I am brand new to this community and I'm happy to find a place to talk with others about the struggle of step-parenting.

A little background on me: My parents divorced when I was 3 and my mom began living with the man who would be come my older brother and my's stepdad. He was not a good stepdad, to put it mildly. As I look back, he was controlling and emotionally abusive. My brother and I were not allowed to be idle, we always had to be cleaning or doing chores. He would yell at us and punish us for no reason. He was always putting us down and making us feel badly about ourselves. My mother is a loving and wonderful mom, but she let it happen and is still married to the man to this day. When I was 13, they had my half sister and I pretty much lived in the basement and avoided everyone until I graduated and could leave for college. My sister, now in her 20s, has actually become very close to me and I have to see her deal with my stepdad on a regular basis.

On the other side of the fence, my dad was always trying to get custody of us but we ended up spending just every other weekend and some summers with him. He tried his best, but he has a problem with alcohol and anger and this made him distant and hard to get close to. He dated a woman throughout my childhood who was really good to us. They got married when I left for college and was a good support for me. She had a heart attack 4 Thanksgivings ago and died.

I got married when I was 25 and 5 years later, had my daughter. I was pretty much checked out of my marriage by that point as I realized my husband had no empathy, could not be reasoned with, and had no communication skills. We had nothing in common, never talked, and he could be very mean. I left him when my daughter was 2 and we have now been divorced for 9 years. He has never remarried nor had a girlfriend he has introduced to our daughter, though he's turned out to be a surprisingly good dad.

I met my SO over 4 years ago and we were friends as he was going through his divorce and I was getting out of a bad relationship. We began dating around 3 years ago and moved in together a year and a half ago. He has a son, 10, and a daughter, 12, as well as an older daughter, 22. The two younger ones live with us part-time and everyone has gotten along pretty well. Their mother has borderline personality disorder and presented quite a few challenges in the beginning, but I have hopes this is getting better.

On to today: (SD) has a school program tonight. This is something that has caused extreme anxiety in the past as, when we first got together, I was not able to go to any of his kids' events or get-togethers because she would 'freak out'. We had many, many fights about this and it's still a very tender subject even though I now regularly go to their sporting events and the world has not ended as was predicted. BM treats me as if I'm not there or hides from me. I usually try to make an effort to be nice, but it's rarely reciprocated.

Whenever I"m informed of a school program or something like that, it's just put out there. I never know if I'm supposed to say, "Great, meet you there?" Or stay home or what. To be fair, I'm not sure anyone knows what the protocol or 'right' thing to do is. So instead of just guessing and stressing, I asked SO if it was okay if I had a talk with SD tonight after the event to see if she's like me to go to things like this. I never want to just show up and make everyone uncomfortable just to make a point as I think that's selfish. But I also want them to know I support them and am interested in all they do. We'll see how the conversation goes. I'm trying to tell myself I won't take it personally if she says, "I really prefer you don't go", but who am I kidding? Of course that will hurt.

Then again, if she says she would like me to go, I'm not committing myself to going. Which means 3x the school events, etc.! But that's what family life is and I'm committed to this family. I'm glad I've made the decision to take things into my own hands rather than just wait for my SO to tell me what to do. That's not fair to expect him to know everything--he's new to this too--and I just get hurt if he doesn't do/say the right things.

So I see this as a positive step in the right direction. I'm tired of the angst I feel whenever an event is mentioned and then spend the next hours arguing in my head: should I go? do they want me to go? what does it mean if we don't go? UGH.

I know this path we have chosen is not an easy one, but whose path is easy anyway? I have a good man and he has good kids and my own daughter is spectacular. I have a lot to be thankful for and I need to remember that as I pick through this minefield of blending a family.