I wasn't quite sure where to put this, but Random Thoughts threads tend to get the most attention. Here's my issue. It concerns my step father and sister. I don't live at home with them (although I soon will, as the relationship I was in didn't work out) but from what I hear, my sister has a tendency to leave her dishes lying around. My mother tends to clean it up or ask her to put it away, and she does. Now when it's just her and my step-father home, she doesn't clean it up, and he doesn't ask her to put it away. Rather, when I go home to visit, he goes on and on how pissed off he gets about it to me and my mom. We tell him to talk to her about it, but he's scared she'll hate him. Me and my mother will remind her to put her things away, and she will. I admit, she needs to learn to do these kinds of things. She doesn't clean after herself (she's 21)... but it's not a huge fucking deal. But my step-father won't talk to her but he'll shout and yell and call her names to me and my mom. I don't know how to deal with this crap. I intended on staying there the night, but left in tears. I'm moving back there, and I can't handle that all the time. It's also a bit hard to communicate with him, because English is his second language... I try to be understandable and calm, and I usually can be for a few hours... but after that, it just gets to me. My mom and him argue all the damn time. I had to deal with that with my father, and I don't want to deal with it again. I tried talking to him. I've been calm. I've given advice. I just don't know!
Your stepfather has certain unnatural feeling towards your sister; and a guilty conscience won’t allow him to criticize her face-to-face If it was a normal relationship he wouldn’t hesitate to confront her but under current circumstances how could he possibly pass judgment against her when his own flaws are so malicious Hotwater
Why does she live with him and not her mother? He's probably scared of losing her. You didn't say what his cultural background is - that could have a lot to do with it.
She lives with him and our mother. He's from Bosnia, and he fought in the war there awhile back. It may be his culture, I don't know, but I don't think that excuses him.
if he's not talking about it to her, openly, then likely he is being passive aggressive around her and she can feel his bad vibes. it really is very obvious when someone close to you dislikes your behavior. if he doesn't deal with it through open communication these bad vibrations will ruminate and become worse, feeding into a feedback looop of bad vibes. if this has been going on for long then she likely already hates him for his passive aggressive behavior. get it out in the open or risk doing permanent damage to the relationship
