My dad could get divorced because of me
I will try to summarise this as much as I can, but if it's long, I apologise in advance.
My dad remarried last year, and because I recently graduated, I had to move in with him, his wife, and her kids from her previous marriage (ages 10 and 5) until I find another place. This, however, was taking way too long, and here I am still living with them.
Although my relationship with her was initially fine, because my dad and I are super close, she started to feel possessive and territorial over him. So this led her to overcompensate and behave weirdly (inappropriate PDA, bedroom jokes and comments, direct intimacy requests while her kids and I are seated). She also requested that I not hug my dad, sit too close to him or spend a lot of time with him.
At the start, I told myself it's alright, although silly, guess these things happen, so I brushed it off and didn't think much of it, but with time, it started to get increasingly uncomfortable and to be honest, it felt disrespectful. When I started to show that I felt that way, that's when the relationship between her and I started to get bad. She was sticking to the 'my house, my husband, I get to do whatever I want' mentality, while I was stuck on 'in shared spaces, we should all respect each other's boundaries', so as a result of our stubbornness, tension started to grow, and we stopped talking to each other while living under the same roof.
This continued for months, and because it was affecting my dad, I decided to bite the bullet and try to make amends. She, however, was not backing down and tried to continue with her behaviour (ignoring me if I said hi, walking out of any shared space if I walked in).
With time, she felt like she needed to kick me out. Of course, she wouldn't say that clearly, so that she doesn't ruin her relationship with my dad, so she started doing things that she knew would make me uncomfortable while also telling my dad that she can't live comfortably with me in the house. I spoke to my dad about this, and he said that I should not give her any reason or excuse to use against me and to be calm until I move out, which is when he will confront her and strictly lay 'my kids is where I draw the line' kind of speech. The reason for this is to avoid conflict and a confrontation between her and I, which could potentially make things really bad.
So we spent the next few months like this, with her being childish, while I would tolerate. This continued until last night.
I was watching a funny movie, paused and went to get water, came back to my room and played the movie before shutting my bedroom door. A funny scene played, so I laughed and clapped without realising (the house has no sound isolation). They were being intimate at the same time, so she misunderstood and thought that I was clapping at her. Of course, this started a huge argument of her accusing me of starting ***, while my dad was defending me. It escalated, and they reached the point where this could cause them to get divorced.
Although my dad believes that I didn't do this on purpose, he said that I should have been more careful with my actions, generally speaking, since she was waiting for an excuse to use against me.
If she was being excessive in the past, she is now trying her best to top that. She started walking around the house with lingerie in front of her kids, being loud, shouting orders, etc. She is also happy about the fact that this created some space between my dad and I.
I never viewed her as an enemy, while all this time she viewed me as this person who was taking her husband (aka my dad) away from her. I understand that small-minded or immature people are not worth having discussions with, but it is so unfair that I am being blamed for something that I did not do.
I understand that I was also not perfect. I ignored her on so many occasions, which, yes, was rude, but that was the only thing I did. I never verbally or physically crossed the line and also complied with her requests when she asked that I not get too close to my dad (it was not worth debating).
If things were tense before, it is much worse now. It is so quiet, and everyone is walking around on eggshells because of this. My dad cannot afford to get divorced. It will really destabilise him. And besides that, I do not want him to get divorced either. He has done so much for me and put his life on hold to support me, so I really want him to live his life and have a happy relationship.
I am staying in my room in the meantime to create some space and give everyone time to chill, but also trying my best to rush the moving-out process. Other than that, i dont know what we can do to fix this.
Thoughts?
@elena01 Thank you for sharing all of that with me. It sounds like living in this house has been really stressful and overwhelming, and that you’ve been trying really hard to navigate a very tense situation. It makes sense that you’re feeling frustrated, stuck, and worried about your dad and the family dynamic.
It also sounds like you’ve been patient and careful while trying to respect boundaries, and it’s understandable that the situation escalated in ways that weren’t your fault. I can hear how much you care about your dad’s happiness and how hard it is to feel like you’re caught in the middle.
I’m here to listen if you want to share more about how you’ve been feeling day to day, or what’s been the hardest part of all this for you.
@elena01
Hi for me, you did nothing wrong. It's your Dad girl. Her new wife doesn't have the right to say those things to you. Your Dad loves you and the same way you love him. There's no wrong with that.
I agree with you, the new wife is acting very childish, immature and she's the rude one. What kind of decent mother would talk bedroom jokes, walk around the house in a lingerie with her young kids seeing her like that. She's not being a good Mom and role model.
Don't blame yourself because you did nothing wrong. Your Dad's new wife has a mental problem. She doesn't know how to act like an adult woman.
Oh my.. the complexity of the situation, I hope you get out of it safe n sound where you want to be. You’re in no wrong and you’ve done nothing wrong and ignoring her in some occasions was okay since she’s not really your birth mother. She was initiating a war in the house from the beginning so anything you did was valid. She clearly, as you also mentioned, has possessive traits. She finds you as competition although he’s YOUR father.
Idk what would help best in this situation but for possessive people, I think she’d feel at ease or better once you get closer to her. If she can see or feel that she has a close eye on you and ‘monitor’ you then she’ll feel like she’s the mutual between you and your father and she wouldn’t get so jealous. Try befriending her and having deep conversations. Don’t overshare obviously. If she doesn’t want that then try to talk to your dad about it and about how you want to neutralize the relationship between you and her and fix the problem and let him talk her through with the whole idea. If it doesn’t work.. then it’s best you avoid her until you move out. I genuinely hope you find a good place to move in and live the peace you’re looking for. ❤️