Hello everyone. This is my very first post, after stumbling across this forum online after a few weeks of anxiety, frustration, and lots of tears.

I’ll provide some history of my role as a SM, for context, and then get into what’s been happening of late. I met my partner in 2018, and immediately knew he was the one for me. The feelings were reciprocated, and we were engaged shortly into our new relationship and I moved in with him. This is certainly nothing I had ever planned, and didn’t see as ideal given the potential negative impacts of ones kids meeting their new partner too soon and that relationship failing shortly after. When I did meet his kids – two girls, then aged 9 and 12 – we hit it off really well. They were wanting their dad to meet someone who made him happy, as he had been divorced for approximately 7 years by that time. It was an incredibly messy divorce, and his ex-wife is a “piece of work” to say the least. Our new living arrangement had its challenges in the beginning, mostly for me as I had always lived alone as an adult and adjusting to living with a partner, let alone a partner with kids, was all new. It was an adjustment somewhat for the kids too now having to share time with dad, but we always put them first and it was pretty seamless of a transition. There is little to no communication with their BM, unless needed, and there have been some difficulties in parenting with different values. Our home has more strict rules and expectations, and now that both girls are in their teens – YSD is 13 and OSD just turned 16 – they want more independence. This is to be expected at that age, but it’s mostly with my OSD. This is where I’ll explain what has been happening the past year.

She got her learner’s permit at 14 – which is incredibly bonkers to me, as I didn’t grow up in this part of the country, and you have to be 16 to get your learner’s where I come from. We have two vehicles, and my vehicle was a sportier car while her dad drives a truck. I allowed her to use my vehicle to practice driving, and she would drive her dad’s truck to practice as well. When she started her grade 10 year in school, she was with us on our weekend, and came into our room after midnight and woke up her dad telling him there was someone outside vandalizing the car. We immediately got up, and I called 9-11 to report someone being outside. My DF went outside to see what was going on to find the front end of vehicle completely crushed, and when I went out to join him (while still on the phone with 9-1-1) I immediately knew this was the result of an accident and not someone vandalizing. I didn’t say anything to my DF, but my gut told me she wasn’t being honest. The officer who showed up shortly after agreed, and told my OSD he didn’t buy her story and asked  her repeatedly about where the accident took place. She lied to him, and he asked for her license and went to his vehicle. My DF and I both confronted her and she eventually fessed up. Long story short, she was issued a ticket for driving unsupervised. However, the officer was very frank with her about her extremely irresponsible decision as she hit a vehicle, left the scene, lied to a police officer and didn’t even have a driver’s license to be driving at that time alone. I was devastated, and extremely angry, and my DF was heartbroken. I confiscated her cell phone, and the next morning my DF called her BM what happened. We ended up meeting later in the day, and both my DF, myself, her BM and her BM’s boyfriend talked to her. She was told she was going to need to get a job to pay for the ticket, and I told her she was expected to pay for any financial impacts.

I reported the incident to my insurance company, and to make a long story short, I didn’t have collision. That means, if I was to hit another vehicle – or if someone driving my vehicle hit someone – it wouldn’t be covered. I knew that, as when I moved to this area and changed my insurance, my cost to insure sky rocketed. The province I live in has extremely high rates, and I was okay with having one way insurance in the event I got into an accident or my partner did. I didn’t really think about this when she started using my car, but we were always with her (because she cannot legally drive alone) and we limited where we would allow her to drive. My insurance company refused to insure the vehicle, even though it was reported as a theft because I did not charge her with theft. They told me to “put my money where my mouth is” essentially, and to charge her with theft if I wanted them to cover it as a stolen vehicle. I didn’t think this was the right thing to do for various reasons, and instead told me she  needed to pay for the loss of my vehicle. My DF agreed, but he told me if I wanted to charge her to do it because she needed to learn a lesson. She didn’t really appreciate what she had done, and I believe she picked up some things from her BM as she made the statement “I should have had insurance.” I don’t think that’s something my OSD would have come up with on her own, but would have  heard her mom say. It infuriated me. My insurance rates are going up because they paid for a rental vehicle for a few days, but I was responsible for the other $140 for my rental, and they deemed me being 100% at fault. The man whose truck she hit said he would settle for $1000 cash so we wouldn’t have to go through insurance. It was very reasonable given the make and model of his truck, and the damage would have been more to repair through insurance (in addition to again making my rates go up). Her BM agreed to pay for half of the $1000 and her mom paid for the $324 ticket. When I addressed her having to pay for my loss of the vehicle, she told me that was between her daughter, my DF and myself. The agreement was to pay me 80% of her paycheque on the days she was paid, and the additional 20% goes into savings and to her (10% each). She got a job eventually, and was working a lot of hours. She eventually got fired, and went months without having another job. She has a job her mom got her and works about 12 hours a week. She chose to work on the evenings she’s supposed to be with her dad, and for a while she wouldn’t even show up on dad’s nights whether she was working or not. To date, she’s paid me $1525 and was asked to pay me $10,000. I had the car assessed for private sale value, and it is slightly less than the maximum amount it was assessed for.

