Chilly relationship bugs stepmom, but she’s wrong about its source Dear Carolyn: I’ve never felt close to my stepmom. I’ve felt kind of distant from her and my dad ever since they got married. It’s not her fault, but she’s picked up on it and it bugs her. The funny thing is it seems to bother my stepmom a lot more than my dad. She keeps asking about it but I can’t tell her. My mom died six years ago when I was 19. My dad remarried when I was 21 and sold the house I grew up in to move in with my stepmother. I didn’t pitch a fit; I knew why they were doing it, but it hurt so much. I remember him wanting me to go over to the old house while I was on break from school and sort through my stuff. It was a reasonable ask, but I just couldn’t. I would drag my feet about going over, and then when I got there I’d start to sort through my crap but end up overwhelmed at the thought of packing up my whole life when I didn’t even have a permanent place to live since I was losing my space in my home with my dad. My “bedroom” was going to be the guest room at my stepmother’s house. Every time I tried to decide what to keep, give away or pitch, I usually ended up sobbing as I held onto an old sweatshirt or something. In the end I crammed everything I could fit into boxes, threw away what didn’t fit and just took the boxes with me whenever I moved. I think that was the beginning of my feeling tangential in my family. I didn’t have a lot going for me at the time. I was single, still in school, not knowing where I was going with my life, so it was destabilizing to lose that home base. I don’t want to hold a grudge, but I do still have some pretty strong negative feelings about the whole thing. I don’t want to tell my stepmom this because there’s nothing she can do about it. What do I tell her instead? — Feeling Tangential Carolyn’s been writing her advice column for two decades. Explore the archives below. | 
