Anger problems + Keeping SD's secrets + BM teaching to sneak

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Hi everyone, first post. I had a question about secrets your stepchild tells you that you keep from your partner. The secrets I feel are justified but I don't want to teach that hiding and keeping secrets is the answer to your conflicts. While I support my SD to have a private relationship / way to communicate with her mother, she and BM are doing so behind my partner's back. I worry that the mother (a total deadbeat) is teaching SD to lie and sneak. I'm kind of left with all this info and wondering what the best thing for me to do is (right now, just listening to SD and not interfering or telling the father/my partner). Here's my full situation:

My partner of 3 years has a daughter who is 11 years old.
BM is pretty deadbeat - she lives in a run down apartment, can't hold a job, doesn't pay any child support.
Father (my love) is very responsible and has taken full custody of SD for years. SD goes to see BM every other weekend.
SD and I are incredibly close, have never had any major problems between the two of us - have known her since pretty young and has always been accepting of me.
She often comes to me when she needs someone to talk to about how she's feeling (her dad isn't so great at that).

Another important point, my boyfriend is very short tempered, going through depression and extreme anger issues right now. This is starting to become evident to SD, who sometimes gets the brunt of his anger (no hitting, but swearing, yelling and aggressive body language that scares us both). He needs help and has started to get some, but it's not enough. (I'm not sure how long I'm going to remain in the relationship if this continues, but that's a whole other website to post about.) Right now I'm working on what we have built. I feel very bad for what his daughter has to endure and want the best for her, but feel so very conflicted about sticking behind my boyfriend's sometimes irrational behaviour vs. defending his daughter. I stay out of conflicts, but as she gets older, she is starting to notice more and more how ridiculous and over the top his reactions are getting and they are starting to damage her and destroy her relationship with him (they have a very good relationship when things are going well). She has talked to me about this privately.

My partner allows her to contact her mother over phone and Googlehangouts, but he monitors the hangouts chats. His daughter has told me privately that she thinks it's wrong that her dad does this. I told her that I believe she has a right to have a private email / way to communicate with her mother without the dad seeing, whenever she needs. I told her I would help defend her or help her if needed. My partner's concern with the mother is really SD'S safety -her mother has a limited sense of parenting and does things like SD(11)up for a Facebook account (again, at age 11) with full access to login information to use whenever she wants (we shut that down fast), leaves her home alone way too late at night, etc. He also uses it to get information about her financial situation (she moves frequently, and when she does he needs to know and ensure that his daughter will get a proper bedroom to sleep in, wants to know if she is spending frivolously instead of paying child support, etc). He really means the best but this is also damaging her. I cannot explain this to SD because I'm not going to tell her that her mom is a deadbeat and makes awful decisions and can't take care of her.

Recently, SD showed me another private account she and her mom had created so they could talk privately in hangouts - the presumption that the father won't see. I am not to tell the father - first, it would damage my relationship with SD, but to be honest, I am not against this idea of having a private space for her and her mother - I do believe she is owed that, and she needs a support other than him when he is in a aggressive mood. I feel immense guilt having this information but it has brought SD and I closer and really increased our trust in one another. That said, the mother is starting to slowly ask more things - to take her for a week instead of a weekend, and I worry about what types of things she is writing to SD. I worry that the mother is helping her keep things from the father and that is even further damaging to their relationship. Then again, if I were a mom, I would probably do the same thing if the baby daddy was reading our messages....

I'm basically trying to deal with two completely f@#ked parents and protect SD myself.

I'm wondering on anyone's take on the situation. I would typically reveal anything to my partner about important info about his daughter, but I feel like this is best kept secret from him. I feel terrible and like a bad role model to tell SD that she should lie and go behind his back. I'm thinking about having a conversation so she doesn't have to snoop but can have a private space that no one else can look at and maybe he will listen to her. Should I ask her about the possibility of me even initiating the conversation one evening as a family and then have her chime in? Should I try to just completely leave this, be an ear to her? I worry this might bite me in the butt and my partner find out I knew about this all along and then betray him.

Should I tell him? Should I try to get SD to tell him herself and hope that he is reasonable and allows for a private relationship that he can't see but knows about?

Any advice appreciated.

Bad move on your part. You

Bad move on your part. You are the one sneaking and lying now and you are putting yourself into a situation that needs to be addressed by the parents and not you.

Sorry to be so blunt but you are reacting out of an emotional sense and not with integrity...

I appreciate your comment a

I appreciate your comment a great deal - I appreciate blunt honesty. I was acting out of love for the child and what I thought was best and healthy for her. Being a step parent is tough... sometimes you feel you love the stepchild more than your partner.... you do everything for them and then get in these moments where you realize that you aren't a parent and really have NO say in the end..

