I’m just looking for advice on what to do here. Nothing has been confirmed, just a lot of weird behavior.
For a little bit of context, my dad (45M) has been unemployed for a few years now, and is on disability. He’s recently gotten into the habit of going to the bar in our town most nights. He stays until closing, or will come back home early the next morning. Home from where, you might ask? His “bar wife’s” house. I’ll call her Helen (50’s I think? F).
Helen is nice, I’ve met her a couple times at the bar. My dad is NOT affectionate with other women. He will offer a handshake, never a hug, etc. With Helen, he gives her a big hug whenever they see each other, and they will kiss on the cheek. As mentioned before, he will go home with her and spend the night at her house if he’s too drunk to drive (even though the bar is walking distance to our house). Helen is single and lives alone. He has a shirt that my sibling found that says “Helen’s Bar Husband”, and I do not think my Step mom knows about it.
The biggest thing though, was their trip to Florida. Rather than having my step mom, or even me (as I offered), go with him to Florida to get his new car, he took Helen with him. They drove down, and drove back up together. I don’t know about rooming, but they spent the entire trip together. She was not there to see any family, nothing like that. Just there for the trip with him. He sent me pictures of some of his favorite places he had visited in the area, making me think he did more than just pick up the car and go.
He’s been treating my step mom pretty terrible lately. Gaslighting her into thinking she has severe memory issues, expecting her to do everything for him, and lashing out when she makes mistakes. She works full time and fully financially supports my sibling and dad, and is still expected to cook, clean, etc. I feel like he is treating her worse because he feels guilty about whatever is going on with Helen, and he needs to feel like my step mom is in the wrong too.
Both my step mom and dad were pretty fucking terrible to me as a kid. They were both very abusive, part of the reason I moved out as soon as I hit 18. They never treated my younger sibling like that (thankfully), only me, so there is no need for worries there. They had a huge turn around after I went no contact, and have mostly been normal parents to me for the last few years. I’m 21 now, and I’d say that my step mom has had the biggest turn around. She is caring, kind, and genuinely helpful now. It doesn’t make up for the years of shitty parenting, but it’s a start. This is why I feel torn on what to do. As horrible as it may sound, if she was still a bad mother to me, I would probably just never tell her about any of this happening. But I do care about her now, and have found myself having a lot of love and respect for her. I do not think that it’s fair what my father might be doing to her.
So, what should I do? Confront my dad? Confront Helen? Tell my step mom my concerns? Thoughts?
Comments
You’re in a really tough spot, and it’s clear you’re thinking about this with a lot of maturity and empathy. Your stepmom deserves the truth, especially since she’s been doing the heavy lifting for your family and has made genuine efforts to heal things with you. That said, you don’t need to come at your dad guns blazing. Maybe start by asking him questions instead of making accusations, you know, see what kind of story he gives. If things still don’t add up and your gut keeps telling you something’s wrong, then yeah, your stepmom should know. She deserves the choice to decide what’s right for her too.
Tell your stepmom. Be a decent human being. She deserves to know.
If you truly care about your stepmom now, she deserves to know the truth or at least your honest concerns so she can decide for herself what to do.
Be aware that by telling her, it could backfire, you know, the whole kill the messenger thing. It is great that your stepmom realized how awful she was and is making an effort to be much better, but that really has nothing to do with whether you insert yourself or not. I’d not. Just know that if you share this, it could be the end of your relationship with her. She has the ability to be cruel, and she might just decide to ignore the facts and go with YOU are trying to sabotage her marriage.
Just move on would be my thought.
Build your own life.
You could just ask her if she’s comfortable with him doing that? Tell her it’s odd in your opinion and find it sketchy. Say you found this shirt and that would be a flag to you to think he’s cheating. And leave it alone. Without pure evidence it’s hard to say. But you can plant the seed and if she wants to, she can look into more. She very well could know.
I think your step mom deserves to hear what you suspect even if she is/was a shitty person. What she does with that information isnt yours to worry about after..
Just expressing your concerns is good, you don’t have to say you have any evidence but even just the way your step mom is being treated now is a huge red flag
Just voice how you feel to your step mom and ask if she is seeing the issues as well if she isn’t try to show her your side of things and if she is seeing then be there for her try to seek ways to assist her if you want to and etc.
If your voicing this and saying how much your step mother has grown then her past actions should not reflect your current ones as terrible as that can feel or sound
I don’t think you “tell” your stepmom – I think you start a conversation with her, “Is everything ok with dad?” and see where it goes. She may already know. Either way, you can tell her how much you appreciate all she does and want to make sure she is ok. If she is compketely in the dark, you can ask her about Helen and how her relationship with your dad seems over the top. Good luck!
It seems very unlikely she doesn’t know. I agree with the others about having a conversation about it rather than making it some big “reveal.”