Stepmother gets shut down by 17-year-old stepdaughter after forcing her to go to family therapy to get the teen to admit that she is an adequate replacement for her mother: 'She was never second best [...] because she was never in the running'

We often tell anyone psyching themselves up to take a leap of faith that "the worst they can say is no." Really, that's not the case, and when someone politely declines to give you an answer to your request, you should probably take that as your answer… When this step-mother insisted on seeing herself as a direct replacement for her 17-year-old stepdaughter's mother, she continually insisted that she was a replacement for the teen's mother. But the answer she wanted to hear wasn't going to magically appear, and instead, she got an answer that was far harsher than simple denial.

Together with the stepdaughter's father, her husband, she organized a family therapy session for her and the teen during which she confessed to the teen that she felt like she was "second best" or a "consolation prize" compared to the teen's mother. She had expected that by simply marrying the teen's father, it would make the two of them closer and sort of grandfather her into a parental role.

She, of course, was expecting some sort of discussion whereby her voicing her feelings would lead to a discussion where the teen would eventually relent and begin to see her more in a motherly role. What she wasn't expecting was for the teen to circumvent discussion altogether by telling her the brutal truth: She wasn't second best because she was never in the running.