The Stepmother Saga

"I'm mad!" I say.

"I know" he says.

"NO! I'm mad at both of you!"

Then begins the tirade. The stepmom stepping on the father's toes. I tell him that I can shut up anymore! I'm too mad. There is a cycle going on that I can clearly see, but he, for some reason, cannot!

As usual, he is mad at me for being mad at him. This is the pattern. This is the crap that I put up with. He has been doing this since the beginning. He will hold a grudge with me for a long time.

He gets mad at her for 5 minutes, mad at me for years. That is the way it has been. She has a curfew of 11:00. She doesn't come home all night. He tells her she is grounded. From what?, I wonder... She goes out the very next night. He says he is going her phone away, but doesn't. At 11:30 one night, she goes up to ask him if she can go out (A car is waiting outside for her). They are shouting up there. She leaves with a smile on her face and doesn't come back until 6 a.m. or so. She brings him coffee and makes him breakfast. She stays in one night and then back to the same thing over and over and over again. She claims she is so stressed out that she can't stay home. Hmm... Sounds like she wants to go out and is using every excuse to make him feel sorry for her so she can do so.

Today I tell him that I am not a person derives happiness from saying, "I told you so!". I'm not. I tell him that finding her dead in a ditch somewhere is not the time to say, "I should have..." This child is running wild. She stops here to sleep occasionally and use her dad to buy her clothes, make-up and whatever she wants and takes off again. She single-handedly messes up the house and leaves it. I have tried to leave it for her to clean, but inevitably someone is coming over and I have to break down and clean it up. She has no set chores. She doesn't earn any privileges, just acquires them.

I know I was a strict mom. With Nick, I think I was too strict. With Ben a little better, but he allowed that. He was honest. I am trying to get to the point where I can honestly not care about her anymore, or Brian, but why can't I get there?! What is it that is tearing me up on the inside? that drives me nuts about the whole situation? Why can't I just leave it alone and shut my mouth and not be as upset as I am? I keep thinking that he will reach a point where he says, "that's enough!" but it is going to take a lot! I am seeing a destructive pattern here.

Tell me, what do I do? How do I cope with this?! I really want to go back up north and sever these ties. I've thought about it. I've secluded myself up in the bedroom so I don't have to be around it.

Sorry, Mom, but there are reasons I am not marrying him.

I also got my iPod stolen. She let some guy in here that she doesn't know well, "to use the bathroom" and my iPod and Brian's headphones disappeared. Her iPod also disappeared when this stranger said he would charge it for her. He said someone stole it from him. She said that she feels so bad about it that when the guy pays her back for it, she will buy her dad new headphones. I am invisible. Worthless.

When women become stepmoms they, like zombies, should have their mouths filled with salt and their lips sewn shut.