You will need to run this by your wife of course for her OK but you may want to have a man-to-man discussion with FIL and lay out the bare bones facts.  Biothing is never going to get more than a few hours here and there with her issues.  And she is bound to screw that up at some point and get them taken away if history is any judge.  If he wants to put all of his eggs in her basket as far as loyalty goes to ensure contact with his grand-daughter, that is his choice.  But he is taking a major gamble that is highly unlikely to pay off.  As the saying goes, the house always wins.  You and your wife are "the house."  If he wants to be certain of remaining in the child's life, he needs to keep in mind who calls the shots and - so long as her mother is on board with it - that includes you.

Your SD is always going to hope that her dad will be the dad that she wants and needs. She has room to love you both, even if it doesn't seem fair.

All you can do is protect yourself. You have the choice to do less. Rejection is a possibility for any parent, especially step. It's unfortunate, but it's unfair to make a child choose or feel guilty for finding even a sliver of positive in a bad situation.

Why isn't FIL not doing anything about it.  He should be looking for what best for the child.  Being with some you who drunk is not in the best for the child..

you have to remember, the facts,  you are a SF. Nothing else.  If you divorce, you have no rights. To this child.  BF is the child bio father.  He has rights.   That why it sucks to be a SP

Giant hugs from across the internet.  I was the daughter of a man just like you described.  I have terrible memories of my mom being tied to a chair and him beating her.  He was always in jail for his drunken misbehaviors.  We'd have to go to a visitation center and he wouldn't show because he was in jail.  My mom always worked at a Winn Dixie and he would randomly search the Winn Dixie's until he found her and then he'd hide out in the bushes in the parking lot and spring and beat her.  WE'd have to move.  I went to like 13 different schools as a child cause of that.  The courts did the same thing but he died in a drunken car wreck when I was 12. Please keep being that awesome dad for your step daughter and hopefully her story will end the same as mine.  The fear and the constant moving and the terror of it all finally ended when he died due to his misadventures.  My brother won't even speak his name.  I definitely remember the scariness of it as a child and we would get years reprieve sometimes but anytime I'd get off the bus and see a strange truck or car, the fear would just engulf me again.  The visits with my dad that the court made us do were just filled with him grilling me or what school I went to and what neighborhood I lived in and where my mom worked and it was horrible cause I was like 8 and was afraid I'd slip and give him info and he'd come and kidnap us or beat up my mom and he'd be angry at with me for not answering his questions or lying.    

My advise is to keep fighting and being the sane loving father no matter how painful it is for you.  Hpefully your wife recognizes how painful it is for you.  People on this site recognize that sometimes I have issues.  I'm too passive.  My father definitely gave me issues that I struggle with even today at 44.  I have trouble speaking up and with conflict because with his alcoholism and his violent tendecies, I saw what speaking your mind and conflict would get you.  Hopefully he'll go away again soon.   

Bottom line is you are not a legal parent. You get no legal say. You can talk to your wife, but she is in charge.

Court order says child can pull the plug on visit time, but does it say child can extend it? If not, FIL (or whoever is supervising the visit) should end it when the court ordered time is up.

If I were you, I'd stay away from visit pickups and dropoffs. Remove yourself from them. You do not want to get into a verbal or physical alteration with this guy.

Do not let the idiot in the black Harry Potter robes slinging the Fisher-Price wooden hammer change how you parent.  They cannot stop you from doing anything that you choose to do as far as parenting your daughter is concerned.  

True, you do not have any standing with the court... but... the court has zero to do with shit for anything once  you step out of the court as long as you do not directly violate the Custody/Visitation/Support stipulations in the order.   Your DW can name you as a legal guardian of your SD, she can stipulate that you can act en loco parentis as her representative, you can engage medical care, attend school events, sign report cards, etc, etc, etc.........

