I came across a thread about abusive fathers when I was reading MN and it's been on my mind and this has got me thinking about some things that happened to me and my DSis when we were younger. I'm in my 40s and all of what I'm going to talk about happened 25 plus years ago but it still bothers me a lot now.
To set the background, my parents separated and subsequently divorced when I was quite young (about 9). A little while after my Dad took up with one of my mum's friends, I guess you could say she was a family friend, who was also divorced - she eventually became my Stepmum. She had two children roughly the same ages as me and my Dsis who we were friends with.
A little while after this my mum got very ill (she nearly died) and was admitted to hospital. That was what we were told at the time anyway.... This meant my Dad and Stepmum had to look after us. Well, I suppose they didn't 'have' to but I don't know what the alternative would have been.
This was ok to start with but everything quickly went sour. My stepmum just 'turned' on me and my DSis. I can't think of a better word for it. One day she was nice and kind and the next..she wasn't. In fact I would say she was actively cruel. She would constantly pick on us saying we were stupid and useless.
From her I found out what really happened to my Mum. I was trying to help her change a duvet (while being told I was hopless at it, couldn't do anything right etc etc). I remember her turning to me, pushing her face into mine and hissing, with real venom, 'You're so useless, no wonder your mum tried to kill herself'. So that was how I found out. I would have been around 11 or 12 when this happened.
We lived with this for 18 months, during which time we didn't see my Mum (it was deemed unsuitable for us to be in contact). As I'm sure you can imagine it was a horrible time. We were physically looked after and were told how grateful we must be to my Stepmum for taking us in.
After my Mum had recovered we went back home (that place was never home) and still went to see my Dad regularly. Stepmum continued her treatment of us. We tried telling Dad, he more or less ignored it, I think he basically didn't care/turned a blind eye as long as his needs were being met. I also remember being scared of my Dad - although he didn't hit us I do remember being frightened of his reaction to things.
I remember, when I was older getting up the courage to talk to him about it and all he said I should try and be nicer to my stepmum. My mum knew what was going on (we would come home from visits crying) and tried to speak to Stepmum but she basically got me and my sister on our own and said we were lying little bitches trying to cause trouble. We didn't bother saying anything after that.
The visits continued. I left home as soon as I could. My poor sister had another few years of it.
At the moment, I am low contact with them both. Whenever I do see them it's civil and pleasant but deep down the truth is I would be quite happy if I never saw my stepmother again. My feelings towards my Dad are more complicated. He has mellowed a lot with age but I do feel anger that he was happy to sacrifice our happiness and turned a blind eye to Stepmum's treatment of us for his own convenience.
My sister and I talk about this every now and then. I also talk to my Mum about it but I'm wondering if I have dealt with all this properly as I still feel such anger towards my stepmum and Dad.
I'm not sure what I want out of this thread, just to talk about it I think, get other people's opinions, maybe some acknowledgement, or some advice?
Thanks all for reading.