When I was younger, following my parent’s divorce my mom ended up marrying another man. I won’t go into too much detail, but as the years went on, my step dad became increasingly more controlling of me and my younger sister. He never physically hurt us, but he was very emotionally and psychologically abusive, to the point where I was terrified to do anything without asking him first, and I became anxious over every little mistake I made, as he’d often react in an explosively angry manner. Eventually, he and my mom divorced. I ended up moving out for school, and cutting all contact with him. I’m still dealing with a lot of the negative psychological effects of his abuse even to this day.
My problem is this. This man is still a big part of my younger brother’s life (as he is his biological dad) and I still have to interact with him on occasion. Every time this happens, I get upset and my mom doesn’t seem to really understand why I still react so negatively towards him. She is aware of what he did back then, but my brother isn’t, and my former step-dad is either in denial or doesn’t really want to acknowledge what he did back then. Since this man has always been a good dad to my brother, my mom doesn’t want me to confront him (at least not when my brother is around.) As it is, I feel like I can’t properly move on from the past until I confront this man, and tell him how I feel about what he did, and why I don’t want him in my life. This is especially important to me, as he has supposedly expressed wanting to try and reconnect with me to my mom.
I feel so lost about everything here. What should I do about this? Am I making a big deal out of nothing? How do I get my mom to understand my viewpoint a bit better? Should I confront my former step-dad about his abusive behavior, or should I try to move on some other way?
