Dear Whit,
I need some advice about a sticky family problem. I’m in my 40’s, married with children, and my father’s new wife (my mom passed away about ten years ago) is quite a bit younger than him. My stepmother (it creeps me out just to say that, so I’ll call her “Amelia”) and I have cordial relations, but she definitely is not “family” to me the way my dad, my two brothers, and my sister are. Now that my dad is getting older, Amelia has taken over responsibility for some of their household tasks, which my siblings and I mostly appreciate. My siblings and I are annoyed, though, that she routinely answers my dad’s cell phone and responds to texts addressed to him, so we have no way of communicating with him without going through her. They also have a joint email address. Since Amelia sometimes seems kind of resentful, I am not exactly eager to communicate with her. Just recently, I wanted to talk to my father about something, but thinking of Amelia reading the text or answering the phone was enough of a barrier that I did not do it. I feel cut off from my father yet reluctant to just ask her to butt out. Any recommendations?
Stuck With a Buttinsky
Dear Stuck:
You new stepmother sounds like the kind of person who would be cool under fire. When she faces a threat, she grabs it by the throat, wrestles it to the ground, and then dares it to get up. Not the kind of person you want to cross, but perhaps someone you want on your side.
As such, I’m betting that she has a job with responsibility and authority and that your father is retired—am I right? Furthermore, if Amelia holds down a job and still manages to have “taken over responsibility for some of their household tasks,” she must be efficient but also busy—very busy. In addition, she sounds as if she is used to being in charge and doesn’t mind if she steps on some underlings’ (your and your siblings’) toes. Could that insensitivity or disregard be part of why you say she “creeps me out”?
If you were to confront Amelia about blocking access to your father, I suspect that she would bristle at being left out of the mix. Given Amelia’s authoritative personality and the protective role she serves for your father, you can set up some new arrangements that will give you personal access to him without setting off any familial IEDs.
How would your father feel if you or one of your brothers offered to set up a personal email account for him so that your husband and your two brothers, his son-in-law and sons, could email him about “guy stuff”? That way you could use gender affiliation to muffle any alarms to Amelia that she is being left out of “the chain of command” for nefarious purposes.
Think about times in your father’s routine when he would be alone. Is it possible for you to call him when Amelia is at work? If he mentions to Amelia that you had called, you could always couch the contact in terms of wanting to keep him from feeling lonely while she is away from him. Instead of appearing to be undermining her, you can give the impression that you are assisting her in taking care of your father.
The secret is to not give her the impression that you are being secretive. Be forthright about how you worry about your father when she (Amelia) can’t be around, and make her feel that your plan is to work with her in a kind of entre nous to do what is best for you dad.
You can never really know what people are like when no one else is around. In this case, you can’t know whether Amelia’s controlling access to your father is subtly abusive or even harmful. What you do know is that more you are involved, the better able you will be to see it and to stop it.
With controlling people, you have to be careful not to arouse suspicion or appear to oppose them because you will alienate them and cause them to dig in their position deeper. Work with her, or at least seem to work with her to do what you think is right for your dad. Although Amelia is not the enemy, she is an impediment to you and your siblings’ communication with and closeness to your father. If you remember what Sun-Tzu, the Chinese military strategist and author of The Art of War, is supposed to have said and what Michael Corleone actually said in The Godfather about “keeping your friends close, but your enemies closer,” I think you’ll be able to avoid a war in your “family.”
Got questions about life? Love? Parenting? Work? Write to Whit’s End, an advice column by local husband, father, teacher, coach, former executive and former Marine Corps officer Al Whitaker. Send your questions to whitsend@baltimorefishbowl.com
Funny, I thought just the opposite. This young woman married an older man and the man’s daughter is “creeped out” about referring to her as a step mother. She is also happy that someoneelse is caring for her father and his needs, and seems to be doing a good job. This sounds like people who want to exclude this new family member and you helped them do that by sidestepping someone that you couch as overbearing and interfering. Perhaps the woman is trying to start her marraige and negotiate the steps and develop a warm relation. The daughter’s attitude of wanting to use the woman but not include her makes it seem like the new wife doesn’t have a fighting chance.
