rather than telling it in drips and drops here in responding to posts made by others, i guess I'll draft my own story for anyone who cares to read it. I've already learned a lot from reading what you all have shared here, and in many ways, it has made me grateful for what I have with my family.

My fiance and I met 2 years ago and had a great connection. We talked on the phone and online for several months before we officially started dating. I knew from the outset he had an 11 yr old daughter, and that his biggest desire was to one day have her live with him again.

He was up front in telling me that, at 17, his girlfriend was afraid he'd leave her, so she deliberately got pregnant. He busted his butt working to support her and his daughter for two years, passing up college and other opportunities to work 2 jobs to afford to have a family at that young age, until one day his friend who worked at a motel called him to say the mother of his child just got a room with some dude. He got a copy of the receipt charged to the credit card he paid for, and confronted her with it. She punched him in the face, jumped out of the car, and ran away. That night he slept at a friend's house, and came back to his apartment having been cleaned out. No couch, no bed, no tv, nothing left, but most importantly, no child either. She hid from him for months, and finally started contacting him every few months and demanding money, would not let him know where she lived or with who, and would only meet him in public places and allow him to see his child at the "hand off" of child for cash.

Eventually she took him to court for custody and official child support. She denied he had given her any money up until that point, so not only was he obligated to pay from that point on, he owed her back child support b/c he had given her cash, and she took him to the cleaners.

Over the years any time he tried to exert his parental rights, she refused to allow him to see his daughter. "you have a problem with me bringing MY six year old to HOOTERS where I work? Too bad, and now you don't see your kid for a month." He had her arrested once, and she never let him live that down, and basically took it out on their child, poisoning her mind saying she wasn't seeing her father b/c her father doesn't love her, etc. it broke his heart, so he stopped trying. He capitulated to everything this evil troll wanted, and to this day, at least until I got involved, has continued that way.

Meanwhile, BM moved and uprooted the child at least 6 or 7 times. New schools, new relationships, got married, cheated on that husband, got divorced, but not before hooking up with a new husband, and gave birth to another child about 7 months after that new marriage.

At the same time, my fiance tried to constantly be involved in his daughter's life. He finished school, got a professional job, and a good income with benefits, so he could provide health insurance for his daughter and almost 1000 a month in child support. In the 12 years since the mother walked out on him, he introduced TWO women to his daughter, the second being me.

I had my own reservations about it, I dont' have children, and ended my marriage over the fact that my ex insisted we have them instead of dealing with our relationship issues. My fiance and I agreed to take things very slow with his daughter. At first I would only come down on Sunday mornings, allowing them to spend all day Saturday and Saturday night together, and not infringe on their time. As it became clear that his daughter accepted me and we all got along well, I started coming down later Saturday night, still allowing for their time together to have dinner alone. All this happened over the course of 6 months. Fiance asked daughter many times if she was okay with my being there, and she always said yes, and when we decided we wanted to move in together, again, she said it was okay.

Her father and I became responsible for taking her to all her school events, especially her cheerleading. Every Sunday we'd be up early to drive to some nearby town to not just drop her off for the cheerleading, but sit and watch every single game, take pictures, etc. Her father and I both work on Saturdays, and this was the one day we had off, but we were glad to go and support her because she cared about it.

Once all my stuff was moved in, I realized we needed a bigger apartment. Although SD was only with us on Saturday nights, she had celebrated her 12th birthday, and I felt that it was important she have her own space, not a room we also used as an office. I found a "unique fixer upper oppportunity" apartment and her father and I sunk HOURS of our time rehabing a huge yet affordable three bedroom apartment in a great neighborhood, that the previous tenant had absolutely destroyed.

We let SD pick out all her own colors and decor for her room, something she had never had before. We got her a new bed, a new desk, drapes, rugs, bedding, I rehabbed a computer for her, basically pimped out her room, even to this day it's the most "finished" room in our house! Best of all, the three of us had a great time doing it. She NEVER demanded anything, was grateful for everything, was reluctant to let us buy things for her, even when her father and I would get excited about something and want to get it, she'd be the one saying "I don't really need it", I know, an unusual teen ager indeed!

It was about this time that SD (now 14) started talking seriously about wanting to move in with us. We had told her from the getgo that our door was always open for her, she was always welcome, but it became more and more apparent that her mother was not using the child support money she is given monthly to support my fiance's daughter, but instead was using it to support HER new family.

