Step-Parent Issue

[Legendairy314]

Hey everyone, I've been having an issue with a step-father that has been ongoing for quite some time and would like some advice from a collected group of people.

The main problem is that every other conversation we have is him getting angry at something I did or didn't do on that particular day. My view is that he has overly-high expectations and constantly looks for something to get angry at. His view is that I'm a screw-up with procrastination problems. In the end we're both at fault.

A big issue is that I'm, more or less, emotionally unstable. When he gets angry it has severely negative consequences on my self-esteem. At one point I dropped my phone in the ocean and contemplated suicide fearing the backlash (which I received therapy for).

Most recently I had missed a phone call from him and called back 20 minutes afterwards. He was extremely angry and, after I apologized, got more frustrated and hung up the phone. Now I have to wait 2 hours before he gets home and have that tortured feeling.

My friends always support my side but he has never gotten angry unprovoked and is not abusive to anyone in the family. His relationship with his parents is strained at best and I feel like he is just trying hard to raise his kids right.

I'm asking for opinions, what action(s) I should take, and what I can do to stop provoking these type of reactions.

NOTES:
-I haven't told him I'm emotionally unstable and know he'd just see it as an excuse.
-I'll be living with him for the next 3 years (along with my mother and sister) until I finish up my college education.
-I don't do drugs or have done anything illegal and have gotten good grades the last 2 semesters.
-Most of the time he will get angry at forgotten chores, me sleeping in, me forgetting something, and me going out late to hang out with friends.
-I'm 19.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice.

 

[Kodachi]

Well, it seems that your step-father is an asshole.

This about sums it up. Sadly the world is full of them. You can choose to ignore them, which will undoubtedly infuriate this person, leaving you to weather the storm for 3 years. Alternatively, you could assert yourself upon confrontation. This will most likely yield the same result but over time, your right to independence will be established and he will stop sweating the little stuff (as long as you continue to keep those grades up and such). Lastly, you could be complacent and simply do your absolute best to meet these high expectations. I don't see this working as well as you seem to have been trying this already.

Assertiveness is always your best course of action. Just keep in mind that true assertiveness is the perfect balance of negotiation, compromise, and self-actualization (knowing who you are and what you want), not simply rebelling aggressively.

 

[Legendairy314]

Well, it seems that your step-father is an asshole. I have a demanding and short-tempered father, but he seems fair in comparison to this guy. Not much you can do about it unless living with your biological father is an option. You need to endure it for now or find a college and a job (to be financially independent of him) in a different town. And don't be stupid with the suicide thing, you can live the vast majority of the rest of your life happily and free of anyone's bitching if you make proper arrangements.

Living with my Biological Father isn't an available option because he's no longer with us. I have a job but have no where near enough hours to get my own place and my College options are limited because of a small budget for schooling. I don't think about suicide anymore but I often feel depressed after a confrontation.

 

[Zantos]

If this is a recent thing then he's probably lashing out as a result of it being very stressful on him too. It doesn't excuse him for being an arse but, ya know, it's not you he's actually angry at and that's something to work with. Tell your mother, you're her child and she won't take any of that. He just needs setting straight, telling him that this isn't on either by you or your mother. It's probably not going to be a long term thing anyway, but the sooner he gets called out on it and hopefully does something about it, the better.

 

[Legendairy314]

If this is a recent thing then he's probably lashing out as a result of it being very stressful on him too. It doesn't excuse him for being an arse but, ya know, it's not you he's actually angry at and that's something to work with. Tell your mother, you're her child and she won't take any of that. He just needs setting straight, telling him that this isn't on either by you or your mother. It's probably not going to be a long term thing anyway, but the sooner he gets called out on it and hopefully does something about it, the better.

It's been happening for years. My mother kind of accepts it as a fact of life and often tells me to keep my head down when he's "grouchy" so I don't start something. He lashed out at my sister not too long ago and came up to me and asked if it's usually that bad for me. I really didn't know what to say. He's made it a point that he never enjoys confronting me with these motives in mind.

 

[commodore96]

Hey everyone, I've been having an issue with a step-father that has been ongoing for quite some time and would like some advice from a collected group of people.

My stepdad had anger issues, and I have been on the receiving end of a punch or two by him when I was younger. There are two things that I did to help my situation with him.

First I would avoid him a lot during the day. I would schedule work on Weekends when he was home, and go hiking or something outside when he was home from work on weekdays.

Second I started going to the gym. It is a lot harder to get angry at someone who would most likely beat you in a fight. This took a while and was no easy task considering he used to play college hockey.

We get along great now but that is how I got over my stepdad when he was being a dickwad to me.

 

[eggmiester]

Hey everyone, I've been having an issue with a step-father that has been ongoing for quite some time and would like some advice from a collected group of people.

The main problem is that every other conversation we have is him getting angry at something I did or didn't do on that particular day. My view is that he has overly-high expectations and constantly looks for something to get angry at. His view is that I'm a screw-up with procrastination problems. In the end we're both at fault.

A big issue is that I'm, more or less, emotionally unstable. When he gets angry it has severely negative consequences on my self-esteem. At one point I dropped my phone in the ocean and contemplated suicide fearing the backlash (which I received therapy for).

Most recently I had missed a phone call from him and called back 20 minutes afterwards. He was extremely angry and, after I apologized, got more frustrated and hung up the phone. Now I have to wait 2 hours before he gets home and have that tortured feeling.

My friends always support my side but he has never gotten angry unprovoked and is not abusive to anyone in the family. His relationship with his parents is strained at best and I feel like he is just trying hard to raise his kids right.

I'm asking for opinions, what action(s) I should take, and what I can do to stop provoking these type of reactions.