Thanks for your insight, Hillary. Not sure what you mean by “the opposite.” Could you expand? My take was that the letter writer is “creeped out” by the way the stepmother is controlling access to the father, which seems a legitimate concern. Why would the stepmother not let her husband answer his own phone or have his own email account? That kind of behavior doesn’t encourage “warm relation” no matter how you cut it.
This is a tricky one and I think Al’s advice is solid on this one, especially without the advantage of knowing a bit more about the family dynamic. I’m a big believer in openly communicating feelings so in this case I’d discuss this with my father and tell him that while his new wife is important to his happiness, his children should always have access to him without things being censored by his new spouse. “Amelia” entered the marriage knowing that her husband had a family and while she may be entering a challenging and perhaps uncomfortable situation from her perspective, there is a family dynamic that she will have to adjust to as well. Perhaps a non-threatening family dinner that provides some suggestions on how this “new” family will function and what each member can expect from the other.
Thanks, Rod for offering the direct approach, which I usually also endorse; however, in this case, I felt that the new stepmother would stiffen at it. Still, if the family presents a united front, Amelia might be less oppositional or controlling but still efficient and responsible.
I am wondering if Amelia is not just doing what her husband wants done. My husband hates texting and emailing and would happily have someone else take this over for him. Another possibility is that the father is unwell and has delegated the tasks to Amelia to cover up his infirmity. Another thought is that the father is just so crazy about Amelia he can’t see why the rest of the family doesn’t accept her presence as wholeheartedly as he does. Lots to ponder
Thanks for the different angles, planetmom. They all make sense, and only by talking to their father can the LW and her siblings figure out what is really going on.
So where’s the father in all this? He’s not already dead, is he? The writer blames the stepmom; one of the commentors blames the writer; but dear old Dad gets a pass. He’s a big boy, he should be answering his own darn correspondence! That would solve the whole problem neatly.
He’s probably an old-school guy who lets the wife (younger or not) take care of whatever he thinks falls outside of his sphere of interest/ability.
OK, folks, let’s give everybody a break here. Stepmom, though she’s “much younger” than her husband, still probably is not “a scone of yesterday’s baking.” She probably is only doing what she thinks she is supposed to do–handle the family correspondence and social obligations. Among women of a certain age, who writes thank you notes? The women. Who controls the social calendar and gives the parties? The women. Who buys all the birthday and Christmas and baby gifts? The women. Maybe she just thinks it’s part of her job to handle the texts and emails for both of them.
So, Been There, do you think the LW will run into resistance if she tries to contact her father exclusively? Does the conventional Woman really answer her husband’s phone calls?
Well put, Whit. Amelia sounds like a force of nature who should be handled with care! And maybe the silver lining is that Amelia will be a good person to have around as “Stuck’s” father gets older and less able to look after himself.
Thanks for silver-lining observation, Paul. That should be comforting to the LW and her siblings.
Regardless of the stepmother’s motivation, I think Al’s advice is best all around. The fact remains that the children feel marginalized by the new stepmother. Recommending that they find ways to connect with their father is a perfect suggestion. “Amelia” signed on to take care of their father, when she knowingly married a much older man, so I don’t feel she needs sympathy. On the other hand, the best thing for the children AND their father is that their relationship stay strong. The relationship between the children and the stepmother will develop naturally over time, assuming that the marriage is strong enough to last — either way, the parent-child relationship (even if the child is an adult) should be nurtured as carefully as is possible.
That’s right, Millicent. The nub of it is that the siblings feel boxed out by the new stepmother, who must be aware of their tension. If they can stay close to the father without distancing themselves from Amelia, they will be happier.