I get the frustration. When I was told by the Judge during our court battle with the SpermClan when they attempted to take custody of SS from my bride that I was not a "party to the case" it was game on. When the Judge then asked for my financial information I told him that my financial information was not party to the case as he had already made it abundently clear that I was not a party to the case and the law being reason devoid of emotion, based on his ruling regarding my status, nothing associated with me was relevent to the case.  Including my money.

Watching that dipshit's head turn purple and just about explode all over his Harry Potter robes was extremely satisfying. That started a tit for tat discussion where he eventually told me if I uttered another word he would hold me in contempt.  So I shut up and didnt say another word when he kept asking for my financial information.   He can't tell me to shut up under the threat of contemt then expect me to speak to him.   

I was very measured and respectful in how I addressed him with a lot of "your Honor) and (Sir) launched in his direction but I did not let him off of the hook for being dumber than a frickin rock. He knew I held him in nothing less than total contept.  I skirted him holding me in contempt .... of court.

Eventually I did provide that information in order to avoid a stay in jail for contempt.  As soon as we walked out of court I  immediately called the local paper to run a full page add baring the Judge's ass.  The  Judge was running for re-election.  The add included his pic, a redacted pic of my then toddler SS and the full rap sheet and an arrest photo of the SpermIdiot with the full list of his arrests and a headline notifying the electorate that this Judge forces babies to spend time with criminals with a history of statutory rape.

Our lawyer's phone blew up when the Judge got a call from a relative who worked at the paper.  The Judge requested that we recall the add and agreed that he would not sit over any future cases we would be involved in in that county.

I still run into that Judicial dipship periodically when we are visiting my ILs.  He will cross the street to avoid me even 25 years after our discussion on my financial information.

I did not allow anyone to tell me how to raise children in my own home including a Judge.  The only other person who has any say in raising children in my home is my bride. It is her home too.

So, deep breaths, write off the idiot with the Harry Potter robes and Fisher-Price wooden hammer and do what you know to be right.  You are her dad. She knows it and in the long run you will be the one she values as her father.  She already does.

My wife and I met when my SS-27 was 15mos old. I raised him as my own.  He asked me to adopt him when he was 22.  We made that happen.  Once he was 18 no Judge in SpermLand, no one in the SpermClan not anyone else could say shit about him wanting to be my son.  He wears our family name on his uniform.  He and his mom make that name even better than it was before they joined the family.

You can drop off your daughter at FIL's and you can pick her up from FIL's.  The SpermIdiot has no control in a supervised visitation situation. Your FIL has all of the control. If he says it is over it is over until the next scheduled visit.  I for damned sure would be dropping off and picking up if I was you.  My hairy eyeballs would be all over that POS when he arrived at FILs and when he left FILs after visitation. He would know that I would be on him like stink on shit if he so much as twitched out of line with the CO or in how he interfaced with my FIL and my SD.

The courts can only rule on custody, support and visitation in family law cases. That is it.  As long as you don't violate the terms of BioDad's visitation, do what ever you choose.  I did.  When any of the SpermClan twitched out of line we went ape shit on them and brought every legal, financial and social discipline tool we could find to bear.  Wre never intered with SS's time with that branch of his family but we also did not allow them to deviate from the CO.

Become an expert on the CO, research supplemental county rules, states rules, etc... and keep rolled up copies of all of them handy to beat the snot out of the SpermIdiot with if he pulls any shit.  Have your DW's back and the two of you raise your daughter.  

Take care of you, take care of your bride, take care of your daughter.

Be ready for the next session with the Harry Potter wannabe.  Be polite but be confident and do not let them pull any stupid shit that does not get called out clearly in the record.  Since your DW has custody, together you have significant control over just about everything.  This is a great thing when the blended family opposition (the NCP) is toxic.

Good luck.

FIL clearly isn't up to being in charge of superision so get him replaced by a supervision centre with fully qualified personnel.  This would ease everyone's mind about visitation and a second bonus from this would be that biothing would have to pay for the sessions.