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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
Last year my stepson went into my things without my permission, found erotic pictures of me on a memory card, blurted this out during a run-of-the-mill exchange about home work, and was later discovered to have showed them to the 13-year-old next door.
Given the whole story, Cary Tennis will rightly decide that this is the child’s way of registering pain and powerlessness. He will say that in an exercise of empathy, I should insert myself into the boy’s sneakers. He may suggest therapy for the wounded youth.
What he never harps on with letters like these (and there have been quite a few) is the genuine pain and embarrassment that stepmothers undergo, their comparative lack of authority and agency, and the means by which they are supposed to drum up the emotional resources for those save-the-children campaigns he is fond of suggesting. In fact, while the very compassionate Tennis demonstrates forgiveness and caring to all manner of miscreants, he is all tough love with stepmoms.
This is for the best. I wish I had the benefit of his opinion and those of his slew of caustic Salon readers to send me scuttling in the opposite direction when, five years ago, I decided to move in with my boyfriend of three years.
I understand and empathise with the LW. I, too, am in my twenties. My stepson is 14 years younger. I know what it’s like to love an older man and want to have a life with him. I suppose the difference between us is that I fooled myself into thinking that the child and I were developing mutual respect and affection over time.
But if the people with primary responsibility for a child have created a festering mess and you do not have the skills required to mop that mess up, then things degenerate in terrible ways. As you have no doubt deduced, you will get cast as the evil step mother and you will spend a lot of time, energy and emotion bleeding about something you are powerless to change.
You cannot psyche yourself up for an assignment like this. I respectfully submit that making an exit may be a good idea. And not just in the child’s interest.
She told me that her beloved boyfriend's exwife was homeless and living under a bridge. He had (at that time)two minor daughters living with him, and my cousin did not want to marry him because "I hate his daughters."
Fast forward two years. The older was 18, the younger 16. My cousin moved in with her beloved with the intent to marry (she was now in her late 30s.)Within five months, the older daughter moved out, never to move back again, and the younger one got shipped out to Texas to live with family friends.
Fast forward 15 years. My cousin and her beloved are still married, his daughters are still not welcome in his home, and he goes to visit them sans my cousin. I have no respect for her because she married him knowing she hated his children, and I have even less respect for him. All of that said, they don't give a rat's ass about me and my opinion, and I am told they are a happy couple.
In all honesty, if I were 29 again, this is not a pig I would tackle. I would be wanting children of my own (maybe this is not an issue for you), and I for sure would not pick a guy with a parenting track record like your boyfriend's. He might be a lot of fun and good time, but he's not much of a father, and I think that will end up being sad for all three of you.
..in Cary's response that I can't get around is this: the father hasn't yet been a father. It sounds as if he's been entirely passive up until this moment. If the LW leaves, he may not actually do his duty. But staying would be too much punishment for the LW.
It's a true shame.
Clearly your 13 year old stepson should not have gone through your things and did something very wrong with your memory card. The fact he blurted it out shows he didn't realize how wrong it was.
But clearly, you should be old enough not to have pictures of your erotic self lying around the house. This stuff happens.
You are sharing the house not with "his" children, but children, period. I am sorry you were naive and that it is painful, but you do have control over the situation.
You owe nothing to this guy's daughter.
Neither do you owe this guy anything about her.
You DO owe it to yourself to see that this is a potential disaster and that the kid will destroy any chance at happiness for you.
GET OUT!! GET OUT!!
Also, be aware of the bleeding hearts who will attempt to guilt you into feeling something akin to their neurotic responsibility to cure the world's ills.
Being a psychonanny is NOT one of them.
This is the worst situation of your life so far.
If you allow yourself to be sucked into it any further, you will know misery like you never knew existed.
Get out and, good luck.
My heart breaks for this poor girl. Oh, not the tragically shallow 20-something who wrote the letter but the 16 year old. Except for her luxurious surroundings, she might as well have spent her brief life being raised by wolves in the wild. Even the ever-loving nanny sounds incompetent and inadequate or the poor girl would have been taught some basic life skills like personal hygiene or professionally evaluated if she's incapable of learning those skills.
There appears to be at least one grandmother in the picture. I don't hear any mention of her stepping up the plate so we have to assume this family has been dysfunctional for generations.
Just another argument for making the requirements for becoming a parent at least as stringent as those for adopting a poodle.
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Salon headlines in your mailbox