I understand your feelings on

I understand your feelings on the private chats - but it doesn't change the fact that YOU are now the one sneaking and lying to your SO, and teaching SD that it's ok. You're undermining his parental decisions - and literally placing you both in the path of his anger, should he find out; anger that you've said is bad enough he's begun seeking help for it.

What you've said about your SO is cause for concern...even if you don't feel it should be included in this post... why is he monitoring what she sends to her mom? Is it because he's doing what good parents do, and monitor their child's online activities? Is it because he's concerned SD will send something to her mom about his own angry attitude, which might be cause for reduced custody? Or that it might be something that could land CPS on your doorstep? Keep in mind that parents don't generally tend to monitor communication with a parent, in my experience.

Swearing, yelling, and aggressive body language - not good. Sounds like he's never learned to cope with his feelings - does he do this with everyone, or just you guys? If he doesn't have that behavior with his boss, colleagues, family, then it's controlled behavior, and no amount of therapy will help that - because it's a choice he makes when he does it to NOT give you proper treatment. He does it because he knows he can get away with it.

Is there a way you can keep the history on there? Perhaps remove the "supervision" but have an ap that keeps the conversation history so that SD can feel like she has some privacy, and SO can review the communications? I mean, realistically, what's he going to do if SD says something to her mom he feels angry about? Take it out on her? Maybe he shouldn't have custody, in that case... ya know?

I suppose he may have a

I suppose he may have a concern about the communications with her mother since her mother seems really flaky.

Unfortunately, the child and her mother have put you in a very tenuous position. Your SO sounds like he could be on the edge of physical abuse and is certainly exhibiting emotional abuse on you and his daughter. The fact that you are both afraid of him and his reactions means you are very much liable to want to hide things that you think might upset him.

I speak from experience here as my dad had an explosive temper and my mom would sometimes hide things we had done from my dad because when he blew up everyone suffered.

Unfortunately, this isn't just brushing the fact that the girl broke a glass under the rug, you are in a sense facilitating her carrying on a clandestine communication with her mother... who has been shown to be irresponsible. Maybe he is worried that his daughter will be exposed to drugs? or shady characters? Maybe he is afraid his EX will kidnap the child?

In any case, I think you need to get this secret out in the open and the person who needs to do it is his daughter and/or his EX.

If one of my stepchildren

If one of my stepchildren came to me with a secret, I would let them know up front that I don't keep secrets from my DH, so if they 100% don't want him to know, don't tell me
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I would do the same in MY situation. BUUUT, I would not do it in HER situation. Her DH sounds like a crazy, abusive, mean person with serious issues.

I would do the same as OP. I would not tell that loon anything.

Unfortunately the skid has 2 terrible parents. BM just sounds like a flake but the dad is abusive. The skid NEEDS this communication with her BM because I would bet money this man will start being physically abusive soon and she will need to have a way to let her mom know.

OP…you need out of this whole situation asap.

I don't keep secrets from my

I don't keep secrets from my husband and I can't imagine any topic that could come up in my SD's life that I would keep from him. BUT I know that even in tough or controversial topics he will have a reasonable and helpful response and will try to help the issue, not make it worse. I trust his judgments.

It sounds like you do not trust your partner to be reasonable and measured in his response to finding out about the private chat. If you fear for your or your SD's safety should he find out then that may be a good reason to keep it to yourself, in my mind. If it will just be a difficult situation and you want your partner to strongly consider letting his daughter have the private communication then you could try seeing if you could have that conversation with him in the presence of a therapist to help aid a productive dialogue.

It sounds like he needs to let go of knowing all the facts about bm's life and trying to second guess what is going on with her by invading his daughter's privacy.

The daughter sees her mother

The daughter sees her mother every other weekend. Unless he has a secret recording device in bm's home she has unmonitored communications with her mother then for hours at a time. I see little difference with the time talking to her mother at weekends to the time talking to her mother when sd is at her dad's house.

I thought it was standard language, but perhaps it t is not, but my husband's parenting plan has a specific clause that says that the child is entitled to private communication with the other parent. That has always been in the parenting plan since she was 3 or 4. I am not sure that age really has anything to do with a need for a private relationship with the other parent. BM cannot be that bad as she still has rights to see her child every other weekend.

"BM cannot be that bad as she

"BM cannot be that bad as she still has rights to see her child every other weekend."

Sure she can, my SD's meth mom was a raging drug addict who was allowed EOW unsupervised despite being arrested multiple times, being sent to prison and always testing positive for drugs...courts aren't all that concerned about the welfare of children, more about ensuring that the parents are allowed access to their children.

