<font color="purple">...but sometimes, I just feel like I can't help it. She, being my future stepmom. She really is a nice girl underneath it all, but there are a few glaring things about her that I just...erk. It rubs me the wrong way. Badly. And no, I can't tell her anything about that because my dad will leap onto the defensive (to "protect" her I presume)

#1. She complains about well... everything. She can find the gray cloud to every silver lining out there. It's really hard for me to be all optimistic and happy in her presense if she always snaps about things. She is perfectionist in every sense, and things are hardly ever perfect around her, even if just a liiittle comprimise would make everything better.

#2. She is so sensitive, and insecure. I know I shouldn't be bothered by this, but it get so tiresome hearing my dad late at night trying to reassure her that yes, he WOULD like to go to ____ and that he isn't just lying to make her happy. I tried my best with her early on for her to know that she's worth something to me, but sometimes I don't think she get's it that yeah, I do weird things, and yeah, it takes me quite awhile to adjust to new people.

#3. That I can say absolutely nothing to her about any problems that I may have with her because I dunno, that would ruin things. She'd fall into some sort of deep pit of depression, and dad would just yell at me and tell me that I shouldn't say stuff like that. My god, WORLD WAR 3 broke out just because I wouldn't let her go on my computer. With my dad and her being on one saide, and my brother and I being on the other (I'm glad my brother stood up for me, I don't think my dad had any clue at the time what kind of verbal assult he was throwing at me, all I wanted to do was be left alone at that point and he just wouldn't go away, I kicked him out of my room and he threatened to break my door down. OVER. A COMPUTER) When I told him why, he acted almost like he was offended, like it was some sort of insult to them that I was too paranoid to let people on my computer, and excersizing my right not to let other people use MY property.

Who now, #3 turned into quite a tangent, now didn't it?

Let me say that it isn't like this all the time, it's just the way I feel whenever a visit from her is impending or we are going to her house soon. If she were to just let things go for a little bit, I'm sure that it would be alot easier to see her nice side.</font>

[jurplesman]

Hi Kaika,

Sometimes it is so hard to handle people, in fact it can be frustrating. The best approach is to realize that "hard-to-get-on-people" are likely to have personality problems that happens to trigger our own flaws in personality. Thus one might say we have a a clash of personalities.
Try to find out what these flaws are and you can do so by studying a course in psychotherapy.

My approach to personality (flaws or no flaws) is that it depends on one's self-image. Thus I see the self-image being at the core of personality. For instance, if a person has a low self-image, they are likely to be sensitive to any criticism or perceive criticism against the person. A person with a low self-esteem will react more emotionally to rejection of love, or perceived respect. They tend to overreact and by doing so trigger a weak spot in out own self-image. And so we might have a self-fulfilling prophecy: that "hang-ups attract hang-ups". People with hang-ups somehow find each other to live out their "hang-ups".

The solution is to get rid of one's hang-ups and then develop some strategies of how to handle criticisms and put-downs, without triggering anger reactions.

This is the theme of my book "Getting off the Hook" which is freely available on the internet free of charge. Please start at page 36, and read the ensuing chapters. Another shortened version is at:

Self-Help Psychotherapy Course

Start off at:

What is Transactional Analysis? (TA).

This course not only gives you an insight into the "psychology" or your opponent, but your own as well. The course includes an "Assertiveness Training Program", which is really a "Conflict Resolution Course".

Have fun doing the course.

[Here4him]

Hi, Kaika ~ I totally empathize with your situation, except in our case my 14 year old daughter was in your shoes and my husband was/is the stepdad (though, he's the only dad she's known and has helped me raise her since she was 1 and 1/2 yrs. old). When I married my husband, I was a single Mom of 3 - he had no children. We had 4 children together within the first 4 years of our marriage, giving us a grand total of 7. However, the first 9 years of our marriage, my husband criticized, lectured, punished, scrutinized, etc. my daughters every move. Nothing was ever good enough His first words in the morning to her would be, "Did you make your bed yet?" However, with his 4 biological kids it was different. His first words to them were always, "How are my babies? How are my pretty girls? How are Daddy's boys this morning?", etc. It was a very frustrating, painful journey for my daughter and I. I wouldn't divorce him over it and believed that God would change his heart eventually. I, as a Mother, made a lot of mistakes during that time, mostly out of hurt and desperation for change. About 6 years ago, I began to talk to her about how to deal with people with "difficult personalities". I decided to use this relationship between her and my husband as a sort of "platform" learning tool, knowing that in life we all encounter people with difficulty personalities and can't always just walk away from that situation as quickly as we may like to. I took a spiritual approach with her and one of the things I did with her was this exercise: For every time he said or did something that hurt her or I, we wrote it down on a small piece of paper. Then we presented it to the Lord, telling Him how it hurt us but we ask for forgiveness on his behalf and we offer forgiveness to him for it. Then, we tore up the piece of paper as an act of releasing him from the offense of it. For every time he said or did something that blessed us or was kind, we wrote it in a journal and presented it to the Lord, telling Him how much it blessed us and asked the Lord to bless him for it. We truly had to resort to this because during that time my husband was so closed to us confronting him about it, although he admitted what he was doing was wrong. Well, 3 years ago for Fathers Day, we presented that journal to him and, Kaika, something in him switched on that day. He broke down and cried like a baby, apologizing all over himself for how he treated her and found it hard to believe that she had so many wonderful things to say about him in this journal. It was a long journey. Part of his issue was he was physically, verbally, mentally, and emotionally abused by HIS stepdad. It took years for him to forgive his stepdad and himself. But change did come. I believe it will come for you as well. It will only be for a season.

[Perna]

Wow, that sounds like my grandmother's stepmother; she was a second cousin and only 12 years older than my grandmother. My grandmother's favorite, older brother was only 3 years younger than his stepmother so he kind of like left home? She was 18 when my great grandfather married her. My grandmother's mother died when she was one so she was a little hellion by the time she was six and finally ran away (my aunt says eloped) from North Carolina to Idaho when she was about 18, the older brother was there in Idaho. She went to the University of Idaho and met my grandfather, etc.

My husband's ex- sounds a little like her too. My husband's ex- does a whole lot of complaining. Asking her how she is is often not a good idea :-)

I would just try to "make friends" with your stepmother, not think of her as a "mother" figure but more as a wayward school acquaintance? Not everyone we meet is to our liking. She'll be your father's wife, not yours :-) Just try to stay vague about your plans and problems so she doesn't offer too much advice, stay polite to her, etc. Bring a school book or novel or something with you when you go to their house, not anything very "personal". I'd explore the area a little, see if you can find any other teens to hang with when you're there? Do you know that part of town/area very well?