I'm so torn and broken hearted by the state of the relationship with our (step) children - I wrote on here, out of shear anger, that I wished SD would die. I don't really wish for that. Sometimes I wonder if we'd all be better off if she remained with her mom, but when she lived there, we received our weekly/daily phone calls of how terrible she was being treated. When she is there, I want to save her and when she is here and I know I can't.
She is cold and unemotional - though she has deep emotions, she hides them and is VERY uncomfortable with speaking about them. She lashes out in anger to try to keep her feelings to herself. We've tried to get her to see a therapist and she went for one visit and the therapist turned around and called her mom (at the time she was still in her physical custody) and told her everything they talked about. SD felt betrayed and now won't trust any therapy professionals to help her and not hurt her.
We used to talk about things and get along really well, but now that she lives with us, I feel there is a divide growing between us and part of that is because I feel so used and unappreciated. I have sacrificed - there is no doubt about that. I knew coming in that I would have to in order to be with my husband. I get that. But I didn't realize that she would have so much control over our lives. I didn't realize that even though we do our very best for her it wouldn't be good enough.
And now I am realizing that my dreams and aspirations will have to continue to be on hold until she is legally not our responsibility. And that bothers me. I am 35, my husband is 46. We have spent the last 5 years (since we met) striving to improve our credit so that we could buy a home. We have successfully improved my husbands so much that he qualifies for a mortgage now and just in time for the tax credit, but we cannot pull the trigger and buy our home. We are being held back from trying to strive for financial independence and our dream of homeownership because 1.we have to stay in her current school district as we originally promised her, 2. because we have to go back to court in July (4 months from now) to revisit the custody arrangement to see if it should remain or if it should change. If we buy a house now and are successful in finding one that suits our needs in her school district, we could be locking ourselves into a 30 yr mortgage at a monthly payment higher than what we pay in rent now. If she then chooses to go back to mom's after everything, my husbands income would then not be able to afford the mortgage and the child support as well as the other bills we have incurred. No we do not live beyond our means, but I know from the past that child support was $500/mo and that would put us in a bad financial situation. So do we hold off on buying until we know where SD will be living or do we pull the trigger because we have an opportunity and hope for the best?
Worst possible scenario is that we buy a home and end up losing it because SD goes back to BM. 2nd worst - we have to wait until she is no longer CS eligible and then purchase a home - when home prices and interests rates will undoubtedly be higher.
Then to top all of this off, the ulcer that is forming in my stomach only gets worse to think that after all of this sacrifice, if we do not just follow our dreams and do what we should/need to do now, we will lose out, and she will walk away when she turns 18 and she will never speak to us again just like her older brother. I already expect that we won't have much of a relationship with her when she is an "adult" because of how the family already is, so why am I sacrificing?????
What are my sacrifices for? It is not benefitting her if we do not buy a house. It actually hurts her because we then cannot build equity in that home to help her with school, if she chose to go. Or afford us the financial security that owning a home provides to help her if we wanted to.
I have wanted to buy a house for the last 4 years and it bothers me to the point of being ill that I'm going to miss out on a great opportunity because of the uncertainty of his child. I do not want to be house poor because she ends up back with BM - that will only make my resentment for my husbands baggage even greater. I am sick of suffering and sacrificing for the good of his ex-wife and his child. So much so that I think to myself - I can have what I want if I just go find another man that can provide it to me. Leave my husband to handle his baggage alone, since he is in fact the only one that has it. It's not his fault that things turned out this way though.
He didn't want any children but his first ex lied to him and told him his oldest son was his, even though he isn't. My husband did the right thing and took responsibility and custody of this child and raised him. His second ex was stupid and got pregnant so my husband did the right thing and married her. Then 8 yrs later, she tricked him into getting her pregnant again. Their relationship was already rocky but I think either to keep him or just out of spite, she tricked him and he did the right thing again and stayed.
He stayed for another 8 yrs until he just couldn't take being cheated on, lied to and bankrupted by her, so he left. And that's really the first thing he did RIGHT.
Now she does everything she can to spite him and hurt him. She thinks of her daughter as a burden because whatever her plan was when she originally conceived her didn't work out. She is a vile spiteful person who only thinks of herself and even her own children will attest to that.

I'm so angry and hateful because of all of this and I just want it all to go away. I don't want to be expected or forced to care for a 15 y.o. that is manipulative and moody. Everyone says - "she's a teenager" - I don't care. She's gotta learn sometime that people won't put up with her shit. Why not here? If she went back to her mom, I hate to say it because everyone will think I'm a horrible person, but I don't want to see her or speak to her for quite a while after that just to try to heal some of my wounds. I think that maybe that would be best for me if that happened but then we have to pay her mother alimoney again, I mean Child Support and that gives her mother the control over her medical needs which is not a good situation for SD or us.
But I don't want this responsibility anymore. That is why my screen name is what it is...because I thought it would be great and we could make her happy but we can't and I'm over it. It didn't work out, so see ya later.
She doesn't want to do anything to help herself make her happy and stop having the issues that she has - either she wants to be miserable or she is just that GD lazy! BUt she makes me miserable! I don't want to be miserable anymore!