OK, community, let's hear any tips you guys might have. I'm going to Florida next week to spend a week with my father and stepmother before heading north up to Disney and the Lea meet.

My stepmother is not my cuppa and a potentially scary person. She is obsessive about my father and I've always been the one "other woman" she's never been able to completely get rid of, which my father exasperated by making me and insurance money his excuse to not marry her for upwards of 2+ decades. She's loud, pushy, and manipulative, and I'm sure at the very least I'm going to spend the 5 days with them hearing about what a terrible child I am for not keeping up with my father's health, all while she has had my number blocked from their phone because she occassionally gets the delusion that I'm passing messages on from my mother, 24 or so years after she "won" him from her. She isn't always caught up in her hang-ups like that, but it's an ever-present possibility.

I'm not super close with my father either, he happily walked when I was 13 so I don't even have that "divorced child" experience of staying with him on weekends or anything to go by, we reconnected during college before his first heart-stent procedure, and can't rely on him to have guts or health if she crosses a line.

I'm making this attempt as an adult who is being equitable and trying to do the right thing since he does have heart problems, and who has every right to a nice vacation, and a reasonable expectation to be staying with other mature adults who are able to conduct themselves as such.

That's hard to keep in mind when it comes to parents and triggers sometimes, though, and hope no lines get crossed while there, because I'm sort of a coward and find confrontation extremely stressful.

Anyone have any advice for dealing with difficult family members or potentially toxic/challenging visits?