speaking out of a daughters point of view, I had the privilege of having a step-mother and father. shortly summarizing all the information I gather from other people, we can say, with confidence, that step-fathers have some specific traits. They are stubborn, little bit narcissistic, might have children from previous relationships but overall they have some kind of weird sweet spot for daughters. out of a sons perspective, they would simply say they never really liked their step-dads much, they respected him, but never really loved him. I like to compare a step-father and sons relationship to the animal kingdom, like a lion, the main man in the pact is very territorial, that often means conflict to ensure that no other male stands a chance in winning their title. sons are often treated disrespectfully by their step-fathers, because step-fathers often feel that it is their duty to teach the son how to become a real man. (don't show emotions, do as you are told) and what they do is hardly ever noticed by their step-fathers. this causes the sons to grow into hating their step-fathers, becoming more and more stubborn which leads to unwanted conflict, because even though both of them are wrong, non of them would apologize. on the other side of the fence it is often heard of that step-fathers treat daughters as their own, daughters accept a step-fathers flaws easier and tries to understand situations out of his perspective. daughters often try to get to know their step-fathers on a personal level, once a person feels that there is a field of mutual respect it will automatically strengthen the relationship. when it is your brother being disrespected by your step-father it can lead to emotionally confusing daughters as they sit between blood and water. as a son, growing up in a household like this can often cause you to become the bully, or you become so empathic that you are bullied. you are not a bad person, we are all just people who have been placed in bad situations and we didn't always make the best decisions in handling inner-pain and conflict. it is important to understand that even men who seem strong, has had something/someone in their past who made them feel weak- this is where men tend to feel the need to start acting self centered in order to protect their manhood. this is something that men don't often see, but women are emotionally more open to picking up the traits of a person in silent-pain. Sometimes step-fathers can be just like step-mother, they treat you like their own until one day you do something that was not according to their liking and they treat you like the outsider too. We are often to stubborn to even try and fix the relationship again and tend to assume that you are the victim even though there was no victim and just a small misunderstanding which became a world war.