Little background info….my childhood was a hot step-parent laden mess. My Mom and Dad were divorced when I was 6 months old. I never knew them together, and its nothing that I’ve ever yearned to experience. Mother Dear is currently on her 4th marriage and Father Dear stopped proposing to everyone he came into contact with, after his divorce from number 3. My Mom’s tally doesn’t include all of the interlopers that she allowed to move in, when she was between husbands, while I was still at home, and there was really no difference between them and the ‘officials’. Dad was only involved when he was in between girlfriends/wives. And when I say involved, I mean visitation, phone calls, general parental contact…no matter how great or small. I guess it’s not his fault really. He isn’t capable of much emotion, and did the best he could I imagine. They both did. At any rate, partially because of my upbringing, I learned that attachment is optional, and that developing relationships, even superficial ones, with people that may not continue to stick around or that have the potential to inflict harm, isn’t really worth it. Rationally, I realize that its not the best way to handle things, but I feel pretty helpless to change it because I feel like I’m hardwired to be that way.

I never wanted kids. I felt awkward and nervous around them since I can remember. I was an only child, and spent the majority of my time with adults. That, combined with my perceived inherited ineptness, left me feeling like skipping procreation would be in everyone’s best interest. Nevertheless, at 28, I had my BD, who is now 6. I was with her Father only a short time before I ended up pregnant. We were never designed to be anything long-term, and probably couldn’t have been a more horrific match. There was constant chaos from the beginning until I made him leave just over a year ago. I was desperate to keep the relationship together because I couldn’t fathom putting my little girl through the step parent hell I had endured. I didn’t trust myself to make better decisions than my parents, and in the end, by trying to force it to work, in a lot of ways, I made worse decisions than they did. Once the benefits I saw stopped being greater than the costs, I knew it was time to set myself, and my daughter, free, and so, I did.

Not long after I slammed the door on that relationship, I met my current fiancé. He has a BD of his own, twice my daughter’s age, and was the picture of a doting Father. He wasn’t like my Dad, and to me, that made him great. After a few months, I made a casual introduction between him and my BD. I never would’ve done it at all, nevermind so soon, if I hadn’t known that he and I were going to go the distance. They hit it off nearly instantly, and my BD couldn’t have been more impressed with him. He didn’t lavish her with gifts, or try to be the ‘good time’ guy. He was just natural, and easy, and gave her the things she wanted the most – a little time and attention. I met his BD a little while after, but was only around her maybe 3 times in the first 5 months of our relationship. She started acting out, like most 12 year old girls tend to do, and his response was to keep her home with him (they stayed at his Mom’s house during the times he had her) and commit her to hard labor. Fast forward to March, we got engaged, fast forward to now, and two weeks ago, we found out that our first child together will be arriving in February. We’re coming up on our 1 year anniversary next month, and to date, I have been around my soon-to-be SD 10 times total. I have no idea who this child is, which be hard enough all on its own, but there’s shit storm that’s been swirling for the last 7 months and I think its about to explode.

For the sake of easiness and readability, my fiancé will be DH and his daughter SD from this point forward. My first impression of DH as a parent was that he was a wonderfully attentive, loving Father, and I was right….kinda. As he and I continued talking in the beginning of us, I learned that he had been living a life motivated by guilt for at least 9 years. He had SD when he was very young and divorced her BM shortly after. It was a traumatic experience for him, and he made some wrong decisions while he fell apart at the seams. He was drinking a lot to cope, and missed a lot of time with SD as a result. He snapped out of it about the time SD was 3, and began living every day like he was on a quest for redemption. He beat himself up daily over his mistakes. He overcompensated by being the ‘good time’ guy. He spoiled her beyond reason. He allowed her to make all of the decisions while she was with him. All forms of correction were foregone because he was afraid to make her angry. He denied himself adult friendships and intimate relationships because he felt like he couldn’t be trusted to continue to be a good Father if he made those connections and he told himself he didn’t deserve them anyway. He had resigned himself to live half a life. He was depressed and his only source of allowed happiness was time spent with SD. As a result, any free time he had off of work, he ran to pick up SD. She was his only source of emotional connection, his only social outlet. It was sad. Their relationship had become so freakishly codependent that neither of them really knew who they were when separated from the other.

