Am I overreacting?

Hi readers! Please tell me if you think I'm overreacting.

I (F25) have lived mostly with my dad ever since my parents got divorced when I was really young. I never had a problem with my dad remarrying, in fact I even encouraged it. With it being just him and I, he never prioritised the cleanliness of our home, nor made any efforts to improve things when they broke. He often made things worse by hoarding dirt and broken appliances, and would then get upset at me and embararass me when the house was a mess and family would visit - this would go on while I was still attending school. He's not a horrible dad by any means, but we've always butted heads here and there, and I always believed that if he got married to someone his age them it would be a major help to me. It's also worthy to note that my mum and dad are both from different races and cultures - and this contributed greatly to their divorce.

We take marriage really seriously in my culture. I always wanted to get married and move away from home. When it came time for me to start looking at proposals, my dad was very specific about who he allowed to see me. When I said no to someone he really wanted me to marry (he only liked this man because he lives in the same town as us and if I married him then my father knows I would have been right here under his nose for my entire life) then he got extremely upset at me. I only saw and turned down 2 proposals, but on both of those occasions my father was so upset that I literally have so much residual stress from the situations that I don't want to see anyone else.

Last year my father made the surprise announcement that he was getting married. When he initially told me, he said that she was 35. My dad is 58. I was okay with it because I was personally relieved to have another adult in the house. Come to find out, my dad lied to me. He married a 25 year old woman with a child, and of the same race and culture of my mum. They then went on to have another child who was born this year and he even joked about having many more. To couple this, he often jokes about how he doesn't have much time left because he's so old.

I love my new siblings, and I actually like my father's new wife, but I cannot let go of my resentment. I feel so angry that my father essentially married a child who doesn't disagree with him. The house is still so messy, and now there's a newborn added into the mix. With my father's age, I feel like he made a very childish decision to do this. It's not like we are rich. I work to save up for my future but I'm not sure who will take care of his wife and the two children if anything happens to him.

I also feel so much resentment over the fact that my own life has been so controlled and constricted - to the point that I never got to get married earlier like I wanted to because my father made the process so difficult for me. Even when picking out my future career, I was discouraged from so much that I just ended up picking am easy option. Why does he get to do whatever he pleases with no consideration of the consequences to others, and I feel like so much of my life has been wasted and stolen from me?

There's more details, but this is the important parts. I just need to leave so much but I feel trapped. I have two cats that I need to take with me, and it's so difficult securing an international job.

I guess I'd just like to know if I'm overreacting by being so angry about everything?

Posted Aug 10, 2026, 4:20 PM UTC

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