Thank you! Heh, I appreciate you even reading all that--I know I do tend to run on sometimes and I've been on a roll today. I'm sorry you dealt with a horrible fat stepmom. Thankfully, my dad and stepmom divorced fifteen or sixteen years ago, so she's no longer my stepmom. She was a smallfat, I guess? She was a little overweight but not really fat, just dumb as a post and a hideous, malignant beast of a person. She basically tricked my dad into letting her move in and marrying her (long story, and he's not absolved of responsibility, but she did manipulate him big-time/take advantage of his feelings and depression after he'd finally had enough of my mom's cheating and they split up). And she did the same thing: going through my stuff, eavesdropping on my conversations, that kind of thing. Like one night I asked to stay out another hour because I was going to a party and my dad said okay. So my friends and I went to the party but it was kind of lame, and we ended up leaving and going to Steak'n'Shake or something, just hanging out somewhere else. The next day my brother tells me that Terri snooped on my conversation as I told another friend about it, and reported back to my dad that I hadn't actually been at a party, I'd been wherever it was. Which, I know it's not a really big deal example, but yeah, that's the kind of shit she did all the time. She would eavesdrop or she would get one of her two miserable bratty sons to do it for her; she would go through my stuff on the guise of "cleaning for me," which I repeatedly asked/told her not to do; she would take food I bought and kept for myself out of my room and put it in the pantry where said miserable brats could get at it; she was constantly having tantrums and hissy fits and playing the victim. I basically didn't talk to my dad (aside from brief birthday/holiday chats) for years, until A) I finally decided I was sick of not having a relationship with my dad because of her and B) they split up (a year or two after we started talking again). In my case, my dad--who is almost 75 and still healthy, fit, and slim, and exercises every day--has apologized to me more than once for getting involved with her, bringing her into our lives, and especially for not listening to/believing my brother and I when we told him we weren't unhappy that he had a relationship with a woman not our mother, our objection was solely to his relationship with THAT woman. I know he truly regrets it and that he looks back on the years he missed with us and feels awful for it (and I've told him numerous times that I forgive him). He now lives with us, in a cabin attached to our house, and it's great having him with us. I'd say I hope for the same for you, but of course you might not want that--but if you do, I hope you can reconcile.