I have a stepmother who my brother and I really despise. She has made our relationship with our dad really hard, and has tried to stop him seeing us at points. She has resented us since we were little. My dad has recently admitted that he thinks she is jealous of us and has a lot of regret for the way we were treated in the past.
The trouble lies in the fact that he has said if anything happens to him (ie if he dies first) we would need to make an effort with her will-wise, to ensure we were treated fairly, as he doesn’t quite trust she would do the right thing.
It feels incredibly hard to acknowledge this and agree when he has essentially admitted he doesn’t trust her with his dying wish. I also find it really hard to deal with the fact he is finally acknowledging how cruel she has been, but still insists we have a relationship. It makes me think he’s a coward. I really want to bring this up to him, but have no idea how to say: “Do you not think you should reconsider your marriage, based on the way in which you have shown you don’t trust your wife, and believe she is jealous of your children?”
Eleanor says: First non-philosophical thing: if you haven’t already, I think you should get legal advice about the will. Is it that he might die intestate, and he’s hoping you’ll all sort it out? Or has he made arrangements, but worries she might challenge them?
Legal advice would clarify what can be done now to avoid a horrible tangle later. That’s hard – nobody likes to get into the details about their dad’s death. Or indeed their own. But it’ll be so much harder, emotionally and legally, if your first advice about a possible estate conflict only comes after he’s died.
To your question. You said you weren’t sure how to say what you wanted to say. When we say “I can’t figure out how to say such-and-such”, I always think the answer is to just say the such-and-such. You wrote it: “Do you not think you should reconsider your marriage, based on the ways you don’t trust your wife, and believe she’s jealous of your children?”
A heady thing to say, for sure. But it’s not the word choice that makes it heady. You’d be asking your dad why he’s still married. You can soften the phrasing, but it’s the content of that question that makes us flinch, not the way of asking it.
More frightening still is the fact that he might have an answer. Through your (and my) eyes that question is almost rhetorical: why stay married to someone you don’t trust and who’s mean to your kids? However, the fact that they are still married and that he wants you to have a relationship with her means that, for him, there might well be an answer. He might have considerations on the other side of the scale that outweigh the fact that she’s mean to his kids.
Maybe he likes her enough. Maybe he doesn’t want to be alone. Maybe he thinks he’s too old, he’s not willing to make the change. Maybe he thinks the conflicts between her and his kids aren’t his concern.
Maybe what look like obvious dealbreakers to you are just some considerations among many for him.
The point is, your real question for him might be an even bigger flinch. Not just “why won’t you act on your judgment?”, but “why isn’t it your judgment that you should leave?” It’s possible he has bona fide answers – things that, to him, are more important than the way she treats you.
It is hard to say which would hurt more: him not being brave enough to act on what he values, or this being exactly what it looks like when he does. I truly don’t know which of these it is. I feel for you the same in both cases. I don’t know whether you should ask him either question out loud; I don’t know how conversations with him tend to go, or whether his answer would make you feel better.
I do know that when someone isn’t acting on what they say they see, it isn’t always that they lack the courage of their convictions. Sometimes they’re showing us their convictions through inaction.
