It’s been almost 1 year – my stepdaughter lives with us now (TW: Abuse/SA)

Last September I turned to reddit after having an argument with my husband. We found ourselves in a difficult situation after it came to light that his daughter from a previous relationship had been SA’ed and her mom disappeared.

A lot of people weighed in and reached out and I/we got some very different perspectives on the whole thing. This is mostly a good update but there are obviously a lot of bad stuff popping up along the way.
I can’t believe I have to spell this out but we have spoken with my stepdaughter (we’ll call her Ann) about every step of the way, what she wanted, how we could make it work. And yes, we have spent a lot of money on this. Thankfully we were in a decent place financially and my ILs have been helping out as well.

I guess bad news first. Mom and her bf showed up eventually and there is a trial in the works. I can’t say too much but I honestly think my husband was ready to go to jail for murder at several points. Ann testified (on video thankfully, so she did not have to sit through it in front of these people). My husband was/is there, with her permission. Ann’s therapist had alerted us and the police that he suspected that she has been drugged on some occasions, based on the things they talked about. My husband came home from that meeting and started researching how to get a gun (no, we did not get a gun with toddlers in the house).

Unfortunately, there is no real chance of mom and BF going to jail nearly as long as they deserve (which is forever IMO) but they will most likely get some jail time at least.

Therapy is going well all in all. Ann’s therapist have facilitated some sessions between Ann and my husband which have been… tough, for both of them. A lot of things said.

As the title says, Ann lives with us and has since she felt ready to after being in inpatient care for a few weeks. We cleared out the office and we got the biggest lock we could find for her door. It’s symbolic mostly but she can lock that door as much as she wants, on her terms. We only ask that she keeps it fairly clean and no smoking/drugs. She is welcome at all meals but not forced and I always make enough that she can have it later if she wants.

We did not see much of her in the first months, which was pretty expected from what we were told by our family therapist. One of us is always home (unless we go out all five) and available. My husband got more WFH days so we can make it work. We don’t force her to interact with her step-siblings but she is mostly neutral towards them. We have implemented a “no touching others without asking permission” rule and sometimes the kids slip up and forget in the heat of the moment but she has taken it super cool so far.

A few weeks back, our boy ran over to the TV while she was watching something and demanded I put on his favorite show (he’s only seen it like 10,000 times). I told him no, Ann is using the TV and he has to wait his turn. Without any prompting Ann told him it was okay, switched over and watched an episode with him. He was ecstatic and demanded another episode, which they watched before I pried him off the couch so she could watch her thing. I thanked her and assured her that she was free to say no in the future and she said she didn’t mind really.

So, yeah. She’s not skipping school more than other teenagers, I know she has some snapchat streak with some of the girls in her class that they do every day. Saving up for a new Iphone, stuff like that. Again, I’m not including all the details of our lives obviously, there are bad days and fights and yelling too but I am cautiously optimistic that Ann is going to turn out alright in the end. She is still not calling my husband “dad” and probably never will but that’s fine. We just want her to be able to live her life the best she can.