Some examples:
SD without fail comes over and eats ANYTHING and everything I put on the table. Has never once complained about the food I make, in fact goes out of her way to say how good it is, have seconds on vegetables and especially my salads, which she loves. She doesn't get these things at home, home cooked meals, vegetables, salad, nothing like that. They get take out or microwave pizza, or since BM has gotten pregnant AGAIN and had to quit her part time job bagging groceries money is even tighter, the family now eats Ramen noodles. So a thousand dollars a month buys microwave pizza and ramen noodles. Wonderful.

SD posted pictures of her room at her mother's house online, and Fiance and I were horrified. It was a mess, and so different from her room at our house which is neat and clean at all times. Apparently she has no furniture in her room, including a bed, which she used to have, but when her mother moved out of living with her last husband, she left her child's bed behind. So a thousand dollars a month buys a mattress on the floor for a 14 year old girl.

We picked up SD one day for her visit and she immediately asked if we could go to the drug store. Apparently her asthma inhaler ran out at the beginning of the week, and she hadn't had one since b/c her mother said her father should have to pay for it. Her mother wouldn't even lend her the 10 dollars to pay for it, let alone actually pay for it out of her child support money, and didn't even bother to call my fiance to tell her she needed a refill.

SD got nothing, not even a card, for her birthday from her mother and step father. For christmas, they gave her a hair straightener in the portable DVD player box, the portable DVD player was the gift for the 2 year old.

SD asked her father to buy her a halloween costume for a party she was allowed to go to. Her father and I love halloween, and were excited and made her promise to have pictures taken of her in her costume. But her mother took SD's digital camera (which we bought her) and used up all the batteries taking pictures of her baby in the costume, so not one picture of her older daughter in the costume we bought her, not one.

Has insisted that my fiance pay for every additional expense that comes up. Every field trip, every dentist appointment, school supplies, extracurricular activities, clothes (although she mostly dresses her in hand-me-downs), everything, and still calls him a deadbeat dad to anyone who will listen to her.

Has refused to let SD come over because she's being punished, or she needs her to assist with some chore or task at her house.

Is often not home when we try to drop off SD at her mother's house, despite the fact we told her what time we would be there, and won't allow SD to have a key, we have killed HOURS of time driving around waiting for them to come home, and mother's response is that we should just leave her there, to sit on the door step like a dog. Once we drove to her mother's work at the grocery store, and the mother refused to let SD take her key so we could drive her home at 8:30 on a school night. Instead her solution was SD was to sit at the grocery store and wait for the mother to get out of work for an hour and a half, no books, nothing to entertain herself, just sit there.

She used her small child as an excuse to not attend SD's 8th grade graduation, getting a baby sitter for 2 hours, was apparently not an option. We went, along with her mother's parents.

Last summer, without asking my fiance, she sent ST away to stay with her relatives for 2 weeks, then decided to add another week on with a different relative, so my fiance didn't see his daughter for almost a month last summer. The first two weeks she was brought to work with the relatives, plopped at a cubicle, and left to play on the internet all day. She mostly emailed her father and me...

She had a fit over the 2 inch heels her father and I bought her for her graduation dance, but sent her daughter to graduation in a skin tight black dress that was absolutely as innappropriate as it gets. I was so embarrassed for her, all the other girls were wearing cute sundresses and sandals,and she's wearing a skin tight dress with ruuching up the back that made her butt look so inappropriate.

Signed her daughter up for a car wash to support the cheerleading squad on OUR day to have her, insisting we get up and take her there. SD didn't even want to go. We dropped her off, and showed up early to pick her up, only to find these girls wearing string bikinis and washing cars with dirty old men sitting inside them, oggling the girls, no adult supervision whatsoever. Thank god our girl was the one who had the sense to keep her shorts on.

Signed her daughter up for a cheer leading trip on our day to have her that required us to get up at 8:00 am, drive her to the school so she could get on a bus, then drive BEHIND the bus an hour and a half away so the girls could then sit and watch a cheer leading team perform, (we're not even sitting with her) only to FOLLOW the bus home, to pick her up. SD did not even want to go, and this caused a huge fight with her mother.

Mother has stated that she doesn't want her daughter home alone with me, despite the fact she's always been nice to my face, and I have done NOTHING other than care about her daughter and try to be a positive influence in her life, helping her with her homework, teaching her how to research, use computers, etc.

Has told daughter she will not be allowed to participate in extracurricular activities due to her behavior at home.

The list goes on and on, I could be here for hours. Suffice to say, it wasn't really a surprise that a couple of hours after dropping her off back in March, her mother called my fiance and said she couldn't deal with SD anymore, and she had to come and live with us. He talked to her at length, trying to determine if this was happening as a result of a fight or disagreement, or was in fact something that was talked through and real. BM insisted it was what they both wanted and agreed on, so my fiance told her to call the case worker and figure out what it would take to have the custody agreement changed, and the child support revoked.

