Hi. I've been browsing these forums for a couple of weeks and decided to join. This thread is mostly to say hello, though I'm also preparing for a talk with my SO next week and any advice for how to help the talk go smoothly would be appreciated.

I'm a 27-year-old graduate student working on my PhD in sociology. My SO is 36 years old (employed, not that it matters). We have been together for 15 months. He has an 8-year-old daughter. She and I have spent a great deal of time together, and we like each other, but she does not know her father and I are together (at least, we have never told her and we do not do PDA around her). She spends one week with her father, then one week with her mother, and then SO has her the Wednesday night of her mother's week and her mother has her the Thursday night of her father's week. So, he and I spend each night together that he doesn't have her, then the next week I don't really see him at all, unless we go to get ice cream or something like that (some weeks it happens, some weeks I don't see them at all).

I do not identify as a step-parent yet, but I've been going through some emotions that it seems like step-parents feel, and I'd like to make the transition into step-parenting as smooth as possible. To my mind, this involves A. finding a community like this one for support, B. talking honestly with my SO about things that I'm feeling, and C. possibly some individual counseling for me, or counseling with him.

The matter of a smooth transition is a bit complicated by several factors.

1. SO is still married to his daughter's mother. They have been living apart for a long time now, obviously, and the divorce proceedings will start very soon. They do not have a cordial relationship in the least (he is pretty angry with her, and she seems to do her best to be obtuse), and even though she has given him no real reason to think this, he is worried that she will screw him in the divorce. As such, he doesn't want to give her anything that she can use against him. She knows we are dating (she knew from day one) and so far she has not made it sound like a problem (she even thanked me last time I saw her for being so good to her daughter, despite our differences), but he is nervous that if she doesn't get her way in the divorce, she will suddenly have a problem with us dating and use it against him. To protect himself, he's trying to be as presentable as possible to a judge. This means that I never spend the night at his place when he has his daughter, and he never blows his daughter off to spend time with me. He also doesn't want to tell his daughter that we are dating until the divorce is finalized in case she has some kind of problem with it (she likes me, but maybe some kids don't like their parents dating anyone, no matter who it is).

2. I have always identified as childfree by choice. I have never wanted children, and while I don't hate children, I'm not really a natural at interacting with them. I have ideas how parenting should be done, but I don't really want to have input because I avoided having children precisely so I wouldn't have to make big decisions. I think parenting would take far too much work given my extremely low interest level, and it feels to me like the stakes are very high, and the fear of messing it up really freaks me out.

So here I am, simultaneously fearful of becoming a step-parent, but wishing SO would just tell his daughter we are together so that we can move forward in our relationship. He is without a doubt my forever partner, and after 15 months together, I would very much like to move in with him one day soon (we both have 6 months left on our current leases and I really hoped we would be able to get a new place together at the end of October). I feel a bit resentful that my relationship is so constrained by his ex and their daughter. This will lessen when the divorce is done, but it will take a few months to finalize the divorce and then some unknown amount of time to give his daughter time to adjust to our relationship before moving in together. I'm running out of patience, and I feel a little angry at SO for not being willing to take the risk of telling his daughter for me. It's a long story, but suffice it to say I sacrificed a lot to be with him, and I wish that he would take a chance for me. I feel like the chances are very low of his wife having a problem with telling the kid we are dating and using it against him--or the judge seeing his dating someone as a serious problem.

SO has his daughter this week, so next week when we have time alone together, I would like to talk to him about my feelings. I'd like to do so in a way that doesn't make me sound jealous that his child comes first, or like I do not care about her feelings. I would also like to do so in a way that doesn't sound like I am demanding he take this chance for me, because the last thing I want to do is control the way in which his divorce develops. Any advice on things I can say to communicate my feelings to him without sounding overly emotional, angry, or controlling would be appreciated. This will be the first of several talks, because the truth is, my emotions are running deep these days, and I often feel a little crazy (e.g., sometimes I feel like I want a baby with him, even though I don't *really* want that in the rational part of my brain) and like some of my feelings would not be acceptable if said aloud (in general, they run contrary to the popular belief that children are the center of the world). But I'd like to just start the conversation and see if we can make some progress, and maybe that will help me sort out my crazy.

Sorry for the long post. I've been keeping so much to myself and everything feels so complicated that it's hard to keep it short for an introduction. I'm sure I'll have many posts to come, and I'll be doing lots of reading in hopes of soaking up some advice from other people who have felt the same things I'm feeling now.