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How to deal with issues with a step-parent?

I apologize in advance for the length (but if you want to skim through it, the first and last paragraph sum it up pretty simply, I guess)

So, a few months ago, I was watching television in the living room when my step-father came in from being out where ever and snatched the remote from my hand and tried turned to something sports-related. He grabbed the wrong remote, so the TV didn't change and he says, "My time, go upstairs." I didn't and when I wouldn't move and he couldn't figure out how to switch from DVD to the cable TV, he just started turning things off. I asked him what he was doing and he replied something along the lines of "Hey, I asked you if I could watch TV, now fix it." He was acting basically like because he "asked" (which he didn't), like I had to obey and skip off upstairs when I had been downstairs comfortably watching reruns of something on Netflix for about thirty minutes before he even came back home.

We got into an argument. I didn't necessarily care about the TV but mostly because I felt completely disrespected. He snatched something from me, yelled and me and basically ordered me to leave so he could watch TV. He was drunk (of course), but still. My mother heard us arguing and came downstairs to see what was happening and sided with me because she felt that he had no right to come in from being out at a bar and try to take control of everything if it wasn't to his liking. I said "**** it" and went upstairs to clean my room and listen to music out of frustration of being yelled at by him over the freaking tv.

We haven't spoken since and this was in May (I think). Not so much as a "hi" to one another. If he needs something from me (like to fix electronics or to burn a CD), he asks me through my mother like we're all playing some twisted game of Telephone at summer camp. And today, he asked to drive my mother's truck so he could pick up some things but since I have a job interview that day, she said it would only be okay if I drove his car because it's an hour trip by bus one way to the interview site. He refused saying he had no interest in helping me and that he doesn't like the situation where he has to like me just to be with her and that I need to take the bus (which I have no issue doing when I need to go to school or actually start work if I do, indeed get the job since where the interview is is quite a bit further than where the actual potential place of employment is since they do them in groups).

Before this, we got along fine generally. But we went the entire summer last year without speaking to each other as well and he didn't talk to me from June until Thanksgiving (thankfully, I was away at college when that happened so it was really like from June to mid-August when we stopped talking). Now that I'm going to a university closer to home so that I can commute, I think it's bringing up the same issues as before where he just wants it as him and my mother and with me gone (I'm a full-time student and it is pretty hard to find a job that is part-time but where I can make enough money to live off of and have my own place or share place with a friend). This isn't an issue with my mother, however, who tells me all of the time that I can stay home as long as I need to and there's no sense in taking out massive loans just to live in a dorm 20 minutes from home. I agree with that but I def plan on moving out when I finish school in a year and a half.

So basically, how do I make this situation work? I hate having my mother in the middle of me and her boyfriend who's been living with us since I was in high school. But, as an adult (I'm 20), I don't like being yelled at like a child or disrespected especially over the television. I just have a big issue with him always, always, always demanding that he be respected but never respecting me.

Update:

Claudia: With my schedule for the fall, the research I'll be doing and hopefully working again, that's probably gonna happen anyway, lol. I'll be living in bio lab or the library.

1 Answer

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  • 9 years ago
    Favorite Answer

    if i were you, since you are in college, i would stay at school as long as i could, come home, stay in your home when this man is home, otherwise do as you want when he is not there. best thing to do is stay out of his way when he's been drinking. if all else, have a heart to heart talk with your mother.

    Source(s): life
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