I've been a stepparent for approx 10 years now. When I met my husband and he had two daughters one was almost 2 years old and the other was 4. Their mother basically up and left from Texas to a pacific island and did the absolute minimal amount of work to be considered a mother. After a few years all contact was abandoned by her and they haven't seen or heard from her for at least 6 years. Neither of them remember much about her. 

FWD to now:

One is almost 13 and the other just turned 15. Most of these entries will involve the 15 year old who, since I met my husband, has been a thorn in my side. Within the first year of being together we had several fights over her and the bad behaviors. I've always felt that even as a child she was always plotting and vindictive. That may seem harsh but that was my feeling. The youngest took me to me quickly and we have always been close. I see her as a protégé but also consider her the closest thing to a daughter I've ever had. I have no children of my own. We have suffered from unexplained infertility and I've come to accept its just not in my cards for this life. 

I've put my all into raising these two children. Of course I've made mistakes, not always done the right thing but have sacrificed my life to be part of their world. 

As a side note, I'm here for the same reason many of you are: We always feel like the outsider, even an imposter. I love my husband so much but he can never understand what it's like to be the stepmom. He wants me to be their bio mother but no amount of wishing it true will make that a reality. So every attempt to make me not an outsider will be futile.

Back to the story...

This will be brief and I will elucidate when I have more time but the oldest, has become a source of great pain for the entire family and I'm having a hard time with it. When she was 14 Covid happened and she had to do school from home. The school did a poor job of converting to online learning and we gave them a choice: return the next school year or be homeschooled. The oldest chose homeschooling. It was so hard to keep her on task. She walked around the house all day in sweatpants, she never cleaned up her messes, and hardly did any schoolwork. I would have to come home from working all day and clean up her messes. 

Finally after realizing she wasn't doing hardly any work for school and instead was watching livestreams on her computer and talking to random strangers all day we enrolled her in school. She was also suffering from depression from her lack of social interactions and productivity. At the time getting her back into school was our top priority.

She goes back to school and everything seems okay for awhile. She joined the track team and did very well. Then we noticed she was much happier than normal and wanted to be at school as much as possible. Slowly I piece together that she likes a boy in her class. She's 14 it seemed harmless but she wasn't allowed to talk to boys on the phone so all interactions were at school with adult supervision. A few weeks go by and we have a few discussions where I find out he's in 11th grade and drives. She's a freshman at the time and I'm not thrilled about the age difference but also not worried. At this point I don't tell her dad because he's a big bear kinda dad and can get overprotective about his daughters. Then I find out that 18 years old. My youngest casually tells me this and I'm like "What!?!?!?" I thought hey he's 16 she is 14 no big deal but he's 18 in the 11th grade!!! 

This is when I tell her dad, I need backup and we need to make her understand this is not acceptable and also not legal in our state. She met him when he was 18 and there is no law that allows this to be okay. 

We tell her to break it off and she agrees she will. Of course we aren't dumb so we call the school and let them know what is going on. The school brings both in separately to inform them that this is not acceptable and they must stop now.

Neither listen and continue the relationship in secret. We find out the last week of school because she has all these gifts from him and she's lying to us saying her teacher gave it to her. We pull her out of school for the last few days and send her to her Grandmother's house in a different city 150 miles away. We send her without a phone and no way to continue the relationship.

A month goes by and she doesn't want to come home yet a d at this point assuming she's over it all give her a phone again.

She returns a month later and we assume all is well. Until... a car starts driving by our house each night revving the engine. My husband goes outside to look and of course it's the 18 year olds car. Why is he driving by our house!? She continued the relationship all summer by stealing her grandmother's phone and then using her own once we gave it back. In mid-june a few weeks after being there we found out that he drove all the way to her Grandma's house and she snuck out anf had sex with him.

We press charges on him. Have a very rough few weeks and send her back to grandmother until we can get a protective order. He lives minutes from us so we figure if anything we make it harder for them. She comes back and starts at a new high school. Again, everything seems fine until her father notices that she had recently carved his initials into her hand. We realize she is not over this and keep an eye on her. I looked through her computer and phone but didn't find any contact between them.

A month goes by and her behavior at home is making everyone miserable. She's depressed and has a way of making everyone around her feel awkward when she's around. She becomes hard to talk to and everything she says or does seems like a lie. Obviously we didn't trust her but she was making no effort to make this easier on us. We are business owners and at this time we were so busy we were working until late evening. 

One Friday she had gotten in trouble and we took her computer. We had a suspicion something was going on with her. We open up her computer and there it is a Google document they were using to communicate the whole time. I was able to read all the messages they sent back and forth. A few had very explicit sexual fantasies of what he would do to her. We get the local police involved and hand over her phone and computer as evidence.

She shows no remorse and does not intend to stop pursuing him even with 2 separate police departments involved. 

We decide to send her to her Grandmother again. This time we did it for our own peace and sanity within our home. All of us tried to get through to her, to tell her how much she has hurt us and her sister. 

No remorse. 

She starts at a new school in a new city. It has been one week and she hasn't tried to reach out to us or anything. I assume she's written us off and moved on to a new life.

Saturday her grandmother calls to inform us that she has found a new love interest and was wanting to hang out with him at the park, alone. 

I just can't anymore. Officially at the school 4 1/2 days and here we go again. 

Obviously there's so much more to the story but in a nutshell this is where I am.