I never particularly wanted kids, but I also wasn't opposed to the concept if the timing/partner/circumstance felt right. I married my husband 3 years ago, and he has 3 kids: SD23, SS21, SD16. Within 6 months of our marriage, BM of the oldest two commmitted suicide. I met them for the first time when we flew into town the 12hrs later. It was utter chaos with gun-toting, car-stealing, hoard-cleaning, funeral-planning madness all around. When we made it through and home 2 weeks later (if that's what you can even call it... DH was cleaning up the blood himself), then the OTHER BM of SD16 decided that she'd dump SD16 on us because "she didn't even care if she knew her mom didn't want her, she just didn't want to deal with her anymore."  ... Did I mention: I never even got to have a honeymoon?

I am financially indenpendent, level-headed, and THE person you want around in a crisis. I'm emotionally present and a damn good cook. I come from a loving family with a bajillion kids, but NOTHING could've prepared me for the 3 years of soul-crushing destruction I've endured. SD16 and BM have wreaked holy havoc on our (my) life. He's "used to it" but I absolutely REFUSE to participate in the insanity anymore. 

SD16 attempted suicide in September, our wedding anniversary weekend (which is significant, because each year we say "THIS year we'll actually be able to do something because things are peaceful....), just before school started. She had been living with BM because in the previous Jan - right after I personally paid to upgrade our ENTIRE life to accomodate her: from a 2 bed apt to a 5 bed house in a prestigious gated community, in which she has her own room/bathroom... the likes of which she had NEVER had, DH asked SD16 not to ride her new hoverboard in her mother's house because BM had mentioned that she disobeyed and was disrespectfully doing it anyway, and within 2 minutes of getting in the car with her BM the hugest blowup happened. She left our house and got in the car with BM, screamed "you snitched on me" and began unsafely fighting as they were driving. DH got 3 phone calls in the next 10mins varying from "i'm bringing her back" to "you have to come get her because I'm hitting her and she's thrown herself on the ground outside the apt and I can't get her to get up"... this is a SIXTEEN YEAR OLD, mind you, not a toddler.

When DH arrived to get her, he walked up, grabbed her coat and began walking the other way. BM pushed and struck him, screaming "don't treat her that way!"... he went back to the car. We got texts later saying "big mistake. the neighbors saw everything. she's coming to live with me."

SD16 was out of our house until September, but the lovely gifts we got in her absence? A visit from DYFS, a police report, and lies told to the school. Nothing even happened, and BM specifically requested he come get her because she herself was hitting her and couldn't control her, but they figured that it was a good way to "punish" him for not doing things their way.

Fast forward, SD has been living with BM since Jan, and now BM and SD16 are fighting, even physically brawling frequently. SD16 is left alone much of the time with way too much freedom and even tells her mom what she's going to do and when she's doing it - or worse, just disappears for entire weeks at a time. (SD's maturity level is more like 13 than most other 16yo's who think they're grown.)

Well, now DYFS insists that she stay with us, because when BM took SD out of hospital right after suicide (too early, without treatment), on the car ride home SD grabbed the wheel and fought with BM because she wanted her phone back (the phone was part of the suicide trigger). They went right back to the emergency room, then straight to our house.

Now she's here, with a bunch of agencies involved trying to fix the complete disgusting mess of a life that's happening: in-home therapists, mentors, child advocates, family advocates, parent coaches, blah blah blah..... 

I advocated more than the BParents. I kicked and screamed and got people on the phone and got her treatment started - when the agencies were 2 months late in making it happen.... But the manipulation and lies are steadily ongoing. To get what she wants (to go to parties, concerts, etc etc) she's told the school she's being beaten and is afraid for her life. NONE of that has happened and we've had DYFS call/show up AND had another fun-toting cop show up at our door. AGAIN. She is extremely dramatic and says she's having anxiety attacks and is scared for her life when DH corrects her behavior and anyone is around to listen, but I've heard her responses when she hasn't known I was in the house, and she was a completely different person... cheerful, even.

I can't breathe or function in my own house, that I paid SO handsomely for. My husband is a shell of a person (understandable) and we have ZERO intimacy. I hate to even admit this, but I hate her. I really do. I am so averse to her presence, her voice, her cheap teenage body spray. I have zero trust and zero desire to build anything here anymore.... even with him, as he's made it clear that he won't have an intimate relationship with anyone who doesn't WANT a relationship with her. He keeps saying "family" and what "we" are doing. It literally makes me nauseous. I feel like a cornered animal and am desperately trying not to eviscerate this entire toxic network that's multiplied around me.

I'm starting therapy next week (for the second time since we married) in order to deal with the toxicity that is HIS baggage and his life. 

I don't have ANY of this drama personally, and I am a genuinely happy, determined, motivated person otherwise.

I want out of this marriage, because I can't stand to think of a life forever connected to her.

God bless you if you got down to the bottom of this... there are so many things I didn't even write in here, but it's honestly so much that I don't even know how I could possibly manage to fit it all in.