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

[Youtookmehigher]

Out of curiosity, did anyone else’s dad re-marry and have more children? Anyone else have to experience their dad doting on his younger children and you just getting the scraps of attention left? Or not being invited on their family holidays abroad, including Disney might I add! Or had an absolute ice queen of a step mum who basically made it clear that you were a nuisance for even existing and imposing on her perfect family every other weekend / 4 nights a month? Or has anyone had to sleep on a blow up bed while your younger and clearly more precious siblings sleep in their nice comfy beds in their beautiful bedrooms? Or the one that hits the most, watching your step mum and dad going all out on Xmas eve for your younger siblings with matching pjs and personalised stockings and plates for Santa, while you have to sit in your pjs from your mums just watching :(

anyone else experience this growing up , if so how did you turn out?

sat in alone tonight and stuck in my feelings,
I could write a book on how this has affected my whole entire life :(

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.

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.

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?

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?

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.

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.

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.

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'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.