I need some advice or maybe just to vent. I'm a single mum and recently moved back in with my mum and step dad. The room I moved into was my step brothers room and my daughter is sharing a room with my step sister, none of them want to visit at the moment. My step dad has had a long battle with drugs and claims he wants to be clean but always goes back to it, at the time of me moving in my mum and step dad weren't together so I was moving in to help her out temporarily and help me out as struggling uni student. Now I went away for a week and come home to find out my step dad went into my room while I was away and complained about it being messy. It actually wasn't messy my desk just had uni work all over it. I'm really pissed off about it as I do pay my way to live here and feel I do deserve privacy! Also he is an manipulative abusive person and my mum is always walking on eggshells around him. She will say one thing to me but another thing to him. She claims she wants to be happy and knows she can't be with him until he sorts himself out, but she doesn't have the strength to tell him to leave. How can I help here get the strength to at least be happy? I'm unfortunately not in the position financially and I'm definitely not just trying to get my step-dad out of the picture, I just want my mum to he happy!
2 Replies
I'm going to be honest here but beleive me I get that overwhelming desire to help your mum out of a bad situation - your priority is to your daughter! Living with a man who has an fluctuating relationship with sobriety isn't ideal for a child (or anyone really). I personally would worry about that issue before tackling your mum's position, to put it simply; he'd be going or I would!
Secondly, your mum needs to want to be happy, she needs to want to break this toxic cycle with your step dad, she needs to want to take action! Those are decisions she needs to make on her own terms.
About all you can do in that regard is just be there for moral support and advice when she asks for it.
I wish you all the best, it's a tough position to be in.
Thank you I definitely agree that my priority does need to be my daughter. She absolutely loves my step-dad and doesn't have her dad in her life which makes it harder. I kind of know my only real option is to leave and just be the moral support for my mum but at this point financially it isn't possible. I'm going to look at other living arrangements though we it definitely isn't a healthy environment for a child.