Mum’s gone, so should I cut off my poisonous stepfather?

DEAR BEL

MY STEPFATHER came on the scene when I was a few months old and my sisters were 14, 11 and six. He moved in (1967) and was abusive mentally and physically (not sexually) to them.

I avoided the worst of it — which leaves me with guilt. One sister attempted suicide at 16 because of him. Another became pregnant at 16 and left home.

The eldest also left at 16 because she could take no more, and went to live with our father, who was in another part of the country at the time. She went on to have a breakdown, dabbled in drugs and spent time in a mental institution. None of us blames our mum; almost all of the trouble took place while she was at work. I’m sure she overlooked some things, but he was very controlling with her, too.

We all adored our wonderful mum, who died in August 2014. She spent a few months in hospital, then was bedridden at home.

Carers were supposed to visit four times a day, but our stepdad stopped them. When they were there, he’d bully them, watch every move, not give them or Mum any peace. We were never allowed any time alone with her. We all suspect he was nasty to her while she was helpless.

About a week before she died she said he’d punched her. She had a bruise on her arm — he’d tried to move her and slipped, apparently. After her death we all tried our best to look after him, take him to doctor/hospital appointments, do shopping, make food. But he picked on everyone (grandchildren, greatgrandchildren) and all the sonsin-law hate him. I am the only one left in contact.

Because he’s brought me up, he’s always been my dad, but his constant spite and moaning has reduced me to a mental wreck. Nothing nice ever comes from his mouth. My husband and daughter beg me to break contact.

My sisters and I have now set a date to bury Mum’s ashes, but he says he ‘ owns’ them (like he always owned everything: the TV, the food in the fridge).

Nothing to do with loving Mum. I know if I give him those ashes, we will never see them again. He’s given us no personal mementoes of Mum, because it all belongs to him. After Mum died, the four of us were bereft, but he never once asked how we were coping.

I worry if I cut contact and he dies (he’s 82), no one is going to let me know.

I’m frightened of not being able to say goodbye. I can’t work out why that bothers me so much, but it does. I want to step away, but have such a massive guilt complex that I’m finding it really hard.

Walking away is a selfish act. What shall I do? ANITA

YOU tell me you have considered suicide because of your ‘conflict and confusion’ and that makes me take this very seriously.

Most readers, even reading this precis of a letter that was almost six times as long, will wonder why on earth you feel this guilt over such an unpleasant man — one who caused your sisters terrible unhappiness.

My suspicion is that the ‘conflict and confusion’ (your email’s subject line) is linked to grief for your mother and to unspoken, unbearable judgments about her actions.

You make a point of writing, ‘none of us blames our mum’. Forgive me, but I have to question that. It will be impossible for you to find a way forward unless you are scrupulously honest about the painful past.

Looking at the timeline, I’m guessing your mother’s affair with this man probably broke up her first marriage. Is that right?

In time, your biological father drifted away and your older sisters quickly came to realise the true nature of the man they had to call Stepdad.

You adored your mother and still do — nevertheless (forgive me) she ‘allowed’ her children to be abused by the man she had chosen.

Whatever her reasons, it happened:

she imposed a controlling bully on them. Surely she must have known he would not allow her girls to eat food in the fridge and so on?

And if she didn’t know . . . then why was she so insensible to unhappiness that must have been obvious?

There has to be a subtext here — and I want you to think about it, not in order to ‘ blame’ her, but to understand that your complicated feelings about your stepfather are tied up with bad memories for which you might (in truth) hold her responsible.

Perhaps you cling to these misguided feelings of loyalty to him out of a strange need to protect her memory from your deep-seated anger over her choices, her mistakes.

The wicked stepfather is making you so utterly miserable you have thought in passing about ending your life.

That would destroy the husband and daughter you adore, both of whom are begging you to turn your back on this man. There’s no doubt in my mind who matters most (and do not hesitate to call Samaritans on 116 123 to talk further).

You owe it to your immediate and extended family to preserve sanity by cutting contact with the man who made everybody so unhappy.

You say that ‘walking away is a selfish act’. I disagree. What is ‘selfish’ is to cling to entirely irrational guilt and to make yourself miserable, in spite of what your loved ones want.

It makes it all about your feelings, not theirs.

In the past I’ve written extensively about forgiveness; regular readers know that I am all-too-ready to give the benefit of the doubt.

Not this time. I think you should plan to share a lovely ceremony with your sisters — burying your mother’s ashes in a lovely spot, expressing your love for her aloud.

There need be no further conversations with your stepfather about this; he has no right to claim her ashes, as he took all her possessions.

However, if you really need to feel you have virtue on your side, buy a pretty little box, put a small amount of the ashes in it, and send it to him.

After that, it will be enough to keep in very distant contact with him, but that’s all. Step right back — for the sake of your family.