Getting a new step-mom can be great in some cases, but not always.

What would you do if after your dad married your step-mom, she started screaming at you and treating you poorly all the time?

That is what happened to the young lady in this story, but when the step mom gave dad an ultimatum to either kick his daughter out or get a divorce, he instantly chose to get a divorce and left with his daughter.

Check it out.

Scream at me until I cry? My dad will take away your marriage, your home, and your job.

The Backstory

After 20 years of marriage, my parents got divorced. It sucked.

I was 17 and chose to live with my dad.

About a year later, Dad decides to start dating again. He meets this lady who we’ll oh-so-creatively call Brenda.

I like Brenda on the spot. She’s pretty, she’s friendly, she’s funny, and we both love Disney movies, cats, and tea. Her kids and grandkids are pretty awesome, too.

Brenda has a minimum wage job as a stocker at a chain store that uses a bullseye at its logo. She loves this job and REFUSES to get another. (This will be important later.)

It’s a whirlwind courtship and she and Dad get married after three months. I’m iffy on that, but Dad’s happy, so I grin and bear it.

So far things seem to be going well.

We move out of our cozy apartment and into a nice trailer with Brenda.

It’s going okay, until she decides she wants a dog. Dad does not like dogs, and I’m admittedly more of a cat person, but Brenda wants her puppy and we agree.

She goes to the pound and picks the ugliest chiweenie I have ever seen in my life. Don’t get me wrong, I love chiweenies, but this one just looked… off.

We’ll call this dog Cuddlebug, because she was one.

The clerk who sold Cuddlebug told Dad and Brenda she was well behaved, housebroken, and just wonderful.

Yikes, this dog is going to be a problem.

I didn’t have a job, so I stayed home taking care of things. That’s how I found Cuddlebug was not, in fact, housebroken. She also liked to raid the trash.

She didn’t like to play either. She was sweet, she liked to run, she liked to cuddle, but that was it.

I got tired of cleaning up trash and dog poop/pee in the trailer, so I took Brenda aside and told her, nicely, what was going on with Cuddlebug. Several times.

The Nope

Suddenly, Brenda did not find me an ideal roomie.

There are ways to handle this.

I was admittedly lazy, but rather than take me aside and say, “Lernagruud, quit the laziness and do your share of the housework” like a regular, sane person (or even resort to a decent revenge, like putting the dirty dishes in my bed), she decides to let the irritation build up until she explodes.

Almost literally.

Wow, she really went crazy.

Screaming and swearing at me at the absolute top of her banshee lungs, attacking my personality, my intelligence, and my mental health issues.

And there’s nothing wrong with her baby, I’m just acting like a spoiled brat because I didn’t get to choose the dog myself. Trying to reason with her is pointless.

Anything I try to say in my defense, she twists into an attack on her or her precious garbage-chomping mutt. The first time I was shocked.

The second time on, I started crying. Not noisy sobbing like I was prone to, just terrified, utterly silent tears. One time, I grabbed my purse and ran out of the trailer in a panic because I couldn’t take anymore of her abuse.

He should really step in here.

My dad is non-confrontational, so he just sat there in silence for the most part when Brenda flew off the handle, slowly getting fed up. Eventually, we’d both had enough.

Brenda starts shrieking at me again (over what, I forget), and when I try (again, fruitlessly) to reason with her, she cuts me off, accusing me of not letting her talk during these “discussions.”

I (foolishly) reply as gently as I could, “I’m letting you talk now.”

She was going to get mad no matter what.

Her response? “Oh! You’re letting me talk now?! I don’t need your permission to speak!” and more insults.

The Revenge

I’ve had enough. Now, I’m a polite person, but I was politer back then.

The worst swear word I would say was hell.

Sometimes you have to stand up for yourself.

I looked Brenda dead in the eye and yelled out as loud as I could, “Would you stop screeching at me?! My word choices aren’t going to be perfect! I’m not a diplomat!!”

She actually shuts up and stands there bug-eyed as I unload the bitterness of months of abuse onto her, calling her out on her atrocious treatment of me, and admittedly a few choice names as well.

When I stop, she looks at Dad and says, “I’ve had enough of this disrespect. Kick her out or we’re getting a divorce.”

Dad looks at her, then me, and says, “Grab a change of clothes and your medication, kid. We’re out of here. See you in court, Brenda.”

He called her bluff.

She just stares at him stupidly, in complete disbelief, as he walks to the bedroom to pack. She literally could not fathom that he would choose his daughter of 18 years over his SO of 6 months. We pack, grab my cat, and get out.

As we’re looking for a motel, I demand to know why Dad didn’t tell her to go, as there’s NO way she can afford that trailer at minimum wage.

He told me, “Part of it is I just wanted out. I couldn’t take her yelling at you anymore. If you hadn’t yelled at her tonight, I would have. The other part? You’re right. She can’t afford that trailer by herself, and we all know it.”

I… what? My dad is a nice person and hates confrontation. Tries to resolve everything as peacefully as he can, even if it means grabbing the short end of the stick, and by doing just that, he made her life harder.

Now life can finally get back to normal.

After maybe a week at most, we’ll be moving back into our cozy little apartment complex that’s close to everything and where the staff loves us, while she’s going to try to stay afloat out of pride and fail.

And fail she did. When we came to get the rest of our stuff a few days later, we found a very unhappy Cuddlebug in a kennel.

Brenda did not like for Cuddlebug to be kenneled. We also noticed that the kennel had a removable bottom for easy cleaning. Cuddlebug had shoved it out and pooped on the floor.

A few months after the (incredibly volatile on her part) divorce, Brenda was unable to keep up with her bills and had to quit her much-loved crappy job to move in with her son, his wife and their 3 kids (all under 7), over 300 miles away.

Why would she send this?

A year later, she sent Dad an email telling him she was doing well. His response: “Why do you think I would care?”

She never responded.

I love my daddy.

Well, he should have done more and done it sooner, but things really worked out well in the end.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about this story.

This commenter thinks dad did a great job.

Yeah, this was the last straw.

Here is another person who went through something similar.

Why would they lie like this?

This commenter experienced something similar.

Always stand up for your children.

Dad may have taken longer than it should to take his daughter’s side, but he got it right when it counted.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.