She's not really my stepmother, more my Dad's wife They've been together 30 years now and I was in my late teens when they got together.
I've spent nearly 30 years trying to be nice, and decent. I defended her for years, I've cultivated a relationship with my much younger brother from the beginning, I was always there.
She was always an odd one, when she first met my husband and they were alone for about 10 minutes she opined that she thought my relationship with my father was 'a bit incestuous'.
She has opinions on everyone, none of them complimentary. She is Hard Work. She's super UMC, but from a very dysfunctional UMC background, ver' ver' fucked, the lot of 'em.
But I've tried, and tried because I love my Dad and I love my youngest brother.
I never really knew how to respond to any of her bollockry, so just left it.
HOWEVER, I thought we had reached an accommodation, an equilibrium, until she just started not showing up about two years ago and I've recently pushed my father about why.
He obfuscated and didn't want to say but eventually when pushed it turns out that an incident (a really shitty incident that happened to my youngest brother that my brother phoned and told me about), after which my brother was cool with him, and when pressed he was angry with my father and his wife for 'gossiping about him', which my Dad and his wife, for some reason deduced was me. My Dad was furious, incandescent with me spreading gossip. He's had this feeling for years and his wife thinks I'm 'untrustworthy'.
It was nothing to do with me though.
I've always been a huge proponent of honesty in all dealings.
I'm very irritated. I'm more than irritated, I'm fucked off. Massively.