My (26F) mom passed away at childbirth, so it was pretty much my father (50M) and me, with the occasional visits from my grandparents (from both sides), since I lived with just him, I took on a more masculine style and likings, like ”one of the boys” but the only boy was my father. I was Rexy (for T-rex, because I was obsessed with them for years), I had no barbies (he bought me a few but I was like ”ew), and I had almost 0 dresses or skirts, he also did my hair really awful every time.
When I was around 12, he began dating this woman called Maria who had a daughter (15 at that time) named Stacy, while Maria was a total sweetheart, Stacy was horrible. She tortured me for not looking like ”a girl should do”, for liking ”man stuff” like cars, bikes and stuff like that, I have to admit that I also didn’t had many friends while growing up (neither female or males) so my person was my dad, and as I grew up I got involved with what he liked. To make things short, Stacy would often throw awful comments about me being a boy, a weirdo, etc and my dad would do these same comments in a slightly different way, but they hurt me more because he was confirming that while Stacy was ”his daughter”, I was his ”son”. What broke my heart was that he called Stacy ”Peach” like Mario’s princess while I was T-Rex.
I did a 180° in my looks at 15, I brought dresses, skirts and dyed part of my hair a sweet pink which made Stacy laugh at me even more and my dad was like ”woa! Pink? that’s for girls”. In my 16th birthday, Stacy put black dye in my shampoo and ruined my whole look, I guess it was the stick that broke the camel’s back because I cried so horrible to the point of not breathing and I told my dad in front of Maria and Stacy what she had been done all of those years, along with my dad awful remarks and subtly enabling Stacy’s awful comments.
In the end, he left Maria and Stacy because it was obvious there was no going back for me after that, he eventually married my now step-mom when I turned 20. My dad apologized, we talked about it and a year after that we attended therapy until I was 24 I don’t like to talk about it, I think it broke my relationship with my dad in a way we will never be able to fix, I know he doesn’t have my back.
Yesterday, while talking he tried to joke about it and I said that I didn’t want to remember it because I’ll never forgive him for joining Stacy in her terrible ways, he said it couldn’t be possible that I’m still holding a grudge, I say I am, and that I always will because he absolutely broke my heart and confidence, he tried to argue, but my step-mom said that he needed to let go because my feelings are my feelings. I still cry when I remember it, but he says I’m an AH because he left them and made amends with me.