NOTES:
-I haven't told him I'm emotionally unstable and know he'd just see it as an excuse.
-I'll be living with him for the next 3 years (along with my mother and sister) until I finish up my college education.
-I don't do drugs or have done anything illegal and have gotten good grades the last 2 semesters.
-Most of the time he will get angry at forgotten chores, me sleeping in, me forgetting something, and me going out late to hang out with friends.
-I'm 19.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice.

dude, talk to the guy. if he is, in any way, a decent human being, then he'll listen.Or ask your mam to help you talk to him. she'll help him understand. don't just put up with it dude. it's not fair on ya.

 

[kaioshade]

Just curious, does your stepfather have any military/army/navy/etc background?

 

[Legendairy314]

Just curious, does your stepfather have any military/army/navy/etc background?

Not at all, I'm not really sure where the anger stems from but I do believe it has to do with the relationship with his own parents. I don't think we've seen his side of the family for a couple of years now.

 

[SiskoBlue]

This is tough, because to a large extent you're going to have to be the grown-up. Parents are people too. They're flawed, and a lot of the time their behaviour is just learned reactions or guesswork. In other words they don't know what they're doing. If he's asked whether "it's that bad for you" when he lashes out I'm guessing he just can't tell how he's behaving and only in hindesight does he start to think he might have gone overboard.

Parenting takes practice as well. It's one thing to start with a baby, learn all there strengths and weaknesses, see them develop and grow and know what to expect from them. Becoming someone's "dad", and aware you're not their "real" dad means not only does he not know you but he's obviously not sure how he's supposed to communicate or deal with you.

It seems most of the problems comes from his expectations and his inability to cope when things don't meet his expectations. He gives you some chores to do. You fail to do one (you're young, we all do stuff wrong, we all make mistakes, and we all slack off at one time or another). He over-reacts to this. Maybe he thinks you're being passive aggressive and sending him a message by refusing to do something. I know you're not, but his reaction is typical stress-fear reaction to a threat. Get defensive.

You have an oppurtunity now to set up a contract with him before you get stuck in this pattern of provocation, over-reaction by him, resentment and depression. When you get a chance to talk to him you'll have to do it very calmly but explain to him that you're going to try to do your best. You'll try to do the things he asks you to do but remind him you're just a kid, you're going to make mistakes. They're not deliberate or intentionally rebellious. You may think this sets him up to call you a screw-up but as you said, you get good grades, you don't get in trouble elsewhere. You're doing fine compared to horror stories you do hear.

And then explain to him that when he gets angry it literally scares you. Be careful how you word it. It's not "you scare me" it's "when you behave like that, I don't know what to do, and it scares me".

There's also the very real possibility he's just stressed in life in general. Kids having an amazing habit of thinking it all revolves around them, good and bad. He might lash out you because he's angry, but he might not actually being angry at you. He's just angry and he CAN be angry at you. So you if you make a mistake it's a golden oppurtunity for him to dump his anger on you. That has to stop. And you have to be aware of it.

As I said at the start, you have to play the grown-up when really you shouldn't have to. But given the situation the best you can do is find someone way to cope when he's "grouchy" as you mum said. It's not fair but much of life isn't. If you can find a way to avoid being the target of his anger then the better things will be. Then when your old enough you can get some distance from him.

I don't want to paint him too sympathetically but the more you can understand his motivations and see the cues he's in a bad mood the better you'll be able to cope. You might even be able to teach him better ways to relate to people.

Good luck.

 

[Zaverexus]

First, if you received therapy you should probably tell him. Maybe, he'll let up, maybe he won't, but it should at least make him think about what he's doing and hopefully decide upon a different approach.
And remember

At one point I dropped my phone in the ocean and contemplated suicide fearing the backlash (which I received therapy for).

Nothing is worth killing yourself over. It may be tough and you may not enjoy it, but living with you step dad will not kill you, and if it ever seems like it will, there are plenty of agencies that can help you.
You'll survive, you just have to try not to let it get to you.
Good luck.

 

[smurf_you]

Hey everyone, I've been having an issue with a step-father that has been ongoing for quite some time and would like some advice from a collected group of people.

The main problem is that every other conversation we have is him getting angry at something I did or didn't do on that particular day. My view is that he has overly-high expectations and constantly looks for something to get angry at. His view is that I'm a screw-up with procrastination problems. In the end we're both at fault.

A big issue is that I'm, more or less, emotionally unstable. When he gets angry it has severely negative consequences on my self-esteem. At one point I dropped my phone in the ocean and contemplated suicide fearing the backlash (which I received therapy for).

Most recently I had missed a phone call from him and called back 20 minutes afterwards. He was extremely angry and, after I apologized, got more frustrated and hung up the phone. Now I have to wait 2 hours before he gets home and have that tortured feeling.

My friends always support my side but he has never gotten angry unprovoked and is not abusive to anyone in the family. His relationship with his parents is strained at best and I feel like he is just trying hard to raise his kids right.

I'm asking for opinions, what action(s) I should take, and what I can do to stop provoking these type of reactions.

NOTES:
-I haven't told him I'm emotionally unstable and know he'd just see it as an excuse.
-I'll be living with him for the next 3 years (along with my mother and sister) until I finish up my college education.
-I don't do drugs or have done anything illegal and have gotten good grades the last 2 semesters.
-Most of the time he will get angry at forgotten chores, me sleeping in, me forgetting something, and me going out late to hang out with friends.
-I'm 19.

Thanks in advance for any helpful advice.

*groans lowly* oh boy, you have my sympathies, this was my entire childhood.... and to be honest the most you could do is talk to him, tell him how you feel, maybe tell him that you aren't trying to give excuses, that you need his support..... If he has any decency (which for your sake I hope he does, mine didn't) he'll at least listen..... If he doesn't listen I would talk to your mom privately about it.