[Cottonwood]

Please forgive me, but I am not sure where to start less alone what to do. I will try to be as clear as I can.

I am a 53 year old female. My father died 7 years ago. My stepmother and I have always had a strained relationship. My mother died in 1982. My father married my stepmother in 1986.

I have been working hard on trying to mend the strained relationship with my stepmother since my father died by calling her, visiting her (I live 1300 miles from home now) etc. This past May I took time away from my husband to spend 3 weeks with my stepmother and her "boyfriend" and also to see my cousin and her husband and grandchildren. Two weeks into the visit my stepmother looks at me and blatantly says, "Your father never thought you were his. You can't be. You don't look like him. You look like your Mother." Well, I broke into tears and left the breakfast table and went to my room. After a moment I came out and she said she "was sorry. She thought I knew". I fell to pieces. Within 24 hours I left her home and spent the next week elsewhere until it was time to fly back home. I have been crying or having flashbacks of that day ever since. I spent 2-1/2 days in a psychiatric hospital having medication adjusted so that I could be emotionally "managed" on the outside world as I was a wreck. You say to yourself, 'why did I get so upset? The woman is 84? An old bat, maybe? Let me give you some history.

When my mother found out she was pregnant with my she and my father were separated. My father had told his mother (from what I've been told) that he didn't think I was his. From what I was told, his mother told him to go home and be with my mother. I do know that my mother was a very devoted woman to my Dad even though she was an alcoholic. She never, ever would allow me to speak unkindly about him and always cried because he always ran around. That I know because I was always there.
Anyway, my mother had many problems but my father, when he was home, was always my primary parent. My mother was an alcoholic. When my father wasn't home, the rest of the time it seemed I was with other relatives or friends of family. I do know that one of my mother's sisters wanted to adopt me. I don't remember a whole lot of my early childhood except that I don't remember much of my mother, I remember a lot of my father, and a whole lot of my favorite aunt and uncle.

My father had a brother he was very close to. He was married and had a daughter. His brother died and that broke my Dad's heart. His widow leaned heavily on my father. In the meantime, my father and mother were not getting along. The fought all the time. I would do things like try and hide my father's suit coat thinking that if he couldn't find it that he wouldn't leave or I would just sit and cry. Anyway, an affair started. I didn't know this affair started in 1964. I didn't know this affair started until 1973.

In my early teenage years during the affair time, I was told that Dad was working. Dad was never home for holidays anymore. Or birthdays. Or Father's Days. Or weekends. I would see him early in the morning when he would get his bath and his breakfast or if I stayed up late enough I would see him come home. All those years in school that is what I did. Sometimes he would wake me up when he would come home and we'd talk. All the time I thought he was working. My Mom was still drinking, too. She would have mood swings. She would drink and come after me, a few times trying to kill me. Many times I would try to find out where to get in touch with my Dad. Seemed the only person who knew where he was was my step-sister, I'd call her, then she'd call him (at my aunt's house) then he'd call me. There is more to this - as in physical abuse I endured from my mother; but we won't get in to that now.

In 1973, after I graduated from high school, my stepsister decided to tell me the truth. That Dad had not been working all those years. He had been having an affair with our aunt. Well I lost it - totally. I had an emotional breakdown. At the same time, my father and my aunt decided turned on me. How dare I get upset. My father said I was causing trouble.

My father never divorced my mother. I was a scapegoat for their affair and in the process now suffer from PTSD from childhood trauma and from and it is documented, Further, most of the trauma has been caused by my aunt aka now stepmother. When she started her affair with my father after her husband aka my uncle died she pretented her daughter aka my cousin was my father's daughter. There was no room for me. It can be proven in court. I was shut out all of my life. You don't know what I have been through. There was my father dying and I had gone to take care of him and one of their neighhbors was over at their house (this was in 2000) and this man said to me and I quote, "I admire how you are standing your ground as your father's daughter. She want's everyone to believe that >>>> is his daughter." I can't take this anymore. I know my
Dad is my Dad. I know he loved me. Why she manipulated all of this is so bizarre. I need someone to help me. What can I do?

[macksmom]

So for what reason are you trying to sue? Who are you trying to sue? And why?

[Cottonwood]

I want to sue my stepmother/aunt. I want to sue her for emotional cruelty. It is along the lines of parental alienation. I also want to exhume my father for DNA. I am so upset.