnant and after they split up 2 years later he had very little support or guidance from his own parents about how to navigate the contact situation. Back then EOW was quite a normal arrangement and he was only ever allowed Boxing Day visits and no school holidays.
By the time I met DH and we eventually married and had kids his DC was late teens but I think there is a resentment that the relationship with Dad was different to the DC that live with us

OP I am really sorry this was your experience but please know that you did nothing wrong

Did your Dad & Mum alternate Christmas Eve?

I always find it difficult as my stepdaughter would not be allowed to stay with us every Christmas Eve, but for my daughter we still need to celebrate it as a household. I'm conscious that for her it may feel as though she is missing out when we do things, but without full custody unfortunately it is inevitable.

Absolutely can relate to what's on this thread. Lots of helpful things to think about on here already. I'll just add that it's made me proactive and independent, and I don't think the way my step siblings have been parented has done them any favours. I actually like having the distance because I feel no obligation to them.

I’m so sorry.

I cut contact with my dad/step mum when I was 18. For most of my late teens/twenties I also suffered with terrible low self esteem (always believed my boyfriend would cheat on me or my friends were not really my friends, because who would want me in their life?)

I still do to some extent, but things have improved for me in the last couple of years. I’ve had my daughter and she’s the light of my life. I cannot understand how any parent could treat their child that way, and I’m using it as a strength to make sure my little girl never grows up to feel how I felt.

For now i’m still a massive over-thinker, always worried I will say the wrong thing and upset people. Definitely a people pleaser, all learnt behaviour from when I was young and just wanted to be loved.

But I’m learning to recognise this behaviour and stand up for myself more. Because I deserved better, but unfortunately it’s only me who can help myself x

Seeing it from the other side DH's wife #1 wouldn't let us have DH's kids overnight, at Christmas or for holidays as much as we would have loved to have included them.

This was 30 years ago, before 50/50 parenting arrangements etc.

DH and his older sister were treated less favourably when FIL remarried and had another child. Unfortunately for them, FIL had full custody, so there was no escaping the inequality.

It’s really affected SIL and she’s grown into a very bitter woman. She’s not pleasant to be around, but I completely understand why she feels the way she does. DH appears less affected, but since having our own children has spoken about how he doesn’t understand how his father could have turned a blind eye to it all. SIL tried speaking to FIL about it a good few years ago, but he’s in denial.

We don’t have a relationship with younger SIL beyond polite chit chat cos she’s not nice person and we only see PIL every couple of months. I think it makes DH sad, especially because of how close my family are, but he rarely talks about it.

so sorry you had to go through it OP. I will never understand people who turn their backs on their children

Yes, me too. For years, I kept explaining to my dad how x y and z made me feel… then I realised that he did know. He just chose to let his wife get on with it, as standing up to her (especially about me) made her furious.

He called me on my birthday. Christmas sometimes. Any other times, if there was something he wanted / needed to discuss, we had to have ”phone appointments” (”she’ll be out tomorrow between 3-5PM, we’ll talk then”… ”I told her I’d gone to the shops so calling you from the car park”) and after he got whatsapp, he’d message me with ”I’ll delete this after I’ve seen you’ve read it”.

Aside from obviously being hurtful, it’s impacted my self-image and relationships in ways I’m only beginning to comprehend.

This doesn’t help you, I know. I just wanted you to know you’re not alone.

No sorry, this is wrong. Haven’t read past this but must point out that all kids are equal and providing for some, not others, isn’t ok regardless of how many nights a month they stay.

Speaking as the eldest in a blended shitshow that has finally come good, 17ish years later.

Sort of… you need to let it go though fir your own sake.

my situation was different in that my ‘dad’ was my step dad but he was the only dad I’d known. My mum left him and he found someone else with two older children (in my teens). They became a family unit and it’s been made very clear I’m not a part of it. I do still have a relationship with him but it’s a strange dynamic as there’s a whole family I’m not a part of. There’s been a catalogue of incidents that make it clear I’m “at arms length”. I seem to have been framed as some sort of villain but tbh that’s their narrative not my truth.

to give you some advise:-

-how people treat you is never a reflection of you
-people are all complex/ nobody is all good or bad we just have competing wants and needs
-holding on to anger is like holding onto a hot coal, you burn yourself

• you’re saying this has effected your life, I would seek professional help if you don’t want it to effect more.

-find your calling, once you are living your life to your fullest and happiest you do genuinely find you care less about it- in my experience anyway. When I look back on some of the “digs” I feel sorry because I think “happy secure people don’t do that”.

This is so upsetting to read OP. You can hear the hurt in your words even though you are not obviously a grown up and can do life your way.
My dad fecked off before I was born. No contact and even though we struggled financially I definitely had it better than you, having to live through this and his ‘new family’.

My dear friend met a new man (having raised her son alone until he was 9) and she made it clear to him that there would be no more children (even though he had none), no ‘second families’. Her son had been let down once and he was her priority. If he didn’t like it, she wasn’t the woman for him and she would accept that.
He adopted her son, married her and he helped raise him.

Did you stop going to their house after you had that conversation with your dad? Have you kept in touch with him or your siblings? I wonder how your siblings feel about it all now or if they remember how you were treated.

Maybe your dad will regret what he did one day. Maybe he would if he knew how much it has affected you.

Yes sadly, very similar. Excellent dad to his second family, ignored me and did very little. Made to feel like a pain my whole life. Now he has dropped my children and it’s had a huge impact on them. Haven’t spoken to him in 5 years. I will never get over this.

Yes can relate. Sadly there are dads who do this / allow this as they want to keep the new wife/partner happy. You are not alone.

I could have written this myself, especially the part about making it clear you were a nuisance and not wanted there. I am also too familiar with the lasting effect it has on the rest of your life.

I’m so sorry you had to go through this too. Please know it was never your fault x