Daughter feels detached after Dad’s remarriage
DEAR CAROLYN: I’ve always been close with my father, and have a great relationship with my stepmother, who he married in 2019. My stepmother also has a daughter a few years younger than I am (I’m 30) whom she had when she was 19. My stepmother has mentioned feeling she missed out on her early-adulthood years because she was a mother, and with her daughter grown she can finally live life on her own terms.
Since marrying my stepmother, it seems like my father is never available or doesn’t really make an effort with me anymore. We live about an hour apart and it always seems to be me suggesting plans, and when I do, they suggest I drive to their house. I recently got engaged and on the day of my engagement, they were MIA for hours when my fiance and I tried to call them to tell them our good news — and my father knew my fiance was proposing that day. As we start to plan our wedding, my father and stepmother seem to be pretty disinterested and again, aren’t making an effort.
Should I tell my father how I feel? I realize I am an adult with my own life and so is he, but I feel hurt that it seems like ever since he married my stepmother, I don’t seem to be as much of a priority. When I text or call him, it takes him hours or sometimes even days to get back to me, and I’m getting really frustrated. Should I just hold my tongue?
— Daddy’s Little Girl? DEAR READER: Only if you combine that with putting your phone away, getting out there and doing your own thing — and deciding to enjoy the time with your dad whenever it happens to work out.
Maybe change where you’re sitting, too. From my seat, his reduced availability is not an insult, it’s an inspiration.
I say this recognizing you love your dad, miss him, miss being (full disclosure, I make little “ugh” sounds whenever I type this) “Daddy’s little girl.” It is hard to watch, and feel, any close relationship change.
But you’re also flirting hard with a blame-the-stepmother trope, and that seems unfair, unless you’ve left some important things out.
Families torn apart by disruptive partners or spouses, where people are isolated and exploited to feed someone else’s emotional needs, are part of my daily reading.
Yours doesn’t look like one of those families at all. Yours looks like happiness. It’s just your dad’s happiness vs. yours. You’re less of a priority “since he married” because … he’s a newlywed? And they are each other’s priority now, rightly. Which you can choose to congratulate him for, or take personally.
Meanwhile, her nest is newishly emptied, and she has declared her ache for freedom openly — so it appears they are out living. Freely.
I speak only for myself, but when I’m out there living (or in here working), I do not remove myself from the moment to respond to calls or texts. Or, OK, I aspire to be the person who always stays in the moment instead of checking and returning a text, so from the safety of my emotional detachment from your whole situation, I say, good for him.
Plus, suggesting your life has gotten worse since your stepmother came into the picture — no matter how you frame that — is the surest way to drain the goodwill between you and your dad, and possibly between you and your stepmother, too, if he confides in her. Which will surely extend the time it takes for your dad to return your calls.
Instead, acknowledge your hurt feelings while you also acknowledge and celebrate his happiness — out loud to him or just to yourself; I can argue for either — and stop expecting him to jump every time you ask/announce your plans to announce something. It’s not what he does but what you expect of him that’s the source of your mounting frustration.
Maybe that will clear space for your dad and stepmother’s example. Prioritize that groom of yours and live every bit of your young adulthood on your terms. Get out and pre-empt some regrets.
DEAR CAROLYN: Is it OK for children — in their 20s — to object to their divorced parent’s new partner based on her age? She is younger than two of his children, and he doesn’t seem to understand why the children would be upset about this.
I’m torn between “age is just a number” and thinking this relationship has a high chance to be exploitative of the young person and extremely harmful to the children.
— Saddened Observer DEAR READER: Consenting adults are free to date. None of us has to like it except the people dating.
Kids are free to object, dads are free to be obtuse about their reasons, and we’re free to backseat-drive.
We’re all free to think we’re accomplishing something. (We aren’t.)
Those who focus on their own judgment and emotional health will emerge better for this. That much I’ll say.
Chat online with Carolyn at 11 a.m. each Friday at washingtonpost.com. Write to Tell Me About It in care of The Washington Post, Style Plus, 1150 15th St. N.W., Washington, D.C. 20071; or email