I am a new step mom and a new mom. My BF has 3 kids from a previous relationship: SS14 and twins (SS11 and SD11). Our daughter is only a month old. When I first meet my BF’s kids, they seemed like good kids, and for the most part they are. I have no problem with his sons. The oldest is a typical teen. He spends most of his time playing video games and watching tv. He has a smart mouth, but so far he hasn’t said anything out of the way to me. He mostly just jokes around with his dad, and it’s never anything out of the way necessarily. His youngest son is cool too. He does bug me sometimes because he’s one of those very talkative kids, but he’s very well-mannered and caring. But SD is a slightly different story. Like, I said, upon first meeting her she seemed like a normal kid, but now I’m starting to see a different side to her and some red flags.

The first red flag was an incident that happened at their mother’s home. So apparently, SD found a bottle of nail polish on the school bus. Her eldest brother (15, not BF’s biochild) took it from her because he said that she shouldn’t be using things that she found on the bus. She got angry that he took it from her, and apparently tried to strangle herself with some sort of rope. The brother called his mom, who was at work, so BM called BF and he picked up SD and let her spend the night at his home. BF talked to her about the situation, but her actions were very alarming to me, and I’m having a hard time just overlooking it and forgetting about it. 

The second red flag was over the Christmas weekend. DD and I spent the holiday at her father’s house. The stepkids are spending all winter break there. All 3 stepkids have tablets. BM FaceTime SD on Christmas Day. (BF told me that BM had already FaceTime the kids earlier that morning to wish them a Merry Christmas, so this was an extra call). BM doesn’t like me, but while I was standing in the kitchen making DD’s bottle, BM had SD wish me a Merry Christmas from her. I was polite and wished her a Merry Christmas back. I walked back to the bedroom where BF and DD were. SD came in behind me soon after, holding her tablet up toward me and DD. She was still FaceTiming with her mom. I could hear BM asking me multiple times to send her pictures of DD. BF takes the tablet from SD. When he does, I can see BM and her mother watching from behind her in the video. BF  says that he’ll send some pictures just to shut her up, but he assured me that he wouldn’t and had no intentions on doing so. I thought it was weird for her to even ask, especially because she was asking so persistently, and knowing that she doesn’t like me, I don’t want her to having a picture of my DD. I also thought it was weird and messed up that BM and her mother had SD walking around trying to capture my child on video. Shortly after,  I remembered that SD had told me that she had used her tablet to take a picture of DD. At the time, I thought nothing of it, and thought that it was sweet that she wanted to have a picture of her baby sister in her tablet. When I told BF about the picture, he had her to delete the picture from her tablet. (The next day, I learned from ySS that their tablets are connected to their mothers account, so even though the picture was deleted, BM may still have it). Lots of red flags in this long story, but here’s the actual red flag I was referring to: The next day, I was in the living room watching tv with the stepkids and DD. BF was in the room sleeping because he works night shifts, and he had to go to work that night. SD wanted to hold DD, so I let her. She stands up while holding DD and sort of rocks her back and forth. I was watching her out the corner of my eyes the whole time, but not looking directly at her. I can see her looking at me the entire time too. SD trys to slowly make her way to the back room with DD. Whenever I would glance her way, she would play it off. I let her got around the corner, then I got up and took back DD and told her it was time for DD to go to sleep. I’m not sure of her intentions with trying to get DD out of my sight, but she was being sneaky about it, and it didn’t sit right with me. I assumed she wanted to take more pictures, even though her father told her not to take any more, but idk. 

The third red flag has me not wanting to have my daughter anywhere around her sister. So, it was later that night. BF was still sleeping, and DD and I were in the room with him. I had just feed DD, and she was dozing off to sleep. The twins (ySS and SD) came into the room. While  I was holding DD and she was trying to go to sleep, they kept playing with her feet and her face. She woke up out of her sleepy daze, and I was very annoyed. I told them that I was about the breastfeed her some more, which was a lie because she had already ate, but I knew that they would stay out the room when they know I’m breastfeeding or pumping. SS says okay and walks towards the door. SD is still standing there as if she didn’t hear me. SS looks at his sister and tells her to come on so they can leave and I can feed the baby. That’s when I look up at SD, and she is glaring down at DD with this eerie, angry expression on her face, and she’s locked in the stare. She’s not budging, so I ask her if she would take one or the baby’s dirty bottles and place it in the kitchen sink for me. She finally snaps out of it, and says okay, and follows her brother out the room. Before she leaves, she says she’ll be right back as if she didn’t hear me when I said I was going to be breastfeeding the baby. When they left, I closed and locked the door, and began packing my and DD things, so I could go home. I wake up BF and tell him that I’m leaving to go home. I tell him why, but I didn’t tell him about the look SD had on her face. I just kept it simple, and I told him that SD doesn’t like it when she doesn’t get her way. He tells me that he knows and that she has some of her mother’s ways. 

He has told me that during the years he and BM were together, when they would have big arguments, on several occasions BM had threatened to commit suicide to make him feel sorry for her and to get her way. The saddest part is, she would do it in front of her children, and have them in tears begging her not to. I believe that has affected all of them, but I think it and many other things have left SD the most disturbed and troubled.

I guess this is more of a rant, and not menecessarily asking for advice, but if you have some that would be appreciative. BF knows SD has some problems, but I don’t think he views her as being quite as disturbed as I do. I also feel she may be dangerous, but I haven’t told him how I feel, and I’m sure he doesn’t think that she is in the least little bit. That look wasn’t normal, and I’m not going to ignore what I saw just to spare his feelings especially when it puts my child’s well-being in jeopardy. Luckily, he only has them on weekends during the school term, and since we live in two separate homes, I will gladly keep my daughter at my home on the weekends. I don’t know what this summer will look like though. I also don’t know what I would do if BM decides to leave them with BF full time. When BM and BF were together, she left him to be with another man leaving the kids behind. When that relationship didn’t work out, she came crawling back to BF. She does have a new beau, so I wouldn’t put it past her to one day drop the kids off at BF’s front door and never look back. I guess I’ll have to cross that bridge when and if it comes.