I accidentally stumbled onto this site, and I feel like I have been thrown a lifeline. Newsflash: I am not a crazy person after all.

BF and I have been together for 2 1/2 years. I am a widow of five years with a 17-year-old (nearly 18) daughter, and he is divorced from a 25-year relationship (his only serious relationship) with a 13-year-old daughter. I am 47, he is 49. He shares custody with his controlling, yelling ex-wife (they have a DIY custody agreement).

BF and I are peas in a pod, but since they moved in back in August things have gone steadily downhill. I never wanted children, and just as I can see the light at the end of the tunnel, here comes another one. She talks to her dad like a total jerk (glary teenage stupidity and huffiness) but is polite enough to me. But she is a slob, and she is ungrateful, and her mother is horrible (and her father is an insecure parent). I just don't want to be around when she is around. I know she is a child, but there are some kids who I would choose to be around. She is not one of them.

On top of this, they are not currently following the actual custody agreement (one week on, one week off), so it is impossible to plan anything because the ex changes the calendar on a whim (he does not have "permission" to make changes). When they moved in, I got shunted to the side, and it feels like the ex decides what we get to do, when.

When they moved in, I put a calendar up on the chalkboard wall in our dining room and put everyone's activities on it. I organized "family dinner" once a week. BF withdrew until I almost kicked him out and then he came back. His daughter is a picky eater, so I stopped cooking on the days when she is here (and that has worked well, even though I love cooking). Our parenting styles are very different, and Skid walks all over him. Essentially, I started to try to organize us into a "family," when in truth, my family is my daughter, and my relationship is with BF, not Skid.

So when I stumbled on this forum and saw the thread about disengaging, and read what people said, I felt relieved. I am still working my way through lots of the things to read, but I feel liberated. I am not her parent, and I don't have to be parent-like. I don't even really need to be her friend.

I am still trying to figure out the best path forward and have not talked to BF about this because I don't know what that will look like. But for now, I feel like something has unclenched. After my husband died I worked my way back to myself, a self that didn't resemble the suburb-dwelling softball-mom I had become. It was starting to feel like that all over again, but this forum has helped me see that it does not have to be that way.

So thank you, before you even do anything. <3