Well, now we’re in June. She got her license yesterday, as she recently just turned 16. Her BM sent me an email out of the blue asking me how much her daughter has paid and how much she has remaining. She finished the email with “Also, I can’t remember what year/ make/model your little car was?” This immediately put red flags up for me. For context, her mom is very money hungry and my DF comes from a wealthy family. My DF is not wealthy, and works very hard as did his family in order to earn their wealth. My DF has an extremely good work ethic, and when he was married to his ex, he had a better paying job and she didn’t have a high school diploma. He paid for her to go and get a business diploma for adults without high school education, and his family connections got her a job. She always spent more than they made, and she would go and make big ticket purchases and then ask if she could buy something only for him to find out she had already purchased the item. She had always demanded more child support for things the CS was supposed to cover, and has taken him to court over him having equal custody. I fully believe she doesn’t want the custody to be 50/50 because  he won’t have to pay her CS. The girls have said they wanted to do week on and week off, but she refuses to let them and my DF doesn’t have the money to take her back to court. They’re now getting older where they can decide, and my YSD has told us she wants to do week on and week off, so we may try this with the new school year. I’m stressed out she’s going to try and not make my OSD pay.

This has caused a significant amount of stress and anxiety on me, on top of an already incredibly stressful 2 years. We had a house fire, I work in public health and COVID has been incredibly stressful on my work life, my partner was injured and needs surgery, and my mom was diagnosed with cancer the past couple of months. My OSD is rebelling more, and isn’t wanting to come over on our weekends or her dad’s nights, and I think it’s because we’re more strict. On her 16th birthday, her mom allowed her to have a party at her house (even though it was our weekend) and she allowed my OSD to drink and the kids who attended to drink. My DF doesn’t agree with this, but feels at a loss when he brings this up because her BM doesn’t care. It’s one thing to allow a child to have one drink in your presence, but this was beer funneling and drinking to the point of getting drunk. I feel emotionally involved, and when I see this type of behavior being allowed, it makes me angry and anxious and I find it hard to concentrate on anything but. I talk to my partner about it, and he tells me not to worry about it and that my OSD will learn her lesson the hard way when she messes up again. Talking to BM is like talking to a rock, and I’m finding myself just feeling like this is affecting my relationship with my partner. He’s extremely supportive, but I struggle a lot with anxiety and depression. I have anxious thoughts, and when something bothers me those thoughts become obsessive and intrusive. I don’t know what to do. I’m at the point now where I want to disengage and focus on my YSD, who is completely different, and my DF. For my own sanity, I need to find a way to stop thinking about it constantly. I don’t come from divorce, and I have never had a partner in life who was divorced. I know teens can be difficult, and I remember what it was like being a teen. My friend told me it’s only a number of years until she’s an adult, and the kids will be grown up, but I want these years to be happy and joyful and I want my SDs to be well adjusted, smart, successful and making healthy choices. Mom has even told her kids she didn’t want to be a mom, and my DF’s family members have told me his ex-wife never prioritized being a mom. It explains the behavior, as well as the life she lived in her teens (i.e. parting, drinking, doing drugs, dropping out of school, etc.). I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t want your kids to be better and make better, more responsible choices.

I’m sorry this is a long winded post. I’m just looking for some support from people who understand how difficult it can be to have SKIDS. PS I don’t have any children of my own. I can’t recall if I said that already.

Thanks for taking the time to read this post.