🏠 What it means to have grown up with a difficult stepparent relationship
Growing up with a difficult stepparent relationship meant you became an unwilling immigrant in your own home, suddenly expected to "belong" with strangers who had authority over you while grieving the loss of your original family.
You may have felt displaced and disempowered, forced to accept people you didn't choose and often didn't even like. Everyone pretended this new arrangement was perfectly normal and you should be grateful, while you felt confused about where you fit and how to act in your own home. Your loyalties may have felt painfully divided between parents, often feeling like connecting with one meant betraying the other.
You may have learned that love can shift and change without warning, making it hard to fully trust that anyone's love for you is permanent or reliable. This experience may have taught you to resist quick closeness and feel instantly resentful when others try to force intimacy, because you learned that relationships often come with hidden agendas and loss of self.