Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire I have a new dad.

My mom got married again a couple years ago. My father is still alive, but I might have spoken to him twice for a couple minuets in the last 4 years. He was an adulterer all my life, never physically abusive but very mentally abusive and never had time for his kids. I don't hate him, but I realized a long time ago that he always had a plan to use me in some way if I ever had any contact with him.

Anyway, Mom's new husband keeps giving me nice stuff, knives, hunting equipment, and just being nice in general. I don't really know how to deal with it. I'm always looking for his angle, and it pisses me off to think that way when he has been nothing but nice.

Open up and enjoy it. He wants you to.

I think I'm too old and tough.

If you love and trust your mother, then trust her decisions.

I agree, invite him to a hunt



Just not your good duck spots....

Lots of older people love giving stuff away, particularly when they think the recipient will enjoy it.

Can't fault him for your father's sins. Maybe sit down and tell him what you feel and why you're apprehensive when it comes to him. It'll air it all out and bring you closer no doubt. I guarantee he picks up on it and without explanation he's left to guess. If you know he's a good guy then you have nothing to worry about. You'll wish you had done it years ago

I do. My parents were divorced a long time ago, but she married this guy not long after she met him. I was concerned until I saw him crying like a baby at the altar.

Get to know your real dad and fugk the fake one you only live once

Take the opportunity and give it a chance.

Fuq the real one!

How old are you?

Something happened like that to me. There was no angle the guy was really nice and my mom deserved it after 45 years with my [bleep] dad.

I did find he was an outdoorsman and his only son was gay and not interested in such things.

I'm just not used to it. My own dad never gave me anything that he didn't sell later without even telling me. I knew growing up that my stuff was really his. The new dad is actually texting me pictures of deer and guns he just bought. It just feels weird to suddenly have a dad at 54 years old. It bothers me to find out how fugged up my childhood really was.

I never knew my real father, wasn’t a bastard, but don’t think they ever lived together. Mom married a sorry corksucker when I was in kindergarten, life was hell with him, broke arm and jaw, dislocated shoulder, and beatings out the ass, lot of that was to stop him from hurting my mom. She was dead at 37 from ulcers, fretting what he was gonna do. He was just as bad to his own children. I could go on and on.

Some of us had sorry lives at home. I say, give you new step dad a chance.

Good advice. Trust but verify. You could always kill him later if needed. 😳

I'm not in the same boat as you, but I sorta semi understand what you mean.


I grew up in an awesome nuclear family. Mom was stay at home and looked after me and my brother, dad spent 22 years in the military. Us kids were raised to work hard, and help deserving folks where we could.

My pseudo father and mother in law have a similar upbringing. Both came from a normal nuclear family, but the pseudo father in law came from a ROUGH (read that to mean VERY VERY BAD circumstances) place in his home state. He worked to obtain the status he has now a well renowned neurosurgeon.

He and his wife are wonderful people. They are very outgoing and loving, and gift us unprompted at times. I don't know what to do with that. I'm grateful, but I feel like I'm undeserving because I didn't work for it. I've never had a handout, and the things they do for us feel like handouts.

It's a weird feeling, and I feel like I am ungrateful because I didn't earn what they sometimes do for us. It makes them happy to do things for and with us, but knowing that, it is still a strange thing to me.

Probably not a great comfort to you, but that's all I've got. In the spirit of the Fire, GFY and know that you aren't alone.

That’s horrible advice. His dad wasn’t there for him or his mother. If his stepdad makes his mom happy and is sincere in wanting to build bridges with her family. He doesn’t need to be best buds but be happy for her and at least cordial with her husband.

To be truthful, it sounds like more than your childhood is fugged up. You’re both men. He’s not your new dad. He’s your mom’s new husband. How hard it it to just be nice? You’ve got no reason not to be. Who doesn’t have room for another friend?

Edited to add: If the relationship falls apart because one of you is a jerk, make sure it’s not you. 😳

My old man died 2016 him and moms parted ways when I was 17 he was still my dad I miss him every day