My experience: My stepfather
My stepfather was unaffectionate, sarcastic, an occasional drunk, and racist. There was virtually nothing about him that I wanted to emulate as a father. My children experienced me as a father who was different from my stepfather in every way. After visiting my stepfather and mother for a week my young adult daughter told me. “How did you ever become the father you are after growing up in that family?”
The older I become the more I can understand how difficult it must have been for my stepfather, especially since he knew my father in high school. Every day he had to face a boy who probably began to look like the competitor who had first won the hand of his wife. That must have been a challenge for him.
What I feel most for him now is not anger but sadness at his lost opportunity for having a loving relationship with his stepson.