Hi all,
So this is a sensitive topic for me.
My parents divorced when I was 16. My mum was the one who chose to leave as my dad was going through severe mental health issues and wasn’t treating himself and it was leading to her being abused. I was very close to my dad but as he started being abusive to my mother and manipulative I cut contact as it was too emotional for me.
He soon moved in with a woman who he lied to (admitted it to me), he lied to and told her that he is still married to my mother (they were still in the process of separation) and that he wants to resolve things with her. The woman moved in with my dad into our family home, which my mum paid for half of or even more.
My father kept sending me emails which I sometimes replied and sometimes not because he was using me to get to my mother. He said things like how he has a daughter from the new woman and how he completely forgot about me and so on. It hurt as I was 16.
Anyway fast forward two years, I resumed contact with my dad. I started visiting every summer. I tried to build a relationship with my baby sister and I honest to god tried to be very kind to my dads wife.. who admits that she got with my dad as a mistress and was hoping we will never show up ever again in my dads life. I was a very passive child with extremely low confidence and wasn’t always trying to please her perhaps she would like me.
Anyway the initial visit I was quite shocked at her behaviour. She quite obviously wanted me to feel uncomfortable. Kicked me and my siblings out of our own family home.. was using our mums clothes as rags for the floor.. and our children’s towels to sweep and clean.. my toys were handed over to her child . All a bit overwhelming to see.. but I was actually a pushover and just cried myself to sleep.. she told us to never come again, that our dad doesn’t love us. I believed her. Never told my dad because she had this personality where she convinced me she was saying things out of love.
Worst of all is she started wearing sexy lingerie Infront of me and my siblings. And when I spoke to her privately about how it made us uncomfortable she said “this is my house I dress how I like”. She would intentionally talk to me about her and dads sex life and I was too naive didn’t know how to respond but be uncomfortable and tell her to please stop but she was adamant. Looking back now this was alll very deliberate.
Fast forward few years, I suffered at her hands much more than this but was tooo naive to realise it was deliberate manipulation. My father was never told by me but he knew I was miserable.
All this time I was always always thinking of my little half sister. How I don’t want to tell my dad because I don’t want them to divorce and my little sister be hurt like I was.
I used to invest so much time doing arts and crafts with her. But as she grew her mum was always always making digs at me through her. My little sister was encouraged to kick me out , talk to me disrespectfully.. and I always behaved in a way where I wanted her to see me as a good example.. but it deeply hurt.
Until the day came when I was reading a story to my sister about lying and she came told me that her mum asked her to lie to my dad about me, something that would really piss my dad off, and so I got in trouble with dad. I confronted her mother and she admitted she was jealous of me because I look like my mum. I told her I don’t trust her anymore and I didn’t deserve her treatment and I finally came to accept that this woman doesn’t want to like me no matter how much I suck up to her.
She had caused a huge rift between me and my dad.. constantly lying to him about me. Neighbours and friends in common warned me because they saw what she did. I was too naive and always gave her the benefit of the doubt because my mother is actually naive and she hates putting down other woman and she used to always dismiss my emotions and tell me that I need to behave well in my father’s house so that I don’t lose him. My mum was a doormat.
Anyway, after I became older and few things happened which made it clear my step mum was using me to get back at my mum and to draw my father to hate me and my mother.. and my dad admitting that he doesn’t have a way with her... I went almost no contact and only see her when I have to.
I didn’t invite her to my wedding abroad because she was vile to me during my engagement.. I live abroad now and my dad comes once a year to visit and I never extend an invite to his wife. I realise it’s generally rude but my father doesn’t dare to ask even because he knows how much he allowed her to hurt me. I’m civil when I see her but I avoid her when possible and my father only comes for 4 days in a year, in which she is constantly keeping him busy.
He isn’t better but since he is my dad I decided to put up with him but not her.
On two occasions my father asked to bring my sister with him.. I offourde said yes.
However the entire visit was my sister (now 10) making digs at me. Exactly learnt from her mother.. undermining me.. and behaving super competitive saying lies to my dad to degrade me Infront of him. I’m more confident now to call her up on it but it wears me down. She keeps bringing up how her mum does things better than me, while she is in my house.. telling me my mum cooks this better than you whatnot. Which is understandable if I was her step mum but I’m not I’m her sister, but her mothers competitive streak making her feel loyal in a weird way.
I know she is a child.. but my father enables her behaviour. Her mother teaches her.
Right now I’m going through a period of prenatal anxiety. I was breaking down and my father called said he wanted to visit. I assumed it’s because of my depression. But once I accepted few days later he told me he wants to bring my sister.
I don’t feel I have the energy for her. I need my father for support and when she is there she is constantly causing me stress.. and my father on the other hand is still angry with my mother, and having my sister with him makes him take it out on me when he feels like it.. he starts putting me down with words to her like “I don’t want u to be like your sister”..
Adding to that, I lost my father when I was 9.. before the divorce he had a severe accident which led to him mentally not being aware for a long time.. so he wasn’t able to be that father for me which is a sensitive subject.. but I’m not petty to take it out on a child. However my father knows and mentions it at times when he has a conscience but he uses my sister to show me what I missed out on whenever he is bizarrely going through a mental episode.
He is mentally unstable.. but I put up with it because he was a good father prior to that incident. But having her there makes me nervous.
I just don’t feel like I want to deal with all the disrespect and digs. And I don’t want to hurt my dad who is depressed and tell him I don’t want to see my sister..
But I don’t love her. I tried to but he and her mum came in the way by teaching her to be a snob with me and to continue the abuse. The good person in me tells me to be her good example but right now I’m pregnant and she isn’t my priority, my mental health is.
I suffered severe and serious panick attacks this pregnancy just thinking about what my dad put me through with his family.
Is there a way for me to not let my dad know that I don’t want my sister coming? Without causing drama ? He is way too dramatic
Frankly I don’t feel ready to see him either but he is a dying old man and I am used to his ugly ways but just don’t want to add more people if I don’t need to