Hi, I'm new here and am looking to find out what "normal" means...don't laugh! I am reading Enlighted Stepmotherhood, and I was dismayed when I didn't see any help there for my situation. I am newly co-habited with my partner of almost two years. He is divorced and has a 12 year Chinese adopted daughter (he's Euro-Amer, as am I). She has attachment issues, but was adopted early--at 6 mos. Her adoptive mom is alive. He has just about half custody. Which means we have her most weekends. She's not at all happy about our relationship.

So here are my issues. 1) he hasn't told her yet that we are, for all practical purposes, living together. I have to keep an extra studio to go stay the night in during at least one of the weekend nights she is here.
2) although the upstairs, our bedroom, is large, there isn't any privacy. He is letting her sleep in one of the closets (she really wants to do this) because of her anxiety. But it means we really have no privacy when she is here. Since he works out of town, we really have only one or two nights when we have privacy together.
3) he is currently with her at Disneyland. I was decidedly not invited because she doesn't want me on their vacations. They also went away together on Christmas break--before I lived here. In the ES book, I was saddened because the assumption is that the family vacations together, and sometimes the step-mom encourages them to go off together. Here, the assumption is that they go together. And I feel left out. He and I haven't gone away together since last summer. He says it's because I don't have any money (which is true--just having moved, I have to start my biz over again--so I'm broke)

Now, I understand how much he feels caught between us. And he is very emotionally available and tries to do the right things. But I have a lot fears about the direction this is headed in. It doesn't seem like it's good for his daughter--and I feel like an outsider in my own home. We hardly have a united front, since I'm mostly uninvolved with their relationship. I find I'm beginning to feel very resentful, and like the "other woman". And I just don't know what is appropriate!

I was scared away from a forum before because someone told me to leave the relationship. There's a lot that's good about our relationship though, and I don't want to leave. What I really want is to know what is appropriate, what I have a right to ask for, and how to communicate this to him most effectively. I think he needs to know that this isn't good for his daughter, but I'm a little unsure of myself with regard to her attachment issues and anxiety level. Any help with this would be immensely appreciated. Thanks in advance. L.