SS30+ - my putative adult step child
DP - my betrothed wife, mother of SS30
BP - putative step child's first husband
DF - the step child's birth father, and ex husband of DP
GC - grandchildren of divorced parent.

Long backstory so I'll just sketch out details.

Current crisis is that I've done what is widely recommended when adult SS manipulates DP to interfere with DP's relationships. I disengaged.

SS30+ disappeared from DP for a few years. DP "rescued" her from a "bad situation" bringing her to hometown with two GC. Another child followed, to whose father SS30 is married.

DP and I had a relationship early in SS30's life that failed primarily due to post divorce interference by DF. DF's mother heavily involved herself in manipulating DF's role vis a vis DP.

Now, DF lives with SS30, her children and husband. DP feels some competition with DF and SS30 has played that competition to get maximum attention from both parents. In the few years I've cohabitated with DP in an extended engagement, the relationship with SS30 deteriorated. There was seldom direct conflict, but rather SS30 working through DP to explain why I am unqualified - including my failure to adequately participate in religious and holiday events at the SS30 home where DF lives with SS30 and co. I did participate in some cases, but quietly bowed out when it came down to me hanging out with DF while he drank and spouted off his religious or spiritual philosophy, uninterested in my experience and apparently lacking the social skills to engage in conversation about anything other than his ideas.

Since that time, relationship with SS and DP has deteriorated. DP has some alcohol attachments that color behavior. Under influence, DP spends hours on phone with whomever -- lately SS30, who uses the occasion to "talk about feelings." In the older, small house where we live, conversations in one room are audible throughout the house, leading to allegations that I was eavesdropping when I sat where I was already sitting and heard someone talking about me.

The conversation involved SS30s questions about DP's feelins for DF - 18+ years into adulthood, at a time the SS30 was interested in wedging between DP and I. The conversation turned to DP's former BF. From what I could not avoid hearing (SS30's voice is sometimes plainly audible too, because she speaks loudly into the phone) the SS30 felt her children need closure with DP's (grandma's) boyfriend of four or five years ago - a former BF from whom i insisted she minimize contact if i were to live in the residence. SS30 was basically trying to hook her mom up with somebody who would wedge between us.

Other issues involved DP's role in SS30's children's lives. From time to time, SS30 withheld access to children from DP. Needless to say, this hurt DP to the core, and when access is restored, she fears losing it again. This gives SS30 considerable leverage to demand whatever she wants from DP. That can mean overnight babysitting of three female children in a two bedroom house.

DP and I do not share a bedroom, so the only place SS30's 3 children can sleep would be my room, DP's room or a common area. Since my room was the preferred location before I moved in, it became my obligation to vacate my room when SS30 wants DP to babysit overnight (While SS30 parties and fights with SS30's husband #2)

As the grandchildren got older, I offered that these sleepovers in my bedroom (with me assigned to another area) were not the best idea. For one thing, it's my weekend too and a full house of children in a house too small for that many children doesn't contribute to the recuperative purpose of a weekend off work. For another, there are privacy issues and basic common sense. It's a grown man's room. DP doesn't change sheets or pillows, My clothing and laundry are in that room.

You may ask why DP and I don't sleep in the same bed. Many couples sleep in separate beds, often because of one partner's sleep apnea and associated conditions - which can be exaserbated by alcohol. Another reason is the frequent odor of metabolized alcohol in the room would-be shared room, and the attendant behavioral irregularities that can go with that. Not my idea of an intimate space....

Okay, so all of this came to a head when I complained about talking about me and matters that involved me in a loud voice in front of me but in a conversation in my house in which I had no way to participate. (DP could take the phone to another area, away from where I was sitting in the main room, and had the conversation outside my hearing).

That's about as much detail as I care to spell out at this point, but I'll be glad to answer questions. My preference would be to salvage the relationship. I am the one pulling the plug, but that doesn't mean I can replug it once I've pulled the plug on it. I care about DP and don't want her to approach old age with an adult child treating her variously as a part-time spouse and occasionally as child in the continued pattern of role reversal that sometimes plagues parents relationships with children after divorce.

DP needs to regain control of her parental role without having to buy it by way of providing clothing, supplies and free babysitting. There's no problem with DP helping as a grandparent, but when it's a ransom or an obligation, it's no longer a gift. When the overnights are to meet DP's needs or SS30's needs rather than children's needs, its not appropriate. When sleepovers don't accommodate he changed population of DP's household or privacy needs of pre-teen children, I see a problem.

Any suggestions on how to approach this? Do I need to confess all of my foibles and communication failures, or can we stipulate that my first reaction isn't always he most productive reaction...