*Sorry in advance for the long post, but I'm struggling and need to vent if you care to read.
So I can go back and stick by my decision to not get involved with someone who had kids. My first marriage ended after she cheated and luckily we didn't have kids. I was in my mid-30s so there was still time to meet someone and start a family. But what I found was the dating pool was full of single moms. I mostly didn't want to deal with a PITA bio dad, but I knew there would more than likely be issues parenting kids that weren't mine.
I'm introduced to a mutual friend who's separated but going through divorce. She had two very young kids. Against my better judgement, I agreed to go on a date. Things went really well and we started dating. There was some B.S. with her ex but nothing crazy. We dated for 2-3 years before co-habitating (my decision), and I proposed another year after that.
Fast forward a decade. During that time we had some disagreements on parenting, to which I had to make concessions because what else can I do as the contractual parent. I do for the kids what their bio dad fails to do consistently. I don't get any affection from them or much in the way of feeling like they care about me, but you can't force people to do that.
The main issue for the past few years had been my step-daughter. She's allegedly on the spectrum (the first doctor who screened her said she wasn't). She's been on medication and in therapy for years. None of that has helped. Any time she gets in trouble at home or in school and is held accountable, she blows up.
She screams, fake sobs, curses at us, insults us, slams doors, and lies and self-harms in retaliation. She tells me fuck you to my face, calls me a bitch, asks my wife why she married me, tells us both she hates us, says I'm not her real dad, etc. She's made false accusations against my wife and teachers after getting in trouble, but not yet against me (yet being the key word). To me, she checks all the boxes for anti-social personality disorder (sociopath).
I've told my wife I can't live like this. My home is where I am supposed to have my peace and security. I asked her to have my SD spend more time at her father's house. He, of course, refused that. I said then I may have to get a tiny place to stay when our SD is at our house because I don't know what else to do.
My wife suggested we go to therapy as a family and maybe learn some different parenting skills. I don't believe this can be fixed by any therapy or parenting style. SD told her therapist before that I don't tell her I love her enough. Her mom tells her multiple times a day and she still is rude, disrespectful, and insulting to her, so that theory doesn't check out. And parenting-wise, I've given this kid everything. I don't even bother her to clean up after herself in common areas of the house because it's less stressful to just do it myself.
The struggle for me is I can't just up and leave as you might be wondering yourself. My wife has multiple chronic ailments. If I left completely, there's nobody to help her (her family reside in another state). I feel guilty for even thinking about it, but I've been in a physically abusive relationship in the past, and the feeling of dread you get going home from work or when someone abusive comes home puts so much stress on you.
My real fear is that even if I can ride this out until she's 18, my wife will never make her leave our home. At that point I would have no choice. I already feel powerless in my own house. I can't allow another adult to behave the way she does to live under my roof. But in my state, if my wife says she can stay, the police can't make her leave. So I would have to pack my bags and start over again in my 50s.
Unless my SD makes a false allegation against me as I mentioned earlier. Every time she has a blow up at home I have to worry about the police showing up at my door because she tells a lie to a counselor at school. Especially if it's of the SA variety because we know that the allegation alone ruins your life.
So yeah, I really don't know what to do with my life at this point. If I could do it over again, as much as I truly love my wife, I would have never gone on that date. I'm the asshole if I stay in my SD's eyes and I'm the asshole if I leave in my wife's eyes. So I'm in a lose-lose situation. I know not every story ends the same way, but if the first paragraph introduces a single mom, grab a different book guys.