I recall a few times in the beginning, feeling like I didn’t really have a spot in his life when SD was visiting. She seemed to assume both the daughter role and partner role. When we were out places, he would walk in front of my BD and I, with his arm around SD. When she was at my house, rather than spending time together, as a cohesive unit, I would have to look for the two of them, only to find that they were cuddled up on the couch together watching tv. It all struck me as really bizarre. Not to imply anything incestual was going on, because I don’t believe that for a second. She always seemed to be trying to compete with me. If I hugged him, or laid my head on his shoulder, she would instantaneously need him to come do something for her, or she would mirror my action and find a way to demand that his eyes were focused on her. He would have her on the phone and I could hear him regressing and becoming heavily involved in her middle school friend drama. He asked her, on more than one occasion, for her permission to be in a relationship with me, even though, at the time, he didn’t realize that’s what he was doing. I’ve never in my life witnessed a parent seeking approval from a child in the way that he did. It was a complete reversal of roles. So strange.

After many, many heart-to-hearts with DH, he’s almost completely let the guilt go. As a result, he feels entitled to a full life now, and that is causing much friction with SD. She wants things to remain as they were. Of course, she has no way of understanding how terribly unhealthy their dynamic was. She only knows that she got everything she wanted and had a parent walking on eggshells to not upset her. I distinctly recall her being with his Mother and not getting something that she wanted. When she called DH about it, and was again told no, she went on a text rampage with her BM and became exceptionally disrespectful to her Grandma. DH began getting phone calls from BM about how distraught SD was. That night, DH went to get her phone to check the accuracy of BM’s claims only to find that BM was suggesting that DH didn’t care about his daughter any more, and reinforced the idea that he was only going to continue to minimize SD’s position in his life. (Classy right?) Now, SD has taken to trying to punish him when she feels slighted. One of the first times, he had just re-enrolled in school, and had a massive 10 chapters to cover in his first week. He had SD that weekend, at his Mother’s, and after he had been studying for an hour or so, she demanded to go out and do something fun (understandable since that’s what she was accustomed to). When he refused, she called her BM and told her to come pick her up right away. SD refused to talk to DH before she left, and continued to withhold contact for 3 weeks afterward.

DH moved in after we got engaged. My house is only a two bedroom, and I’m trying to make the best of a cramped situation. There is no way to create a bedroom for SD, and she doesn’t want to share one with my BD, so the short-term solution is getting her a roll away, memory foam cot to set up in the living room. SD has come over a few times since. I have been tied up and haven’t been able to interact much while she has been there, which, though unfortunate, in my mind, it at least allows her time to spend with her Dad one-on-one. DH got a text from his sister recently about a talk her and SD had. According to SD, she doesn’t feel as if her Dad has included her in her new life. She is upset that me and my BD are around when she visits because she just wants alone time with him. She is not happy that she doesn’t have her own room. She is angry that she thinks her Dad is ignoring her. She isn’t happy that there’s a new baby on the way. After I read it, I wanted to pull my hair out. The fact is there have been many attempts to include her, but she balks at all of them. We all went a BBQ at my friend’s house, and she decided to take her tablet and go lay in the grass by herself, even though she was actively being included. DH went to pick her up for a visit a few weeks ago. After driving for 40 minutes, when he got to her house, she refused to leave because she wanted to stay at the surprise party being thrown for BM for a few more hours. She instructed DH to go do something and then come back and get her. He refused, and then she followed it up with saying she wasn’t coming with him if he was going back to my house. He explained that, that’s where he lives now, and she didn’t have a choice. She said she was staying home then. When she does come over, she has her nose stuck in whatever electronic device she can get her hands on. I haven’t been around the last few times she was over, and she’s had DH completely to herself. So, she’s ignoring him by being in an electronic trance, she’s getting one-on-one time but isn’t acknowledging it, she says she wants to be included but then actively excludes herself, I’m not magic and can’t make an extra room materialize, and as far as the baby….too bad, it’s happening.

All of this is complicated by his insane ex. I don’t even know if she realizes she’s a resident of Earth. If the intelligence of an object was measured by its sharpness, she’d be a spoon. She hasn’t matured and does spiteful things to try and hurt DH, without realizing or possibly caring how much she is crippling her own child.

I’m feel like I’m perched on a bubble that’s about to burst, and I have NO idea what the hell I’m supposed to do. DH is afraid to open his mouth, BM is hell bent on sabotaging the relationships of everyone involved, SD is never held accountable for her actions and no one holds a mirror up to her, and I’m just out here like ‘WTF is my world turning into? Did I really sign up for this?’ I’m terrified that this baby on the way is going to be born into an environment of chaos, resentment, and upheaval. What the hell do I do?

Please, please, please help me figure something, anything out.

• Apologies for any grammatical/spelling errors….feeling too much pregnancy fog to proofread.