BethAnne kind of said what

BethAnne kind of said what I've been thinking - she is generally a good mother - no drugs involved, is somewhat of a cool, nice , respectful lady. Just had a child too young, doesn't really have her life together. She left my DH because of his temper. She just doesn't always have a social filter and treats SD like her friend rather than her daughter. She says things to her like, "Don't tell your dad" when she moves.

My concern is that she will use the private communication to speak badly about DH to one another, but I'm sure they do that in person anyway. For example, the mother asked SD not to say anything about her moving. The mother moves a lot and doesn't want DH to know because he starts asking her questions specifically about child support (if she has money to paint, new furniture, where's money for your daughter? etc). The mother has asked SD to lie about her seeing an ex boyfriend too when she's in a relationship with someone else. DH found out and said that she shouldn't be teaching their daughter to lie. I do believe his true intentions are to monitor the mother and what she says to SD almost like a child, because she doesn't know what is appropriate and what isn't and he calls her out on it when it isn't. I do think he needs to let go and stop trying to micromanage his ex. He generally has good judgment with that though.

In the private convo, I saw that SD had written that DH already knew about her moving because a mutual friend of theirs had told DH. She said to my SD11, "it's weird they're [my DH and his friend] are talking about me," and SD replied, "Yes it is." My concern with this is that she is dramatizing the situation - my DH and his friend were simply talking about the apartment and not talking about her. I feel like she speaks badly bout my DH and have realized that maybe this private communication is not good for her - but then again, she probably does it in real life and it's not my place to interfere with their ability to privately communicate with one another.

If I tell DH, I worry he won't listen to me and immediately talk to SD about why she's keeping things from him - that will ruin my relationship with SD, it will make the mother pissed off at me, and just be generally not good.

I trust him to generally act reasonably, but not with this.

My SD once let me know that she might be gay, and so I talked to DH about this in privacy that we should have a healthy conversation about her about sexuality and acceptance, and he goes right to her and says so insensitively, "What's this your saying your gay?" and basically tells her she's being silly. I think he gets jealous she tells me things and not him. She was so upset with me for telling him but I was hoping and trusted he would have dealt with it better.
I felt terrible and explained to her my intention for telling him and was sorry he responded in this way.

He's just kind of clueless with this kind of thing sometimes, thinking about what effect it might have on me and sometimes only thinks of himself (he is really good with other things and is not a complete nutso, honestly, but I see where people are coming from with some of their comments)

Reading your comments is really helping me

Hi welcome to ST. You

Hi welcome to ST.

You mentioned Partner as in not married yet?

It is not good to keep

It is not good to keep secrets.

I will just leave it at that.

IF you are worried bio dad will explode since he has a history of Anger problems---I encourage you to take all of this to a Therapist for a few sessions. Tell her/him what you asked right here and see what THEY say.

About the secret/s...is it illegal ?? if yes, take it to the police. IF it is involving the child and is illegal take it to the police. BUT dad needs to know.

GoodLuck

Right now you are the only

Right now you are the only "safe" person SD has to talk to, conversations with her mother devolve into talking bad about her dad, but conversations with her dad devolve into him yelling at her and being physically threatening.

In all honesty I do understand why you are keeping this from SO, because he's proven he can't have healthy conversations with his child, nor can the BM. I feel very bad for your SD that she has two mentally and emotionally unhealthy parents.

Currently is sounds like you are the only real life line this kid has for normal.

I am planning to leave it and

I am planning to leave it and have an honest conversation with the child.
That I'm happy she talked to me, but that we have to be careful to keep things from parents. That it's not okay but that I'm going to make this one exception. And that I'd appreciate if we just move forward.

She had asked if she could add me to her private account too if she ever needs to talk to me (DH and I are not married and do not live together). She has her mom and me on her account that DH knows about, and then just her mom for private conversations on another.

I am going to ask her to not add me to private, because it's not the right way to get what we want. I will tell her she can talk to me whenever she wants and I, or we, can ask her dad together to not look at the conversations because maybe she has questions about puberty and things like that. And then I can tell my DH that I'll let him know if there's anything he needs to know.

BADDD idea to get on that "private" account. Maybe that can be one way to get myself out of this mess without destroying the trust I have with SD. That said, if I ever did tell DH anything I would tell SD that I will have to tell DH and give her the opportunity first to tell him. I should maybe encourage her to do this regardless.

A big part of me, too, is that I want to build this relationship because I'm worried about her for when she gets older. I know she'll lie to her dad because he can really overreact, and her mom has very little sense of appropriate parenting, so I want to be someone she can really trust so I know what's going on. Obviously I want him to be the one to have this, but I just can't see it happening. I will maybe talk to her about this too... to encourage her to build that relationship with him that she feels comes easily with me.

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Anger problems + Keeping SD's secrets + BM teaching to sneak