Letting others control you
QUESTION: Masters, throughout the years, whenever there was a problem with my husband’s daughter his family made me the scapegoat. Even when the truth was revealed, they would never apologize to me for their cruel accusations. Today my husband and his daughter are estranged from each other. Why won’t she speak to him? What happened? Did someone in the family taint her thinking towards us? If so, who? ~Diane, US
ANSWER: Your stepdaughter did not like you taking the place of her mother. She had the family thinking that she was being psychologically abused by you and your relationship with her father because you did not let her make decisions about things she wanted. It was easy for the family to make you a scapegoat, because accusing your husband only further antagonized his daughter. She has always been a very needy, manipulative, spoiled brat.
This is a lesson for you not to give credibility to the accusations of others when you know they are wrong. You are giving much too much weight to the significance of these people. Relax and consider the source: they are not reliable, friendly, or people you would want to spend a lot of time with, so learn to ignore them. They are never going to apologize for what they have said and done because they will never admit wrongdoing.
A lesson from this is to realize that you are here living your own life. You cannot change the way other people think or feel unless they consent to a change, so stop wasting your time. Love the fact that you can ignore their petty, hateful ways, because it is something they have to experience but you don’t have to take part in. Be yourself and forget about them; giving too much attention to them prevents you from making your own decisions and progress. Choose to be happy.
Your husband finally realized what his daughter was doing and how she was playing other family members against you. He is ashamed for not seeing it earlier. He confronted her, and she is punishing him in her own way for calling her out.
No one needed to taint her thinking. It is just a case of her not getting her way and pouting like a three-year-old. She needs to grow up and start taking responsibility for her actions. She needs her other relatives to stop facilitating her poor behavior, but that is their joint lesson.