How do you cope with childish feelings towards stepfamily?

[brownie22]

My problem is that I know that how I'm feeling is really petty and silly, but I can't stop. Does anyone have any advice?

The problem is that my parents divorced when I was 10 and my dad subsequently re-married, moving further away to live with my stepmother and two stepsisters. We saw him every other weekend. We were very much encouraged to be happy, happy, happy about this, we were all going to be a great big happy family, and we never ever said anything negative about the whole thing - because didn't we want our dad to be happy ? Weren't we pleased that he was happy?

Eighteen years later and all these very strong feelings of jealousy are surfacing and making it very hard for me to handle him having a close relationship with one of my stepsisters. My dad is retired and frequently travels to see my stepsister to spend a week babysitting, will take care of her kids on his own, her kids are very very fond of him and call him Grandad. And I really hate it! I hate it every time he mentions my stepsister in passing (oh, X really likes this song, etc), and when he talks to me about the kids.

Me and my husband are planning to start trying to conceive later this year, and I'm sure my dad will be very involved when we do have children. But I can see my jealousy getting even worse when we do - and I don't want to feel this way. In my head I think it's nice that my dad has a good relationship with my stepsister and her kids, and gets a lot out of it. And it's not as if they are taking his time away from me - I spend plenty of time with him, and don't actually feel the need to spend more time - I just don't want him having fun with or being close to them!

I suppose part of it is that as they live in another country and I'm really not close to my stepsister, and I've never met her kids (the eldest is 7 ish) - maybe if I met them and liked them it would be easier for me to stop feeling so jealous.

Sorry for the huge long essay. Any thoughts?

what is it about your step sister that makes you jealous? do you feel she got 'more' of your father than you did when growing up?

Well my stepsisters got to live with him full-time, whereas we only got every other weekend, and they as a family were a lot richer than my mom was - they had a car, and driving lessons, and dancing lessons, and a cd player, and a computer, and music lessons, and got chauffeured around in the car. We a) weren't allowed to take up any hobbies that involved weekends because it would eat into quality time with my dad and b) couldn't afford anything like that.

ps Thank you for answering - I know a lot of other posters on here have much more serious problems to discuss.

Hi why don't you try to meet up with your step sister ? You never know you might really like her and help you to confront/dispel all your pent up feelings towards her.

gosh, i can see why there is jealousy. that must have been really hard to accept as a child. have you spoken to your father about how it made you feel. i know tehre is nothing he can do to make up for it now but just telling him, and having him acknowledge it may help you put teh jealousy aside.

You should not apologise for your feelings: they are genuine feelings and you are having them.

I think that the problem stems from the fact that none of this was ever acknowledged at the time. Things can be brushed under the carpet for a while, but they eventually do resurface.

Have you tried something like writing a letter to your dad (NOT to be sent) but as a way of getting your thoughts out on paper? Also, would it be possible to have a few sessions with a counsellor to work through these feelings?

After you have worked through it a bit, I do think that getting to know your step sister might be a good idea.

In fairness to your dad, I think that it is highly unlikely that his affection for his step daughter diminishes his affection for you. He has enough love for both of you.

Thank you for your suggestions.

Branchingout, what you said at the end of your post is true - I know he loves us both - which is why I get so annoyed at feeling this anger and jealousy, I know it is completely unfounded.

Booyhoo - it is hard to talk to my dad about this stuff, because at the time he was actually quite generous to my mum - he gave her the majority of the money from the sale of their joint house so that she could own our new house outright. He had to get a mortgage, and ended up going into quite a lot of debt, although that was partly to fund his (to my eyes at the time) luxurious lifestyle. As a ten-year-old you don't see the behind-the-scenes stuff, you just know that you and mom have to carry home the shopping in the rain while dad drives his new family to the supermarket. While to my dad's eyes, mum was very well off because she owned her house outright and wasn't in much debt.

Everyone who said I should get to know my stepsister better - I think that's a good idea, but it's hard because she lives abroad, and I don't think she is that interested. Also, it would be so awkward! I'm wincing just thinking about it.

Thanks everyone, it's made me feel better to talk about this stuff.