Step-dad messing with my head

[TakeMyHand]

Ok, so I've mentioned on here before how I pretty much hate my step-dad (who might as well be my real dad as I've never met my real dad) who my mother has been divorced from for over 10 years now. He used to be abusive towards us (smack me, threw a TV at us once, etc.) and never did much to take care of us even when we were so poor we were eating out of a dumpster.

But now he's suddenly trying to get involved in my life and wants to hang out and says there's a lot he needs to teach me and help me with, he even got me my first vehicle - a Ford F150 - just this last weekend. It's confusing the hell out of me because now I feel almost like I'm not allowed to hate him anymore, but I still do. And I feel guilty for pushing him away whenever he tries to talk to me about stuff, because he IS trying to help now, but I just don't agree with the things he's telling me.

For example, he has an extremely strict version of Christianity and he just loves telling people how wrong they are and how right he is. He is totally against homo or bisexuality and he calls it some huge sin, but I have nothing against it but if ever I try and say anything about it, he just whips out a hundred different verses from the Bible to back himself up. This is how he is with everything, he is so damn sure of himself even though he holds some completely ignorant opinions, like how he believes men are naturally "above" women and women should never hold leadership roles. Which is bullshit, sure men and women are different, but that just makes us both stronger, it doesn't make one gender better than the other. Ass.

Now he knows about my self-harming and he wants me to join a youth group. Can't I do anything that's not related to church or religion? All he's doing is pushing me away from religion.

I'm also part of the reason his second marriage is falling apart. There are plenty of other problems between them but lately it's been boiling over because she doesn't want him helping me when he is FINALLY trying for a change. So now she's pretty much kicking him out of the house for getting me that truck last weekend.

I don't know what to do, I don't want his "teachings" but I feel guilty telling him to stay out of my life especially now. What should I tell him?

[Scarface]

Tell him that you respect him for his views, but you have different opinions and don't exactly agree with some of his views and he should let you have your own. You don't have to be specific on which opinions. If you don't feel like going to a youth group put you foot down you have to make some decisions for yourself. You don't have to push him away, but keeping him at a safe distance Is good. Be grateful that he purchased the truck for you, but as they say take what you want and leave the rest In his opinions. I hope this helps If you need someone to talk to I'm always here feel free to PM me anytime.

[TakeMyHand]

Thanks for the advice.

[Ryhanna]

Just an opinion here, but he probably thinks that way towards the bible and stuff because of the way he was brought up... he sounds like he was brought up in a heavily christian family.

I would probably just tell him the truth. That while it's a nice gesture to try and hang out with you a bit more, you don't want to. He should respect your opinion... You ARE a fellow MAN after all. According to him, your equals.
:P

[TakeMyHand]

Actually, according to him, I also am required to do absolutely anything he says even if he's wrong since he's my father. And now that he knows he's not my real father, he says it still applies because my mom was married to him when she got pregnant and had me, so I', still technically his according to the Bible.

And yeah, he was brought up in a heavily Christian family, his dad was a pastor, but also a very terrible hypocritical person. He was even worse in every way, for example, women weren't even allowed to come into his church unless they wore certain clothes and covered their hair and stuff to show their "subordination." And if anyone who ever came to the church didn't come one sunday, he'd kick them out and never let them back at all. Also, any time my dad or any of his siblings ever went somewhere for even a few minutes, he's interrogate them to find out what bad thing they did, when of course most of the time they didn't do anything bad, but he's spank them with a belt until they'd "confess" when actually half the time they'd just have to make up something bad they did just so he could punish them and it would be over. And he was such a hypocrite, he'd drink, look at porn (actually my step-dad does too, and it's the sick kind too, like torture-porn with people tied up and stuff, we've caught stuff on the computer and things, he says he knows it's wrong, but he still looks at it anyway, yuck), etc. but damn anyone else to hell if they did. He's unbelievable.

But that's just another reason I feel guilty about disliking him, because his dad was so much worse.

[INFERNO]

I'm not sure how keen you are on this but if he quotes and uses the bible endlessly, then why not do the same? If he says not to do baseball and gives 3 quotes, then why not try the same? If he uses Christianity as his arguments all the time and thinks they're always right, then if you use something else, it's automatically inferior but if you too use Christianity as part of your arguments, he cannot dismiss your arguments because it'd be the one way to prove him wrong. Granted, he may know a lot more than you do about Christianity but if you know he's going to pull these arguments for a certain activity, then google up some arguments to support yours and if you think you know the ones he'll try to oppose you with, look up those too. Although you may lose many, it allows you to learn his arguments, some counters, some quotes and use them against him, just try not to use it for every time he opposes you as it'd just be a day of constant arguing.

This may not help in your desire to get less involved in his religious views but you could tell him that you use those arguments because nothing else works, not love nor compassion that are taught in the bible. Keep in mind doing this likely will be emotional to him but if there were no other options, it's what I would do, and unfortunately, you may make yourself feel even more guilty. The end result though is for him to keep his views but be more lenient to yours.