Recently, I lost my mom. I knew that my life wouldn’t be the same anymore, but I didn’t expect it to flip that much. My name is Bella, and I’m 24 years old.

Recently, I lost my mom. I knew that my life wouldn’t be the same anymore, but I didn’t expect it to flip that much. So, my dad (59) married Lucy (27) and keeps forcing me to “be friends” with her.

I feel sick. At dinner, my dad started again, so I snapped: “She’s closer to my age than you, and she’ll never be family to me.” Lucy just smirked. The next day, I froze when I saw that Lucy had taken down all my mom’s old photos from the living room.

When I confronted her, she said, “Since we’re not family, don’t expect me to treat you like one. Your mom isn’t my family either.”

I told my dad, but he brushed it off, saying I needed to move on. He added that I needed to understand that it was his life now, and I should respect his choices.

I’m really struggling with this. I’ve tried to make peace with it, but I just don’t think I can accept Lucy as part of my life. I feel like I’m losing both my mom’s memory and my dad in a way, and I don’t know if I’m being unreasonable here.