Oldest child, least valued by my family

[Freedom]

I am the eldest child, I have one full sibling "the golden child", and two half siblings - the youngest being the replacement "golden child" of my sister.  My younger half brothers are treated way better than my sister and I ever were.  Each time my father has found a new girlfriend or wife and there are new children, my sister and I go even further to the bottom of the pile.  I am in my 50s now, my parents separated when I was 10, and I have never felt a high priority with my dad or loved enough.  He would do anything for a neighbour or friend, yet when it comes to me, I am at the bottom of the help list.  I have taken on the lion's share of responsibility  - e.g. caring for my mother, pro-actively sorting out financial, legal, matters etc - and I feel taken for granted. 

One of the big things that has deeply scarred me, that I am trying to make peace with is how my dad treated me and my sister when we were teenagers and he married his second wife - who was the typical evil stepmother.  They are bought a beautiful, four bed new-build.  Her two daughter's had gorgeous bedrooms, the whole house was expensively furnished and decorated, exept the fourth bedroom, which dad used as an office.  My mother went away on holiday with her boyfriend for two weeks and my sister and I stayed with my dad. Our 'bedroom' consisted of a double mattress on the floor that we had to share, no curtains on the windows, no luxuries, oh and it doubled up as a cinema room for my evil step sisters -who were friends with all of the girls who beat and bullied my sister at school.  One evening after school this group of six nasty girls wanted to watch a video in my sister and I's bedroom.  We refused, our evil step mother got angry with us and told us that we needed to let the girls watch their film.  My sister and I cowered, frozen in the corner for several hours whilst the girls watched Dirty Dancing on repeat three times - just to be cruel and teach my sister and I a lesson. Then they bullied us about it at school and whatever else our evil step sisters told them about what had happened.  My dad hid in the garage and pretended nothing was happening, he did not stand up for us.  My only saving grace was a good friend who was worried about me and she would walk to school with me every morning and walk me home again.  By the end of that two weeks I was very ill, my mother picked me up after her holiday and she was very concerned about unwell I looked, pale, stressed, I had lost weight.  This has been a repeated pattern of my father - next wife comes along - my sister and I are relegated to bottom of the list.  Next girlfriend comes along etc, etc.  His last wife left him in 2020 - and who did he call on for support?  Me! And wanting my dad's love and attention - I fell for it, then have had to repeatedly step back. He is lonely and getting old now, but still repeats the old pattern.  I have had a lot of therapy over the years, yet not addressed this with my dad, I would like an apology, but I don't know if I will ever get that closure.

[xredshoesx]

gentle hugs freedom-

i'm sort of in a similar situation with my biological father.  I am my parent's only child, but they both have children with other people......   I don't have the answers I need and part of me still resents my father for not fighting harder to be in my life when I was a kid.....  it's also hard to see now how involved he is in my half sibling's lives (I think that's mostly because my stepmom makes him but still.....). this is espscially hard bc for some time I had put my real dad on a pedalstal like he was gonna ride in like the calvary and SAVE ME FROM HER (my mother) which of course never happened- I found my real dad by accident as a young adult....

even at my big age of 54 it still hurts and I can totally understand how each new relationship your dad got into made that discard hurt even more for you.

something I'm working on is sort of a radical acceptance of the events-  not forgiveness, not forgetting it happened but allowing myself to no longer beat myself up for not having the ANSWERS as to WHY my dad made the choices he did.  i'm also not actively pursuing a relationship with him (IE i've been married almost 16 years and don't feel pressed to travel halfway across the country for my DH to meet him and the rest of my birth family).  i'm not giving up, i'm just not making ALL the effort to maintain what little relationship we had.

I don't know if the little redshoes will ever get over the hurt all the past caused.  I do know that letting go of trying to find the answers may help the big  redshoes keep moving forward tho...

again, be gentle with yourself today.  I wish I had a better answer <3

[Tribe16]

Redshoes and Freedom,

Firstly I am sorry that you have suffered as a result of selfish parenting. It hurts and there's no way around it.

You talked about answers and WHY. I have been in that boat and have had therapists tell me, "sometimes we don't know why, we just need to accept." This has never sat well with me. I was in a Subreddit and somebody suggested going to AI and putting in a prompt like -

"Please analyze the following scenario through the lens of Bowen Family Systems Theory and any other theories you deem relevant" and then write down in detail the experience as you remember it. I've done this with many of the events that I've never understood why I couldn't shake them. I've gaslit myself and said, "Oh it wasn't that bad." I've used both Google Gemini and ChatGPT. They both come up with not identical but very similar explanations. I've gone down a real rabbit hole the past week, using this method. The amazing thing is, I feel much lighter. I feel like I got answers to questions that couldn't be answered previously. I feel like my experiences were much more troubling than I previously allowed myself to believe. I even have more compassion for my mother because she is emotionally SICK. Like really toxic sick. Basically she will never feel like "a mother" because she is a limited, emotionally incapacitated human. And viewing her like that, helps me to not take personal the vitriol she dished out. I don't know if this will help you, and I know you didn't ask for this advice, but it's an option for you if you're wanting validation for how to make your exit plan if that's the route you end up taking.

I hope whatever you decide, you put your own needs before those who will likely never do the same for you. Wishing you peace.

[Freedom]

Thank you, Redshoes and Tribe16, your caring responses really move me, and I send you compassion for your experiences also. There are some helpful suggestions that I will explore. And in the meantime, going gently, I wish you peace.