I spent the next two weeks researching how to get her school changed, making phone calls, the whole thing, and BM never followed up. I guess the last part about losing her monthly income really made her rethink the whole thing, b/c when my fiance followed up with her, she said it wasn't going to happen, ever.

But SD has become more and more unhappy living with her mother, and now with another child on the way into their already cramped home, she's sick of being a maid and free babysitter for her mother, and wants out. We talked to her numerous times about whether or not she had thought this through. We explained there would be rules and ramifications for breaking them, and in our house our #1 priority would be school, and she would have many opportunities to do things, social, extracurricular, etc as long as she kept her grades up, and she says she understands. She has said she doesn't want to grow up to be like her mother, and understand that she needs an education to succeed. We've asked her why she wants to live with us, and she said that she doesnt' feel like she gets the support or attention she needs at her moms, her mom is more interested in having more kids than taking care of the ones that she has, and that we support her and help her achieve the things she wants, and have the time and desire to pay attention to her and be a part of her life, so she'd rather be with us.

So after the car wash incident, my fiance called BM and said he wanted custody, and she refused. So now we're at the frustrating point of having to file papers with the court, and take her to court, where she's going to fight us tooth and nail, the sad part being she's going to fight for the paycheck, and not for her child. For my part, I just want this resolved.

SD NEEDS to be with us. It makes me so sad to see her become withdrawn and unhappy when we drive her to her mother's at the end of her visit. She and I have a great relationship, and she goes out of her way to talk to me and spend time with ME, not just her dad. She has many options for entertaining herself at our house, movies, books, her computer, and still she chooses to spend time with her father and I. She has asked to use the phone to call a friend once during the time I've known her, and is hungry to learn about the world and life through us, politics,current events, religion, science all especially interest her, and we have brought her to see political speeches, to museums, I give her books to read and to use as references for her papers, and she always remarks on how much she learns when she's with us, and how she takes that learning into her classes, and with her friends. I discuss her books she reads for school with her, suggest others she might find interesting, and basically CHALLENGE her to think critically. Both of my parents were teachers, and I'm an only child, so in my world, this is what you do for your child. At her mother's she is subjected to Barnie, disney princesses, and NASCAR, not to mention screaming toddlers who destroy her things and are allowed to have no bed time, no rules, no structure, so SD basically tries to do all her homework in the short time she has at our quiet, peaceful home.

Our environment is just so much more suited for a teenager who is about to enter a critical point in her life. Her father and I are alternative people. We are unconventional in our appearances and I believe we set a good example of being yourself and not conforming to the crowd. SD is proud of us, and loves to be out and about with us. Her father and I are also EDUCATED people, with good jobs, who have a good life that we happily share with her. We are not FORCING her into a cookie cutter world about a new family, we are able to give her the room to have her own wants and needs expressed and respected and make a life with her having a say.

For many of the kids I've read about on this site, this wouldn't be possible. Spoiled brats who take advantage and for granted all they have. Perhaps because her mother puts her at such a low priority in her world, SD truly appreciates everything she has with us, and her reaction when something that we commit to her actually happens is one of delighted surpise, having been let down so many times by her mother, she takes little to heart that adults say, but she's learning with us that if we commit to her we're going to do everything we can to make it happen.

I'm scared for this legal battle. I wish her mother would just let it go, but she never will. I don't know if we need to hire a lawyer or not, since I guess here the mother gets one, and the SD gets one to represent her interests, but we're on our own. I think we should, but it will be hard for us to afford, and while I can't see HOW we wouldn't win, especially given the fact that SD wants it so much, my fiance's biggest fear is that he'll lose and be worse off than now. He's expressed maybe it would be better to let it get to the point where SD is so unhappy she insists and tells mother she refuses to stay, or refuses to go along with mother anymore, and eventually mother wants her gone. But I know what happens to unhappy, bitter teenagers, and I don't want her to slip and have her grades drop, start doing drugs, or anything really to act out against the situation. It's not fair to have her screw up to get what she wants, and it's a bad lesson to teach.

But on the other hand, it's not like she's being physically abused where she is, though I would say she's neglected. I don't know if that's enough though, and it's just my opinion, I know many kids have it far far worse, as I point out often to those in my life who know this situation, at least she has her father and I to care, many kids don't even have that...

And ultimately, I'm frustrated by my own powerlessness in this situation. I have ZERO say in any of it, and I'm the one in our family who handles legal/contract type things, basically at any point where you have to manage within a system, I'm the one who does it, but I can't do anything now, it's all up to my fiance, and that makes me nuts.

I guess that's enough for now, if you've read this far, thank you!